Mixed Signals Part 10

She paused just inside the door to make sure the coast was clear. All she could hear was the groan of the boiler echoing against the tiled walls. No one was there.

She crept to the far side of the room and glanced over at the inside door, which led to the rest of the sports center. Jerry had told her that it was unlikely for anyone to come in that way during a game. Since there was no way for Nancy to lock the door, it would have to remain unguarded.

Hurrying across the locker room, Nancy went directly to Coach Mitch.e.l.l's office, her sneakers squeaking on the tiled floor. Rows of s.h.i.+ny lockers were reflected in the gla.s.s of the coach's office.

The office door was locked when Nancy tried it. Pulling her lock-pick kit from the pocket of her jacket, Nancy went to work. Every clink of the metallic tool sounded loud to her ears. She kept glancing nervously toward the outside entrance, but no one appeared.

At last the lock clicked open, and Nancy pulled on the door. Her heart racing, she slipped into the office and went over to the desk. One by one, she searched the drawers. In the bottom of the deepest drawer, wedged between some files, she saw something that caught her eye.

"Bingo!" Nancy whispered, tugging at the black woolen ball and shaking it out. A ski mask! So Josh had had staged that episode at the library. And Coach Mitch.e.l.l had helped him by playing the masked attacker. staged that episode at the library. And Coach Mitch.e.l.l had helped him by playing the masked attacker.

When Coach Mitch.e.l.l appeared on the scene right after the attack, no one suspected that he'd been in the library all along. He had probably ripped off the mask, ducked out of sight, then returned to the scene a few minutes later.

Moving away from the desk, Nancy surveyed the rest of the office. There was a file cabinet, a few chairs, a water cooler, and an electric typewriter!

It was right in front of her on the desk. Nancy's palms were sweating as she turned on the typewriter and inserted a piece of paper. First she pushed the CAP b.u.t.ton, then typed a few words. She held her breath as she hit the letter E E.

The bottom of the letter was broken off.

This was it! The threatening notes had been typed on this machine!

Nancy froze as she heard the whoosh of a door-the inside door from the sports center. Then came the steady squeak of sneakers on the tile floor. Someone was coming toward her.

She searched frantically around the office, but she already knew there was no way to get out without the person discovering her. And she was clearly visible through the office's gla.s.s paneling.

She was trapped!

Chapter Sixteen.

WITHOUT A MOMENT to spare, Nancy ducked down behind the coach's desk. She could hear the footsteps grow louder as the person approached. She just hoped whoever it was didn't come close enough to see her!

The footsteps stopped, and Nancy heard the person begin to whistle absently.

Maybe it's just a maintenance man, she thought hopefully. As silently as she could, Nancy crept around the desk and over to the side of the office. With her nose to the wall, she inched up enough to peer through the gla.s.s part.i.tion.

Josh Mitch.e.l.l was walking down the aisle between two rows of lockers, his back to her. He was wearing jeans, a leather jacket, and purple sneakers. In his hands was a cardboard box.

Of course! Nancy thought to herself. Since Josh was on probation, he wasn't even allowed to sit on the bench with the team. But she was still a little surprised to see him there. If the game was so important to him, why wasn't he outside watching it?

As Nancy watched, Josh placed the box on a bench and gingerly removed the lid. He pushed back the sleeves of his jacket. Then he reached into the box and lifted out a strange object. The jumble of wires and clay seemed odd to Nancy-until she saw the face of a clock attached to it.

Adrenaline surged through her as she realized that Josh was holding a bomb!

Gently he lowered the bomb to the bench. He checked his watch, then worked the hands on the timer. He was probably setting it. How long until the thing exploded?

Turning away from the window, Nancy slid back down to the floor. She had seen enough. It was time to call the police.

She crawled back behind the desk and groped for the phone. When her hands closed on it, she pulled it down and crawled into the knee s.p.a.ce beneath the desk.

Quickly she punched in the emergency police number. The phone rang twice, then an officer answered.

"This is Nancy Drew," she said in the barest whisper. "I'm at Emerson College. Someone is setting a bomb in the football team's locker room."

The officer started asking her questions, but Nancy was afraid she'd give herself away if she spoke any longer. "This is an emergency!" she whispered. "Please, send help."

As she replaced the phone in its cradle, she felt something strange above her head. Looking up, she noticed a manila envelope taped to the underside of the desk.

What was that doing there? Why would the coach tape something under his desktop-unless it contained information he didn't want anyone else to find.

Reaching up, she lifted the metal p.r.o.ngs on the envelope and slipped out the contents. The envelope contained only a single sheet of cardboard.

Nancy squinted as she studied the print on the cardboard in the dim light under the desk. The date of each Emerson game was listed in a column on the left. Emerson's opponent for each game was listed in a column in the center of the page. The third column was full of numbers, that could have been final scores for each game.

She shook her head. The chart seemed pretty basic. Why would the coach bother to hide it in a secret place? She was about to slide the chart back into the envelope when the numbers at the bottom of the page caught her eye.

Hey, wait a minute-why were scores filled in for games that hadn't been played yet?

Running her finger down the chart, Nancy checked the listing for that day's game: Emerson versus Russell University. The numbers in the third column read: 610.

Nancy's gaze lit on a word printed at the top of the third column: Spread Spread. The numbers in that column weren't scores at all-they were point spreads. And point spreads were what people used when they bet on sports games. Emerson was supposed to score between six and ten points in that day's game. This was a betting sheet.

"That's it!" she whispered.

Suddenly it all made sense. The Mitch.e.l.ls needed the Wildcats to lose so that they could make money gambling! Nancy had suspected that there had to be a deeper motive for the attacks on Randy. Now she knew what it was.

The coach was involved in a point-fixing operation. That was why he desperately wanted Randy out of the game, and why he had tried to convince Dean Jarvis to let Josh play. That way, he could make sure that the team finished with a score in the right range.

Then something else occurred to her. That first day, when Randy had brought her and Bess to talk to the coach, he'd been talking on the phone. What was it he'd said? Something about it all being on Sunday's game. She'd a.s.sumed he was talking about putting all their energy or hopes into the game. Now she realized he must have been talking about money he was betting.

He'd mentioned some numbers, too. The same ones as were listed for that day's game-610.

Nancy stared at the scores for Emerson's first three games, which had already been played. I'd be willing to bet that Emerson's final score in those games fits into the point spreads on this chart, she thought to herself. There was one thing she still didn't understand, though. If Randy had had agreed to lose the game, the coach still wouldn't win unless he scored within the spread range. She couldn't help wondering how Coach Mitch.e.l.l had been planning to deal with that. agreed to lose the game, the coach still wouldn't win unless he scored within the spread range. She couldn't help wondering how Coach Mitch.e.l.l had been planning to deal with that.

A noise in the locker room reminded Nancy that she wasn't alone. She had all the evidence she needed against the Mitch.e.l.ls. But she still had to address a more immediate problem.

Would she make it out of the locker room in one piece?

Scooting out from under the desk, she sneaked another peek through the gla.s.s part.i.tion. Josh was carrying the bomb in his hands. He paused at an open door next to the showers, leaned down, and placed the bomb inside.

That's the boiler room, Nancy recalled. Why is he putting the bomb in there?

Josh stepped back, and Nancy saw that the expression on his face was sad and tortured. In that second she actually felt sorry for Josh. He seemed so unhappy, so confused. For a moment he simply stood there. Then he turned and strode down the dim hallway that led to the locker room's outside door.

Nancy dashed out of the coach's office, then suddenly stopped short. She was no expert on explosives, but she knew enough to wonder whether this bomb could be set off by a sudden movement.

She could hear its timing device counting off the seconds, the sound echoing ominously through the empty room. Tick, tick, tick...

Chapter Seventeen.

NANCY GULPED back her fear. She had to find away to get Josh to deactivate that bomb.

"Josh, come back!" she shouted.

She saw him start, then snap his head around to look over his shoulder. The instant his gaze lit on Nancy, he began to run.

He plunged into the dark end of the hallway. There was a flash of daylight as he threw open the door. A moment later Nancy heard him groan as his arms and legs flailed in the air.

Running to the doorway, Nancy saw that Josh was lying p.r.o.ne on the ground. He was hugging his chest and gasping for air. Bess stood over him, her arms folded across her chest.

"I tripped him," she announced proudly. "Are you okay? What happened in there?"

"Plenty," Nancy said, "but I don't have time to explain. We're on a tight deadline." She looked down at Josh. "Aren't we, Josh?"

Josh shook his head, his chest still heaving. "I'm not going back in there. No way."

"I've already called the police," Nancy said. She squatted beside him and looked into his eyes. "You're in enough trouble already, Josh. It'll be a lot worse if that bomb goes off-especially if someone gets hurt."

"A bomb!" Bess gasped. "When is it going to go off?"

"A few minutes before halftime," Josh spat out, "and there's nothing you can do about it."

Nancy wasn't sure exactly how much time they had, but she knew they needed to work fast. "Is there any way to dismantle it?" she asked.

"Of course," Josh replied. He sounded offended. "I made it myself. I know how to take it apart." He looked from Nancy to Bess, a mixture of defiance and fear in his eyes. "But I'm not going to. My old man is really angry at me as it is. I'm not going to ruin this now."

Nancy's palms began to sweat. How was she going to get him to deactivate that bomb? "You seem to know a lot about explosives," she said in what she hoped was an admiring tone.

"I've always been a science whiz," Josh told her proudly as he climbed to his feet. "People think I'm a dimwit because I'm on probation. It's not true."

"I think you had to be pretty clever to plan all those things designed to hurt Randy Simpson," Nancy said, shooting Josh a dazzling smile. "The fire, the loose weights, the sleeping pills-even the float. You managed to pull them all off without getting caught."

"Some of them were easy," Josh said arrogantly. "With a little kerosene, that platform turned into a tinderbox. People thought Kristin started it with her baton, but that was an illusion. I just had to toss a match from the side of the stage.

"The other things were easy, too," Josh continued. "Carrie never even missed her wildcat costume. She keeps it in a closet near the girls' locker room. It was a cinch to borrow and return it without her knowing. And as for the guys, well-none of them would ever suspect a teammate of rigging the float or drugging a fellow player."

"But I thought those guys were your friends." Bess said indignantly.

Suddenly Josh's face took on the same sad expression Nancy had glimpsed in the locker room. "I don't have any friends," he mumbled. "When your father plunks you down in a new school every year, you don't have time to get attached."

Nancy felt sorry for him, but she couldn't get the ticking bomb out of her mind. If she didn't talk some sense into Josh, they could all be blown to bits.

"Josh, there's no easy way out of this thing. But if you dismantle the bomb, it'll be a start in the right direction. Please don't let anyone else get hurt."

Josh studied the floor. When he spoke, Nancy had to lean close to him in order to hear. "Oh, all right," he mumbled. His shoulders slumped forward as she led the way back into the locker room and opened the door to the boiler room.

"Stand back," he instructed Nancy and Bess. "I know what I'm doing, but you can never be too careful."

From a measured distance the girls watched as Josh cut two wires and removed the clock. "That'll do it," Josh told them.

Nancy let out a long sigh of relief. At last that dreadful ticking had stopped!

She and Bess followed as Josh took the dismantled bomb over to a bench by the lockers and sat down heavily. Nancy couldn't help asking, "Would it really have been worth it, Josh?"

Josh buried his face in his hands. "Dad was afraid you were getting too close. He didn't like the questions you kept asking. That's why we staged that fake attack at the library."

"I don't get it." Bess was confused. "Why do you and your father want the Wildcats to lose?"

"Money," Nancy answered for him.

Josh nodded. "Dad's got a gambling deal going with a hotshot bookie. When I'm quarterbacking and Dad is calling the plays, we can usually control the score of a game. The point spread is set in advance. I just make sure our team finishes within the predicted spread."

"Gambling!" Bess gasped. "How awful!"

"But when Josh was put on academic probation, it ruined their whole scheme," Nancy pointed out.

"If Randy had agreed to throw the game when Dad made those phone threats," Josh told the girls, "everything would've been fine. But that didn't work, so Dad figured we could hurt him enough to take him off the roster. A third-stringer would never score against Russell's defense." Josh shook his head sadly. "Too bad the guy refused to cave in."

"Maybe you can fill in a blank for me," Nancy said to him. "I saw the point spread your father bet for this game, six to ten. How could he be sure Randy would score in the right range?"

Josh grimaced. "He couldn't. Dad convinced our bookie to change the bet. We were going for just a straight loss."

"I still don't understand why you set that bomb," Bess put in. "What's the use of blowing up an empty locker room?"

Josh clamped his mouth shut. For a second it seemed as if he might bolt, but then he said, "Oh, what's the use. I might as well tell you. The locker room wasn't going to be empty. Dad's going to take Randy out of the game before halftime and send him here to rest up. The bomb was supposed to go off when Randy was in here and the rest of the players were still on the field-at exactly three thirty-five."

"And kill Randy?" Bess was horrified.

"None of the other threats worked," Josh said helplessly. "If Emerson wins today, my father will lose all our savings." He lowered his voice and added, "And more. This bookie has promised to make us pay-in blood."

"An explosion in the locker room will raise a lot of suspicion," Nancy pointed out.

"Not when the bomb is attached to a boiler that's been acting up for months."

Just then the outside door to the locker room opened and Ned rushed in, scowling. "I didn't get anywhere with Dean Jarvis. He insists that he can report only to the police, said something about confidentiality. I told him it was important but-" He broke off as he noticed the dismantled bomb on the bench next to Josh.