AN: Thanks for the reviews! :) Here's the next chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own Nancy Drew.

2

I mean, come on – what sort of rescuer doesn't say who he is? Well, if it had been like, Shrek or something, I could understand why they wouldn't want to show their face, but his hair had been awesome. And doesn't awesome hair make up for everything else?

Dude I am prejudiced. Or else I'm just weird. Or else...

"Hi, guys!" I exclaimed happily as I burst into the Ca'Nascosta. Joe Hardy was standing with his back to me, chatting it up with Helena. Oh, I bet he was happy. Wait a second, how much older than him is she?

"Hey, Nance," said Ned. He thrust himself off the couch and walked over to hug me. He backed off in a couple of seconds. "How's the case?"

Oh. My. God.

How stupid can he get? Asking me about the case? In front of Colin and Helena? HELLO! EARTH TO NED! "Not now," I hissed, tugging on his hand and nodding at my room.

"Oh, you must be Nancy's boyfriend," called Helena, looking over at Ned. She zeroed in on my hand, which was still encasing Ned's, and I could've sworn lightning struck somewhere in the world. Helena, still giving me the Evil Eye, said, "I'm Helena, Helena Berg."

"Nancy!" squealed Joe, galloping over to hug me. In the process of being squashed I let go of Ned's hand. He didn't look so happy about that. Joe let go of me swiftly. "Guess what Helena told me?"

Helena butted in, trying to look either flirty or coy or something like that – whatever she was trying to do, it wasn't working. She just looked sort of like she was in pain. "That silly Nico boy escaped jail. I'm not sure how he did it alone. He must have had backup of some sort." She gave me this look that said she thought I was the backup.

I put my hands up in the air as if she had taken a swipe at me. "Hey, hey – I don't even know the guy! He stole my necklace." Helena still looked kind of iffy. "I was the one that put him in jail."

"Nobody said that they were suspicious of you, Nancy," said Helena slowly, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

God, I do not like this woman, I thought, turning to Ned and Joe who were standing there trying to look small. I opened my mouth to say something when Colin called from the other end of the room, "The tesserae! It's...it's amazing!"

I half expected him to fall to his knees and start singing a hymn about tesserae to the sky. Ned and I exchanged amused looks. Joe scurried over to Colin's table and poked a piece of tesserae as if he had no idea what on earth it was.

Helena frowned and spun around in her awesome swivel chair. Someone as mean as Helena doesn't deserve a chair that awesome.

"So?" whispered Ned, "mystery? Good?"

I pointed at my room. It dawned on him suddenly that he wasn't supposed to talk about the case in front of other people. Other potential suspects. Ned gave me a quick nod, and I led him to my room. Joe followed close behind.

I shut the door behind them. Ned stood, gazing out the window with a look of awe on his face, and Joe flopped backwards onto Helena's bed. My eyes lingered on Joe for a moment longer because he had begun to squirm on the bed, trying to get into a comfortable position.

"Guys," I whisper-snapped. Ned turned around to look at me and Joe popped up into a sitting position on the wrinkled maroon bedcover. "Do you know what this means? Nico Petit has escaped jail!"

"I know," said Ned simply. "Helena just said that he escaped jail."

I grimaced as he invoked the Evil Woman's name. I almost thought for a second she would suddenly leap through the door and kill me...or something worse. "I know that, Ned," I sighed, "I'm not stupid.

"Anyway, if Nico has escaped jail, then there are others out there. Other people who know people. Other people besides Il Dottore."

Joe was nodding slowly, drinking it all in like a sponge. Ned appeared mildly confused. "Well, naturally, Nancy. It's a crime ring."

I was seriously about to smack him upside the head or something when my PDA began to vibrate in my back pocket. I held up a finger, signaling for Ned and Joe to wait a moment so I could finish speaking before they thought I was just stupid and repeating everything they already knew, which I basically was doing, although I'm not saying I'm stupid, I must say that I'm not very stupid at all, I must also point out that my last sentence sounded very narcissistic if that's a word at all, and in any case I held the PDA to my ear.

"Hello, Nancy Drew," said Sophia.

"What is it?" I asked her, my irritation from my recent conversation leaking into this one.

"Nico Petit -"

"- has escaped jail, yeah, I know. How come a journalist knew about this before I did? Journalists aren't psychic, you know."

Sophia sighed. "Sorry, Nancy, I didn't think he would factor into this any more since everyone knows that he is the Phantom. He can't really do much of anything without getting caught and dragged to jail."

"True," I allowed, "but we still gotta keep tabs on him, right?"

"Right," echoed Sophia. "Good luck, Nancy."

"Wait!" I exclaimed, "You didn't tell me what to -" I looked down at the PDA, dangling limply from my hand, and realized that she had already hung up. "- do?"