Foreword: Hmm... It's so strange to see that more people are reading Out of Tune than Haunting Memories when I was most dissatisfied with the number of reviews I got for Out of Tune... That's weird... Anyway...

In the last chapter, the girl detective was searching in a suspect's room when the suspect opened the door! Will Nancy be able to be unnoticed by the suspect? Also, this chapter is the third major point in the story, so pay more attention to it! (The first major point was Joe's accident. The second one was the murder.) I'll write more in the postscript. Happy sleuthing! And please REVIEW! Thanks.

Chapter 12

Twilight Visitor

"Hm?" Gary murmured as he entered the room. Nobody was inside, but he could swear that he heard a noise inside. "Must have been the storm," he thought.

He stepped into his room. He opened his laptop and entered his password. Then, he got to work.

Nancy had held her breath for as long as possible, hoping to stay unnoticed until the writer would either go out of the room or go to the bathroom. She was hiding in the closet and could hear the writer typing.

"Please don't let him notice me!" she thought nervously.

Just as she thought so, the writer got up. "Let's see… Where was my tie?" he murmured to himself. He then walked right to the closet and grasped the handle.

Nancy closed her eyes. She could feel the anxiety inside her. "Don't open the door!" she thought desperately.

Just then, a loud scream came from downstairs. Surprised, Gary went to the door, opened it, and went outside, wondering what the scream was about.

When she heard the door close, Nancy came out of the closet. "Whew!" she thought. "That was a close one!"

But she then went to the door. Hearing nobody outside, she opened the door cautiously and went out. Then, she ran down to the dining room.

Everybody was there, and it was evident that Callie was the one who had screamed. When she saw everyone, she grinned slightly and said, "Sorry! I thought I saw a mouse, but that was just my imagination!"

"Oh, I was so surprised to hear the scream!" murmured Edna. "You could've given me a heart attack!"

As the guests left, Nancy looked at Callie. Callie grinned and winked at her. "Callie…Did you…?" started Nancy.

Frank explained everything to her. He said: "Because I couldn't contact you by the phone, we needed a better way to get the guests' attentions once they enter their rooms. So, by letting Callie scream, we lured the guests outside and let you get out of the room."

Nancy grinned. "And you weren't a second too early," she said. "I would've been caught for sure if you screamed even a second later!" She then looked at the others. "But no more sleuthing for me today. I think I experienced enough excitement for one day."

But then, she knew that she was starving. "I'll need to eat dinner now," she said with a grin. "I'll see you guys later!"

She went downstairs and into the kitchen. Derek was there, and he put the dishes onto the table. "I knew you'd come back for dinner," he said, grinning.

Nancy enjoyed the dinner very much. As she looked at the clock, she noticed that it was well past eight. Then, she caught sight of a painting under the clock. The painting showed a mustached man. "Um, Derek?" she asked. The cook turned around. "Do you know who that is?"

"That's Piermont," the cook replied. "For some reason, the painting was pasted right onto the wall and was unable to be taken off. Speaking of Piermont, I know quite a lot about him, but it's less than what Henri knows. For example, I know that Piermont was married to a twenty-year-old when he was forty!"

"Wow, really?" asked Nancy.

Derek nodded. "But they were the perfect couple. He died just a few years after marrying her, though, and she was so shocked that she died a few months after his death! I guess the wife's name was Julia…"

Nancy listened as Derek told of tales about the great magician. Then, when she finished the dessert, she went out of the kitchen and met the other detectives. "So what did you find in the suspects' rooms?" asked Frank.

Nancy told him everything, including the framed photograph, the sweater, and the laptop. Frank thought about what all those clues could mean. When the detectives finally went back to their own rooms after the long day, Nancy was very exhausted.

"I guess I should take a shower," she muttered.

Nancy stayed awake till midnight, reading Like Wind Through My Heart, a romance novel written by Charleena Purcell. Then, noticing that she could hardly keep her eyes open, she went to bed. But the knocking on the door awakened her. As she looked at the clock, she noticed that it was three in the morning. She sat up, put her slippers on, and opened the door. "Who is it?" she asked. She saw nobody out in the dark hall, so she sighed and went back to bed.

A few minutes later, she heard another knock on the door. She then opened the door. What she saw almost made her scream. A masked person with a chapeau and wearing a tuxedo and a cloak stood in front of her. As she tried to scream, the person covered her mouth with a moist handkerchief. Nancy knew the smell of chloroform and blacked out immediately.

Morning came without sunshine. The storm was as bad as before but was a little better. But the guests were informed that the storm would last another twenty-four hours and was one of the longest-lasting storms ever. They were announced that the police wouldn't be able to come because of a number of landslides and had to wait till the storm cleared up to get out.

Before breakfast, Frank knocked on Callie's door to see if she was okay. She answered with a face that made him sure that she hadn't slept well. "I kept having those nightmares," she muttered, sighing.

The two went to the dining room and saw a few other people there before them. Frank saw Norma, Henri, and Edna. Ned then came after them, yawning.

Edna looked around and saw that Nancy, Amy, Xavier, and Gary weren't there. Derek came from inside the kitchen with a tray of breakfast dishes and bread, along with some drinks. Edna knew that Amy didn't feel like eating because she didn't feel well and Xavier had no appetite that morning, but didn't hear from Gary and Nancy.

"Maybe I should go and take a look," she murmured. "Please excuse me and finish your dinner," she then said to the guests with a smile.

The owner went up the stairs and disappeared from view. After a short while, the guests heard an ear-piercing scream!

Surprised, the guests ran up the stairs and to the second floor. They saw Edna standing right in front of Gary's room, her face white and her body shivering with fright. She saw the guests and immediately covered her mouth, stifling another scream as she stared back into the room. Frank went to the door and stepped inside, wondering what had scared the woman. He saw the figure in the middle of the room and couldn't help backing up with surprise.

In the middle of the room lay Gary Friedrich, and around his neck was a rope made of many colorful handkerchiefs commonly used in magic tricks tied together. His face was pale and seemed to be in agony. But the person sitting on the chair and holding the end of the colorful rope was Nancy Drew, who woke up at the sound of Edna's scream. And on her head was the black chapeau.

"Murderer!" screamed Norma, who saw the girl detective's face. "You killed Gary, didn't you?"

Nancy still seemed confused, but when she saw the body, her eyes were wide with shock and horror. "No!" she shouted, standing up. The hat fell down from her head and landed on the dead man's hand. "No! That wasn't me! I swear I didn't do anything!"

Frank finally found his voice. "Gary…" he said, walking to the body. After touching the neck of the body, he was sure that the man was dead. But he noticed that the body was still warm. It seemed that the writer was killed in less than thirty minutes.

"Nancy," said Frank, turning to Nancy, "why are you in this room?"

Nancy seemed to shudder as she took the chapeau off her head. "I…In the middle of the night, at three o'clock in the morning, I heard knocking on the door. I opened the door but saw nobody out there. But then, the knocking came again a few minutes later, and I opened the door as well. Right in front of me stood the person wearing tuxedo, a cape, and a black chapeau. Before I screamed, that person put handkerchief soaked with chloroform over my mouth and nose. In no time, I blacked out, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting here with the body…"

Ned was now entering the room with a shocked expression. "Nancy!" he exclaimed. "What…What happened here?"

Nancy covered her face with her hands and sat there, totally in shock. Looking at the mark on the victim's throat, it was clear that Gary was strangled to death. The rope made of handkerchiefs seemed to be the weapon. But the body was still warm, and that made the mystery more complicated.

Frank turned toward the guests and the staffs of the hotel. "Can you each tell me your alibis from thirty minutes ago to now?"

Norma and Henri were the ones who stayed in the dining room all the time. It was obvious that Derek was in the kitchen most of the time and didn't even go upstairs, since the stairs were the only way to reach to the second floor. Then, the only ones who could've committed the crime were Edna, Xavier, Amy, and Nancy.

The first one to talk about what she did was Edna. "I went to this room and knocked on the door, but nobody answered. So I used the master key to make sure everything was all right in there. But then, I saw Mr. Friedrich on the floor and screamed right away."

Frank took note, however, that she could have strangled the man before screaming, so he put her as having no alibi.

Xavier was as gruff as ever. "I was in my room, and there's nothing to prove that," he said, not feeling like talking.

Amy seemed sick. "I was in my room because I had a headache since morning. I think it's because of the fact that I forgot to close my window all night."

"Why did you open the window in the first place?" asked Ned, curious.

The painter seemed surprised to hear this question, but she answered, "I was planning to get some fresh air inside, but it seems like I only got water." She then chuckled lightly.

Then, suddenly, Norma noticed one thing. "Hey, this means that every one of us except Miss Drew here has a solid alibi!" she exclaimed. "In the first murder, Henri, Gary, and I didn't show up, but everyone else did. And in the second murder, everyone except Edna, Xavier, and Amy showed up. So this means that everybody has at least one solid alibi during these two murders!"

Everybody looked around nervously. "Nancy is the only one who could've killed both June and Gary," Callie muttered, astounded. "I…I don't know what to say…"

Ned seemed grim. He looked at the notes he took and knew that the reporter was right; everybody had at least one solid alibi, but Nancy was in her room in the first killing and was with the victim in the second killing. This made Nancy seem more and more suspicious by the minute!

"No," he murmured. "This can't be. Someone must have been using a trick of some sort. Otherwise, there's no way those murders could've been committed! Besides, Nancy doesn't have reason to kill Gary!"

"What about the case her mother worked on fifteen years ago?" a voice said. It came from Henri. He grinned as he took out something from inside behind his back. It was a laptop.

"I did a research of my own and found out that your mother, Carol Drew, was a detective who worked on the 'Blackshire Court Murder Case', where a wealthy lady was killed in her own home. Am I right?"

How did he know about my mom? Nancy thought in awe and in horror. This man… Who is he?

"Am I right?" the man repeated. Nancy nodded grimly.

"And in that investigation, two suspects turned up, and they were Mr. Linton Quinn, who is Ms. Quinn's former husband, and the victim here, Mr. Gary Friedrich, who was also Mr. Quinn's stepbrother."

He glanced at Nancy once again. "After finding clues, Mr. Quinn was sent to jail and Mr. Friedrich was acquitted. However, Mr. Friedrich and Ms. Quinn, being Mr. Linton's stepbrother and wife respectively, had to avenge his going to jail. So they planned to kill Mrs. Drew right in front of her three-year-old's eyes. That's my theory, at least, but that is something to consider, is it not?"

Ned stared at Henri and suddenly remembered the file in his laptop named "Nancy Drew."

"Are all these data from that file?" Ned asked himself. "But then, how did he get all these information?" Henri seemed more and more suspicious by the second. Who was this man? Why is he so interested in making Nancy the killer?

Frank sighed and picked up the chapeau from the corpse's left hand. "Hm?" he muttered, noticing that there were some red spots on the victim's finger. He picked up the hand to inspect closer. "This is… blood," he examined. He then took the other hand. "There's no blood on the finger here," he muttered. "But the victim doesn't seem to be injured…"

Meanwhile, Nancy's eyes got wider. Pieces of per memory were placed in her mind. The huge fog that obscured her memory suddenly disappeared as she heard Henri's data. Now she remembered. The man who sat in the passenger's seat was clearly Gary Friedrich while the one driving the car was June Quinn!

"Oh, no," she muttered, her widened eyes staring at the floor. "I…I'm the prime suspect!"

Postscript: Uh-oh for Nancy! She is the prime suspect in the murder of two people! But that's no wonder, since she is the only person who didn't have a single alibi for either of the killings. How did the killer do that? How did he have an alibi? And why does Henri know so much about Nancy?

Here is a suggestion to those of you who want to be more organized about this mystery. Make a list of names for the people who did have alibis during the first murder. Then, make a list with people who had alibis for the second murder. You might want to compare those two. Maybe you'll find an important clue that way! Anyway, that's just a suggestion from the author:-)

So, the mystery now has two murders in it. And after the second murder, Nancy fully recovers her memory. She finds out that the person who was sitting in the passenger seat was Gary, and the one driving the car was June! Is it just a coincidence that those two were killed, or did Nancy kill them without knowing? Either way, all circumstancial evidences point toward her, and she'll have to find proof fast to prove that she is innocent. Can she do that?

This is the thirteenth chapter in the story, and there will be seven left. (Time does fly when you're reading a fast-paced mystery novel, doesn't it?) The killer, trick that was used, evidence pointing toward the killer, and the place where the treasure is hiding will be revealed in chapters 17 and 18. The motives will be revealed in chapter 19, and the epilogue is chapter 20. Before I post the 17th chapter up (which is Chapter 16 in the novel), you should be thinking about who the killers might be. If you find out, send me a message!

And don't forget to REVIEW as well! I'll be waiting to hear your opinions!