Chapter 20

Nancy tapped on the connecting door between her's and Frank's rooms and entered. She caught Frank for an instant standing and looking out of the floor to ceiling window with that strange enveloping remoteness. Immediately it was replaced with a grin as he turned to her.

"Hey there, beautiful!" he said and held his hand out.

She stepped forward and put her palm into his and he drew her up to the patio doors. "Look at this," he said and slid the doors open to flood the room with light, and led her out onto the balcony. They stood at the rail and looked down at the swimming pool where there were already a few people paddling up and down. "How cool is that after all the snow we've been sliding about on lately?" he asked and started playing with her hair.

"It's amazing," she agreed. She waited a couple of seconds and then said, "Frank?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you okay?"

Frank's hand froze mid-stroke for a blink of an eye, and then continued. "Yeah, why?" he asked and frowned over her head.

She regarded him. "Well…you know, after the other night, you just seem a bit…distant."

Frank laughed, although it didn't really reach his eyes. "I was just worrying about Joe and Dad. I'm feeling great now. In fact, I'm going to go down to that gym and have a run. I've not managed to get any real exercise and I'm probably just hankering after it. That'll be what it is." He backed into the room again and went to his closet to sort out some gym wear.

Nancy followed him. "You can talk to me, you know, you don't have to bottle stuff up."

"Who says I'm bottling anything up?" he asked, without raising his head. "Everything's cool, honest Nan. I just need a workout." He finally looked at her. "We'll have breakfast after. Deal?"

"Okay, deal." Nancy agreed, unconvinced.

Con led the way through the swing-doors into Thompson's Stationery and flashed his I.D. at the girl on reception. "Could I speak to…" he consulted his notebook, "…Sandra Bethel – I understand that she made a complaint on behalf of Thompson a few days ago about a possible intruder on the premises?"

"If you'd like to take a seat, I'll let her know you're here. Can I take your names?"

"Lieutenant Riley and Mr Hardy."

Her eyes settled on Fenton's face. "Have we met before?" she asked.

Fenton looked her over. "I don't think so," he said.

"You look familiar to me," she said. "Never mind, take a seat."

Presently, a tiny woman stepped out of the elevator and approached them. "Lieutenant Riley?" she asked.

"Yes, hello. This is Mr Hardy," Con introduced, standing to take her hand, which was enveloped in his own. "Miss Bethel, I assume?"

"Ms Bethel. You're here to talk about our uninvited visitor?"

Con nodded. "Can you tell us why you think someone was in the building?"

"I can do better than that, I can show you," she said and walked them to the elevator. They rode it up to the top floor and stepped out into a room full of desks and partitions. There were people sitting at computers silently tapping away. The employees barely looked up as Fenton and Con were led down to the far end of the room to one of the windows.

Ms Bethel pointed to the window latch, which showed signs of recent repair. "See, someone had forced the catch and it was broken. We noticed only because it was letting in a draft. Also…" She opened the window and pushed it wide, causing one of the staff members to glare across at them at the sudden drop in temperature as a cold breeze swept across the room, "…if you see the drain pipe, it looks like someone used it as a ladder."

Fenton and Con both leaned out. "She's right," Fenton confirmed. "There are scuff marks on either side." He put his arm out and wiggled the pipe. "It's a tad loose as well."

"Did anyone notice any strangers hanging about?" Con asked, pulling his head in and closing the window.

"No, although people did say that things had been moved around."

"Such as?"

"The chairs in the staff-room. One day, security came by in the morning and found that four of the soft chairs had been pushed together into a sofa affair."

"Don't staff members ever do that themselves?" Fenton asked, nonplussed.

She shook her head. "It's company policy that the chairs are always set in circles. We have a lot of corporate visitors, so management likes to present the company in a certain way. We even have to ensure no paperwork is left on desks at the end of the day. Everything has a place!"

"I see."

Con and Fenton stole a glance at one another.

"Someone had used one of the phones as well." Ms Bethel added.

"How can you tell that?"

"As I said – company policy. Everyone is instructed to position their phones on the top right hand corner of their desks, unless there's a medical reason as to why they can't…"

Con and Fenton looked at the various tables, and all the phones were indeed situated in the top right hand corner. Con's hand immediately went up to scratch his nose.

"…one morning a member of staff came in and reported that his phone was in the centre of his desk."

Fenton suppressed a laugh at the ridiculousness of the rules the employees were being asked to follow. He dared not look at Con because he could tell from his demeanour that he was having trouble controlling himself as well.

Con carried on rubbing his nose to hide his mouth and looked down the corridor, away from Ms Bethel's gaze. "Well, you've been very helpful, thank you. If we find anything further, we'll be in touch." He turned quickly and headed for the elevator.

She accompanied them, bid them farewell at the first floor and rode the elevator back up. Fenton finally felt able to look up at his friend who was already chuckling.

"Sometimes, I have trouble remembering why I chose not to join the rat-race," Fenton said, "I could earn far more money out there...and then someone says something that makes me remember!" he went on and laughed loudly "Phones on the top right hand corner of every desk? Please!"

Con nodded and coughed to get himself back under control again. "So, do you think it was Frank who was the mysterious visitor?"

"Seems very likely considering someone definitely used one of their phones to contact Nancy Drew." He started walking towards the outer doors to leave.

"Oh, Mr Hardy!" the receptionist called. "Before you go, I've just remembered where I've seen you before."

Fenton and Con approached the reception desk again.

"Well, actually, it wasn't you I saw, it was someone else," she said.

Fenton raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"I'm always the first to arrive, along with Security. A few days ago, I literally bumped into a young man outside who rounded the corner of the building a bit quickly and didn't see me. I only remembered him because he had this coat on that was too big for him and it made him look odd – he resembled you, Mr Hardy."

"Did he say anything to you?"

"Not really, just apologised and asked if he'd hurt me. Then he walked away down the alleyway. I didn't see him again."

"Okay – not sure what to make of that – but thank you for remembering." Fenton took Con by the arm and led him out onto the street before he felt able to talk. "We definitely found out where my son's been sleeping!" he said, walking to Con's car.

"I hope he never considers a career as a cat burglar, because I suspect he'd be pretty good at it!" Con remarked. "He could have bled them dry as they seem more obsessed with the appearance of the place than security!"

Fenton chuckled and passed around to the passenger side and waited for Con to sort out his keys. "My son the cat-burglar," he said under his breath. Somewhere halfway through that statement, he noticed a car coming around the corner further up the street and stopping for a red light. It looked strange to him, so he kept it in his eye-line trying to work out why it was so peculiar to him.

The car revved its engine and rocked a couple of times on its tires, then he heard the unmistakable hiss of oxygen being sucked into the turbo engine. Fenton got the distinct impression that he was about to witness a race as the car immediately beside it was a high performance model too. Sure enough, as soon as the light went to green, it wheel spun causing dense black smoke to emanate from the tires and then shot forward and started coming down the road at a terrific speed.

Con said something, but Fenton was too intent on watching the car to hear what he was saying. It was only when the vehicle was about halfway towards him that he realised the other car hadn't joined the race and that the vehicle wasn't slowing down at all despite the fact it had won. It fact, it wasn't even going to pull across to avoid him and he was standing right in its path – it was only seconds away from hitting him!