Nancy frowned. “This call—was it before or after you discovered the damage to your car?”
“Oh, before . . . about an hour before,” Ms. Bowers told her. “Why?”
“No reason,” Nancy said, keeping her thoughts to herself. “We’ll see you later, Ms. Bowers.”
In the elevator, Bess asked, “Why did you ask her about the time of Cody’s call?”
“Just an idea,” Nancy said. “Remember, the message on Ms. Bowers’s car said ‘Stop meddling.’ ”
“Right,” said Bess, still not getting the point.
“And Cody just found out that Ms. Bowers helped give Gayle a crack at Cindy’s job,” Nancy went on. “He’d certainly consider that meddling, wouldn’t he? And he might have decided to give the meddler a warning.”
“Does that mean you think Cody is behind all this trouble?” Bess demanded.
Nancy thought for a moment. “Not necessarily,” she said with a sigh. “But with all these other incidents, maybe he thought he could get away with this one. He might figure that everyone would lump his crime in with the others.”
“Very clever,” Bess said, nodding. “Well, if Cody’s still at Carlo’s studio, we can ask him where he was between three and four forty-five.”
The elevator doors slid open at the garage level, and Nancy and Bess went in search of space C27. Ms. Bowers’s car, an expensive German sports coupe, was pale blue—except for the scrawled words in bright red. The clean cement floor on the driver’s side sparkled with greenish fragments of safety glass from the window. The chrome door handles still gleamed, with no fingerprints evident.
“Ugh, what a mess,” Nancy said. “Knowing Ms. Bowers’s tastes, I really doubt she could do this to such an expensive car.”
“The radio’s still there,” Bess reported, peering in through the broken window. “And it looks pretty expensive, too. So the motive wasn’t robbery.”
Nancy nodded, then slowly circled the car, studying it. How long would it take to spray four words, then smash a window? A minute? Less? And the culprit probably had his own car just feet away, ready for an instant escape.
“I don’t think we’re going to learn anything here,” she decided. “Let’s get over to Carlo’s. Whoever is behind all this is stepping up his mischief. If it’s Miklos acting for Amalgamated—or Paul Norman—we’d better get some evidence on him fast.”
The worst of the evening rush hour was over, so the cab ride to the studio was quick. Upstairs, no one seemed to notice Bess and Nancy come in.
They spotted Gayle in a chair having her honey blond hair styled. Her boyfriend, Jason, hovered nearby, running his fingers nervously through his short sandy hair. His broad-shouldered physique made him seem bigger than ever, with all these skinny fashion people swarming around.
Near the set, Stella and Cody were deep in conversation. Cody was waving his hands a lot. Carlo seemed in constant motion, with Charmaine scurrying along in his wake, taking notes on her clipboard. Nancy realized that it wouldn’t be a good time to interrupt Carlo.
“Well, this is more like it!” Sherman Pike declared from the doorway. “It’s a relief to see something happening at last, even if we have to pay overtime to get it done. I brought some Healthibits with me,” he added, holding up an all-white cereal box. “If you all have to work through the dinner hour, at least you can have a healthy, high-energy snack.”
He put the box on a table and crossed the room. As he passed Nancy and Bess, he smiled and nodded.
“What a change,” Bess whispered to Nancy. “Yesterday he wanted us run out of town!”
“Is Erik around?” Sherman Pike asked Stella, breaking into Cody’s monologue.
“He’s at home in Lake Forest—done in by hay fever,” Stella replied with an ironic smile. “I think we can cope without him.”
Nancy blinked. Lake Forest? Why did that town name ring a bell?
But before she could think about it, Carlo called out, “All right, people. Let’s try a run-through.”
Everyone began to bustle toward the set.
Then suddenly, with no warning, the whole soundstage was plunged into darkness. The only light came from a red Exit sign, glowing eerily over the door. A panicky murmur began to rise from the crew.
“Now what?” Nancy heard Carlo shout angrily. “Who—”
Then above the hubbub rose a scream of terror.
13
Blues in the Night
A second after the scream, a small flame blossomed in the pitch-dark studio, about ten feet away from Nancy. By its glow she recognized Sherman Pike holding his cigarette lighter just above his head. For one mad moment, she found herself thinking of the Statue of Liberty.
In the dim light Nancy then saw Gayle, still in her chair, with her face buried in her hands. Her shoulders were shaking. Jason was hurrying over to her from across the studio. He kneeled down and put his arm around her.
“Now we know who screamed,” Nancy whispered to Bess. “Come on. Let’s see if we can find out what happened.”
Members of the crew had begun to shuffle around in the dark, groping their way by the shine of Sherman Pike’s lighter. “Where’s the electrical panel in this place?” Nancy heard Stella call out.
Just as Nancy and Bess reached Gayle’s side, the lights came back on. Others in the studio noticed Gayle’s distress and rushed over. “What is it? What’s wrong?” various voices asked.
Looking up at the circle of spectators gathering around her, Jason barked, “Hey, c’mon, guys, give her some space, will you?”
Everyone took a small step backward, then immediately started inching toward her again.
Nancy leaned forward to listen as Gayle began to talk, her voice still trembling with fear.
“Somebody grabbed me!” Gayle was saying to Jason. “Right after the lights went out. I tried to pull away, but he held me tight. Then he kind of growled, ‘What happened to Cindy can happen to you.’ That’s when I screamed.”
