Carolyn Keene - Easy Marks

Ms. Arletti sighed. “You’re a determined young woman, aren’t you? Go ahead.”

Nancy opened one of the cabinet drawers and found Kim, Victor, and Sally’s files. She winced from the pain as she grabbed them, balancing them gingerly in her arms. Then she took another small stack of student files at random. “Thanks,” she told Ms. Arletti as she left the office. “I’ll return this stuff tomorrow.”

Wanting a place to sit down and go over her materials, Nancy went upstairs to the learning lab. Before opening the files, she decided to check her E-mail.

Three messages were waiting for her. All of them amounted to get-well notes, one each from Walter Friedbinder and Phyllis Hathaway, and the third from Victor, who added an invitation to join him for a hot fudge sundae at the Roost.

Nancy smiled to herself and started to compose an answer. Then she noticed a flashing box appear in the upper corner of the screen. Another piece of E-mail was arriving for her. The password of the sender was IW443!

Chapter Thirteen

Nancy instructed the system to print the message on the screen.

You got away this time. Next time you won’t be so lucky. Get out of here while you still can. This is your last warning!

Controlling her reaction of shock and rage, Nancy quickly saved the message, then told the computer to refuse it. Returning message to terminal 29 appeared on the screen. The message had come from the newspaper office again. It had been entered on the system only seconds before.

Nancy whirled around and dashed out the door. The person who had sent the threat would have no way of guessing that Nancy would read it instantly, and not minutes or even hours later. The chances were that he or she was still at the terminal.

Nancy stopped running just before she reached the corridor that led to the office of the Academician and began to walk softly. She wanted to catch the guilty person in the act. If he or she tried to leave the office before Nancy got there, it didn’t matter. She would still see the culprit at close enough range to identify him or her, and that was almost as good.

Her heart pounding, Nancy tiptoed up to the door. It was standing ajar. This was it—the moment of truth. She cautiously peeked in. Randi! She was seated at the same terminal where Nancy had seen her the week before. Her back was to the door, and she was typing something on the keyboard.

Stepping into the room, Nancy said, “More threats, Randi? You might as well save computer time and make them in person. I’m here now.”

“Nancy!” Randi jumped up from her chair so quickly that it fell over backward as she spun around to face the doorway.

“You startled me,” the student reporter continued. “What are you doing here?”

“Catching you red-handed,” Nancy replied.

Randi gave her a puzzled look. It was almost convincing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “But I don’t think I like your attitude.”

“What were you writing just now?” Nancy demanded. She pushed past Randi and approached the terminal.

“A story for the paper, about the girls’ soccer team,” Randi replied. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

Nancy looked at the monitor and read: “Paced by star forward Lisa Mongiello, the team rolled over the Deerfield Falcons, 10–2, last Thursday, clinching their first pre-season game.”

“I want to know what’s going on here,” Randi insisted. “Either tell me right now or get out of my office.”

“About two minutes ago someone sent me a threatening message, from this terminal,” Nancy said. “Do you have anything to say about that?”

Randi’s face turned red. “That’s a dirty lie! I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but I’ve been right here, working on the paper, for the last half-hour. And no one— no one —has been anywhere near this terminal except me!”

Randi seemed completely sincere. But what about the message that had come from this room? Since she was the only one there both times Nancy had received messages, she was clearly implicated in the scheme.

Or was she? Nancy suddenly thought of another possibility. “You say you’ve been using this terminal steadily for the last half-hour?” she asked in a softer tone. “Did anything unusual happen during that time?”

Randi frowned. “Unusual? No. Well—the computer locked up on me for a few seconds at one point, but that’s not so unusual. It happens every day or so. I keep meaning to ask someone about it.”

“What do you mean, ‘locked up’?” Nancy asked eagerly, a tingle of excitement spreading through her.

“It quits working, sort of,” Randi explained, shrugging. “The screen blanks out, the keyboard goes dead, and then a few seconds later, everything is back to normal. Listen, what’s going on? What’s all this about threats? What kind of case are you working on?”

“I can’t tell you now,” Nancy replied, “but I think I’m beginning to see some of the answers. I promise I’ll tell you everything I can, when the time comes. Right now, I’d better get moving. I need to find Victor Paredes.”

“Why don’t you see if he’s logged onto the system?” Randi suggested. She bent to set her chair upright again. “Knowing Victor, he probably is, unless he’s asleep or in the shower.”

Sitting down in front of the terminal, Randi pressed some keys. “I was right,” she said after a moment. “He’s in the computer room. Do you want to use my terminal to talk to him?”

Nancy didn’t want her conversation with Victor to be open to everyone who happened to be using the computer system. “No thanks. I’ll go down there in person.”

“Suit yourself,” Randi told her. “I’ll tell him you’re coming. And remember, I’m expecting to hear what this is all about. Otherwise, I’ll have to start an investigation of my own.”

Just as Randi had said, Victor was at one of the computer room terminals. “You look pretty good for someone who just got back from the hospital,” he commented. “How do you feel?”

“I’ve been too busy to tell,” Nancy said. “Listen, I have an important question for you. Is it possible to send a message from one terminal in the system to another, but make the system say that it came from a different terminal?”

“Hmm.” Victor leaned back in his chair and stared into space as he considered this. “I don’t see why not,” he answered at last. “It shouldn’t be that hard to program the computer to accept a message for retransmission from a different origin. But you’d leave a trail, of course.”

“You mean, a record of where the message really came from?” Nancy demanded, her blue eyes widening. “Do you know how to find a record like that?”

Victor studied her face for a moment, then nodded. “Probably. A message to whom , received when?”

Nancy smiled at his half-joking use of whom and then gave him the information he needed. He busied himself at the terminal, humming the refrain from a hard-rock tune under his breath. Finally, just when Nancy was sure she couldn’t stand to wait a second longer, he pushed his chair back and said, “Okay, I got it. The message was actually entered a couple of minutes earlier than it said, and the real place of origin was the work station in Ms. Hathaway’s office.”

“You’re sure?” Nancy exclaimed.

“Not a hundred percent sure,” he admitted. “There might be a second layer of tricks. Call it eighty percent.”

“Good enough!” Nancy started for the door, then paused to look over her shoulder. “Thanks, Victor,” she added. “You’ve been super.”

“You’re welcome. And don’t forget that hot fudge sundae.”