The Red Slippers (Nancy Drew Diaries #11)(9)

I heard Karen take a breath, as if she wanted to say something, but I just kept right on going.

“I tried his cell phone, but it goes straight to voice mail. He probably forgot to charge it. Does your husband forget to charge his phone too?”

“I’m sorry,” Karen interjected. “We can’t give out—” I knew she was going to say that she couldn’t give out guest information, but I didn’t give her the chance. I kept talking, going even faster now.

“It is absolutely imperative that I reach him. Our cat is stuck in the chimney again. The dog chases her and she panics and she wedges herself up into the chimney. And Marmalade—that’s our cat—she loves Michael. She’ll come out if she hears his voice. I need to get him on the phone and put him on speaker. If I can’t reach him, she’ll stay up there for days . . . with no food, no water. I just don’t know what will happen to her,” I finished dramatically.

There was a pause on the other end of the line, and then I heard clicking sounds as Karen typed into the computer. I gave George a thumbs-up. My ruse had worked. George grinned.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Carter,” Karen said. “Your husband is not a guest at our hotel.”

I hung up and turned back toward George. “One down. Seven to go,” I said. George dialed the next number and I cleared my throat. When the clerk answered, I launched right in. “Hi, I believe my husband, Michael Carter, is a guest at your hotel. I simply must reach him. Our cat is stuck in the chimney. . . .”



It turned out Michael was staying at the fifth hotel we called: the Grand Hotel. As we drove over, I called Bess to update her and put her on speaker. I quickly ran through everything that had transpired since we’d split up.

“Anything happen at rehearsal we should know about?” I asked.

“No. I haven’t let Fiona out of my sight, and nothing fishy has happened. Everyone has been focused on the show.”

I heard Jamison screaming in the background. “Sarah, my ninety-year-old grandmother has better pointe work than that! You are a disgrace to this art form!”

“Man,” George said. “He is really mean.”

“No kidding,” Bess said. “He’s been yelling like that all afternoon. I’ve seen at least four dancers cry.”

“Maybe it’s just because of the stress he’s feeling with Oscar LeVigne coming to the show,” I said, trying to give Jamison the benefit of the doubt.

“I don’t know,” Bess said. “I’ve been talking some more with that guy, Sebastian, the pianist—”

“Do you have a crush on him?” George piped up. I grinned. I had been wondering the same thing. Bess is pretty and kind, and more or less every boy she meets ends up having a crush on her, but she’s picky about who she’ll go out with. Still, there was something about her voice that made me wonder if she was actually interested.

“What!? No!” Bess squawked. “He’s just nice. Besides, I’m pretty sure he and Maggie are dating. Anyway, Sebastian says this is par for the course. Jamison always yells at the dancers.”

I shook my head. “I can’t imagine trying to solve a case with someone screaming at me to solve it faster. How does Jamison think this will make them dance better?”

“I don’t know,” Bess said. “I will say, though, he seems to get results. I think the ballet is going to be amazing.”

“Well,” George said, “I don’t regret choosing robotics class over ballet.”

“And I don’t regret quitting ballet,” I added.

We pulled into the hotel parking lot.

“We’ll call you after we talk to Michael,” I told Bess.

As I turned off the ignition, I turned to George. “You remember the plan?” I asked.

“It’s not brain surgery,” she said. “I wait precisely three minutes and then come in.”



When I walked into the hotel, I spotted Michael in the lobby, reading a newspaper. I hadn’t expected finding him to be so easy.

I straightened my sweater and approached him.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Are you Michael Carter?”

He looked up at me, surprised. “Yeah, but call me Mike,” he said. “And you are?”

“Nancy Drew,” I introduced myself, extending my hand. “I’m the president of my school’s Future Business Leaders of America. We have to do a report on a successful business in our state, and I picked Sharp Image.”

A slow smile spread over Mike’s face, and he straightened in his chair.

“Is that so?” he asked.

I nodded earnestly. “I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”

“Sure, I don’t see why not,” Mike answered.

“Great.” I pulled out my notebook. “Could you tell me how you got the idea to start Sharp Image?”

“Well, it all started in college, when I had to turn in a paper on Monet for an art history class. We had to include pictures of the paintings. . . .”

Mike kept talking, but I wasn’t paying attention to his words. Instead I stared at his face. This past summer I had studied a book on how to read facial expressions. It turns out there are tons of facial muscles that move unconsciously. Expressions flit across our face in microseconds, revealing our true emotions before we can consciously change our appearance. There are even police departments that employ people who can read faces in order to help determine when suspects are lying. They call them human lie detectors. I had been practicing on George, Bess, Ned, and even my dad for the past couple of months, but this was my first chance to try it during an actual case.