Feelings seem to be running high everywhere, Nancy thought. Suddenly she grabbed Bess by the wrist and signaled for her to be quiet.
They stopped by an open door with a sign that read William Pappas, Producer. They couldn’t see in or be seen. Inside, a man was shouting, probably into a phone since no one responded to him. “I’ve told you before, he can’t do this to me! I don’t care if he
is
Rick Arlen. If he leaves this show, he’ll never work again! Nobody—
nobody
—breaks a contract with me. I’ll kill him before I let him work for someone else!”
Chapter Two
“
I
CAN’T BELIEVE
he feels that strongly about Rick Arlen,” Bess whispered angrily.
Nancy peered into the office, taking care to remain hidden. William Pappas’s face was flushed with anger as he stared at the phone he had just slammed down. He fumbled in his pocket for a cigar.
“Actors! They’re all alike! No class—none at all,” he muttered to himself. Then he rose and shouted to a timid-looking girl in an inner adjacent office. “Get the writers on the phone and tell them I want a Rory Danner death scene—the more realistic the better. That idiot doesn’t deserve to live after what he’s put me through! And where’s my Danish? You know I can’t think before I’ve had my second coffee.”
“Come on!” Nancy said in Bess’s ear. “Let’s get out of here.” They hurried down the long hallway without looking back.
“Gosh, Nancy,” Bess announced after they’d rounded a corner and were safely out of sight, “I’ll bet he’s the one who’s causing all the trouble.”
“I don’t know, Bess. Maybe he has an artistic temperament, too. Remember what my aunt said about Mattie Jensen?”
Bess’s attention, however, was caught by something else. “ ‘Makeup.’ Here we are.” Bess placed her hand over her heart. “I can’t believe I’m about to walk through that door and meet Mattie Jensen! How do I look? Are you sure this skirt is okay?”
Nancy couldn’t help laughing. “You’re too much,” she said teasingly. “It
still
looks great, but if you’re so uncomfortable why did you wear it?”
“Because it looks great—you just said so yourself!” Taking a deep breath, Bess knocked on the door.
“Come in,” someone called out. Bess immediately recognized the voice of her favorite soap opera character.
Inside, Mattie Jensen was sitting in a large, barber-style chair. Her famous auburn curls were wrapped in purple curlers, and her porcelain skin was scrubbed clean. Not a hint of makeup anywhere. But she still looked incredibly beautiful, and her green eyes sparkled.
“Mattie J-Jensen,” Bess sputtered.
“You must be Nancy Drew,” Mattie replied. She held out a manicured hand and gave Bess a warm smile.
“No, I’m Bess Marvin. She’s Nancy.”
“Oh, of course,” Mattie corrected herself, taking Nancy’s hand. “It’s great to meet both of you.”
“Thanks, same here,” Nancy answered.
“Nancy, Bess, I’d like you to meet Kay Wills. She’s our makeup artist and one of the great ones. Without her, I’d be lost.”
“Come on, Mattie, don’t be so modest.” Kay rolled her eyes at the girls and began dotting ivory base on Mattie’s forehead. “With looks like yours, you’ll never be lost.”
“Well, looks aren’t everything, are they?” Mattie sighed, holding her head still as Kay blended in the foundation.
“Try telling that to your leading man,” Kay sniffed, continuing to work.
“Poor Rick,” Mattie murmured. “He’s so misunderstood. And now all this awful stuff is happening to him. Nancy, maybe you’ll be able to help.”
Nancy leaned against the wall. “To be honest, Ms. Jensen, I’m in New York on vacation. I really don’t want to get involved in anything complicated.”
“Please, call me Mattie. And you’ve got to help him, Nancy! It’s a matter of life and death!”
“You know, you’re a lot more upset than he is, Mattie,” Kay put in. “As far as I can tell, he loves the attention, no matter how negative it is.”
Nancy was puzzled. “If you tell me what’s going on, maybe I could give you a few suggestions,” she offered. After all, she told herself, giving advice was different from actually getting involved.
“Didn’t Eloise tell you?” Mattie asked frantically, her luminous eyes filling with tears. “Someone is trying to kill Rick!”
“Don’t cry,” Kay ordered, dabbing Mattie’s eyes with a tissue. “You’ll ruin your makeup.”
“Sorry. It’s just so upsetting.”
“Maybe you should start at the beginning,” Nancy said, taking an empty chair next to Mattie.
“It began with the chocolate,” Mattie explained, leaning forward. Kay chased after her face with a powder puff. “A box of it came in with the rest of the fan mail one day. Rick is a maniac for chocolate, so he opened the box and ate one right away. It was so bitter that for a minute he thought he’d been poisoned. After a while, though, when he didn’t keel over, he figured it was just a practical joke. We all did. But then a letter arrived. It said something like, ‘Scared you, didn’t I? Good, because this was just a dress rehearsal.’ About two days later, a watch came in the mail. It was set at five to midnight, and there was a note attached that said, ‘Your time’s running out.’ You see? Somebody is trying to kill him!”
Mattie was practically standing up in her chair. Kay gently pushed her back down and began working on her eyes. “Take it easy, hon,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Maybe this is a stupid question,” Nancy ventured, “but has anybody called the police?”
Kay laughed. “If we called the police every time we got a nasty letter around here, we’d be calling them every day! You should see some of the fan mail.”
Mattie wheeled around in her chair. “But this is different! These aren’t just nasty letters, they’re real threats! The trouble is, nobody is taking them seriously!”
“Not even Rick?” Nancy asked.
“Especially not Rick,” Mattie said huffily. “He thinks nothing will ever hurt him. As far as he’s concerned, the whole thing is the work of a single loony fan out for kicks. I’m the only one who’s really worried, and that’s why I need your help.”
“She’ll help you, won’t you, Nancy?” Bess said, not really asking the question. “We’ll stay here as long as it takes!”
Nancy smiled wryly. Bess would have promised anything if it meant she could spend more time with her idols.
“But, Bess,” she said, protesting. “We have a lot of sightseeing planned, and—”
Just then, the door flew open and Rick Arlen burst in. Bess gasped. He really was even more gorgeous in person. A lock of blond hair had fallen over his forehead, and he impatiently brushed it away. He was holding up a black-and-white glossy photograph of himself. The photo had been scratched almost beyond recognition.
“Mattie,” he said, thrusting the picture into her hands, “it’s happened again! Look at this!”
Mattie looked at the photo, and at the message scrawled beneath it. “ ‘If you won’t be mine, you won’t be anybody’s,’ ” she read. She looked up at Nancy. “You see what I mean?”
“At least it’s an old picture,” Rick said, trying to make a joke. “It’s not even very good, actually.”
Bess was standing, absolutely frozen, staring moronically at Rick. Noticing her obvious interest, Mattie hastily introduced the girls to Rick, but it was clear that his mind was on other things. He hardly noticed them.
“Whoever did this has some nerve,” he was saying. “Imagine, tearing up my face like that.”
“Please, Rick,” Mattie begged, “if you won’t call the police, will you at least tell security about this?”
“Come on, now,” he said, waving away her concern. “What are they going to do about it? Shake their heads and wring their hands, that’s what. Anyhow, it’s probably just old man Pappas trying to scare me.”
“Rick!” Mattie gasped. “You don’t really think—”
“I don’t know what to think,” he muttered with a shrug. “All I know is that we’re scheduled to be on the set in five minutes for dress rehearsal, and I haven’t got time for nonsense like this.” Rick turned toward the door. Jaw set, eyes ablaze, he was the picture of that perfect romantic rebel, Rory Danner. “See you on the set, Mattie. Oh, and nice meeting you, girls.”
He gave Bess and Nancy a cursory nod as he left the room. “What a hunk!” Bess whispered hoarsely. “Oh, Nancy, you’ve just got to take this case! Just think what might happen to Rick if you don’t.”
“Bess, sick as it might be, sending hate mail is not a felony.”
“Please,” Mattie said, breaking in. “Something’s very wrong here, I’m sure of it. I’d feel so much better if you’d at least stay and watch this morning’s dress rehearsal.”
Nancy looked from Mattie to Bess and back again. There was no way they would let her say no. Besides, she reasoned, watching a soap rehearsal was kind of like sightseeing, wasn’t it? “Okay, we’ll stay,” she agreed.
“Oh, Nancy!” Mattie cried happily. “You won’t regret this! I promise!”
Nancy hoped not. But she couldn’t get rid of the depressing feeling that for the hundredth time, a relaxing vacation was about to be ruined.
On their way to the set, Nancy filled Mattie in on what she and Bess had overheard outside Pappas’s office.
“Those two are really on the outs these days,” Mattie said. “Ever since Rick got that film deal and gave his notice, it’s as though a war has been declared between them. I can’t really blame Mr. Pappas, though. The show’s ratings depend on Rick. If he goes, ‘Danner’s Dream’ could be in big trouble, and that means trouble for all of us.”
“Hmmm.” Nancy thought for a moment. “So it’s not just Mr. Pappas who’s down on Rick.”
“Oh, no. In fact, lately it’s been Rick against the world.” She stopped. “Well, here we are.”
Mattie pushed against a vacuum-sealed door. With a
whoosh
, it opened, and the three of them walked onto the set.
Nancy and Bess gazed around the massive studio. In straight rows, rooms that had three walls but no ceilings were set up. Rows of klieg lights hung on suspended bars. Above the lights was a narrow catwalk, and above that, total darkness.
On the ground level, the activity was incredible. Hundreds of cables wound across the floor, and several huge cameras were mounted on dollies. Each one was surrounded by people. On the set of the Danner living room, where the first scene was about to be shot, set dressers were putting the final touches on the scenery. And in the middle of it all stood Rick Arlen. Kay was fussing over his makeup, and he was going over his lines with a script girl. But in case he or anyone forgot a line, a teleprompter stood in either corner of the room. All an actor had to do was cast a glance at one of them and read his lines from the screen.
Nancy and Bess were struck by the strangeness and complexity of it all. They looked dazed as Mattie motioned them to a spot on the floor where they could watch the rehearsal and still be out of the way. Then she disappeared behind the walls of a set.
“Can you believe this?” Bess whispered excitedly.
“Could somebody tell Rick to get on the set, please?” A beautiful black-haired woman barked impatiently into a small megaphone.
“I’m right here, Lillian, dear,” Rick purred sarcastically. “What would you like?”
“I hope you bothered to memorize your lines,” she snapped.
“Yes, love, I did,” he cooed.
“That’s what you always say,” she said, trying too hard to keep the anger out of her voice. “You shouldn’t need a teleprompter, Rick. You’re a big boy and a professional.”
“If you’re referring to that one small incident, Lillian, you’ll also recall that I received a death threat that morning. It wasn’t exactly my best day.”
Suddenly a voice boomed over the set’s sound system. “Lillian, back off, will you?”
“Who’s that?” Nancy wondered out loud.
A bearded stagehand who was walking by with a line of cables answered her. “That’s Luther Parks, the director. He’s up there.” The stagehand pointed to a Plexiglas booth above the door at the back of the room. “He watches the rehearsal on a bank of TVs up there, and then chooses which camera shots they’ll use.”
“And who’s Lillian?” Nancy asked.
“Ready to roll, ladies and gentlemen,” the director’s voice interrupted them. “Let’s have quiet on the set, please.”
“Places, everyone!” the stage manager yelled. “Charlie, are we locked up?” The man at the door nodded. A bright red light went on above him.
“That light means we’re shooting,” the same stagehand explained in a soft whisper. With a quick smile, he was gone.
In the silence of the huge studio, Nancy could feel the crackling of tension. For a split second no one moved. Then Rick appeared on the set and sat down on the beige sofa in the Danner living room. With his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees, he looked just like the tortured Rory Danner, brooding over his life. Then Mattie, playing the cool and dignified Serena, appeared in the living room doorway.
“Rory?” she called out softly. “May I come in?”
Rick looked up, but then dropped his head back into his hands. “I don’t want to see you, Serena,” he growled. “Just get out and leave me alone!”
Mattie stood by the door, cold as ice. “Rory, I have to talk to you—right now.” The cameras rolled in for a closeup.
Just then, Nancy noticed a faint shadow moving back and forth on the back wall of the set. She glanced up to see what was causing it. High overhead, she saw a klieg light wobbling wildly on its track. Horrified, Nancy watched, as it broke off the bar with a sickening snap and hurtled downward. It was heading right for Rick!
Chapter Three
N
ANCY STOOD UP
and dove across the set, landing on top of Rick. The sofa beneath them toppled over backward. Everyone watched in frozen terror as the heavy lamp hit the floor where the couch had been, shattering into a thousand pieces.
Moments later pandemonium broke out as the cast and crew gathered around the scene of the disaster. Mattie rushed up to Nancy and Rick, who were still in a heap on the floor, gasping for breath.
“Rick! You could’ve been killed!” Mattie cried. The stage manager was calling for everyone to remain calm on the set, and Bess tried to push her way through a group of stagehands. She stretched, looking to see if Nancy and Rick were okay.