032 High Marks for Malice by Carolyn Keene Page A

she hurried downstairs to the dining room at her break time to meet Ned. She covered her annoyance when she found him at a corner table with Maria practically draped all over him. The petite brunette girl couldn’t have gotten any closer.
    She peeled herself off him as Nancy approached. “Hi, how’s it going upstairs?” she asked, with a smile that wouldn’t have fooled a baby. She was not happy at the intrusion.
    “Fine. It’s fun.”
    “Can I get you something?” Ned asked, a plea for understanding in his eyes.
    “Something cold would be great—how about an iced tea?”
    Ned hurried away, as if eager to please. Nancy almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
    “I was just telling Ned, it’s such a lucky thing you two showing up just in time to find Line,” Maria said, folding and refolding her napkin. “And when Cass needed a sub.”
    “It was lucky, wasn’t it?” Nancy wondered what Maria was up to.
    “I mean, after all, you come to tour the university and wind up working here. That is why y’allcame, isn’t it?” Propping a small chin on her fist, she tried to look casual. “Are you thinking of applying?”
    “I haven’t made up my mind yet. But I do like it.”
    “How’d you hear about it?” Maria asked. She went back to napkin folding again.
    Nancy told the truth. “Line told Ned, Ned mentioned it to me. Why?”
    “I just wondered,” Maria answered, her lids fluttering nervously.
    Maria badgered them with probing questions during the entire break. It was clear she had begun to wonder about them. Even when Nancy, trying to find out a little more about Maria, asked a few questions of her own, she had little luck. Maria’s answers were brief and always followed by another attempt to find out about their activities at Basson.
    Nancy was curious about this turn of events, but she didn’t have time to pursue it. She had to get back to work.
    She was cramming towels down the laundry chute when she saw Maria approaching in shorts and a T-shirt. “The Powers That Be sent me to help, since you’re new and this place has gotten so busy all of a sudden. There’re no students in the lab so I just closed it down until next shift.”
    “Great. I could use the help,” Nancy said. That’s funny, she thought. Pickering had notbeen back. How did he know what was happening up here? “Can you hold the fort a few minutes?” she asked. “I think the laundry chute’s jammed.”
    “I’ll take care of it,” Maria volunteered quickly, and Nancy went back for more towels, trying to work out this new development.
    She wondered what was going on. Maria knew nothing about the equipment or how to change the weights—although to give her credit, she tried. Had Pickering really sent her? If so, why?
    Maria also stuck to Nancy like glue, never letting her out of sight. Whose idea was this? Nancy wondered. Maria’s? Pickering’s? Or the man in the conference room yesterday?
    Suddenly the towels began to spill from the laundry chute. Great, Nancy thought. I knew this would happen. It was definitely clogged at the bottom, which she guessed was in the basement. Maria had promised to check the chute a while ago and now it was really backing up.
    Nancy wondered if Maria was trying to keep her out of the basement. She looked over and saw that Maria was busy with a boy doing sit-ups. Here’s my chance, Nancy told herself, and slipped out. She found the stairs leading to the basement and hurried down.
    The basement was a maze, and though Nancy had a good sense of direction, she lost her way almost immediately. To add to her troubles, mostof the doors were unmarked. She took a lucky guess and stumbled into the laundry room, closing the door behind her.
    The room had drab, cement block walls with fat pipes snaking across its ceiling and down the walls. Two commercial washers and dryers squatted like one-eyed monsters at the far end.
    The problem with the laundry chute was caused by several towels that had caught behind one