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that?” he asked suddenly, pointing to a dark object in the sand.
    Nancy followed his finger. “This?” she asked, picking it up. “It’s a horseshoe crab.”
    Sasha was dubious. “It looks like a prehistoric bug,” he said.
    â€œThey are a little scary looking,” she agreed. Seeing the distasteful look on Sasha’s face, she grinned. “It’s just the shell, silly.”
    It was getting late, Nancy realized, and it was time to go home. The two of them walked back to the car hand in hand. Nancy felt at peace. Sasha was right, they did have all the time in the world.
    â€œYou want some music?” Sasha asked, opening the glove compartment to look for a tape.
    â€œThere’s a tape in already,” Nancy replied.
    Sasha pulled out a tape from the slot. “Do you know what it is?” he asked, turning it over. “There’s no label.”
    Nancy shrugged, her eyes on the road. “Put it in and see.”
    Sasha pushed the tape in. There was a quiet hiss. Then suddenly a distorted voice floated out of the speakers.
    â€œIf you don’t want to end up like Scott,” the voice warned, “you’ll stick to the murder and stay away from the Vanity!”

Chapter

Eight
    S ASHA EJECTED THE TAPE in alarm. “I remember when this was supposed to be a nice, safe mystery,” he said grimly.
    â€œIt does get weirder and weirder,” Nancy agreed. She filled Sasha in on her conversation with Bob Tercero and the comments she’d overheard at the party.
    â€œWhat are we going to do?” he asked. “We can’t just let this guy keep threatening you.”
    â€œIt’s the first threat,” Nancy said, trying to think it through.
    â€œWhat about the note you got at the dance club?” Sasha reminded her.
    â€œThe note seemed to me to be an attempt to help, some kind of a clue.”
    Sasha looked doubtful. “So you think they are from two different people?”
    â€œThat’s the problem,” Nancy admitted, drumming her fingers thoughtfully on the steering wheel. “They could be from two different people, but I doubt it. Both messages refer to Scott’s murder, and nothing else we’ve uncovered so far has anything to do with murder.”
    â€œBut why would the same person try to help you once, and then threaten you the next time?”
    â€œThat’s what we have to find out. What made our mysterious tipper change his or her mind about our investigation?”
    After assuring him she would call him the next day, Nancy dropped Sasha off and headed home.
    She was back to murder, Nancy realized as she climbed into bed, and back to Nicholas Scott. Every time she decided she was finished with Nicholas, something pointed to him again. Unless . . . unless, Nancy thought excitedly, maybe she’d misunderstood the first note.
    Maybe someone was trying to tell her that Christopher Scott was murdered! Sitting up in bed, Nancy tried to reason this out.
    If Christopher Scott had been murdered, who would be leaving clues for Nancy? The killer? It didn’t seem likely. But if it was just someone who knew too much and was scared to come forward, why would that person leave a threatening note?
    Why would anyone kill Christopher Scott? And when would it have happened? He had been working the day Nicholas died, so he would haveto have been killed between then and Nicholas’s funeral.
    â€œBut if Christopher was killed,” Nancy said out loud, “what happened to the body?” She stared into the darkness. She knew that murder was hard to cover up. Bodies didn’t vanish without a trace.
    And then there was the question of motive. The bad guy, as Sasha put it, seemed to be Bob Tercero. But why? He should want Christopher alive and working. He made money from Christopher’s paintings, and he really seemed to want Nancy to find Christopher.
    All right, so maybe it was ridiculous to