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!”