A troubling question hung in her mind, however: Was Ned as excited about seeing her as she was about seeing him? Ordinarily, she would have been positive that he would be, but at the moment she wasn’t so sure. Lately there had been some unsettling signs—letters that were less personal than before, phone calls that were shorter than their familiar talkathons. They were starting to drift apart, she felt, and that had her worried.

Beside her, George was stifling a laugh. “What’s so funny?” Nancy asked.

“Oh, nothing much. You just drove by the main entrance to the college, that’s all.”

“What!” Nancy stomped on the brake pedal and swung the Mustang onto the shoulder. Glancing out the rear window, she saw that George was right: The entrance was at least a hundred yards behind them. She felt her cheeks grow warm. “Sorry. I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bess said. “Even detectives make mistakes.”

“Especially when they’ve got their minds on other things,” George added. “Like certain Emerson boys.”

“You mean the ones whose names are spelled N . . . e . . . d?”

Now Nancy was really embarrassed. There was ho point in denying that she had been thinking about Ned, though, she knew. Bess and George would see through her in a second.

For a moment she wondered whether to confess her fears to her friends, but quickly she decided against it. They were sure to tell her that she was worrying about nothing. And who could tell? Maybe she was. Anyway, there was only one way to find out. After checking the road in both directions, she gunned the car into a U-turn.

“Okay, I confess. Now quit the kidding, you guys, and help me find the sports center.”