Sweet Revenge by Carolyn Keene Page A

people?” Dan Avery stared back at the girls just as incredulously. “What are you talking about?”
    â€œYour attempted murder of Brock Sawyer,” Nancy answered flatly. “And of me.”
    Suddenly all the color drained from Dan Avery’s face. “Attempted—you suspect me?” he sputtered. “You think I . . .” His voice trailed off, and he shook his head wordlessly.
    â€œI’m a reporter,” he said at last. “I’m just trying to get a story. I-I’m not a murderer!”
    He sounded sincere, but Nancy wasn’t convinced. “Maybe you’d better tell us about it, Mr. Avery.
    â€œSure, sure.” Now Dan Avery seemed patheticallyeager to comply. “But could you let me up? It’s hard to talk when the three of you are pressing me into the asphalt.”
    Nancy, Bess, and George cautiously took their hands off him and stood up, brushing the dust from their clothes. Rubbing a shaky hand over his sweaty face, their captive got slowly to his feet.
    â€œI’m a reporter with the Midnight Examiner,” Avery began. “Well, the Examiner is probably the only newspaper in the country that wasn’t invited to the Chocolate Festival.”
    â€œWait a minute,” said Nancy. “Didn’t Brock say something about the Examiner —about the stories you’ve been running on him?”
    The stocky reporter nodded. “That’s right. We’ve been giving him a hard time, I guess—but, hey, he’s famous. It’s the price you pay when you become a star. Anyway, everyone knows the Examiner’s not some big, serious paper like the Chicago Tribune. It’s just a fun read!”
    â€œI guess Brock didn’t feel that way about it, though,” said George dryly.
    â€œUh-huh. That’s why he warned us to stay away. But my editor thought it would be a great scoop if we could sneak in anyway. A great scoop.” His mouth widened into a big smile. “Get it? Like a scoop of chocolate ice cream? It was going to be the headline.” He looked from face to face, but none of the three girls was smiling. “Uh, anyway, I knew I’d never get a legit invitation, so I—well, I kind of got one from someone who owed me a favor.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Nancy asked warily.
    Avery scratched his balding head before answering. “I sort of—persuaded another reporter to give me his invitation. He works for another paper, see, and one time I slipped him a couple of celebrity photos from the Examiner’s files when he was in a tight spot. So he owed me.
    â€œSo anyway, I sneaked in, using this other guy’s invitation. And I’ve been waiting for a big—er—scoop ever since. His getting dipped in the chocolate was good,” he recalled, “but what I was really looking for was a big juicy story about Brock being poisoned. Boy, would our readers go for that!”
    Nancy was completely disgusted. It sounded as if he actually enjoyed ruining people’s reputations. “So what are you doing here at the hospital?” Nancy asked icily. “Wasn’t the story back at the inn juicy enough?”
    â€œYeah, but I didn’t have any pictures. I wasn’t there when Brock got zapped—took the poison, I mean. I was—well, to tell you the truth, I was feeling sick to my stomach. Too much chocolate, I guess,” said Avery sheepishly. “Since I didn’t have any photos from the actual poisoning, I decided that a few shots of Brock in his hospital bed would be the next best thing.
    â€œI’ve been camping out here for the past day,” Avery went on, “waiting for a chance to sneak in. That’s what you caught me trying to do a little while ago.”
    He gave a little shrug. “So there we are. A man’s got to earn a living, you know.”
    â€œOne more question,” Nancy told him. “Did you touch any