"So how did it go?"

Nancy Drew was sitting on the couch in the living room, mentally going through her matched luggage to make sure she hadn't missed anything and talking to her best friend Bess Marvin on the phone. Nancy could hear Hannah Gruen, the housekeeper, packing a few last-minute picnic necessities.

"Complicated," Nancy replied, holding the receiver close to her mouth, the cord stretched as far as it would go.

"Oh," Bess said. "So complicated you have to tell me in person?"

"Pretty much," Nancy replied.

Hannah poked her head out of the kitchen. "Did you want me to pack some juice for you?"

Nancy cupped her hand over the phone receiver and nodded. "If it's not too much trouble."

"You know it's not." Hannah beamed at her young charge and vanished back into the kitchen.

"But I'm not going to see you soon," Bess protested. "Can't you give me anything to tide me over until then?"

Nancy's father, Carson Drew, the famous criminal attorney, had invited his daughter's two best friends, Bess and Bess's cousin George Fayne, to stay at Fox Lake with them for the summer. But Bess had to stay in town another few days for a family reunion scheduled for the weekend, and George was just finishing up an early tennis camp. "Not that she needs it," Bess had said. "She can whip both of us at tennis anyday and this will just make her worse."

"Okay," Nancy gave in. "We're officially broken up now."

Bess sighed. "So are you relieved? Sad?"

"Relieved," Nancy replied. "I would have broken up with him two weeks ago if he'd let me."

"You mean during the..."

"Promise ring," Nancy confirmed.

Nancy, Bess, and George had just finished their freshman year at River Heights High School. At the beginning, back in September, Nancy had been introduced to Don Cameron. Don was cute, funny, athletic...

"He's everything I'd want in a guy," George had commented one day, soon after Don and Nancy had started dating. "Except he has the personality of dishwater."

He was entirely mild and unoffensive, his parents knew her father, and he was more than willing to go on double and triple dates with Nancy and her friends. Bess and George's parents preferred group dates, anyway, and since none of them were old enough to drive alone yet, the only time they were really alone was at the movies.

Nancy had been fourteen when she'd started dating Don, and she'd made it clear to him from the beginning that they were friends. She would love to see movies with him, go out to dinner with him, hang out at his house, do pretty much anything that could be done by a group of teenagers not yet licensed, as long as he understood that she wasn't exclusively his. And she did date other people; she had been out with a cute sophomore named Patrick and a cheerleader named Wendy who obviously had wanted to be his girlfriend. But the longer the school year went on, the less she saw other guys, and the more serious Don had seemed to become.

Until he'd given her a ring.

It wasn't an engagement ring or even an expensive one, but a sterling silver kind of ring Nancy could easily see hanging in the mall at a display next to bright faux-fur scrunchies and glittering plastic keychains. The price wasn't what set her off it, and him, but the significance she could see attached to it, the commitment it implied.

And he had given it to her at the very end of school, when everyone was finding out where they would be going for the summer and signing the yearbooks of people they only knew through class or the cafeteria. She couldn't honestly say that she hadn't expected something like that from him, some kind of promise that they would stay together through the summer, but even then she had known she was going to Fox Lake and that she hoped he wouldn't come along.

She couldn't take a ring like that from a guy she felt was far more brother material than boyfriend material.

So, instead of wearing it around her neck on the beaded silver chain, she had returned it to him, and told him that she would be going away to Fox Lake for the summer, and if they saw each other next school year that would be fine with her but, and she made this very, very clear, only as friends. Friends who didn't give each other rings or pass notes in class with checkboxes on them, or put their arms around the backs of each other's chairs in movie theaters.

"How did he take it?" Bess asked. "I'm sure you weren't mean or anything, but he was really hung up on you."

"He said he was fine with being friends," Nancy said. "And maybe if I came back early from the lake we could hang out before school starts again, but I told him that we'd have to wait and see. He wanted me to keep the ring but I just couldn't."

"Better for him, in the long run," Bess said sagely. Hannah bustled out of the kitchen carrying a picnic basket with both hands, and pushed it out onto the porch.

Nancy released a peal of laughter. "Says she who has had a boyfriend last for all of what, five days?"

"Seven," Bess corrected, with mock haughtiness. "Seven and he gave me a stuffed koala, so that has to count for something."

Nancy tried to stifle her laughter as Hannah stood in the doorway of the living room, arms folded, a smile twitching on her face. "Okay, okay, Bess, sure, that could count for an extra few days. Hannah's ready, so I have to go. Have your parents call when Dad needs to pick you up, okay?"

"Okay," Bess agreed. "And I'll bet you five bucks you find a mystery before I get down there."

Fox Lake was just far enough from River Heights that the car ride tired Nancy out but didn't quite get her to sleep. She sat in the backseat, filling in a crossword puzzle as her father hummed along to the oldies station playing on the radio.

"Nan?"

Nancy looked up and met her father's eyes in the rearview mirror. "Hmm?"

"You sure this trip isn't going to be too boring for you? I promise we'll get in a few matches of tennis and actually spend some quality time together." He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

Nancy smiled. "I'm sure, Dad."

Carson Drew was the keynote speaker at a series of conferences that were going to be held at the resort part of the lake, and in Nancy's opinion wasn't planning to take nearly enough time off relaxing. He always put in long hours at his law firm, and was away on business a lot of the time. If Hannah hadn't been there, Nancy didn't know what she would have done.

"Besides, I'm sure I just need to keep you occupied until Bess and George join us."

"Oh, don't say it like that," Nancy protested. "You know I love spending time with you."

"I forgot to tell you," he said, his tone telling her that he'd done the exact opposite, "I heard that some people you know are going to be down for the conference."

"Sure," Nancy replied. "Helen Corning's dad is going, so she'll be down at the lake too."

"Not just the Cornings," Carson said. "Fenton Hardy decided to bring his family down too."

"Great," Nancy replied, trying to keep the sigh out of her voice.

Fenton Hardy's eldest son, Frank, was only a month or two older than Nancy, and his youngest, Joe, two years younger. The last time she'd seen the brothers, she and Frank had been twelve, Joe ten, they had spent an awkward afternoon together at their parents' behest. They had practically grown up together at law conferences, since Nancy's father was an attorney and the Hardys' father a police detective, and the crush Nancy had had on Frank at the age of six was long gone by the time she was twelve. If the Hardys were there... Nancy sighed inwardly. Their parents would invent ways for them to be stuck together, and if she was lucky they would while away the hours hiding GI Joes and playing war.

At twelve, that had sounded great. At fifteen, the idea held a lot less appeal.

When the drive was over and all threats of Hardy brothers a bit more distant, Nancy lugged her medium-sized suitcase into the bedroom she'd be using for the summer and looked around. Twin-sized bed with a bright comforter, polished wooden floors, wood furniture, white walls. She tested the window and found, after a bit of stickiness, that it opened easily. All the better if she found a mystery that needed solving after bedtime.

When she headed out to help with the rest of her baggage, she caught sight of another family moving in a few cabins down, a nice-looking middle-aged couple and a tall brown-haired son about her age. They were too far away for her to put her finger on what about him was so familiar, and then they went inside for lunch. When Nancy had the chance to wander out of the cabin again, the family and their car had vanished.

"Good for you." Helen Corning took a sip of water. "Best time to break up with a guy is right before summer."

"And why would that be?" Nancy asked.

The two of them were in the recreational part of the lake, away from the speedboat traffic. They had borrowed an old paddleboat, which had seemed like a fabulous idea until Nancy remembered that she hadn't put sunscreen on her ears, and that Helen had practically no attention span. She had been friends with Helen for years, since her first summer camp, but she always fell for the "Oh, let's rent a paddleboat" or "Oh, let's rent a snowmobile," when the results were invariable. For her part, Helen had stopped pedaling ten minutes ago, and thought the lake was the perfect place to work on her tan.

"Have you seen some of the guys around here?" Helen demanded, staring at Nancy, losing interest in keeping her face directly in the sunlight, all the better for a healthy bronze glow. "Yesterday I ran into the most adorable guy, I think his name was Frank, his dad's here for the conference too..."

"Wait a minute," Nancy said, and stopped pedaling. "Number one, what happened to the secret admirer?"

Helen Corning had just finished her own freshman year in Mapleton, and for the few weeks leading up to prom she had started getting messages from some secret admirer who wanted her to be his date. Nancy had finally figured out that an upperclassman named Jeff was the culprit, even though Helen really wanted a sophomore she liked to be the one responsible. Nancy had rolled her eyes and explained that a sophomore would hardly be inviting a freshman to the prom, since school policy dictated only upperclassmen and their dates could come, but Helen always had been beyond logic. Jeff was a junior and very cute, but Nancy feared that despite the intrigue of his mysterious notes, Jeff was also cursed with dishwater personality.

Helen confirmed Nancy's guess with a sigh. "He's here. He's around," Helen said, with a noted lack of enthusiasm. "Having those notes from him was great. I kept hoping they were from that football player I told you about--remember when we saw him out on the field practicing?" Helen clasped her hand to her forehead dramatically.

"Sure," Nancy responded. In reality what she remembered was an indistinct number in a sea of football jerseys and helmets. "But it wasn't him, and Jeff is here?"

Helen's sudden burst of enthusiasm faded. "Jeff's here and I've already agreed to go to the dance with him. Isn't that terrible?"

Nancy shrugged. "You have to go to the dance with someone," she said. "Or not. George, whenever we can drag her with us, always goes without a date."

"Yeah, but... Nan, I promise you, if Frank had asked me first--"

"Frank Hardy?" Nancy exclaimed, and the boat's movement petered off again as she stared at Helen incredulously. "Brown hair, annoying kid brother named Joe--"

"That's the one," Helen said. "Told you. Frank. Met him yesterday. Absolutely dreamy. I think you two would get along great. And then there's Toby Green, he was nominated for Prom King and he's lifeguarding this summer..."

Nancy sighed inaudibly, rolled her eyes, and resigned herself to listening to Helen's gossip as she pedaled their boat back to shore. Toby was great, apparently, and so was his younger sister Katherine, but Katherine was distraught because their cabin had been broken into the night before and her favorite doll stolen.

"Her favorite doll? You mean they got it while she was asleep, just snatched it out of her arms?"

"No, no. She sleeps with a stuffed rabbit. Her favorite doll is a porcelain doll her grandmother gave her when she was little, and since they'll be staying for the summer she brought it with her. It was on her dresser, the family went out to dinner, and when they came back the doll was gone."

"You sure she didn't just accidentally leave it behind?" Nancy asked, quirking a skeptical eyebrow.

"Toby remembers seeing it. So somebody actually did get in and steal it."

"Odd," Nancy said, but by then Helen had moved on to how they absolutely had to learn golf because some of the caddies were gorgeous.

Hannah knocked on the door of Nancy's bedroom, then pushed it open.

Nancy was standing at the foot of the bed, towel wrapped around her, hair hanging in damp strands from her recent shower. Half the shirts she had packed for the trip were on the bed. Nancy was pouting.

"Don't wanna go," she announced to Hannah.

Hannah entered and closed the door behind her, then stood next to Nancy and regarded the shirts. "At least not until you pick one."

Nancy sighed and threw herself into her desk chair. "All I know here is Helen, and it's going to be so boring, and the grownups are going to..." Finding herself unable to continue with a properly horrifying verb, Nancy waved her hand in the air, exasperated.

"Yeah, all that is true," Hannah nodded gravely. "A lot of boring grownups and no Bess and George to giggle with."

"Why can't you go, Hannah?" Nancy demanded.

"So somebody will be home when you get back," Hannah demurred. "Besides, I heard there will be ice cream, so that has to make up for just a few minutes of putting up with the grown-ups."

"And you must be Carson's little girl," said the woman with the strangely white and wrinkly cheeks, hair set in curls at her shoulders, a pale amber drink in her hand. She beamed down at Nancy.

"Pleased to meet you," Nancy replied, sticking out a hand, not really caring that she hadn't actually been introduced to the woman. Nancy was wearing a green and white sundress, her hair pushed back from her face by a white band, and white sandals on her feet, revealing her meticulously painted pink toes. The promised ice cream had been served buffet style, and in Nancy's left hand was a swirl of vanilla ice cream topped with a riot of colors.

She didn't feel quite so little. At least, not like she had before. Hannah had let her wear a thin coating of pink lipgloss, she had minute pearl earrings in her ears, and a gorgeous silver charm bracelet around her left wrist. Nancy felt great, actually. Hannah had been right. Her reddish-gold hair was shining, her sapphire blue eyes sparkling, she didn't care about not knowing anyone or...

She turned her head.

All her protests to Hannah had rung false for a reason. Nancy was always one to go out and make friends. She wasn't self-conscious or snobby, she was easygoing and fun to be around. The sudden rush of butterflies in her stomach had been due to the realization that she was free to date the dizzying list of cute guys Helen had spent the entire afternoon detailing, and that most of them would be at the social.

Frank Hardy was standing next to her, pretending a deep interest in what the wrinkly-cheeked lady was saying, but Nancy caught a glimpse of merriment in his eyes.

And she saw immediately why Helen had rhapsodized over him so brilliantly. A lot had changed in three years. He was taller, his jawline stronger, and he looked a bit more filled out. He wore a nice pinstriped button-down shirt and khakis, but he also had a glass full of ice cream in his hand.

"Much as I hate to do this," he interjected when the woman stopped to gasp in a breath and continue, then leaned over and took Nancy's arm in his.

"Thanks," Nancy said breathlessly, registering at the back of her mind the warmth of his arm against hers as they crossed out onto the balcony.

"Anytime," Frank returned, and smiled back at her. His appraising glance told her that he found a few things changed, as well. "So how was school?"

"The usual," she admitted, wrinkling her nose, and he laughed. The sun had given her a light dusting of freckles over her nose and cheeks, though her ears were still a little sore. "How's that annoying little brother of yours?"

"The usual," he replied. "Tagging along everywhere I go, wanting to be like his big brother."

"He's not here right now," Nancy pointed out.

"True," Frank replied. "I give him five seconds."

Nancy let her brain go on autopilot while she came to the hysterical realization that she was actually flirting with Frank. Frank. The Frank she had known practically since diapers. When she was six, her infatuation with him was something cute that their parents joked about. Would they joke about this, she wondered, feeling her heart speed up as his arm casually brushed hers.

Once they finished their ice cream he offered to go find her a glass of water, and when she wandered back in to the ballroom, suddenly urgently needing to check her lipgloss and sure that its use had been a contributing factor to Frank's attentions, Helen caught her.

"Should have known you'd get him first," Helen said.

"Get who?" Nancy asked blankly. "Gosh, Helen, I've known him since we were kids."

"So you did get him first," Helen sighed.

"Has Bess's mom called yet?" Nancy asked impatiently the next morning.

Nancy's father smiled down at her. "I thought Helen was keeping you busy."

"She is." Nancy bit her lip. She was wearing blinding tennis whites, carrying a can of tennis balls in her left hand and her racket in her right. "I just..."

Carson laughed. "Relax, Nan. Bess's mother called, and I'll be going to pick her and George up tomorrow morning before the conference starts."

Nancy did a little skip, her skirt ruffling. "So what are you doing today? Why did we have to go play tennis so early?"

"A few last minute preparations for the conference," he confirmed what the sinking feeling in her stomach had been telling her, as he opened the gate and let her walk through before him. "It shouldn't take too long and I'll be able to see you again at dinnertime."

"But the conference starts tomorrow," she said, keeping her voice level.

"It does," he confirmed. "How about if we play tennis together every morning."

"Even after Bess and George get here?" Nancy asked, brightening. "Not that it should matter, Bess won't get out of bed before noon."

"Even after Bess and George get here," he said. "It can be our time."

After their match Nancy took a shower and changed into a pair of shorts and a red-and-white striped tank top, and a pair of white canvas sneakers. As she was about to race out the door Hannah reminded her to put on sunscreen, so she ran back to her room and slathered it all over her arms and the back of her neck before she went out again, to meet Helen Corning down at the General Store.

The only fun thing about the General Store, really, was the ice cream counter. That, and the really cheap stick candy. The walls were lined with dusty bottles full of jewel-toned elixirs promising quick hair growth and relief for ailments Nancy hadn't even heard of yet. The man behind the counter made Nancy a thick chocolate malt as she waited for Helen to show up.

Fox Lake hadn't always been like this. The General Store hadn't always sold glossy postcards in a rack beside the cash register, and last year there hadn't been stickers for credit cards on the window. Nancy sipped her malt and gazed into the mirror behind the counter as the bell at the door chimed. A woman walked in and started browsing the shelves. She returned Nancy's smile, but Nancy didn't introduce herself, and the woman didn't, either. She looked familiar, but Nancy couldn't place her. She only knew the woman wasn't Frank's mother.

Helen entered the store in an utterly oblivious air, considering that she was ten minutes late. She ordered a root beer float and smiled at Nancy.

"There's a game going on at the big field," Helen said.

"Oh, so that's why you were late?"

Helen ignored the comment. "We should totally go watch."

"What kind of game?"

Helen shrugged. "The guys are throwing a ball around. The guys, Nancy. The ones we're here to see."

"I'm not here to see any guys," Nancy protested, but found herself wondering whether Frank was in the crowd.

"You will be after you see these," Helen said serenely.

When they left the store, though, the sun was already blazing hot, so the two girls finished their drinks and stuck to the shaded path beside the lake. After a while Helen start fanning herself with her hand.

"We have to get out of this heat," she said. "Either that or I'm going to start sunbathing."

Nancy groaned. "No sunbathing, please, please," she said.

"Okay," Helen said. Then she brightened. "I think... yeah, this is the way."

Helen led Nancy to a set of tire tracks that cut through the pine needles and undergrowth. After a few more hundred feet the path led to a clearing, and at the back of the clearing, facing away from them, was a big old wooden house.

"You sure we can be back here?" Nancy asked, wrinkling her nose.

"Oh, yeah," Helen replied. "It's owned by my... great... well, I can't remember exactly what she is, but my mom knows. We're related."

As they walked around to the front Nancy saw what Helen had been talking about. A hand-hewn sign over the door advertised antiques and a doll museum at the back. The porch was lined with rocking chairs smoothed by human occupancy, and the entrance was pleasantly lit.

"A doll museum?"

Helen nodded and tossed her empty cup into a trash can. "It's neat."

An old lady Helen didn't seem to recognize came to the door and beckoned them in. Nancy could hear the same oldies station her father listened to, playing from a back room. Huge old metal fans kept the air moving through the house, and once they were inside Nancy felt pleasantly cool. The admission fee was nominal, and Nancy dug for her pocket money, producing some crumpled bills in return for a stamp on her hand.

Nancy held her hand up to look at the stamp, which was done in purple ink. "Elephant," she announced.

"There's one for every day of the week," the old woman, who had introduced herself as Cynthia, told her. Nancy glanced around as they followed the woman to the staircase. The walls and floors were lined with old furniture, display racks full of metal trinkets and odd-looking cartoon characters on lunchboxes and records, dusty linens, electronic equipment older than Nancy, fans and dresses and cat statues and jewelry boxes.

"We have old books in the back, if you want to look through those too," Cynthia said. "Though I don't know if you would like them."

"Any mysteries?" Nancy asked.

"Probably," Cynthia said, smiling.

They went single-file up the spiralling staircase, up following the smell of old damp paper and the sound of fans whispering in doorways. They passed a room entirely devoted to movie posters and paraphernalia, a room of old gleaming musical instruments, until they finally arrived at the end of the hallway, to the door with a plaque marked Doll Museum.

"I haven't been up here this morning yet," the woman said, opening the door and groping against the wall to find the light switch. "So it may be a little warm--"

Nancy could see a sliver of sunlight from just under one of the heavy drapes. Cynthia found the light switch, and the rest of the room was thrown into focus.

The entire place was in shambles. The rest of the rooms had had an organized-chaos feel to them, but this... Nancy reached over and nearly touched a doll laying face-down on the floor, its ceramic head cracked into pieces. Faded soft-bodied dolls lay with their limbs splayed, where they had been thrown in a frantic search of the room.

Cynthia immediately flew to a large glass-box display case, a banker's lamp perched over it, but Nancy could tell from across the room that it was empty. A faint circle marked where its stand had rested.

"When was the last time you were up here?" Nancy asked. She could feel her mind kicking into high gear. Another mystery to solve.