A special "Thank you!" to rosa lunae, who kindly agreed to guest-beta this chapter!

August 4 continued

"Hello?" Nancy rapped sharply on the door with her knuckles, and peered through the window to see if she could catch a glimpse of anyone inside.

"Mrs. Dinalto?" There was no answer from inside, no sign that anyone was coming to answer the door. Nancy looked again for a doorbell button, but there was none. So she stood and listened for a moment. Were those footsteps inside the house? She crossed her fingers hopefully, and waited. After a moment or two more of standing on the porch, Nancy growled in frustration and turned to walk down the steps.

She had nearly reached the main sidewalk when she heard the sound of the door opened. "Hello?" called out a sweet woman's voice from behind her. "Did you knock on my door?"

"Yes!" Nancy called back, already turning and beginning the climb back up the steps. She waited until she was face-to-face on the porch with the woman before speaking again. "My name's Nancy Drew. Are you Mrs. Dinalto?"

"Yes, I am Irene Dinalto...can I help you with something?"

Nancy barely suppressed her shock. This is the woman that Trixie was so angry at? she wondered, staring at the little elderly lady in front of her. Mrs. Dinalto was a plump, gray-haired woman with ruddy cheeks and an inviting smile. Certainly not the type of person Nancy expected to be accusing others of gambling debts.

"Mrs. Dinalto, I'm here to ask you some questions, if that's alright...I was hired by the McGreevy family to look into the disappearance of Mr. McGreevy."

"Oh..." Mrs. Dinalto's expression deepened into something Nancy couldn't quite read. It seemed an odd mixture of fear and sorrow. "Come in, then."

The shorter woman led Nancy into a cramped living room, and indicated that Nancy sit on one of the squashy leather couches in there. Nancy pulled out her notebook as soon as Mrs. Dinalto had seated herself across from Nancy.

"Mrs. Dinalto, I'd like to ask you about the money you claim the McGreevy family owes you."

To Nancy's surprise, the woman's face crumpled and tears filled her eyes. "I wish I'd never accused Hank of that" Mrs. Dinalto whispered.

"Ma'am?"

Mrs. Dinalto dried her eyes with a handkerchief, and coughed. "Hank McGreevy never owed my husband any money...I hope his disappearance isn't because of what I said..."

"What did you say?"

"I accused him of trying to hide the truth...I threatened him that I would seek legal action if he didn't pay me the money this week...but I was lying."

"I think, perhaps, that you should start at the beginning..."

"Y-yes. Alright."

Mrs. Dinalto took a deep breath. "It all started about a year ago...when my husband Liam fell ill...Hank was one of his frequent poker buddies. He came over every week to play cards with Liam, and even visited Liam in the hospital when we learned he had inoperable cancer..."

"Anyway..." Mrs. Dinalto sighed. "Liam and I were both retirees. I tried to find work, to help pay for the hospital bills, and did get a secretarial job...but it wasn't enough money. Our savings were rapidly being used up, and when Liam died...the funeral costs sent me into bankruptcy."

"Couldn't your family help you out?" Nancy asked. Mrs. Dinalto shook her head. "Both Liam and I were only children...and we had no children of our own."

"So you decided to turn to extortion." Nancy said flatly.

The older woman's lack of response was all the confirmation Nancy needed. Briefly, she allowed herself to feel a tiny pang of pity before she sighed. "You realize, of course, that Chief McGinnis needs to know this right away."

Mrs. Dinalto nodded, though she looked rather apprehensive about it. She reached for a cordless phone lying on the end table near the arm of the couch. "I'll do it now," she said in a choked voice, "and then I suppose I'd best call Irma and apologize."

Nancy nodded. "That would probably be best." She stood and said her goodbyes as Mrs. Dinalto nodded rather distractedly, already dialing the number.

Walking out to her car, Nancy pulled her notebook from her purse, and scratched Mrs. Dinalto off the suspect list. "So much for that," she muttered. Logically, she knew it was a good thing that she'd eliminated the Dinalto angle this early in the case, but at the moment she wasn't too pleased.

She tried dialing Kevin McDonnell's cell phone number again, but once more reached the voice mail. "He's even worse about his cell phone than I am," she grumbled angrily. With a sigh, she decided to stop by the River Heights Police Department to see if Chief McGinnis and his men had had any better luck than her. And, now that she thought about it, she still needed proof that she was allowed to question banks to see if Hank McGreevy had withdrawn money lately. 'Though with Mrs. Dinalto's lie revealed,' she mused miserably, 'there's not much reason to look into that now.'

The River Heights Police Department was a bustling center of activity. Though Nancy spotted several officers she knew by name, and called out greetings, the officers in question had little time to do more than nod in response. She could see Chief McGinnis was on the phone in his office, so she waited until he was through before rapping on the door politely.

"Nancy! Come on in!"

"Hi, Chief. Any new developments on the McGreevy case?"

Chief McGinnis shook his head. "No. I'd say we know just as much as you do right now, Nancy. I just finished speaking with Irene Dinalto. A rather sad story, and now the woman may face charges for it. She'll be coming down later to officially record the story. I really need to thank you for clearing that angle up."

"To be honest, Chief, I'm surprised your men didn't interview her sooner."

The Chief sighed and shook his head. "We've been swamped lately, Nancy. That's part of the reason we called you in. Also, she refused my men entry to the house."

"I see…" Briefly, Nancy considered offering her help on whatever other cases the department might be working on, but Chief McGinnis seemed to read her mind and frowned at her.

"One case is enough for now, Nancy. If we need your help when this McGreevy investigation is wrapped up, then we'll use you."

Nancy blushed. "Sorry, Chief. I guess my curiosity just gets the better of me sometimes."

"So I noticed," he remarked dryly. "Now," he said, his voice reverting back to a business-like manner. "Have you had any luck on your end?"

She shook her head. "But I've been thinking that if you'd gotten the paperwork necessary for me to go to the banks and interview them…it probably won't do any good, since Hank McGreevy knew he didn't owe money to the Dinaltos, but…"

"Better to be certain, right?"

Nancy nodded, and the Chief handed her a manila folder. "This should have all you need to make the banks cooperate with you. Good luck."

Since she'd only called in that morning to ask for this paperwork, she knew he'd rushed it through. She smiled warmly at him. "Thanks, Chief." Nancy almost walked out the office before turning. "Any luck reaching Kevin McDonnell?"

The Chief shook his head. "No. But then…"

"This case is mostly mine, right Chief?" Nancy finished, with a smile.

"Exactly. See you later."

Nancy left the River Heights Police Department with new determination.

Nancy's first stop was the Ridge Street Credit Union. I must have made quite the impression, she thought with a grim smile, as she noticed Trevor the teller pick up his desk phone. Within minutes, Mr. Donatelly was striding toward her.

"Miss Drew," he began, as soon as he was within speaking distance, "as I told you before, we cannot give out client information unless-"

"Unless I have the proper paperwork," Nancy finished, coolly. She extended the manila folder to him. "Is this all you need?"

"Well, I…" Mr. Donatelly took the folder and began flipping through it, nervously. "Y-yes," he said a few minutes later. "That does seem to be in order. Now, what exactly do you need?"

Nancy produced the picture Hank McGreevy again. "I need to find out if this man came here recently. Within the last week or so. He may or may not have applied for a loan."

"Of course. We keep security footage of the past 100 days before wiping the tapes. Let me just escort you to our security office, and you can watch the footage for him while I speak with our loan advisors."

"Thank you." Nancy smiled warmly and allowed Mr. Donatelly to lead her to the security office, a small room hidden behind a heavy door. Inside were several cameras, showing images of the area both inside and outside the bank. Watching the cameras was a portly, red-faced man who was leaning back in his chair. When Mr. Donatelly and Nancy entered, he sat upright immediately, nearly tipping over in the process.

"Mr. Donatelly, sir! What can I do for you?" he asked, obviously distressed at the appearance of the manager.

"Mark, this is Nancy Drew. She needs to look over our security tapes from the past week."

"But, sir…doesn't she need some sort of police or court paperwork for that?"

"I have it here," Nancy said, holding up the manila folder. Mr. Donatelly had returned it to her during their walk to the security office.

"Oh…oh. That's okay then, I guess. Um…" Mark cast a nervous glance about the office. "Have a seat over there," he pointed to a small desk tucked in the corner of the room, with a computer sitting atop it. "I'll get the tapes for you."

"Why do you still call them tapes?" Nancy asked a few minutes later, after Mark had pulled several DVDs from a locked filing cabinet. He shrugged.

"Habit, I guess. Some places still use VHS tapes, despite the fact they wear out faster, and are easier to damage. We only recently switched over to the DVDs ourselves." He spread the disks out on the desk before her. "Here you go. Everything from July 29 until yesterday. We don't remove the disks from the cameras until the end of the today, so I can't offer you today's"

"That's fine. This should work." Briefly, she wondered if she shouldn't have asked for tapes from even earlier, but decided against it for now. 'If I have to, it's not like it'll be too hard to ask,' she thought.

"Great. You can just load 'em into the computer's DVD drive. They would work like any other disk."

After an hour, Nancy was more than ready to call at quits. She felt a new sympathy for police offers and FBI agents that needed to do this on a regular basis. Looking for one person among the many who would've entered the credit union…she stifled a groan. She wasn't even done with the first day yet, and already her eyes were tired from the strain of staring intently at the screen.

It was with a sigh of relief that she turned around when Mark tapped her on the shoulder after an hour and a half to announce that the credit union was closing. "Found your guy, yet?" he asked her as her placed the DVDs back into the file cabinet and locked it. She shook her head.

"For all I know, he may not have even stopped here," she admitted. "My gut instinct says that he didn't. But I can't just go on instinct alone. I need to be sure he wasn't here."

"Well, I wish you luck. Sounds like a tough case."

Nancy smiled. "Thanks."

As she left the credit union, Nancy once again tried calling Kevin McDonnell. Once again, she reached his voicemail. "Mr. McDonnell, this is Nancy Drew again. I would appreciate it if you would return my call as soon as you're able." 'Does this man ever use his cell phone?' Nancy wondered, as she hung up.

Less than a minute later, the phone rang. For a moment, Nancy hoped it was the elusive Kevin McDonnell was calling. But as the ringing continued, Nancy recognized the ringtone as the one she used for Ned.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Nan. How's the case?"

She sighed over the phone. "Slow going. It would be so much easier to crack if I could just get ahold of Hank McGreevy's other son. But I'm beginning to think he's the type that only carries a cell phone because it might be needed eventually."

"Sounds rough."

"Yeah, that's what Frank said when-"

"Frank Hardy?" Ned interrupted her.

"Yeah, why?"

"Never mind." Ned's voice was flat on the other end. Nancy rolled her eyes. Why did he always get touchy at the mention of Frank Hardy? Didn't he know he was the only guy for her? "So," Ned said slowly. "How is Frank, anyway?"

"He and Joe," she replied, emphasizing the "and" to remind him there were two Hardy brothers she interacted with on a regular basis, "are fine. Frank actually just finished high school."

"Good for him."

"Ned, he asked me for advice on what to get Callie for their anniversary. There's nothing to be jealous about."

"Who said anything about being jealous?"

"I can tell by your tone. You always get like this anymore if I mention Frank."

"If you ask me, you're jumping to conclusions."

"Ned!"

"Well, you just assumed that I'm jealous, didn't you? Even though I was asking perfectly normal, polite questions."

"But your tone was-"

"What you interpreted it to be."

"Fine. I'm sorry. You're not jealous."

"Thank you."

For several minutes, there was nothing but silence. Finally, Nancy spoke again. "If neither of us has anything more to say…"

"Right. I'll talk to you later Nancy. Enjoy your case." And with a click, Ned hung up. Nancy stared at the phone in her hand, feeling a mix of anger and pain wash over her. What's going on with us? she thought sadly. She and Ned had had their rough spots…but things had never been quite so up-and-down as they felt right now.

With a sigh, she turned the phone off, and shoved it in her purse. Might as well head home.