Model Mystery Trilogy 01: Model Crime Read Online Free

shuddered. “They all said I shouldn’t marry Vic if I knew what was good for me, or something like that. Like a threat, even though they didn’t really say anything too specific.”
    “Who were they from?” I asked.
    “A bunch of made-up fake addresses,” Sydney replied. “The police checked them out and said they were all sent from public computers at libraries or coffeehouses all around New York City. They never figured out who sent them, but I was starting to think…Well, never mind. That’s all over anyway.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me about these e-mails, Sydney?” Ellie demanded, rushing over and grasping her daughter by the arm. “I had no idea!”
    “It wasn’t that big a deal, Mom.” Sydney sighed and shook her arm loose. “Probably just some of Vic’s more obnoxious admirers pulling a prank or something. He’s got some pretty weird fans out there.”
    Ellie still looked horrified. I was a little surprised by that, since she’d never struck me as the type to get so easily rattled. But I was more concerned about getting to the bottom of what Sydney was telling me—and whether it had any connection to the fake RSVP card.
    “Do you still have those e-mails?” I asked her. “If so, I’d love to take a look.”
    “No, I don’t have them anymore,” Sydney said. “I forwarded them to the police, of course. But then it was like I couldn’t think about anything else while they were on my computer. Akinyi and I were both freaking out and couldn’t sleep while we knew they were there, sort of like they were haunting us. So she talked me into just deleting them.”
    I was disappointed. If there truly was a mystery here, it would be helpful to get a look at those e-mails. Maybe I’d be able to guess whether the same person had written them and the RSVP.
    Still, it didn’t take a detective to figure out that the NYPD was unlikely to just hand over a piece of evidence to a total stranger from several states away. I would have to rely on Sydney’s memory of what they’d said.
    Unfortunately, she didn’t seem too eager to dredge up those memories. “Like I told you, they were all sort of vaguely threatening,” she said when I pressed her for details. “You know—‘Vic might seem like the one, but he’s not the one for you. Add it up before you regret it.’ Something like that. I don’t really remember the rest that well.”
    “What do you think it means, Nancy?” Deb asked. “Is it a real mystery?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “But if it is, I’ll do my best to get to the bottom of it.”
     
     
    By the time I met up again with Bess and George the next day, my new case—if that’s what it was—hadn’t gone much further than that. My friends seemed to think it was nothing to worry about. “Celebrities get weird messages from weird fans all the time,” George pointed out as we drove through town. “Those e-mails probably came from some lonely twelve-year-old boy somewhere.”
    “And what about that RSVP card?” I asked, leaning forward from the backseat of George’s car. “It can’t be a coincidence that it matches the real ones from her invitations. A random kid wouldn’t even know what the invites looked like.”
    George just shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe it’s one of the Daredevils guys playing a prank or something.”
    “Maybe.” I’d thought of that possibility myself. During Vic’s season, the Daredevils cast was infamous for constantly trying to play pranks on one another. Maybe this was their weird way of inducting Sydney into their fraternity or something. If so, it didn’t seem like a very funny prank to me, but then again, I’d never really gotten the whole Daredevils phenomenon in the first place. In any case, I was determined to keep an eye on things from now until the wedding, just in case there was something more serious going on.
    Bess checked her watch. “We’d better hurry,” she said to George, who was driving. “We’re supposed to be