Troubled Waters (Nancy Drew (All New) Girl Detective Book 23) (3 page)

Owen Jurgensen did seem to be everywhere. In the short time it took us to walk over to the group of volunteers, he posed for a picture with Mrs. Mahoney, talked to some guys delivering supplies, and handed out green Helping Homes work hats to volunteers.

“Isn’t that Luther Eldridge?” I said, peering at the middle-aged man who had just approached Owen Jurgensen. Luther runs the River Heights Historical
Society, and he knows everything about the history of our area. He was holding what looked like a couple of framed photographs, but I couldn’t tell for sure. My view was partly blocked by a bunch of tall guys wearing matching yellow team jackets.

“It looks like the Bullets are here too,” George said, her eyes focused on the guys in the jackets. “Check out the one with the ponytail. I’m pretty sure that’s—”

“J.C. Valdez!” a voice spoke up behind us.

I turned to find Brad walking with his friend Cam. They both wore royal blue Cedar Plains team jackets. Behind them other guys from their team were getting out of cars and heading toward the foundry in groups of three and four.

“The Bullets’ star forward?” I said. Looking back at the guys in the yellow jackets, I saw that one of them had a ponytail dangling out from his Helping Homes hat. He spoke to the two reporters while the cameraman and photographer caught him on film.

“J.C. is the main reason the Bullets won the state championship this year,” Brad told us. “Everyone says he’s going pro at the end of the year. He’s the one who arranged to have the Bullets train us this week.”

“Your mom told us J.C. used to play on the Cedar Plains team. I guess he wanted to give back to the team where he got his start,” Bess said.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Brad raked a hand through his blond hair, his eyes shining with excitement. “You know, Cam’s brother used to play with J.C. And now Cam and I are co-captains, just like J.C. and Craig used to be.”

Brad was talking a mile a minute, but Cam just kept walking toward the foundry with his hands in his pockets. It struck me as kind of odd. I mean, I would have expected Cam to be more enthusiastic. But I didn’t have time to ask questions. Bess grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the group.

“Come on! Everyone’s lining up for the photo,” she said.

The scene around us was pretty chaotic. Volunteers were running from the parking lot, the guys who were cleaning the bricks were making a racket with their pressurized hoses, a truckload of beams and Sheetrock was being unloaded, and everyone was talking at once.

I had to jump to the side to keep out of the way of two men carrying plywood. As they headed toward the tarp where the supplies were, they angled behind J.C. Valdez and the reporters.

“When I heard about the floods, I knew I had to do something. After all, Cedar Plains is my hometown. My own parents had to evacuate the house that’s been in Mom’s family since the eighteen hundreds,”
J.C. was saying. “I found a new place for them over in Woodburn, but I know plenty of people weren’t so lucky. If the Bullets’ work with Helping Homes brings attention and money to flood victims, I feel we’ve done our part. . . .”

As Bess, George, and I squeezed in among the crowd, I spotted another guy delivering building materials. He had thick reddish brown hair and a T-shirt with
REYNOLDS BUILDING SUPPLY
printed on it. He barreled toward us from the parking lot with two long wooden beams balanced on his shoulder. He didn’t seem to notice that the tips of the beams were just a few feet from J.C. Valdez’s back.

“Watch where you’re going!” I called.

The guy was totally oblivious. “Coming through!” he shouted.

He turned, and the beams on his shoulder swung in an arc—straight toward J.C. Valdez.

H
orrified gasps rose up around us.

“J.C., look out!” shouted one of the guys on the Lowell team.

Not that J.C. had time to move out of the way. The beams flew toward his head.

At the last second the guy from Reynolds Building Supply shifted and the beams dipped lower. They smacked into the backs of J.C.’s legs, sending him flying.

“Hey!” he cried. A painful grimace twisted his face as he hit the muddy ground. Then a wall of yellow team jackets closed in around him.

“Think he’s okay?” George asked, biting her lip.

We didn’t have to wait long to find out. J.C. burst through the knot of teammates a moment later. Mud
covered one side of his pants and jacket, and his face was burning red. He stormed over to the guy who had hit him with the beams.

“What’s the big idea?” J.C. demanded.

The guy took his time setting the beams down next to the other supplies under the blue tarp. “It was an accident,” he mumbled. But when he finally straightened up, he didn’t seem apologetic. Far from it. A satisfied smirk stretched from ear to ear.

J.C. blinked and peered closely into the other man’s face. “Craig? Craig Reynolds?
You
did that?” he said.

Apparently, these two knew each other. But I didn’t get the feeling they were best buddies. J.C. shoved his palms against Craig’s chest. “You knocked me down on purpose! Don’t you know you could have hurt me?”

“Hey,
you’re
the expert on hurting people,” the guy named Craig shot back. “We both know who would be the star of the Lowell team if you hadn’t tripped me up in the regional finals.”

“What’s going on?” George whispered.

I didn’t have a clue. But Brad leaned close to us and said in a low voice, “That’s Cam’s brother, Craig Reynolds.”

“The guy who was co-captain with J.C. in high school?” George asked.

Brad nodded. “Craig injured his knee in the
regional finals one year. The doctors tried surgery, but they couldn’t repair the damage,” he explained. “Craig never played basketball again.”

“But Craig made it sound like J.C. hurt him,” I said. “Like it wasn’t an accident at all.”

“Craig and J.C. had some kind of collision on the court,” Brad explained. “Everyone figured it was just a freak accident that Craig’s knee was hurt so bad. But Cam told me Craig is totally convinced that J.C. tripped him on purpose.”

“That’s a serious accusation,” George said. “Why would J.C. injure his own teammate?”

“Money,” said Brad. “Lowell hands out sports scholarships, but only to a few top players.”

“So . . . ,” Bess said, scraping the toe of her work boot across the muddy ground, “Craig thinks J.C. hurt him on purpose to make sure
he
got the Lowell scholarship?”

“Yup. Meanwhile, any chance Craig had of playing college ball was wrecked,” Brad finished. “After high school he went to work for his dad’s building supply company. He helps Coach Stanislaus with our team, but that’s not exactly as exciting as a pro sports career.”

“No wonder he’s so bitter,” I said. “It must have hurt to see his dreams go up in smoke—while J.C. went on to become one of the hottest players in college basketball.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it okay for Craig to go after J.C. with those beams. Anyway, just ’cause Craig
thinks
J.C. hurt him on purpose doesn’t mean he really did,” George said. She glanced toward the front of the crowd, where the shouting match between Craig and J.C. was growing louder.

“You don’t
really
care about people who lost their homes,” Craig said, jabbing a finger at J.C. “The only one you care about is yourself! Joining up with Helping Homes is just a big publicity stunt to you. Nothing like getting your name in the paper to make the pro teams notice you, eh?”

“Oh, they notice me,” J.C. said. “I’ve been the top player at Lowell for two years running. I’ve got what it takes to make it in the big leagues, which is more than anyone ever said about you. . . .”

Craig looked so angry, we could practically see the steam coming out of his ears. “Someday people will realize what a big fake you are,” he told J.C. “Everything you do will turn out to be a big flop!”

People around us were shifting uncomfortably. Not that I blamed them. Hearing J.C. and Craig fling insults back and forth made me feel squeamish too—especially when I saw that the news cameras were catching the whole thing.

“Leave it to the press to cover a juicy fight instead of the renovation,” I said, rolling my eyes.

I was glad when Owen Jurgensen stepped between J.C. and Craig. “Calm down, you two. I’m sure we can work this out,” Owen said smoothly.

I guess managing so many volunteers had made him an expert at dealing with tricky situations. I don’t know how he did it, but within seconds, Craig and J.C. were shaking hands. The next thing we knew, Craig was heading back toward his truck, and the reporters were lining the rest of us up for the publicity photo in front of the entrance to the Davis Foundry. Owen was all smiles, chatting with volunteers, helping to organize the crowd, and getting Luther Eldridge to tell reporters about some framed photographs of the old foundry that he’d brought from the Historical Society. By the time we all said “Cheese!” everyone seemed to have totally forgotten about the argument.

“Thanks, everyone! I’ll see you all here tomorrow morning at seven sharp,” Owen said as the crowd broke up. He chuckled at the chorus of groans that rose from the volunteers. “I know it’s early, but the sooner we renovate these apartments, the sooner one hundred families who lost their homes in the floods will have a new place to live.”

“Including Brad and Cathy,” Bess said, grinning.

Brad and Cam had been right next to us during the press conference, but now I saw that they and the
rest of their team had gathered around an older man I guessed was their coach. Brad’s face was filled with anticipation as Coach Stanislaus led the team over to J.C. Valdez and the rest of the Lowell players.

At least, he
tried
to approach J.C—but a petite, dark-haired girl had glued herself to J.C.’s side and was fawning all over him.

“Oh brother,” George muttered, flicking a thumb at the girl. “When did DeeDee get here?”

George, Bess, and I have known Deirdre Shannon since we were kids, but we’re not exactly friends. The truth is, we’re about as compatible as fire and water. Deirdre never misses a chance to look down her nose at us, so we usually keep as far away from her as we can.

“You were
amazing
in the state championship game, J.C.,” Deirdre gushed, hanging on to his arm. “I was there, of course. Daddy got tickets right at center court. . . .”

“Why is she here, anyway? Don’t tell me she’s going to risk ruining her manicure in order to volunteer with Helping Homes,” Bess murmured.

“She must be,” I reasoned. “Why else would she be at the foundry?”

“Um, Mr. Valdez?” Brad’s coach spoke up. But there wasn’t much of a chance that J.C. could respond since Deirdre had pulled J.C. around so his back was to everyone but her.

“I’d be happy to show you around River Heights, J.C.,” Deirdre offered. “After all, you can’t spend
all
your time in this dreary place.”

“Is she for real?” asked someone next to me. I turned to see a young woman about my age wearing overalls, a paisley blouse, and a well-worn tool belt with the name
TANYA
stamped into the leather. She had chocolate brown skin, braids that were pulled back in a ponytail, and dark eyes that stared at Deirdre in disbelief.

“Thinking about other people isn’t usually a big priority for Deirdre,” I told her.

“Then someone should change her priorities,” the girl said. As she strode over to Deirdre, I saw a determined gleam in her eyes. “Excuse me,” the girl said. “If working on the foundry is so
dreary
, then why did you volunteer?”

“Volunteer?” Deirdre’s tone implied that working with Helping Homes was about as high on her wish list as being sentenced to a chain gang. “Don’t be ridiculous. I only came here to invite J.C. and the rest of the Bullets to a party I’m having in their honor.”

“And to make sure she gets her picture taken with J.C. Valdez,” Bess added under her breath to George and me.

Sure enough, Deirdre turned toward the reporters with a wide smile, leaning close to J.C. “It’ll be day
after tomorrow, at seven p.m. All the best people will be there.”

“Oh brother,” George mumbled. “Can’t someone shut her up?”

“Actually, maybe someone can,” I whispered. I nodded toward the girl with the paisley blouse and tool belt. She continued to face Deirdre, and this time the gleam in her eyes was definitely mischievous.

“Well, if the
best
people will be there,” she said, “then the
entire
Helping Homes renovation crew is invited, right?”

“Everyone?” Deirdre’s smile faded. “I, uh . . .”

“That’s a great idea,” Coach Stanislaus piped in. “I guess we can skip one night of practice for a party.”

George chuckled and grinned at Bess and me. “Let’s see DeeDee try to weasel out of inviting us,” she whispered.

But Deirdre couldn’t—not with the
River Heights Bugle
and RH News cameras pointed at her.

“Well, um . . . yes, of course,” she said at last, flashing the fakest smile I’ve ever seen.

“Congratulations,” George said as the girl with the tool belt and braids came back over to us a minute later. “I think you just knocked us off the top of Deirdre Shannon’s most-hated list.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” the young woman said. “I’m Tanya Deschanes, by the way.”

“I’m Bess, and this is Nancy and George,” Bess told her. Nodding at the tool belt Tanya wore, she asked, “Do you work on the Helping Homes staff?”

“I guess I look the part,” she said, laughing. “I’m actually studying to be a veterinarian, but I’m pretty comfortable with a hammer and wrench. My dad has a thing about buying old houses and fixing them up. I’ve helped him since I was a kid.”

“Well, the personalized tool belt is a great touch,” Bess replied. “I wouldn’t mind getting one myself.”

Most people would never guess that petite, blond-haired Bess is actually a fix-it whiz. Tanya smiled at her and said, “Listen, I was talking to some of the other volunteers before about going out to dinner. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together on the renovation, so we figured we might as well get to know each other. Want to join us?”