Troubled Waters (Nancy Drew (All New) Girl Detective Book 23) (5 page)

“Hey . . . what’s this?” I said, stopping next to one of the heaters. I nudged something with my toe, and immediately, I heard the scrape of metal on the concrete floor. As I bent down, I spotted the tip of an orange rubber handle.

“Jackpot,” I said to myself, holding up Tanya’s wrench.

Bess and George were helping Tanya pick through the things in the lobby when I returned. “Hey, where’d you find that?” Tanya asked when I held out the wrench to her.

Volunteers were separating into groups as Owen called their names. Seeing him frown in our direction, I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Someone used it to open the main water valve,” I said.

“Well, don’t look at me. I was with you guys at the other end of the foundry when the water came on,” Tanya said. “Anyway, why would someone take
my
wrench? There are tools all over the place.”

“She has a point,” Bess said, nodding at the rolling tool carts. “It’s almost as if someone wanted people to
think
Tanya did it, when . . .”

Bess’s voice trailed off, and she stared at something on the wall above the coffee table. Rather, she stared at an empty space where something was
missing
from the wall.

“What happened to the photos? Weren’t there five frames before?” she said. “Now there are only two.”

Sure enough, just two framed photographs remained. As I gazed at them, it suddenly hit me. “
That’s
why someone opened the water valve,” I breathed out.

Bess, Tanya, and George stared at me blankly.

“It was a diversion,” I explained. “While we were all getting soaked, whoever opened the valve took the photos.”

“But who?” George wondered. Planting her hands on her jeans, she scanned the crowd of volunteers in the lobby. “No one here looks like they’d steal.”

Tanya frowned as she slipped her wrench into its spot on her tool belt. “Besides, renovating the foundry will help so many people,” she added. “Why would anyone try to wreck what we’re doing?”

I
think I know why,” a voice offered.

I hadn’t realized anyone was listening to us. But when I turned, I found J.C. Valdez standing at my elbow. Now that he was so close, I realized that J.C. wasn’t as tall as I’d thought when I’d seen him talking to reporters and joking with his teammates. He was just half a head taller than I was, but he made up for his lack of height with a quick, agile way of moving. His alert eyes shifted to take in everything around him.

“It’s no secret that Craig Reynolds hates me,” J.C. told us. “He’s always been jealous of my talent on the court. Craig can’t handle that pro teams are already recruiting me, while his career went nowhere.”

He had a point. Still, I felt myself bristle at J.C.’s arrogant tone. “What does Craig’s jealousy have to do with someone stealing old pictures of the foundry?” I asked.

“
And
making sure we start the renovation with a big, soaking-wet disaster,” J.C. added. “Didn’t you hear Craig yesterday? Shouting about how he hopes everything I do is a big flop?”

Tanya stared at J.C. in total disbelief. “Are you saying you think Craig wants to make sure the foundry renovation fails just because
you’re
volunteering?” she asked.

“Sure,” he answered. “He’ll do anything to make me look bad. I saw his truck when I got here, so I know he’s around.”

“It’s his job to bring building materials here,” Bess pointed out. “It doesn’t make sense that he would wreck such a worthwhile project when his family is supplying wood and Sheetrock and stuff for us to use.”

Her argument didn’t seem to convince J.C. He just shrugged and said, “People do crazy things to get revenge.”

“I guess turning on the water could be Craig’s way of getting back at you, but . . .” I turned to gaze at the spot on the wall where the three missing frames had
hung. “Why would he take those photos? They’re just copies. We can always get new ones from Mr. Eldridge, so taking them doesn’t really hurt the renovation.”

“Excuse me! A little attention, please?”

Owen Jurgensen’s amplified voice made us turn. That was when I realized that all the volunteers were standing in groups—except for Bess, George, Tanya, J.C., and me.

“We’re already getting a slow start, thanks to the accident with the water valve,” Owen went on. “You five need to join your teams so we can get to work.”

I opened my mouth to say that I was pretty sure the water had been opened on purpose, not by accident. But Owen seemed determined not to hold up the volunteer teams any longer.

“Tanya, Bess, you’ll be working on Team A with Marlene,” he said, pointing to a young woman who wore a
HELPING HOMES STAFF
cap over her blond ponytail. “Nancy, George, and J.C., you’re on Team C with Wilson.”

He waved us over to a brown-haired guy who looked like he was about thirty. He was handing out hammers to all of the other volunteers in our group, Travis and Cam among them. As we walked over to them, Cam’s eyes were glued to J.C. He looked embarrassed when J.C. gave him a friendly look.

“You’re co-captain of the Cedar Plains team, right?” J.C. said. “What’s your name?”

“Cam,” Cam told him. “The team is totally psyched that we’re going to train with the Bullets this week.”

I noticed that he didn’t tell J.C. his last name—not that I was surprised. Cam probably didn’t want to advertise that his brother was the one who had knocked J.C. down the day before.

“We’re going to teach you boys a few moves that’ll knock your socks off,” J.C. continued, winking at Cam. “You’re working with real pros now, not just local has-beens.”

“That’s, uh, great,” Cam mumbled. But I saw the uncomfortable way he stared down at his feet. As J.C. moved over to Travis, Cam turned to me and said, “How come Brad isn’t here?”

I scanned the crowd, then sighed. “I was hoping maybe
you
would know,” I said.

“Beats me,” Cam said, shaking his head. “He was going to give me a ride today, but he called last night to say he had something to do first,” Cam said.

“Something to do
before
seven a.m.?” George said, raising an eyebrow.

We didn’t have time to talk about it any longer. Owen clapped his hands loudly and said, “Let’s get to work, everyone! And remember, the word for today is ‘Sheetrock.’ We’ve got one hundred apartments to
finish, and they all need walls. That means nailing Sheetrock to the beams, then taping and plastering the seams to make them smooth.”

Wilson led our team to an apartment on the newly constructed second floor of the old foundry. Actually, it didn’t look like much of an apartment yet. A skeleton of beams marked where the walls would go between the living room, kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms. Wilson split our team into smaller groups and gave each one a different room to work on. Once he showed us how to nail planks of Sheetrock over the beams to make the walls, we went to work.

For the next few hours we were too busy to think about Brad—or about who might have opened the water valve and taken the photos of the foundry. George and I lifted and hammered so many sheets of plaster wallboard in place that the muscles in my arms ached. Walls covered more and more of the open beams, and we gradually lost sight of J.C., Cam, Travis, and the other volunteers. The sounds of hammering echoed through the foundry until Wilson announced that it was time to break for lunch.

When we got to the lobby, I saw that the coffee urn had been replaced with dozens of bulging bagged lunches. George took a paper bag and peeked inside.

“Sandwich, chips, an apple. . . . Looks good to me. I’m starved!” she said.

I grabbed a bag for myself, as well as a couple of bottles of water from a case on the floor next to the table. Most of the volunteers were heading outside, so George and I followed.

The day was mild and bright. Except for the still-muddy ground outside the foundry—and the swollen river below the cliffs—there was no sign of the wet weather that had caused so much flooding and destruction.

“There are Bess and Tanya,” George said. She stepped around a muddy patch of ground, heading toward the cliffs. Mud gave way to a wide strip of solid rock overlooking the river. Dozens of volunteers sat on the rocks eating their lunches in the bright sunshine. Bess and Tanya sat about ten feet from the edge, using their flattened bags as makeshift plates. They waved us over, but I hesitated when I saw Cam and a bunch of his teammates hovering around the Bullets farther down the rocks.

“I’ll catch up with you,” I said to George.

Jogging over to Cam, I said, “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

Cam turned a surprised look my way. “Uh, sure. What’s up?” he asked, stepping away from the other guys.

“I was just wondering,” I began. “Did you help your brother deliver materials to the foundry this morning?”

“Kind of,” he told me. “I mean, Craig gave me a ride, but I couldn’t help him with the delivery. I was late, so I ran to catch up with everyone.”

Cam’s gaze shifted to the parking lot, and he added, “Man, it’s about time Brad got here.”

Squinting into the sunshine, I saw Brad’s tall figure getting out of his beat-up old sedan. As he walked toward the foundry, I saw that mud caked the bottoms of his sneakers and dirt smudged his jeans and T-shirt.

“What’d he do, get lost in a swamp?” I muttered. Brad’s gaze flickered our way. But instead of coming over to us, he looked quickly away and headed toward the foundry building.

“Brad!” I called.

Brad kept walking, without turning toward me. He didn’t stop until I ran up to him and touched his arm.

“Didn’t you hear me?” I asked. “Where were you all morning? We got worried when we didn’t see you.”

Brad raked a hand through his hair. “I . . . I just had something to do, that’s all,” he told me.

“Well, give your mom a call, all right?” I said. “I promised her you would.”

“Hmm? Okay . . . sure,” he said distractedly. He
kept glancing nervously around instead of looking me in the eye. “Oh, there’s Mr. Jurgensen. I’d better go talk to him and find out what I should do.”

Brad practically ran away, leaving me to stare after him. When I walked back over to the rocks near the cliffs, Bess, George, and Tanya all looked at me expectantly.

“So, where
was
Brad all morning?” George asked.

“I still don’t know,” I said, sitting down next to them and opening my bagged lunch. “He totally avoided talking to me.”

“Weird,” Bess commented.

I had to agree with her. “He’s been through a lot because of the floods, but this is the first time I’ve seen him act so . . . I don’t know . . . secretive,” I said. I glanced toward the entrance to the foundry, where Brad and Owen were talking, then shook myself. “Anyway, I guess we’ve got other things to think about.”

“Like trying to find out who could have opened the water valve and stolen those photographs?” asked George.

“Exactly,” I said.

For the rest of our lunch break George and Bess and I talked to volunteers and Helping Homes staffers. Unfortunately, we didn’t learn much. A few people saw Craig stacking Sheetrock and boxes of hardware under the tarp outside the foundry. No one
remembered seeing him inside. No one recalled seeing anyone go into the room where the main water valve was either. When we went back inside at the end of the break, I wasn’t sure what to think about J.C.’s theory that Craig was trying to get at him by hurting Helping Homes.

“It does seem a little far-fetched,” George said. We glanced behind us, where J.C., Travis, Brad, Cam, and Tanya followed in a big group. Brad seemed more relaxed now. He was actually smiling and laughing while he talked with Tanya. “I just hope nothing else happens, that’s all.”

Inside, Bess joined her team on the first floor, while George and I headed up the metal staircase. We were almost to the second floor when we heard a scream downstairs, followed by an angry outburst.

“Hey! Who wrecked my work?”

George and I both stopped short, and George whipped her head around. “That sounded like Bess!” she said.

The two of us raced back down the stairs, weaving around Cam, Travis, and some other volunteers who were behind us. “I think she’s down there,” I said, heading for the hallway that led left from the lobby of the foundry.

“There!” George said, as we sprinted down the
hallway. She pointed to the end of the hall, where a crowd spilled out of one of the doorways.

As George and I squeezed inside, I saw an entry hall, living room, and kitchen area similar to those in the apartment where George and I had worked all morning.

“Bess?” George angled around a guy wearing protective goggles—and then stopped short. “Uh-oh,” she moaned.

Bess and Tanya stood at the front of the crowd, staring in horror at the living room wall. Panels of Sheetrock had been put up, but the wall looked far from perfect. A ragged hole three feet around had been smashed into it. Chunks of plaster, paper, cement, and smashed bricks covered the floor at their feet.

But what really caught my attention were the three words someone had sprayed on the wall in dripping silver paint:

J.C. GO HOME

A knot twisted in my stomach as I read the message. “I guess J.C. wasn’t imagining things when he told us he’s a target,” I said.

W
ho would write something so hateful?” Bess asked.

“It’s not just hateful. It’s destructive,” Tanya said angrily. “We just finished nailing up that Sheetrock before lunch. Now we’ll have to rip off the wrecked part and do it all over again!”

We all turned as Owen made his way through the crowd. He took one look at the wall and scowled. I could see he was upset, but I guess he didn’t want people to panic. “Calm down, everyone,” he said, speaking above the anxious murmurs that echoed in the crowded apartment. “Let’s get back to work. I’ll handle this.”

Volunteers began filing out of the apartment, but George and I hung back.

“I don’t get it,” Owen said, still frowning at the
spray-painted message. “Helping Homes renovations have never been targeted this way before.”