Troubled Waters (Nancy Drew (All New) Girl Detective Book 23) (4 page)

One look at Bess and George, and I knew our answer. “We’d love to,” I agreed.

“Great! A couple of the Bullets are coming too,” Tanya told us. “We just have to wait until they’re done with the press.”

Deirdre left, and Brad’s teammates finally had their chance to meet the Bullets. The two teams stood together posing for the RH News and the
Bugle
. Brad and Cam, the two co-captains, stood right up front next to J.C. Valdez. Brad looked as if he couldn’t
stop grinning, but Cam didn’t seem nearly as excited. He kept glancing moodily toward the parking lot.

“Look who’s still here,” I murmured, frowning.

Craig Reynolds was leaning against the cab of the Reynolds Building Supply truck. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his steely gaze was fixed on J.C. Valdez.

I
woke up the next morning with the uneasy feeling that something wasn’t right. Maybe the problem was just that it wasn’t even six o’clock yet. I mean, getting up before it’s even light out could make
anyone
feel unsettled. And it didn’t help that I kept remembering the sullen, angry way Craig Reynolds had stared at J.C. Valdez from the parking lot of the Davis Foundry.

Don’t make such a big deal of it, I told myself as I got dressed, went into the kitchen, made myself some coffee, and had a seat. Volunteering with Helping Homes will still be great.

After all, George and Bess and I had had a fantastic time with Tanya and the other volunteers the night before. We’d met a couple guys from the Bullets,
including a point guard named Travis who’d talked sports with George practically the whole evening. Everyone was really psyched about working with Helping Homes.

“Nancy?”

I looked up from the kitchen table to see Cathy standing in the doorway in her bathrobe. “Have you seen Brad? I just checked the sofa bed in the family room, but he’s not there,” she said. She crossed to the kitchen door and peered through the window. “His car’s gone.”

“Maybe he headed over to the foundry early?” I suggested.

“Maybe.” Frowning, Cathy poured a cup of coffee and sat down next to me. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t seen or spoken to him since he left the Historical Society yesterday. He usually calls to check in, but . . .”

“Yesterday he didn’t?” I guessed.

Cathy sighed. “I fell asleep after midnight, and he wasn’t home yet. And now he’s up and gone so early. The only reason I know he was here at all is that the sofa bed is rumpled. He obviously slept in it.”

“He was excited about training with the Bullets,” I said. “Maybe he couldn’t wait to—”

I broke off as two quick blasts of a car horn sounded outside.

“Oops! That’s George. Gotta go.” I gulped down the last of my coffee, grabbed my work hat, and jumped to my feet. “I’ll tell you what. When we get to the foundry, we’ll tell Brad to call and check in with you, okay?”

“Thanks, Nancy,” Cathy said with a smile. “I’m probably worrying over nothing.”

I ran outside and climbed in the backseat of George’s car. She and Bess were both dressed for the job, right down to their work boots and green Helping Homes caps. Bess turned to grin at me from the passenger seat. “Ready to burn some calories and get some calluses?” she asked. “Something tells me building these apartments is going to be a serious workout.”

“No pain no gain,” George quipped, turning in the driver’s seat. “Anyway, it’s for a good cause. Where’s Brad?”

“That’s what Cathy wants to know too. He probably left early for the foundry,” I said.

When we got to the Davis Foundry, volunteers were stumbling sleepily toward the sprawling brick building. I didn’t see Brad—though if he’d gotten there early, he was probably inside already. Following the crowd, we headed through the massive double doors at the entrance.

“Wow!” Bess said. “Is this place cool or what?”

We hadn’t actually come into the foundry during
the press conference the day before. Now that we did, all I could do at first was stare. The room we were standing in was cavernous—at least three stories high with some second-floor brick offices or workrooms overlooking the wide-open space. At least, the
original
room of the foundry was wide open. But Helping Homes was already starting to transform it. Only the area near the double doors had been left open. I figured that would be the lobby. An old clock over the door, with
DAVIS FOUNDRY
etched into its metal frame, had been left untouched. But the space beyond was filling up with a skeletal frame of wooden and aluminum beams where new walls would be. A new second floor had already been built, with a new balcony that jutted up against the bricks of the old offices, and a metal staircase that zigzagged up to it. I could see where the elevators would be installed and a framework of wooden beams outlining the ground-floor hallways to the left and right of us. Winding through the beams was a network of shiny new pipes and electrical wires.

“Good morning, all!” Owen said, speaking though a megaphone a few feet away from us. He stood next to some rolling racks filled with more saws, hammers, drills, wrenches, and safety goggles than I’d ever seen in one place. “We’re going to start off with a tour, so grab some coffee and doughnuts.”

I’d been so busy checking out the construction
that I hadn’t noticed the table next to the entrance, with a coffee urn and doughnuts on it.

“Check it out,” George said. She leaned over the table to gaze at some framed photographs hanging on the wall above it. “These must be the photos Mr. Eldridge brought from the Historical Society yesterday.”

“Right you are,” Owen said, coming over to us. “They’re just copies, of course. The originals are over at the Historical Society.” He pointed at the closest photograph, of welders working on slabs of metal next to a glowing furnace, with sparks flying everywhere. “That one was taken right where we are now, as a matter of fact.”

A second photo showed a machine that churned out a roll of flat metal three times as big as the man who operated the machine. There were two others as well, plus a framed floor plan of the old foundry, but Owen didn’t give us time to look at them closely.

“Okay, everyone. We’ve got a lot to get done today, so let’s start our tour,” Owen said, speaking through the megaphone once more. He smiled as Tanya hurried through the doorway with her tool belt in her hands. “Latecomers can join us as they get here.”

Tanya dropped her tool belt near the coffee table, next to backpacks and jackets that other volunteers had piled there. She caught up with Bess and
George and me as we followed Owen farther into the foundry.

“Did Owen say what we’ll be doing today?” she whispered.

Bess shook her head. “I guess we’ll find out after the tour,” she said.

Up ahead Owen headed between the beams that framed in a long hallway to the left of the lobby. “As you can see, we’ve already built an extra floor and have started framing the halls and apartments,” he said over his shoulder. “Plumbing and electricity are almost finished. Now we’ll be working in teams to do the rest.”

“Everything?” one guy asked, shooting a daunted look around.

Owen laughed. “It’s not as overwhelming as it sounds,” he promised. “We’ll work in teams, with a Helping Homes staffer like me in charge of each group. We’ll be putting up Sheetrock . . .”

“What’s that?” Bess asked.

“The boards that make up the walls,” Tanya explained. “They’re made of compressed plaster with a coating of paper that makes the walls smooth. There’s a stack of them over there.”

Tanya pointed to large paper-coated boards that leaned against some beams, alongside rolls of fluffy pink insulation. The slabs of Sheetrock looked pretty
big—the boards were about four feet by eight feet and almost an inch thick. I wasn’t sure I could lift even one by myself. As I glanced into the maze of beams on either side of the hallway, I saw other materials scattered about: plywood, boxes of nails, more insulation, spare pipes, and wires.

“Teams will also work to insulate walls, install cabinets, floors, bathroom fixtures . . . ,” Owen went on. “Of course, we’ve tried to keep details from the old foundry wherever possible. The clock in the lobby is being fixed, and several old brick ovens are being converted to fireplaces.”

“Cool.” Bess glanced around, then frowned and said, “Where’s Brad? I thought you said he came here early, Nancy.”

“Oops, I totally forgot to look for him,” I admitted. Scanning the faces around us, I saw that a lot of guys from Brad’s team had arrived. I recognized some of the players from the Lowell team, too, but Brad was still missing in action.

“I don’t get it. Why isn’t he here yet?” I whispered. I circled around some plywood and insulation that had been stacked on the floor. “I mean, he left the house before I even got up. Where else—”

I broke off talking and cocked my head to the side. Sputtering, gurgling noises echoed from the pipes around us.

“What’s that?” Bess said. “Sounds like—”

Before she could get another word out, water started spurting from a pipe set against the beams right next to us.

“Hey! What the . . . ?” Bess cried, trying to block the spray with her hands.

We all jumped back, but fountains of water burst from
more
pipes behind us.

“Oh my gosh!” Tanya cried. “The whole foundry is flooding!”

I
ducked behind some beams, wiping water from my face. Shrieks echoed in the cavernous space. Coffee cups dropped as volunteers scattered in all directions.

“The pipes are open where faucets and tubs and sinks haven’t been installed yet,” Owen stammered. Water streamed across the worried grooves in his forehead. “The water main was turned off, but someone must have opened it!”

“That Sheetrock is getting ruined!” Tanya cried. She sprinted to the panels of plasterboard and started pulling them away from the sprays of water.

Owen was already racing past us on his way back toward the lobby. “Move everything you can while I shut the main valve again!” he called.

George and I grabbed a couple of rolls of insulation.
“Ugh,” George said, grimacing at the soggy stuff. It looked like cotton candy that had been left out in the rain. “This looks totally ruined.”

Volunteers scrambled all over, moving everything we could away from the spurting pipes. A minute later the water stopped gushing.

“Over here, everyone!” Owen called from the direction of the lobby.

We headed toward the sound of his voice, squeezing water from our hair and clothes. Tanya pinched a corner of soggy Sheetrock from one of the panels she had moved. It squished between her fingers like mud.

“This can’t be good,” Bess muttered.

Other volunteers seemed to share her concern. I heard a lot of worried murmurs as we worked our way back to the front of the building. I was glad to see that the lobby, at least, was still mostly dry. Water pipes ran along one side of the open area, but not through the center where people had dumped their belongings next to the refreshment table and rolling carts of tools. A handful of late arrivals stood near the table staring at us. Travis, the guy from the Bullets who’d been out with us the night before, took one look at George’s wet hair and clothes and asked, “What happened?”

“I can answer that,” Owen spoke up. He peered
from around the corner of a doorway set into the bricks. “Come over here, everyone.”

He led us into a separate room filled with water heaters, boilers, and fuse boxes. Half a dozen pipes twisted along the wall like branches of a tree, coming together at a larger pipe just above the floor. Water lay pooled on the concrete floor beneath the pipe.

“This is the main water valve,” Owen said, touching the pipe. “All it takes is a few turns of a wrench, and the water for the entire building can be turned on and off,” he explained. “Obviously, someone turned it on by mistake.”

“By mistake?” I repeated. “You think someone tracked down the water valve and took a wrench to it by
mistake
?”

“You’d be surprised,” Owen said, laughing. “This isn’t the first time an overeager volunteer did something they shouldn’t have and didn’t want to admit it.”

I didn’t say anything more. I mean, the guy had a lot more experience at construction work than I did. Still, I didn’t feel nearly as sure as Owen that the valve had been opened accidentally.

“Uh-oh. I know that look.” George raised an eyebrow at me. “What are you thinking, Nancy?”

I went down a mental list of all the things that nagged at me. “Well, there was that argument yesterday,
and now this,” I said. “Not to mention that Brad
still
hasn’t shown up.”

Not that I had a clue as to what those things had to do with one another. I quickly scanned the faces around us, but all I saw were looks of concern. Nothing suspicious. “I don’t know . . . maybe nothing weird is going on,” I added, shrugging.

As Owen led us all back to the lobby, I saw J.C. Valdez come through the double doors. Owen glanced at him quickly, then checked his watch. “Enough delays. Let’s get started,” he said briskly. “Volunteers, when I call your name, join your team leader. . . .”

Three men and a woman—all wearing caps labeled
HELPING HOMES STAFF
—stood to one side. As Owen introduced them, I saw Tanya bend to pick up her tool belt from among the piles of belongings on the floor.

“Hey, where’s my wrench?” I heard her say under her breath. She pushed a finger through an empty leather loop next to her hammer. “It was right here.”

As Tanya searched among the backpacks and jackets, I gazed distractedly at the orange rubber handle of her hammer. Warning bells went off inside my head. “Be right back,” I whispered to Bess and George. “I want to check something.”

I put on my work gloves and walked back to the
room with the boilers and water heaters and scanned the maze of new pipes that twisted along the brick walls. “No wrench so far,” I murmured.

Lowering my gaze, I walked slowly among the new boilers, water heaters, and electrical boxes.