Read Online Brimstone by Rosemary Clement-Moore - Free Book Online

it, though. I had bigger fish to fry. It was time for some old-fashioned sleuthing. I was going to have to unleash my inner Nancy Drew.

8
    m aybe Nancy Drew isn’t the coolest role model. There are a lot more kick-ass heroines nowadays, like Buffy and that chick from
Alias
. But I had a retro fondness for the girl detective. I didn’t know what I’d find at the pool, but I knew I had to take a closer look. If Karen caught a whiff of icky weirdness, too, then it wasn’t just my freaky intuition.
    The school was far from deserted when I pulled into the parking lot. The baseball and basketball teams had practice. There was a meeting of the decorating committee for the You-Know-What. There would be people still in the newspaper and yearbook offices. And of course, rehearsals for the musical would go until late.
    I was worried the aquatics gym might be locked, or full of swimmers, but my timing was good. As I wove through the locker room, a bunch of dripping, broad-shouldered girls passed on the way to the showers, chattering about split times and fly strokes. I acted like I was supposed to be there, nodding to them and walking purposefully to the pool entrance.
    I hung back against the wall until I saw the boys and their coach pass, leaving the gym empty. My rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the tile as I ventured in. The high dive loomed at the end of the vaulted building, the low board squatting alongside like its own little henchman.
    I forced myself to the lip of the diving pool and looked down. A wave of vertigo hit me, as if I were standing on the edge of a high building. If I fell, the water would swallow me, suck me under, as whatever lurked unseen in the depths captured me with fins and tentacles and dagger-like teeth.
    Get a grip, Maggie
. Sweat prickled under my arms.
What would Nancy do?
    She wouldn’t let her imagination defeat her, that’s for sure. Taking my camera from my bag, I inspected the safe end of the low board first, working up to the hard part. No greasy spots, no loose screws. When I could put it off no longer, I hung my camera around my neck and grabbed the handrail. Nothing left to do but walk the plank.
    My palms left foggy prints on the metal as I edged toward the end of the railing and stopped. My next step would be over the water. I extended my foot …
    And retreated.
    My inner chicken was firmly in control.
    “All right, Mags.” My voice rang in the empty gym. “Don’t be ridiculous. Suck it up and just do it.”
    God. I sounded like my mother, gene-spliced with Coach Milner. But it had become a point of honor now.
    Fists white-knuckled on the railing, I lowered myself to straddle the board. Then I scooted out, my center of gravity glued to the fiberglass. A ridiculous method of locomotion, but it worked. My feet dangled over twenty-one fathoms of water.
    I reached the end with a thrill of satisfaction that quickly turned to disappointment. I’d risked my continued enjoyment of oxygen for nothing. But then I ran my finger over the textured surface and left a swath of lighter-blue behind.
    A strange grimy blackness outlined the whorls of my fingerprints. It wasn’t slippery, like motor oil, though there
was
an oily sort of quality. But sooty, like the stuff that collects on the chimney glass of a hurricane lamp.
    Could it have caused Karen to slip? I didn’t think so. I could vouch for the nonskid treatment of the board; my jeans had rasped with every scoot. Plus, no one else had fallen and the scum coated the board in a thin, complete layer.
    After photographing several angles, I sat for a moment, getting the courage to unclamp my legs and move again. I knew I should appease my grandmother by looking at this with my, I don’t know, instinct, inner sight, third eye, whatever you want to call it. But I didn’t know how to begin. I’d been slamming shut the door of my skepticism for so long, I had no idea how to open it.
    I sighed and gave up trying to make it happen. As soon as I did,