"Nixon, Joan Lowery - Mary Elizabeth 01 - The Dark and Deadly Pool" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nixon Joan Lowery)

"You keep interrupting me," I said.
Fran looked surprised. "Oh? Sorry. What did you want to say?"
I thought a moment. "Uh—nothing, I guess." Great conversationalist, Mary Elizabeth Rafferty, I told myself. I was glad that Fran couldn't see my cheeks turn red.
"Then why don't we go home?" he said. "Remember. I'll follow you."
"I don't need—"
"Yes, you do." Fran turned and walked away.
I drove home with the headlights of Fran's car shining in my rearview mirror. As I pulled into the driveway of our house, he paused, gave a wave, then drove away. Even though Fran drove something that made Old Junk Bucket look good, it had been comforting to have his company on the way home.
I had left a light on in the house. It felt a little funny to be at home alone, but everything in the house was so comfortably familiar I could handle it.
Dad had been sent to Dallas on company business, and Mom had gone with him.
"Are you sure you won't mind being alone?" Mom had asked. "We've never left you alone before. Of course, Mrs. Zellendorf next door has promised to keep an eye on you—uh, on the house."
"Don't talk baby-sitters. I'm a big girl now." I grinned at Mom.
"You could come with us," she suggested.
"No," I said. "I took a job. Remember? Responsibility and all that stuff? Anyhow, I'm going to like the job, and I want to stick with it."
"Good for you," Mom had said as she hugged me, but I had to remind her at least forty times before they drove to the airport that I was going to be all right during the week they'd be gone.
Now I sleepily gave the house a check-over and washed down two of Mom's double-chocolate-chip cookies with a glass of milk. I debated about writing another letter to my best and shortest friend, Amy Peters, who was spending the summer with her father in Connecticut. But I was too tired, so I went to bed. I had time only to smile at the bejeweled audience in Jones Hall and raise my baton before I fell asleep.

Art Marl was working out with the weights when I arrived at the health club the next afternoon. His name is really Arthur Martin, director of the health club and my boss.
"I have to talk to you," I said.
He put down the barbell and flexed his muscles, smiling smugly at his deeply tanned reflection in the huge mirror across the room. Tina told me that Art is the one who had the mirror put in.
"Art," I went on, "I have to tell you what happened last night."
He managed to pull his gaze away from the mirror and turned his attention to me. I was reminded of the facial exercises we had to do in junior-high drama class. First he stared, trying to remember who I was. Then he smiled. And finally, as what I said dawned on him, he scowled. "What happened? You didn't disturb any of the hotel guests, did you?"
"Of course not," I said, and told him about the late-night swimmer.
Art sighed, hitched up his shorts, and started for the outdoor section of the pool. "Come on," he said. "We'll take a look."
I followed him, but not as closely as the appreciative stares of two girls who were splashing around in the shallow water of the indoor pool. They were welcome to him. Art wasn't my type.
"If you think that Art is nothing but a pretty face," Tina had told me during my first day on the job, "you're right."
Mrs. Bandini, one of the afternoon regulars, yoo-hooed at me from her chair across the pool. I just waved back and managed to bang into the edge of the glass door as it swung shut
I rubbed my shoulder and hurried to catch up with Art. Some little boy was cannonballing into the pool, drenching the sunbathers, who yelled at him.
"It's against the rules," I said to the boy, but he made a face at me and leapt into the water.
I wasn't going to worry about him now I had to keep up with Art, who dove into a gap in the shrubbery and worked his way along the brick wall, moving toward the left I thought I'd help, so I did the same thing, working my way toward the right.
Near what should have been a ninety-degree angle in the wall, where a jasmine vine spread itself over the mottled brick, I saw bright cracks of light. I pulled back a handful of vine, startled that it swung so easily, and there it was—a gap at least a foot wide where the two walls didn't meet. The shrubs on both sides of the walls were so thick that the gap was well hidden.
I struggled from the shrubbery, pulling twigs from my hair, and bumped into Art.
"So there you are," he said. "I thought you must have gone back inside to start your shift." He wasn't very subtle. He stared at his watch and then at me.
"I was helping you look," I said.
"It's a waste of time," Art said. "No way anyone could get in or out of here."
"Yes, there is!" I said. "There's a gap where the walls don't meet. I found it!"
He looked surprised. "You're kidding."
"No, I'm not. Go look for yourself."
Art looked at his watch again. "Okay. But you'd better get into the office. And scrub the tiles around the Jacuzzi before you leave tonight. Deeley called in sick this morning, so they didn't get taken care of."
I thought he'd be more excited by my news. "But somebody got into the pool last night. He must have squeezed through that gap."
"Some kid probably," Art said.
"We should have somebody close it."
"I'll get maintenance on it."
"Do you want me to call them when I get to the office?"
"I want you to do your job," he said. "You'll be the only one on duty. I'll take care of it later. G'wan, Liz. Get busy."
Mrs. Bandini waved at me again. Her friend, Mrs. Larabee, had joined her. She waved too. "I've got something to tell you," Mrs. Bandini called.
"I'll be there in a minute," I called back.

Quickly I locked my handbag in the bottom desk drawer and checked the women's dressing room, picking up a few towels that had been dropped on a bench under the sign saying, PLEASE PUT TOWELS IN THE BASKET. I turned off a shower that had been left dripping and gave the rest room a once-over. I put a fresh stack of towels on the little table next to the door leading from the office to the exercise room, and scanned the pool area from the office window. There seemed to be only four hotel guests and eight club members. It was always pretty quiet in midafternoon. The hotel guests began to arrive around five-thirty. Their business meetings were over, and they were ready for a swim. The club could gel pretty crowded during weekday evenings. Even though Art Mart had undoubtedly done the cross-check with the photo-ID cards, I went over them too.
The photo-ID cards were Lamar's idea. As the hotel guests registered at the front desk, they were also automatically registered on film by hidden cameras. They didn't know they were being photographed, and Lamar thought it was better that way. No nonsense about posing or wanting a copy or getting embarrassed because it was a bad shot. He wasn't looking for star quality, Lamar had said. He was simply taking one more step to guard the safety and well-being of all guests of the Ridley Hotel.
The security force studied those photographs, and believe me, there were no strangers wandering around the Ridley Hotel. Duplicate cards were sent each morning and afternoon to the health club along with a list of guests who had checked out, so their cards could be tossed. The cards of regular club members, who lived in Houston, were also on file.