The Big Splash Read Online Free PDF Page A

convincing other people of that.”
    â€œPoint taken.” She licked the salt off her fingers. “So why do you do it? The whole private-eye thing …”
    I shrugged. “Because I’m good at it. The same reason you play chess.”
    Liz smiled at me. She was a champion chess player, state ranked. Some people said she was a prodigy. Her dad drove her to tournaments twice a month, where she proceeded to beat people three to four times her age.
    â€œI play chess because I love it
and
I’m good at it,” she said. “Big difference.”
    I shrugged.
    â€œUnless you love being a detective …”
    â€œI don’t discuss love in the school hallway.” After I said it I realized that that could have more than one meaning. I quickly turned to my locker. My face felt hot enough to bake cookies on. I grabbed a pretzel, even though the last thing I needed at the moment was something salty … all the moisture in my mouth had evaporated. I fiddled withthe pretzel for a moment, then gathered my courage and turned back toward Liz.
    She didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. She only “humph”-ed again, reached around me, and grabbed another pretzel.
    â€œI think I have some tape in my backpack,” I said, trying to regain my composure. “We could tape the bag right to your mouth. Save you the trouble of having to reach for them.”
    She laughed and threw the pretzel at me. “You’re such a gracious host.”
    â€œHost? Nobody invited you over,” I said with a smile.
    â€œAre you working on a case right now?”
    I didn’t want to start in with the whole Vinny story. Liz wasn’t a huge fan of Vinny’s despite, or maybe because of, her brother’s involvement. Plus, I wasn’t exactly proud of my own compromised principles. “Maybe.”
    She looked at me suspiciously, as if I were a cat with feathers around my mouth sitting under an empty birdcage. “Client confidentiality?” she asked.
    â€œPossibly.”
    â€œOooh … the mysterious Matt Stevens.”
    â€œYou’d better believe it.”
    â€œWhat if I didn’t?” She had a wry smile on her face. She seemed to be inviting me to take a leap, to say something that could move our friendship in another direction. Or maybe she wasn’t. Maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part. Between my earlier “love” comment and my impending face-off with Nikki, I was in no shape to judge what was going on between us just then.
    â€œI have to go,” I said, saving myself the embarrassment of making the wrong decision. I grabbed the bag of pretzels and tossed them to her. “Something to remember me by.” She had a confused look on her face. I closed my locker and walked away before she could ask me another dangerous question.
    â€œSee you around, Stevens!” she called out.
    I had to push Liz out of my mind and get focused, and there would be no hope of doing that if I turned to look at her again. So I waved without turning around, put my head down, and kept walking.
    Nicole’s locker was a couple of hallways over from mine. I took my time getting there, trying to get my nerves in check, but it was no use; I was jittery, like a little kid with a three-candy-bar-a-day habit.
    I turned the final corner, and there she was: NicoleFinnegan, standing at her locker with her back toward me, wearing dark brown pants and a beige top. On most girls, brown looked plain and blah. When Nicole wore it, brown became your new favorite color. She was talking to her sister, Jenny. Jenny looked like the kind of girl who longed to be in one of those sappy romance novels—the kind where all she did was ride a horse and make eyes at the handsome stable boy. She was holding a notebook to her chest, the front of which was covered with pictures of horses, and I smiled at the confirmation of my first impression. She was a