Page 75 of The Summer Guests

“By cleaning out Dad’s refrigerator?”

Their father laughed. “He’s just helping me defrost it. That pizza was probably ten years old.”

“Still tasted fine,” Finn mumbled around a mouthful of cookie.

To Finn, everything tasted fine. He had the most undiscriminating palate of anyone Jo knew, and over the years she’d watched her brother eat moldy cheese and green luncheon meat without suffering even a twinge of heartburn. Nor did he ever pack on extra pounds. While Jo had to count every calorie she ate, her wiry brother devoured doughnuts and cheeseburgers without gaining an ounce. She eyed the tempting plate of cookies, thoughtOh, what the hell,and grabbed one.

“You said you had questions about diving?” Finn asked Jo.

Owen frowned at his daughter. “You thinking of taking up scuba? I thought you hated the water.”

“I do hate the water. This is about the skeleton Finn pulled out of Maiden Pond.”

“You ID her yet?”

“No. But we’re starting to think that skeleton might have something to do with the abduction of Zoe Conover.”

“How do you figure that? I heard the girl was dumped miles away from the pond.”

“And there may be a reason for that.” She looked at Finn. “Tell me about apnea diving.”

Finn laughed. “Now there’s an abrupt change in subject. How does that come in?”

“It’s from Zoe’s Facebook page. She posted on that page a lot, so I had to scroll way back through all the stuff she wrote about her classes and her girlfriends and clothes, blah blah blah. There was also a lot about her being on the swim team. Apparently, she and the other girls on the team were into something called ‘apnea diving.’ I didn’t realize it might be significant until Maggie Bird told me—”

“Hey, is she the spook?” said Finn.

She looked at her father. “You told him?”

“That they’re spooks? It’s not like it’s a big secret, is it?” said Owen. “You told me back in February you thought they were CIA.”

“EvenI’mnot supposed to know that.”

Owen shrugged. “So they’ll just have to kill us all.”

“It stays within these walls, okay?” said Jo, and she fixed Finn with a warning look.

Her brother raised his hand. “Scout’s honor.”

“Now tell me about apnea diving. According to YouTube, it’s a hot thing these days.”

“Yeah. The ultimate free diving experience.”

“Meaning?”

“No scuba gear, no fins, no weights. Just you and the water.”

“That sounds like plain old swimming to me,” said Owen.

“It’s way more than that. You’re not just swimming—you’re diving really deep, without an air supply.”

“How deep?” said Jo.

“There are records of divers going eighty, a hundred feet. And that’s without wearing weights, so divers have to fight their own natural buoyancy just to get beneath the surface.”

“That’s insane.”

“But it’s true. Those depths are on the record.”

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