Free Ninth Key by Meg Cabot Page B

he said, his gaze sweeping the neckline of my sweater. “Is that what you two were discussing down here? Yoshi told me something about a newspaper article….”
    “Oh, no.” Mr. Beaumont waved a hand as if to dismiss the whole newspaper thing. “That was just something she made up to get me to see her so she could tell me about the dream. Really quite an extraordinary dream, Marcus. She says she had a dream that a woman told her I didn’t kill her.
Didn’t
kill her, Marcus. Isn’t that interesting?”
    “It certainly is,” Marcus said. He took hold of my arm. “Well, I’m glad you two had a nice little visit. Now I’m afraid Miss Simon has to go.”
    “Oh, no.” Mr. Beaumont, for the first time, stood up behind his desk. He was very tall, I noticed. He also had on green corduroy pants. Green!
    Really, if you ask me, that was the weirdest thing of all.
    “We were just getting to know each other,” Mr. Beaumont said mournfully.
    “I told my mom I’d be home by nine,” I told Marcus really fast.
    Marcus was no dummy. He steered me right into that elevator, saying to Mr. Beaumont, “We’ll have Miss Simon back sometime soon.”
    “Wait.” Mr. Beaumont started to come around from behind his desk. “I haven’t had a chance to —”
    But Marcus jumped into the elevator with me and, letting go of me, slammed the door behind him.

Chapter
Eight
     
     
    A second later we were moving. Whether we were going up or down, I still couldn’t tell. But it didn’t really matter. The fact was, we were moving, and away from Mr. Beaumont, which was all I cared about.
    “Jeez,” I couldn’t help bursting out as soon as I knew I was safe. “What is
with
that guy?”
    Marcus looked down at me.
    “Did Mr. Beaumont hurt you in any way, Miss Simon?”
    I blinked at him. “No.”
    “I’m very glad to hear that.” Marcus looked a little relieved, but he tried to cover it up by being businesslike. “Mr. Beaumont,” he said, “is a little tired this evening. He is a very important, very busy man.”
    “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but that guy’s more than just tired.”
    “Be that as it may,” Marcus said, “Mr. Beaumont does not have time for little girls who enjoy playing pranks.”
    “Prank?”
I echoed, mightily offended. “Listen, mister, I really did…” What was I
saying
? “I really did, um, have that dream, and I resent —”
    Marcus looked down at me tiredly. “Miss Simon,” he said, in a bored voice. “I really don’t want to have to call your parents. And if you promise me you won’t bother Mr. Beaumont ever again with any more of this psychic dream business, I won’t.”
    I almost laughed out loud at that. My
parents
? I’d been worried he was set to call the
police.
My parents I could handle. The police were another matter entirely.
    “Oh,” I said when the elevator stopped and Marcus opened the door to let me back out into the little corridor off the courtyard where the pool was. “All right.” I tried to put a lot of petulant disappointment in my voice. “I promise.”
    “Thank you,” Marcus said.
    He nodded, and then started walking me toward the front door.
    He probably would have kicked me out without another thought if it hadn’t been for the fact that as we were heading past the pool I happened to notice that someone was swimming laps in it. I couldn’t tell who it was at first. It was really dark out, the night sky both moonless and starless because of a thick layer of clouds, and the only lights were the big round ones under the water. They made the person in it look all distorted — kind of like Mr. Beaumont’s face with the light from the aquarium all over it.
    But then the swimmer reached the end of the pool and, his exercise regimen apparently complete, lifted himself out of it, and reached for a towel he’d thrown across a deck chair.
    I froze.
    And not just because I recognized him. I froze because really, it’s not every day you see a
Greek