The Trap (2 page)

“That’s our creek,” Aunt Glenda said. “It’s usually not even ankle deep, except after a big rain, when it’s swollen. Then no one can drive in or out.”

“Can’t someone build a bridge?” I asked. My question made sense to me, but Aunt Glenda gave a strange laugh.

“What, and spoil all this rustic wonderfulness?” she said. She didn’t smile. In fact, she looked positively grim, so I decided not to ask any more questions.

We rounded another curve, and to my right I saw a house. A porch light was on, and although the downstairs seemed dark, there were lights in two of the rooms upstairs. A wide porch stretched across the front of the house, and it looked welcoming.

“I like your house,” I said.

Glenda gave a quick glance to the right, then said, “That’s not our house. That’s where Mabel and Harvey McBride live.”

Startled, I said, “I thought this was
your
ranch.”

“Oh, no,” Glenda said. “We only own ten acres. We’ve got one of the smallest spreads. The McBrides own twenty-five acres, and I think Ann and Eugene Barrow own the largest spread—fifty acres. There are twenty retired couples who own spreads in Rancho del Oro.”

“I don’t understand,” I told her. “How can each of you own separate ranches if this is all one big ranch?”

“You’ll have to get your uncle Gabe to explain it all to you,” she said. “It has to do with taxes. We invest in Rancho del Oro, which is a working ranch. We select
property and can build on it, but otherwise we don’t interfere with the cattle that live on the ranch, which means we can’t build fences or grow tall hedges or even shoo them away. When cattle are sold, we either make a joint profit or we take a joint loss. If it’s a loss, then at least there’s a tax write-off.”

“Is that why you moved here from Dallas?” I asked.

“For me, yes. The only reason.” She looked even grimmer.

I thought about Glenda’s success as an interior designer and how surprised Mom and Dad and all the aunts and uncles had been when she’d given it up. “Did you want to retire from the design center?” I asked.

Glenda made a strange noise that was almost a groan, almost a sob, but she tried to smile. “Your questions are getting a bit personal, sweetie.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I only—” I stopped speaking as Aunt Glenda slammed on the brakes. Directly in front of her car stood a very large cow.

The cow rolled her eyes in fright and let out a terrifying bellow. It was so loud I clapped my hands over my ears. Then I reached for the door handle. “I’ll get out and see if it’s hurt,” I said.

“I didn’t even touch it,” Aunt Glenda told me. “I think it’s just scared.”

The cow kept her big eyes on us, this time with a look of reproach. She let out another bellow and moved off the road into the darkness.

“It made an awful sound,” I said. “I thought cows just said ‘Moo.’ ”

Aunt Glenda shook her head. “On their better days they make a noise that sounds like a baritone with a sinus infection.”

We both laughed, and I began to like this great-aunt, who would never win prizes for her driving ability but seemed to have a good sense of humor.

As Aunt Glenda continued to drive toward home, she pointed out landmarks, such as the clubhouse with its swimming pool, and the stables. I stretched to get a glimpse of the pool area and began to feel a little better about the way I was going to spend my summer vacation. I wouldn’t have to give up swimming. I could do my daily laps and stay in practice. Maybe I could still be on the team when I got home.

But the creepy feelings returned as we reached the end of the road and turned into a long driveway. The house was low and spread out, just one story. But at one end, over the carport, was a small towerlike room, with shrouded windows all around and a steep stairway on the outside wall.

Aunt Glenda saw me staring up at the tower as we climbed from the car, and she stopped, resting a hand on my shoulder. “That’s a room your uncle Gabe added. He outfitted it as an observatory,” she said. “He loves to study the stars. That’s his hobby.”

She sighed, and I could feel the tremor in her fingers as she lowered her voice. “He fell on those stairs. He said something was there to trip him. His shoe caught on something, and he tripped. But later, when we looked, we couldn’t find anything that might have caused him to fall.” She gripped my shoulder more tightly. “Of course he’s wrong in thinking it wasn’t an
accident. But he has always been careful, Julie, so I can’t help wondering …”

I tried to make sense of what she had said. If Uncle Gabe’s fall hadn’t been an accident, as he’d insisted, then something had caused him to fall. If it hadn’t been found, then it must have been taken away. In this lonely, secluded place, why would something like that happen, and who could have done it?

As I took my suitcase and laptop from the car and followed Aunt Glenda to the front door of her house, I couldn’t resist looking over my shoulder into the darkness. I realized I already missed the city sounds of Santa Monica, the echoes of traffic from the highway, the occasional sirens down on the boulevard, and the seagulls’ cries. This lonely place in Texas was smothered in a deadly silence that scared me a little.

I made a dash through the open door of the house, slamming and locking it tightly behind us.

IN SPITE OF THE TWO-HOUR TIME DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
California and Texas, I awoke early Monday morning to see gray streaks of light soaking up the night sky. As I stood at my bedroom window, gazing across a wide clearing into a vine-tangled mass of scrub and oak, a deer came into view. Stepping delicately, like a prima ballerina, the doe hesitated and glanced to each side. Seemingly satisfied, she bent to nibble the cropped plants at her feet.

I slid open the window to get a better view, but she saw me and raised her head. For one quick instant she stared into my eyes; then she turned and bounded out of sight. A large black crow swooped down from the trees, cawing and scolding, and the spell was broken.

I glanced at the clock: 5:45. Glenda had told me the pool opened at six, so I fumbled in my suitcase for my swimsuit. I’d unpack the rest of my clothes later. I was eager to swim laps before breakfast.

Wearing tennies and pulling a T-shirt over my suit, I
quietly picked up the car keys Glenda had given me. I walked down the hall past the master bedroom and another guest bedroom and through the living room, with its muted blue-and-gray sofa and big easy chairs, and left the house. Still awed by the silence of this place, I drove down to the pool area and parked. I tried the door of the pool office to see if I had to sign in, but it was locked, and no one was inside. Two sides of the room were windows, so it was easy to see inside. The walls were stark white and bare, except for a calendar. A white metal desk that faced the door held a computer and a messy clutter of papers. At one side of the room, looking totally out of place, was a lumpy red plaid sofa.

I walked through the open gate to the pool, and to my disappointment, I wasn’t alone. It was only two minutes after six, but a cluster of white swim caps already dotted the shallow end of the pool.

The chatter stopped when the swimmers spied me.

“Yoo-hoo,” someone called. “Are you here to join our water exercise class?”

I quickly walked to their end of the pool and looked down on a dozen smiling faces, all of them sun-dotted with reflections from the water and haloed with white rubber. One swim cap even had ruffled flowers on it.

“I’m Julie Hollister,” I told them. “I’m here visiting my father’s aunt and uncle, Glenda and Gabe Hollister.”

“Oh, your darling aunt!”

“She’ll be so glad to have company.”

“How awful for Gabe to take that terrible fall!”

“I said those stairs looked dangerous. Didn’t I, Mabel? Don’t you remember my saying it?”

The babble went on, growing in intensity, until a tall, lean, and bronzed King of the Swimming Pool, wearing the briefest of swim trunks, strode up and quietly ordered, “Settle down, ladies. We’re ready to get started.”

What a total hunk! I almost joined the exercise class myself. But I was here to swim laps, not work on tightening my stomach muscles with a bunch of grandmothers. I excused myself and dove into the deep end of the pool. After I got over the shock of the cold water, which was not yet warmed by the sun, I swam short laps and made plans. With the exercisers taking up the east end of the pool, I wouldn’t be able to swim long laps, but at least I could keep up with some of my regular workout program. I’d find out what days the exercise ladies met and time my swimming so I’d have the pool to myself.

Half an hour later, as I toweled myself dry, I read the posted schedule near the office door. It listed the 6:00
A.M.
exercise class only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and gave the time the pool was open each day of the week. I quickly glanced at the few other notices that had been tacked on the board. A faded-ink file card, dated in early May, offered a $50 reward for Betty Jo Crouch’s lost gold and diamond watch. The club was taking reservations for next Sunday’s evening buffet. A restaurant, a cleaning service, and a dentist in Kerrville had tacked up business cards.

When I returned to the house, Glenda had set up the toaster, had placed a package of frozen waffles beside it, and had poured orange juice for the two of us. I
showered and dressed quickly, knowing that as soon as we had finished eating, we’d go to the hospital to visit Uncle Gabe.

“Now, don’t mind if he seems a bit out of sorts,” Glenda warned me as we arrived at the hospital. “He’s bound to want to tell you all about how his fall wasn’t an accident. I’m sure he’s wrong, but don’t argue. Just listen and be patient.”

I wasn’t about to argue with anybody.

The Kerrville hospital was tiny compared to our supersized St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, but it featured the same gleaming white walls and tile floors, and corridors onto which opened endless identical doors.

Gabe was propped in bed, supported by two oversized pillows. Attached to him was an IV bag that hung on a hook near the right side of the bed.

His eyes lit up when he saw me. “Glad you could come, Julie,” he said. “I didn’t want your aunt Glenda on her own, after what happened.”

“Nonsense,” Glenda said. She took a step toward the bed and smoothed the wrinkled blanket. “If you’d put out of your mind what happened to you, your blood pressure might settle down and they’d let you go home.”

“Fool doctors,” Gabe muttered. He scratched the top of his bald head. “My blood pressure would go down by itself if they’d just let me out of here. I need to find out what made me take that nosedive on the stairs.”

Glenda spoke softly, as though soothing a child. “It was an accident, dear. I searched the stairs. There was nothing on them to make you trip.”

“Maybe you didn’t want to find anything,” Gabe grumbled.

As Glenda rolled her eyes, he raised himself on an elbow, grunting with the effort, and leaned toward me. “Julie’s young,” he said. “She’s got sharp eyes. Julie can take a good look at those stairs, and I bet she’ll find something. You’ll search them carefully, won’t you, Julie?”

“Now, Gabe,” Glenda began, patience stretching her words into extra syllables.

“Sure, Uncle Gabe,” I said. “The minute we get back, I’ll examine the stairs.”

He relaxed against the pillows, a satisfied smirk on his face. “That’s all I want, Julie. Glenda keeps telling me I fell because I’m getting old. Well, maybe I can’t stop time, but I do know that my age had nothing to do with my fall. Whatever tripped me did.”

Glenda bent to kiss his forehead. “Is there anything you want or need before we leave?” she asked.

Gabe bellowed, “What? You’re leaving already? You just got here.”

Glenda patted his shoulder. “I’d stay here all day, Gabe, if you needed me. Honestly, I would. But I promised to attend the goodbye luncheon for Betty Jo Crouch, and Ann—who’s giving the party—absolutely insisted I was to bring Julie. She wouldn’t hear otherwise.”

Gabe’s lower lip stuck out, just like my little brother Trevor’s when he’s pouting, but Gabe said, “I just want to go home.”

“Then stop fretting and carrying on about your fall,” Glenda told him. “Julie will examine the stairs. She told you she would.”

Gabe scowled at Glenda, then turned to look at me solemnly. “I’m counting on you,” he said.

“I’ll look the minute we get home,” I told him.

I was true to my promise, although after all Glenda had told me, I really didn’t expect to find anything. While Glenda was in the house making last-minute touch-ups to her hair and makeup, I took a close look at the stairs leading up to the room Uncle Gabe called his observatory. I decided to look at the area as if I were Sherlock Holmes.

The outer coat of paint, which matched the pale blue-green trim on the house, was fresh and thick. I looked hard and noticed two tiny nail holes in the supports at each side of the top step. Were they there by mistake? They were about four inches above the step and so small they’d be hard for anyone to notice. I wondered if anyone would even be able to find them after a few more weeks of weathering. I imagined a string—maybe clear plastic fishing line—stretched across from nail to nail.