The Twisted Window (8 page)

Silently, Tracy moved to stand beside him, stretching up on her toes to see over the window ledge.

"They must be back in the kitchen," she said. "Do you suppose they do have Mindy here?"

"I don't just suppose it, I know it," said Brad. "I see Bimbo."

"You see what?" Tracy asked in bewilderment.

"Bimbo, Mindy's bear. Can you see that brown thing on the floor over by the recliner? That's the teddy bear I gave Mindy on her very first birthday."

"You mean, Gavin kidnapped the bear as well as your sister!" Tracy said dubiously. "Why would he take the trouble to do that?"

"Bimbo's her favorite toy. She won't go anywhere without him. She must have had him with her when Gavin took her."

There was a short silence, during which they both continued to stare in through the glass at the unpopulated room, as though expecting a child to suddenly pop out of the woodwork.

Then, Tracy commented, "There's a horse in the hallway."

"A horse?" It was Brad's turn now to try to work his way into a better position at the window.

"Move over this way, and you can see it better," said Tracy. "It's one of those big plastic toys on springs that kids bounce on. Back in New York, I used to baby-sit for a lady in the apartment across the hall from ours. Her little boy had a horse like that."

"People don't cart a toy that size around with them," said Brad. "If it's here at the Carvers', that must mean this is where Mindy's staying. Her aunt must be taking care of her on a full-time basis."

Drawing back from the window, he turned and began to work his way farther along the side of the house, stumbling once and almost falling as his feet became tangled in a stray loop of garden hose. When he reached the second lighted window he came to a halt. Through it he could see a kitchen in which four people were gathered around a table, eating dinner. Standing well back in the shelter of darkness provided by the hedgerow, Brad drew in a sudden sharp breath.

"That's her!" he whispered. "That's Mindy!"

She was seated in a youth chair at the end of the table. Brad was taken aback at how much she had matured since he had seen her last. Her hair was pulled back and tied with a ribbon in an unfamiliar, young-ladyish style, and her face seemed to have lost much of its babyish roundness. Still, there was not a doubt in his mind that this was Mindy, four months older and lovelier even than he remembered her. The blue pajamas she was wearing accentuated the sky blue shade of her eyes, and her left cheek flashed its dimple as she smiled at her aunt.

"That's Mindy," Brad repeated softly, hardly able to believe it. It was all he could do to keep from rapping on the glass to capture the child's attention.

"Is the man with his back to us Gavin?" Tracy asked him.

"Yes," Brad told her without hesitation. He could not see the man's face, but the thick blond hair, the set of the shoulders, and the green and gold sports shirt his mother had given her new husband the first Christmas after they were married were all too familiar.

There was only one woman at the table, and she sat opposite the window. She seemed to be carrying on most of the conversation. She was slender and blond, and Brad had an excellent view of her face as she chatted along in an animated manner, directing her remarks to first one dinner companion and then another.

Gavin seemed to be the only one responding. The heavyset man who sat to the woman's left was concentrating on his food—fried chicken, Brad saw, and potatoes, and the type of mushed up green vegetable that Mindy had always hated, although tonight she seemed to be eating it with gusto.

"So what happens now?" asked Tracy. "Are you going to go in and get her?"

"You mean just go to the door and ring the bell? A lot of good that would do! There's no way they would ever let me walk in and take her. When it comes to muscle power, it would be two big guys against one small one. Gavin's brother-in-law is built like the Incredible Hulk."

"Why don't we go find a phone and call the police?"

"You've got to be kidding. And have them laugh in my face? After the way Lieutenant Souter sat back and did nothing for all those months, there's no way I'd trust the police to do anything to help me. Like I told you, they don't regard this as a kidnapping. If the person who runs off with the kid is one of the parents, they call it 'child-snatching,' and they don't take it seriously."

"What are you going to do then?" Tracy asked him.

"I don't know." He could not tear his eyes away from the sight of his sister, gnawing away on a drumstick and looking... contented. For some reason, he had not expected to find her happy. He had thought she would be suffering as he and their mother had been suffering, weeping herself to sleep at night, longing for her own bed in her own home—not complacently adjusting to life in an alien family.

What should he do next? He had been so riveted upon the challenge of locating Mindy that he had not planned for the second step of the recovery mission. How could he go about claiming her now that he had found her? Whatever he did would have to be sudden and drastic. To confront Gavin face to face would ruin everything. The moment he became alerted to the fact that he had been traced to Winfield, he would be up and gone, and Mindy would be lost forever.

Brad felt a sudden, gut-wrenching longing for Jamie, who could always be counted on for practical solutions.

"I have an idea," he said, keeping his voice carefully casual, as though taking Tracy's positive reaction for granted. "You could get Gavin's sister to hire you as Mindy's sitter. Then, while the Carvers were out, I could resnatch her."

"That's a great plan for you," said Tracy. "To me, it doesn't sound all that terrific. The Carvers come home, their niece is gone, and I'm the one held responsible. So I get charged with a felony, and you're home free."

"You wouldn't be charged with anything," Brad assured her. "You'd tell them I forced my way in and you couldn't stop me. They'd find you tied up or locked in a closet or something. Besides, the last thing these people would do would be to call the police. That would mean exposing Gavin, and they wouldn't do that."

"No," Tracy said firmly. "I just couldn't do that, Brad. What would happen if they didn't believe me? What if Doug Carver got violent? Helping you find your sister was a harmless adventure, but what you're suggesting now could be really dangerous."

From the sudden burst of activity within the kitchen, it appeared that dinner had now been officially declared over. Gavin's sister had risen from the table and was busily gathering up plates and carrying them over to the dishwasher. Her husband leaned back in his chair and patted his stomach.

Mindy said something to her father and started to giggle. The dimple popped in and out of her cheek like a twinkling star. Gavin reached over and ruffled her hair, and the ribbon came loose, releasing a shining torrent of corn silk, which came tumbling down to frame the child's face.

Getting up from his chair, Gavin went around to Mindy's side of the table and bent to unfasten the safety strap on the youth seat. For the first time since their arrival, he was facing the window, and Brad had a full view of the man who had caused him so much anguish. His mouth filled with the sour taste of hatred, and he closed his eyes.

"I can't even stand to look at the bastard," he muttered.

There was a moment's silence. Then Tracy said, "Brad—he's crying!"

"Crying!" Brad exclaimed. "What would Gavin have to cry about?"

He opened his eyes and forced himself to stare at the man on the other side of the pane.

"He's not crying, Tracy, he's laughing. Mindy probably said something funny. You must have been looking at him through a warp in the glass."

"Maybe," Tracy conceded. She shifted her position at the window. "You're right—it wouldn't make sense for him to be crying. But when Mindy hugged him, it did look like he had tears in his eyes."

CHAPTER 8

The first thing Tracy was aware of when she entered the house on South Cotton Road that evening was the fact that the television set was not on. The sound of canned voices and laughter was so much a part of every night at the Stevensons' that without it the house seemed silent and oddly empty.

For a moment the possibility occurred to her that her aunt and uncle might have gone out to a movie or to visit friends. They did not do that often, but there were occasions when the urge to "live it up" would suddenly strike them and they would take off for a madcap two-hour "night on the town."

That hope was quickly squelched, however, when the couple emerged together from the living room, walking in tandem as usual and, with their identical serious expressions, looking more like Tweedledum and Tweedledee than ever. The main difference Tracy could see between the two of them was that her aunt's round face was pale and worried, while her uncle's was glowering and flushed with indignation.

"So, you've finally decided to come home!" Uncle Cory exploded. "Where in God's name have you been all this time?"

"I was out with a friend," Tracy told him. "We got busy talking, and I didn't realize how late it was getting to be."

"The fact that it's black as pitch outside might have given you a clue," her uncle said. "I can only suppose that this 'friend' was the same young man who kept you out so late last night. How could you lose track of time two nights in a row? How much do the two of you have to talk about, anyway?"

"I don't understand you people," Tracy countered defensively. "Aunt Rene made a big deal last night about how you want me to get involved in things like joining clubs and baby-sitting and going out on dates. Then tonight all I do is spend a couple of hours riding around in Brad's car, and the way you're reacting, you'd think the world's come to an end. Do you want me to have friends or don't you?"

"Of course we do, dear," Aunt Rene began in her usual placating voice. "What your uncle means is—"

"You don't have to explain the obvious, Rene," said Uncle Gory. "Tracy knows perfectly well that her social life is not the issue here. The point is, she never came home from school this afternoon, she never showed up for dinner, and she didn't even bother to call and check in. What we're talking about is nothing more than common courtesy. She could at least have phoned to let us know where she was."

"I'm sorry," said Tracy. "May I go to my room now, please? I have homework to do."

"You said you were sorry last night," her uncle continued, obviously having no intention of permitting the subject to be put to rest. "It's not as though we didn't go through this identical scene less than twenty-four hours ago. You knew perfectly well we'd be worried about you, yet you couldn't be bothered to make a simple telephone call to relieve our minds."

Tracy felt her own anger rising.

"Why should you worry?" she shot back at him. "You're not my parents, you're my landlords! My father's paying you to let me live in your home. There's nothing that says I have to eat every meal here."

She turned her back on them and started for the stairs.

"Come back here, young lady!" Uncle Gory bellowed after her. Then, when Tracy did not slow her pace, he continued angrily, "If hanging around with your new boyfriend generates this kind of rude behavior, then you'd better not plan on seeing him this weekend!"

Tracy continued on across the entrance hall without responding, ascended the stairs, and walked briskly down the length of the upstairs hall to her bedroom. She entered, flicked on the light, and very purposefully closed and locked the door.

Once inside the room, she was tempted to rush back out again. A flood of pink seemed to come rolling toward her from all directions, and for one dreadful moment she experienced the terrifying sensation that she was about to be suffocated by a cloud of rose petals.

Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the door and forced herself to fill her lungs with long drags of air. Slowly her anger at her aunt and uncle began to subside, and she felt drained and emotionally exhausted and a little guilty. On one level, she regretted the unpleasant scene downstairs, while on another, she was relieved at having let off steam. To be fair, she knew her relatives were dutiful people who had made a commitment and were doing their best to honor it. At the same time, the hypocrisy of keeping up the two-sided pretense that her current living situation was anything other than a business arrangement was becoming more and more difficult for her to deal with.

I just wish it were over! she thought. I wish I were graduating! How am I ever going to stand another whole year here!

She remained as she was until her heartrate had slowed and she was breathing normally again. Then she opened her eyes and took a survey of the room. As she had expected, her aunt had been in to "tidy up and make things nice." The window that Tracy had closed the night before now stood open, and the curtains were stirring gently in the evening breeze. The clothing she had worn the previous day had disappeared from the chair on which she had tossed it, presumably having been transferred to a bureau or closet. When she turned to the bed, she saw without surprise that it had been neatly made, its two pillows lined up symmetrically beneath an unwrinkled spread.

An envelope with a foreign stamp sat propped against one of the pillows.

Tracy went over to the bed and stood gazing down at it. For a moment she was tempted to rip it up, unread, and drop the pieces into the wastebasket. Then, as though she had no control over her own actions, she found herself sitting down on the bed, picking up the envelope, and opening it.