The Twisted Window (7 page)

"Have you been able to find a job yet?" asked Jim.

This was another question for which she had not prepared herself. Where would it be logical for her to say she worked? Although she might appear mature enough to be out of high school, she knew she did not look old enough to be a college graduate. What sort of job could she reasonably be expected to hold that would permit her to afford an apartment at the Continental Arms?

She was taking too long to answer.

Jim regarded her strangely.

"Don't tell me," he said. "Let me guess. I think you're a spy."

"A—spy?" Tracy echoed.

Then she saw the twinkle in his eyes and realized he was teasing her.

"Don't try to deny it. You've been hired by Ewing Oil. Your mission is to check out the oil fields around Winfield and let J.R. know which ones to buy into."

"How did you guess?" Tracy asked with a nervous laugh.

"I was trained by the CIA," Jim said, laughing with her. "All joking aside, though, what is it that you really do for a—"

The question was cut off by the jangle of the telephone.

"Oh, no!" Jim exclaimed in mock exasperation. "Please, excuse me while I answer that. It's probably the White House calling again. The President just won't take no for an answer, and I do find his parties so boring."

He got up from the sofa and went out to the kitchen. The phone broke off in mid shriek, and Tracy heard Jim saying, "Hello? Oh, hi, Debbie, how are you doing, pretty lady?" There was a pause. "You got tickets for that? I thought they were all sold out! Hey, I'd love to go, but I'm going to be out of town this weekend. I've got a couple of days of vacation coming, and I'm taking off in the morning for Padre Island. You might give my roommate a try though. He's really bummed out. That's one guy who could use a little R and R."

Grateful for the timely interruption, Tracy seized the opportunity to turn her attention to the hall leading back to the bedrooms. Although there had been no sign of a child's presence in either the living room or kitchen, if Mindy did indeed reside in this apartment, there was bound to be some evidence in the room she slept in.

Moving quietly, Tracy got to her feet and hurriedly crossed the living room to the hall. Of the three doors that opened onto the hallway, two stood ajar. The first of these led into a bathroom still misted with steam from Jim's shower. Nothing there indicated a child's recent presence; no potty-chair sat next to the toilet, no toy boats or rubber ducks lined the edge of the tub.

Jim's voice drifted out from the kitchen.

"He's having dinner at his sister's tonight, so you can probably catch him there. Hey, wait a minute, I just remembered something. It's possible he may not be available either. He was telling me this morning that Friday is Doug and Sally's anniversary. I know they've been having a hard time finding sitters. If they're planning a big night out, he might be stuck with the kid."

The second open door led into a bedroom. This, too, appeared to be the sole province of an adult. The bedside table was piled with copies of Playboy, and a huge black and white poster of a well-endowed young woman in an infinitesimal bikini hung on the wall above the headboard. The bed was unmade, and a shirt with a tie still wound around the collar lay tossed across it. A pair of water skis was propped in a corner of the room, and the handle of a tennis racket protruded from beneath the bed.

Tracy stepped back from the entrance to the bedroom and turned to face the closed door directly opposite. Did she dare take a chance and open that? From what she could overhear of his conversation, it did not seem probable that Jim would remain on the phone much longer. "I don't have the number," he was saying, "but they're listed in the phone book. The last name's Carver. If you call tonight, maybe there'll still be enough time for them to dig up a sitter."

I've come this far, thought Tracy. I can't stop now.

She gave the knob a twist and shoved the door open. Disappointment surged through her as she saw that, although it was neater, this second bedroom bore no more resemblance to a nursery than the first room had. There was no sign of a youth bed or crib, nor were there toys. No dolls or crayons or picture books lay scattered about.

Entering quickly, Tracy crossed to the closet and pulled open the sliding door. She was confronted with an array of men's clothing—shirts, trousers, a rack of neckties. There were no tiny blouses and overalls, no little dresses. She glanced down at the floor. The shoes that were lined up there were obviously those of an adult—one black pair, one brown pair, some well-worn Nikes, and a pair of thongs.

Brad had to be wrong, she thought. Wrong, or maybe even crazy. Was the story he had told her true, or had he invented it? Did he really have a sister who had been kidnapped? Was there truly a wicked stepfather named Gavin Brummer? If so, then perhaps it was nothing more than coincidence that Jim Tyler's roommate had the same last name and first initial. The one thing of which she had now become absolutely certain was that no child lived in the Brummer-Tyler apartment.

Sliding the closet door closed again, she turned and started back across the room to the hall.

She had taken only three steps when suddenly she saw it.

In a silver frame on the table next to the bed, there stood a photograph of a blond baby in a yellow sundress.

CHAPTER 7

The Douglas Carver residence was listed in the phone directory as being on Sweetwater Drive, a street in a middle-class housing development on the eastern outskirts of Winfield. It was an odd, winding street that seemed to exist for the sole purpose of avoiding contact with any main artery of traffic, and by the time Brad had finally managed to locate it and follow its snakelike route to the twenty-seven hundred block, night had fully descended and turned the houses on either side of the street into faceless black rectangles.

"That's twenty-seven forty-seven," said Tracy, straining to make out the house numbers by the glow of Brad's headlights. "We're looking for twenty-seven fifty-three, which ought to be about—"

"It's there," Brad interrupted. "It's that house in the middle of the block. That Jaguar parked in front of it is Gavin's car."

"How can you tell?" Tracy asked doubtfully. "The house number is all faded out, and it's too dark to be able to see what color the car is."

"That's Gavin's car," Brad repeated firmly. "I'd recognize it anywhere."

He could remember the very first time he had seen that car. He had come home from school to find it parked in the driveway, its metallic paint glinting silver in the afternoon sunlight. Gavin had bought it as a "birthday surprise for Laura," but Brad's mother had been too upset by the cost of the vehicle to be willing to even think about trying to drive it. Brad had been quickly proclaimed too young and inexperienced a driver to be allowed behind the wheel, so by default the car had become Gavin's own special baby.

Now Brad brought the Impala to a stop on the side of the street opposite the hated symbol of his stepfather's self-indulgence and switched off the engine and the headlights. Like the other houses in the subdivision, the one numbered 2753 was small and boxy and set close to the street. There were lights on inside, but the drapes that were drawn across the front window obscured any view of the interior.

"Tell me again what happened over there," Brad said.

"You've already had me go over it twice," said Tracy.

"Tell me one more time. I want every detail. Maybe there was something you missed."

"There aren't any other details. Jim Tyler didn't mention his roommate's name. The only way I learned the name of the brother-in-law was from overhearing Jim's side of a phone conversation. While he was busy on the telephone, I searched the apartment. There was no sign that a child had ever spent time there."

"But Mindy's picture was in one of the bedrooms?"

"Yes," said Tracy. "I'm certain, though, that she doesn't live there."

"Then Gavin has got to be keeping her somewhere else," Brad said. "That makes sense. It would be almost impossible to conceal a two-year-old in a singles apartment building. Kids Mindy's age don't like to stay cooped up inside."

"So where do you think Mindy is?"

"I'm not sure," said Brad. "All I know is, whatever it takes, I'm going to find her." He shoved the car door open. "I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

"Where are you going?"

"Just to check things out. Maybe I can find a side window that isn't curtained over."

"I'm coming with you," Tracy told him.

"It would be better if you didn't. One person is less likely to attract attention."

"I said I'm coming." She got out of the car and came around to stand next to him in the street. "I'm in this too. Don't forget, I'm the one who did the major part of the detective work."

"Okay," Brad said grudgingly. "Come on, then, but be careful not to make any noise. If the Carvers have a dog, we don't want to start it barking."

They crossed the street in silence. On the far side. Brad paused beside the parked Jaguar and impulsively placed his hand on the sleek silver hood. The metal surface was cool to his touch, but he was surprised to find that it was also dull and gritty. Back when Gavin had been a part of their Albuquerque household, he had been compulsive about keeping his car in mint condition.

Brad tried the door and found that it was not locked. He opened it, and the ceiling light flashed on, flooding the interior with an uneven yellow glow.

"See those boxes back there?" he said to Tracy, gesturing toward the rear seat stereo speakers. "There's a story behind those, and it isn't a pretty one. The morning Gavin was installing them, Mom left Mindy with him for a few minutes while she went out for groceries. He got so caught up in what he was doing that he forgot her. She came toddling up to the door and walked into his soldering iron. The poor kid's still got a scar across her belly."

"You'd better close the door," Tracy said nervously. "Somebody in the house might look out and see the light."

"They won't do that. Not with the curtains drawn."

The inside of the car seemed both familiar and strange to him. The walnut dashboard, in which Gavin had taken such pride, was coated with road dust, and the cream-colored upholstery was stained in several places, as though someone had tipped over a can of soda pop and not bothered to clean up the spill. The ashtray was full to overflowing with butts and ashes, and the carpet on the floor on the driver's side was littered with gum wrappers.

The state of the car's interior made Brad a bit less sure of the identity of its owner. Was it possible that it might not be Gavin's after all? When he told Tracy that he would recognize Gavin's car anywhere, he had spoken more with emotion than reasoned certainty. In the dark, cars of the same make and color were hard to tell apart, and a silver Jaguar, while unusual, was hardly unique.

Pulling the door open the rest of the way, Brad got into the car and slid across the seat to the passenger side. Since he had not been permitted to drive the sports car, he was unfamiliar with the possessions that were usually kept in it, but it was possible, he thought, that there might be something in the glove compartment that he would recognize as having belonged to his stepfather.

His first reaction upon opening the compartment was disappointment. Its only contents seemed to be road maps, a pack of cigarettes, some loose sticks of gum, and a misshapen candy bar that had melted and reformed itself inside its wrapper. Upon further investigation, however, he found what he was looking for. Buried beneath the pile of maps there was a brown manila envelope that contained the owner's manual and car registration.

With his heart beating faster, Brad removed the papers and held them under the light. The name on the registration was the one he had hoped to find there.

It's you! he exulted silently. I've tracked you down! You're in that house, and I bet you have Mindy with you!

He carefully returned the documents to the glove compartment and snapped it shut. Then he slid back across the seat and got out of the car.

"Well?" Tracy asked him. "Did you find anything?"

"It's Gavin's car, all right," Brad told her. "There's something odd, though, about the way he's stopped taking care of it. It's as though it doesn't matter to him the way it used to."

He eased the car door closed and without further conversation turned to lead the way across the lawn to the house. Skirting its darkened front, he continued on around to the far side of the building, where a shoulder-high hedge separated the Carver property from the lot next door. The grounds on this side of the house were mottled with pools of light cast by uncurtained windows; deep reservoirs of darkness lay between them. He tried to avoid the bright areas as best he could, and as a result found himself struggling to maneuver an obstacle course of metal trash cans and piles of firewood.

The first of the windows on this side of the house faced into the living room. It was a small, pleasant room, inexpensively furnished. Brad's mother would have referred to the decor as Leftover Newlywed. A set of brick and board bookshelves ran the full length of the room's back wall, and in the foreground a mismatched couch and chairs were arranged in a semicircle to form a conversation group around a tile-covered coffee table. The window was not wide enough to permit a full view of the room, but from what Brad was able to see it appeared unoccupied, although he thought he could detect the muffled sound of conversation filtering in from some adjoining area.