by Lois Duncan
“Are you all right, miss?” asked the man at the register.
“Yes, thank you,” Tracy managed to tell him. “Yes, I’m just fine.”
With more effort than she had ever had to make before to do anything, she forced herself to walk out through the open door into the sun-jeweled morning.
Circling the building, she came to two doors, one marked STALLIONS and the other FILLIES. She unlocked the latter, pushed it open, and stepped inside. The dank little room was foul with mildew and disinfectant, and the damp floor sucked at Tracy’s shoes like a hungry blotter. The walls were covered with graffiti, and on the door to the toilet stall someone had used purple lipstick to make an obscene drawing.
Tracy used the toilet and then washed her hands at the rust-stained sink. She went through the motions mechanically, barely conscious of what she was doing. In the mirror over the basin the ashen oval of her face looked as though it belonged to someone who was deathly ill.
A light blue Chevrolet Impala … She lathered her palms with thick yellow slime from the soap dispenser and held them under the cold stream of water from the spigot. Her hands were shaking, and her fingernails made little clicking sounds against the porcelain. … New Mexico license plates …
Her soul felt as icy as the water.
She turned off the faucet and dried her hands on a paper towel. Then she went back to the office to return the key. The attendant was fully awake now; he was munching on a chocolate bar and counting the bills in the register. Either he had switched stations or the news program had come to an end, for the radio was playing country-western music.
When she returned to the car she found that Brad was now on the passenger side. He motioned for her to get into the driver’s seat.
“I think you’d better take over for a while,” he said. “If I don’t get a nap, I’m going to fall asleep at the wheel.”
Tracy got into the car, but she made no attempt to start it.
“Brad, they know,” she said shakily. “Gavin must have called the police after all. Either that or the Carvers did. I just heard the end of a radio newscast. The announcer was describing our car.”
“It’s lucky we got off the highway then,” said Brad. “That must have been the reason for the roadblock.”
“He said it had New Mexico license plates. How can they know that? Doug Carver couldn’t have read that plate without a flashlight.”
“The next-door neighbor probably told them,” Brad said. “She got a good look at the car the other morning. Get a grip on yourself, Tracy. So what if they know we have Mindy? We haven’t done anything wrong. Mindy’s my sister.”
“Yes, I know,” Tracy said, beginning to feel a bit foolish. “It was a shock, that’s all. Hearing the name ‘Carver’ leap out from nowhere the way it did, having our car described as though we were criminals running from the law—”
“Put it out of your mind,” Brad said. “There’s nothing to worry about. We’ve already crossed the border into New Mexico, and this road will take us most of the way into Albuquerque. I’m going to catch an hour’s worth of shut-eye. Wake me up when you see a place to stop for breakfast.”
We haven’t done anything wrong, Tracy reassured herself, grasping at the statement and clutching it to her. Brad’s lack of concern was not sufficient to quell her own, however. When enough time had passed so she was certain he was fully asleep, she reached over and pressed the button to eject the cassette he had put in the tape player. Then she turned on the radio and adjusted the dial until she found a Texas station that was broadcasting news.
Keeping the volume turned low, she listened to accounts of the newest crisis in the Middle East, of a bomb threat at Miami Airport, and then, in gentle contrast, the news that the residents of western Texas could expect a weekend of “clear skies, rising winds in the late afternoon, and temperatures in the mid to low seventies.”
At the program’s end, there came the story for which she had been waiting, but the content was not at all what she had been prepared for.
“Three-year-old Julianne Carver of Winfield, Texas, was kidnapped last night by her teenage baby-sitter,” the announcer said briskly. “The child’s father, Douglas Carver, said he was forced at gunpoint into a kitchen storage room, where he was held captive while the sitter and a male accomplice abducted his daughter. Warrants have been issued for the arrest of Tracy Lloyd, age seventeen, five foot six, one hundred fifteen pounds, brown hair and blue eyes, and an unidentified teenage boy, approximately five foot seven, with brown curly hair. The pair is presumed to be traveling in a blue Chevrolet Impala with New Mexico license plates. They are armed and considered dangerous.”
The shock hit Tracy with such velocity that her head was filled with a roar like the sound of rushing wind. The length of road ahead of her dissolved into mist, and the car lurched out of control, swinging wildly over to the far side of the left lane. Dizziness struck her, and for one terrifying moment she thought she was going to lose consciousness. Then the frantic blast of a car horn jerked her back to reality. Gripping the steering wheel with all her strength, she gave it a desperate twist, bringing the car back onto the right side of the road just in time to avoid a head-on collision with a pickup truck.
Clutching the wheel with white-knuckled hands, as a drowning person might cling to a life preserver, she glanced across at Brad in the seat beside her. To her amazement, he was still sleeping soundly.
In the rearview mirror, however, she could see that the child in the back seat was sitting up.
“Julianne?” Tracy asked her softly. “Is your name Julianne?”
The child in the mirror regarded her without responding.
“Cricket?” Tracy tried again. “Is Cricket’s real name Julianne Carver?”
After a moment, the blond head nodded.
“Cricket’s big name Juicy Yan,” the little girl acknowledged. “Where’s Mommy? I want Mommy!”
“Your Mommy’s at home,” Tracy told her, struggling to keep her voice steady. “I’m going to get you back to her right away.”
She continued to drive. The road was back in focus now. She was able to see and hear, and also to think. The thoughts that churned in her brain were a bewildering jumble, none of them leading to anything that made any sense. The incredible possibility that had occurred to her for one fleeting instant when she had discovered that the child in their car did not have a scar had suddenly become a horrifying reality.
The little girl was not Mindy Brummer! If the radio report was true—and there was no reason to believe that it was not—she was the daughter, not the niece, of Doug and Sally Carver. Why had Brad pretended Cricket was his sister? Did he even have a sister, and if so, where was she? Had he invented the entire story of a child-snatching stepfather in order to manipulate Tracy into participating in a kidnapping? If that was indeed the case, then what was his motive? Could he be thinking of holding the child for ransom? And how did Gavin Brummer fit into the picture? Why had both he and Brad been carrying identical photographs of a child who was not even a member of their immediate family?
The world around them was now awake and in motion. They passed a boy on a bicycle delivering newspapers and a girl in blue jeans feeding a flock of geese. In a yard in front of a farmhouse, several young children dressed in pajamas were climbing down from a tree house, and a woman was watering a garden plot.
Ten miles farther down the road, they entered a village. Tracy reduced speed as she drove through the tiny business district and pulled to a stop at a traffic light at the end of the first block. There was a café on the corner directly across from them, and the smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls wafted in through the car’s open window.
“Hungry!” Cricket announced suddenly. “I want breffuss!”
Awakened either by the decrease in speed or by the child’s shrill statement, Brad opened his eyes and straightened up in his seat.
“Breakfast,” he echoed sleepily, rubbing his eyes. That sounds good to me too
. Where are we, anyway?”
“This is Rock Springs,” Tracy told him. “There was a sign at the town limits.”
She was amazed at how calm and natural her voice sounded.
“Great!” Brad said. “That means we’re only a couple of hours from Albuquerque. What do you say we stop here and eat? Mindy says she’s hungry, and I didn’t get a chance to get dinner last night.”
The parking area next to Maria’s Café was empty except for an ancient Plymouth and a pair of motorcycles. Tracy parked the car next to the Plymouth and got out. The soreness of her arms and shoulders attested to the fact that she had been driving with her muscles knotted up with tension, and it was all she could do to straighten her fingers after the hour they had spent in a frozen grip on the steering wheel.
Brad got out on the passenger side and opened the rear door of the car for Cricket.
“Let’s go, Mindy,” he said. “We’re going to go eat now.”
Regarding him with obvious distrust, the child made no effort to move.
“Cricket,” she said defiantly.
“Your name’s Mindy,” Brad corrected her. “You can’t have forgotten that. Cricket’s just a silly nickname. Put that monkey down, and let’s go inside and eat.”
The little girl glanced from Brad to Tracy and back to Brad again. Her eyes filled with tears, and her lower lip began to quiver.
“Juicy Yan Cricket,” she insisted. “Monk-Monk’s hungry.”
“It’s okay, Cricket,” Tracy said gently. “Let me help you get your shoes on. You can bring Monk-Monk in for breakfast, too, if you want to.”
“Don’t call her by that dumb name,” Brad objected. “She’s got to get used to being Mindy again. And the minute we get back to Albuquerque I’m buying her another Bimbo, and that ugly toy monkey goes into the garbage can.”
The door of Maria’s Café opened into a tiny entrance hall where a cash register and a postcard rack were located. Beyond that, through a wide double door, lay the dining area. As the dearth of cars in the parking lot had indicated, the coffee shop was virtually empty of customers. Two young men in black windbreakers sat at a table by the front window, and an elderly man, seated alone at another table, was engrossed in reading a newspaper. The remainder of the tables were unoccupied.
Brad led the way to a booth at the back of the room and settled Cricket on the seat beside him. He picked up the menu and studied it for a moment. “I think I’m going to have French toast,” he said. “Mindy’s going to want that, too, aren’t you, baby?”
The child shook her head. “Cricket wants Froot Loops.”
“Cereal?” Brad exclaimed. “French toast is your favorite thing! That’s what Mommy always makes you for special breakfasts.”
“No, Froot Loops,” Cricket insisted. “Froot Loops! Froot Loops!”
“Okay, Froot Loops it is,” Brad said. “What do you want, Tracy?”
“I don’t care,” said Tracy. “You order for me. What I need to do now is locate a rest room.”
“Again?” Brad regarded her quizzically.
“Yes, again.”
Without further comment, she got up from the table and went back out to the entrance hall. A sign on the wall behind the register indicated that the rest rooms were located down a short hall to the right. Hoping that Brad was too preoccupied with ordering breakfast to be watching her through the doorway, Tracy turned instead to the left and into an alcove and quickly extracted her cellphone from her pocket.
Then she suddenly realized that she did not know whom to call. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to the Carvers, at least until she could give a reason for their child’s abduction. She had no idea why Brad had taken their daughter; all she knew about him was what he had chosen to tell her. She could not even be sure that his name was Brad Johnson, since she had never insisted on seeing identification. As things now stood, the boy she knew as Brad was in a position to walk out the door and disappear from her life at the first opportunity, leaving her with a kidnapped child in her possession and no explanation to offer as to why she had been taken.
Too much time was passing. Brad would be wondering what was keeping her. This might well be her final opportunity to put through a phone call. She had no guarantee they were really headed for Albuquerque or that Brad had a mother there who would be happy to see them. Once they were back in the car and he was again behind the wheel, she might never have another chance to make contact with anyone.
Making a hasty decision, she dialed information.
“I need a number in Albuquerque,” she said. “The person’s name is Brummer, Mrs. Gavin Brummer.”
There was a pause while the operator checked the listings.
Then she said, “I don’t have a listing for Gavin Brummer, but I do have one for a Laura Brummer on Locust Street.”
“That could be the one,” Tracy said. “Can you give me the number?”
As soon as the operator was off the line she dialed the unfamiliar digits.
“Hello,” said Tracy. “I’m not sure I’m calling the right number. I’m trying to reach a Mrs. Brummer who has a son named Brad Johnson.”
“I’m Brad’s mother,” the woman said immediately. “What’s happened? Has there been an accident?”
“No, Brad’s fine,” said Tracy. “The one I’m calling about is Mindy. You do have a little girl named Mindy, don’t you?”
The silence that followed was longer than it should have been, considering the question required a one-word answer.
When Laura Brummer did speak again, her voice was flat and expressionless.
“My daughter was killed four months ago,” she said.
Chapter 15
“SHE WAS KILLED!” TRACY repeated, unable to believe what she had heard.
“Four months ago,” Laura Brummer said again. “Last December, on her second birthday, my precious baby was run over by a car.”
“I’m so sorry,” Tracy gasped, at a loss for words. “Brad told me—I mean, he really seems to believe she was kidnapped by her father!”
“Brad believes what he wants to believe,” Brad’s mother said tersely. “The way my psychologist tried to explain it to me, my son’s way of coping with pain is by denial. Who are you, and how do you know Brad?”
“My name’s Tracy Lloyd,” said Tracy. “I met Brad this past week in Winfield, Texas.”
“You met him where?” Laura Brummer sounded startled. “Brad told me he was going camping. He said he was going to be up in the Pecos, fishing.”
“He drove to Texas to look for his sister,” said Tracy. “He asked me if I’d help him, and I agreed. We found this blond little girl Brad told me was Mindy, and I managed to get myself hired as her baby-sitter.” She drew a long breath and forced herself to plunge ahead. “We took her.”
“You took her? You don’t mean to tell me you’ve kidnapped some strange child!”
“Brad told me the child was Mindy,” Tracy said miserably. “I’ve just discovered her name is Julianne Carver.”
“Brad has Cricket!” Laura Brummer exclaimed incredulously. “That’s my ex-husband’s niece! Do you have her with you now? Where in heaven’s name are you?”
“Yes, she’s here with us,” said Tracy. “We’re in Rock Springs, New Mexico, at a place called Maria’s Café.”
“Why, you’re only a couple of hours from Albuquerque!” said Brad’s mother. “Where are you taking Cricket? Are you bringing her here?”
“I don’t know,” said Tracy. “That’s what Brad’s been saying, but then he’s told me so many things that have turned out not to be true that I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“You mustn’t let him take off again!” Laura Brummer exclaimed. “I’ll have somebody come out there right away to get you. I’d do it myself, but I’m too upset to drive safely. Brad’s friend Jamie is here now. Let me check and see”—her voice grew muffled as she turned away from the phone—“Jamie, can you drive to Rock Springs and pick up Brad? Oh,
thank goodness! I knew I could count on you, dear.” She spoke into the receiver again. “Brad’s been so disturbed lately, Jamie’s the only one these days who can really get through to him. You make sure he doesn’t leave before Jamie gets there.”
“How can I hold him here if he doesn’t want to stay?”
“You’ll have to figure out something,” Brad’s mother said helplessly. “I’ll call Gavin and ask him to deal with the Carvers. If they know their child is unharmed and will soon be returned to them, maybe they can be persuaded not to press charges. I simply can’t believe this! What a nightmare!”
The conversation ended with Mrs. Brummer’s assurance that Jamie Hanson would leave for Rock Springs immediately. With the phone still clutched in her hand, Tracy struggled to decide what to do next.
All the possibilities that leapt into her mind were ridiculous: ordering something exotic that would take a long time to prepare and then dawdling over breakfast; taking Cricket into the ladies’ room and setting up residence there where Brad couldn’t get at them; finding some way to confiscate Brad’s wallet so he would be unable to pay their bill and would not be allowed to leave the restaurant.
Conscious that she was in a state of mental hysteria, she made a concentrated effort to focus her mind upon more realistic alternatives. After a moment, she realized it had to be the car. Brad’s car was the only means of transportation they had. If she could manage to put the Chevy out of commission, they would be stuck in Rock Springs until it could be repaired.
But how did one go about sabotaging an automobile? She knew next to nothing about a car’s inner workings. With so many parts that could be tampered with, there had to be some simple way of making one inoperable. Maybe she could slash the tires or put water in the gas tank. Or perhaps she could simply open the hood and disconnect all the wires she saw, twisting them into such a tangle that sorting them out and reattaching them would take hours.
