Sean nodded. He got up from the stool and paced across the room.
“But it wasn’t the real mascot,” Bess said.
“Just someone who stole the mascot costume,” Nancy added.
“Do you have any idea who could have done this?” George asked.
“No,” Sean said firmly, turning toward them. “I can think of lots of people who’d want the Falcons to lose the game, but nobody would take my little girl—nobody is that cruel.”
“Someone is,” Nancy said gravely. “And we need to find out who.” She hopped down from her stool and paced the floor near the counter. “After you got the phone call, did anyone besides the fake mascot contact you or talk to you about Caitlin?” Nancy asked, stopping in front of the large window that framed Sean’s backyard.
“No one,” Sean said. He shook his head slowly as he walked to the coffee table in the family room, picking up a framed picture.
“Is that Caitlin?” Nancy asked gently.
Sean nodded and handed her the picture. It showed a smiling five-year-old with dark hair cropped short around her face and big brown eyes that immediately reminded Nancy of Sean. She was wearing a baseball hat with the logo of Sean’s major league team, the Captains.
“She’s cute,” Nancy said, wondering where Caitlin was and if her sparkling eyes were now filled with fear. She noticed Sean staring at the wall and guessed that he was fighting back tears.
“We’ll find her,” Nancy said. She passed the picture across the counter to George and Bess.
Luke crossed the room and put his hand back on Sean’s shoulder. “Nancy’s right. We’ll find Caitlin.” He steered Sean to the stool by the counter.
“Is this the way the house looked when you came home?” Nancy asked.
Sean nodded.
“What do you know about your baby-sitter?” Nancy pressed. She had walked around to the kitchen side of the counter to stand beside Bess and George. She faced Sean, trying to hold his attention.
“Her name is Rebecca Carter. Caitlin likes her, and I was lucky to find her on such short notice,” Sean said. “I got to River Heights just a few days before the play-offs and had to find someone to stay with Caitlin right away. Rebecca sat for Caitlin last night, during the first game. Her address and phone number are there in the book.” He pointed to a small green address book by the phone.
Nancy reached for it and began flipping through the pages. “How did you find her?” she asked.
“Rod told me about her,” Sean said. He had begun to tap his fingers on the counter. “She baby-sat for him earlier in the season.”
Nancy looked at Luke.
“Rod Sanders,” he said. “The pitcher I was talking to after the game today.”
Nancy turned back to the address book, where she found Rebecca’s address. Pulling a small notebook and pen from the back pocket of her jeans, Nancy wrote down 4018 Oak St., G-7, and then the phone number.
“She lives in an apartment?” Nancy asked, putting the pad and pen back in her pocket.
“That’s right.” Sean got up from his stool and began to pace again. “I don’t know where, exactly, because she drove here on her own. But she did say she might have to move out if she couldn’t catch up on her rent payments.”
“She doesn’t have another job?” Nancy asked, closing Sean’s address book.
“Not as far as I know,” Sean said. “I told her someone her age ought to be in school. She just laughed and said she didn’t have enough money.”
“How old is she?” Nancy asked, wishing she had a photo of the sitter.
“I don’t know,” Sean said, shrugging. “Nineteen or twenty, I’d guess. She has red hair and is a little taller than you, I think.”
“What does her car look like?” Nancy asked.
“It’s a beat-up green sedan. She parked it in the driveway this morning. Now it’s gone,” Sean said, raising his hands to show his confusion.
“Why would the kidnapper take Rebecca’s car?” George asked.
“I don’t know,” Nancy said. “Was any other room in the house ransacked?”
“Yes,” Sean replied, and this time his voice was tinged with anger. “They were in Caitlin’s room.”
Sean led Nancy down a hall and stopped by the doorway to a bedroom. The white walls were decorated with posters of cartoon characters, and a pile of soft stuffed animals covered one corner of the bed across the room from a sunny window.
Nancy saw muddy tracks that led from the window across the light-colored carpet to Caitlin’s bed. The white, ruffled bedspread had been pulled partly off the bed, and some of the stuffed animals were on the floor.
“It looks like someone came in the window to grab Caitlin,” George said, peeking over Nancy’s shoulder.
“Does Caitlin still take naps?” Nancy asked.
“Sometimes,” Sean said. “After lunch, from about twelve-thirty to one-thirty. I left early—about eleven. I had some errands to do. And I needed some time alone before the game.”
“So the kidnapping could have happened during Caitlin’s nap,” Bess suggested.
“But why would anyone go into the family room when they had already kidnapped Caitlin from the bedroom?” Luke asked.
“Maybe Rebecca heard them,” Nancy said. Images flashed through Nancy’s mind of the baby-sitter overhearing the kidnappers and not knowing what to do. She walked to the window and leaned out. She could see large, smudged footprints in the flower bed beneath the window. The screen had been removed and laid against the side of the house.
Nancy turned and followed the muddy tracks. They began to fade after the intruder had turned from the bed. A faint trail made a path to the door, but Nancy could not determine if the kidnapper had left the bedroom or not. He could have gone down the hall to the family room where he struggled with a desperate Rebecca. Or perhaps Rebecca had helped with the plot. It was possible that she and the kidnapper had ransacked the family room to make it look as if there’d been a struggle. At any rate, Rebecca and her car were gone, a fact that puzzled Nancy.
“Bess and I will go outside, and the rest of you start checking inside,” Nancy said, starting back down the hall toward the family room. “Try not to touch anything. Just look for clues.”
Nancy and Bess went through the family room and out the back door. The fenced yard was edged by flower beds. Nancy walked carefully to Caitlin’s bedroom window. The smeared tracks disappeared in the lush green grass about two feet from it.
“We need to check the gates in the fence,” Nancy said.
“I’ll go this way,” Bess offered, pointing to her right.
“Great,” Nancy said. “I’ll look by the garage.”
She found nothing out of place along the back of the house or along the fence. A gate by the garage was closed and latched. Nancy opened it and went through. She kept her eyes on the ground as she walked beside the garage. On her right a row of large shrubs separated the side yard from a narrow alley. Nancy checked the shrubs carefully for any bits of fabric or paper, but found nothing.
Two concrete steps led to the side door of the garage. Nancy saw some small pieces of gray clay on the top step. It was different from the mud at the back of the house. She was about to turn away when she caught sight of a piece of white paper in the marigold bed near the step. It looked as if it might have come from a small notepad. When Nancy picked it up and turned it over, she saw what seemed to be a shopping list. Milk, chips, Yummy Bunnies, and clothesline were listed.
“I didn’t find anything,” Bess said from behind Nancy. “There’s another gate on the far side of the house, but it’s closed.”
“This one was closed, too,” Nancy said as she turned around with the list. “But this could be a clue.”
Before Bess could take the list, Nancy heard yelling from inside the house, and George came running out to the gate.
“Nancy! You’d better come quick,” she said tensely. She pivoted and disappeared back into the house. Nancy and Be
ss quickly followed.
As they rushed in through the back door, Nancy saw a well-dressed man and woman in their fifties standing in the ransacked family room.
“She can’t be gone!” the woman blurted out.
“She is gone,” the man said angrily, turning to the woman. “We should have expected it.”
Sean stood just a few feet away from the couple, his eyes reflecting his anger. Luke was at his side, his hands raised slightly as though ready for a fight.
Nancy stopped just inside the door. It was clear to her that Sean was very near the breaking point.
“We should have known he’d let something happen to our granddaughter,” the gray-haired man continued, raising his finger and shaking it in Sean’s face. “It’s all your fault!”
Sean knocked the man’s hand away and took a step closer, so that he towered over the older man. “I think you’d better leave,” he said.
“I’ll leave after I’ve made you pay,” the other man growled back. He took a step backward and launched his fist at Sean’s face.
Bess gasped as Sean raised his left arm to ward off the attack and then, reflexively, pulled his right arm back, ready to strike a blow of his own.
Chapter
Five
SEAN, NO!” Nancy yelled as the pitcher raised his fist. She lunged between him and the gray-haired man, Luke right beside her.
“That’s not going to help get Caitlin back,” she said firmly.
“Nancy’s right,” Luke agreed. “You can’t help Caitlin if you’re in jail.”
Sean relaxed slightly. He took a step backward, nearly bumping into the coffee table.
“These are Caitlin’s grandparents,” George offered, breaking the tense silence. “I was introduced to them while you were outside.”
The man pulled on the lapels of his sport coat and nodded a brisk greeting to Nancy. “And who are you?” he demanded.
“This is Nancy Drew,” Luke said, stepping between them. “The best de—”
“A best friend of Luke’s from school,” Nancy cut in quickly. She stepped across the room and offered to shake hands.
“Bert Zabowski,” the man said gruffly. “And this is my wife, Stella. We came down to River Heights to surprise Caitlin, and then we found out she was gone. . . .” He shook his head and added, “I suppose you know what trouble my son-in-law has caused.”
“What do you mean?” Nancy asked seriously. “Sean hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“I have to disagree with that,” Bert said. “His involvement in sports is the reason Caitlin has disappeared.”
“But, Mr. Zabowski,” George said, “you can’t blame Sean for Caitlin’s kidnapping just because he’s a baseball player. It’s not his fault.”
“But it is his fault,” Bert said, raising both hands. “It’s his fault he’s pitching baseballs instead of working in my electronics firm.”
“And it’s his fault that Caitlin was in this horrible little town,” Stella added, her voice strained. “He should have let us take her back to Chicago for the summer.”
“Please, Mr. and Mrs. Zabowski,” Nancy said, “we need to concentrate our efforts on getting Caitlin back.”
“We need to call the police,” Bert bellowed.
“Of course,” Nancy said calmly. “But let Sean handle that. He is Caitlin’s father. The rest of us need to keep this absolutely secret.”
Bert fumed silently for a moment, then shook his finger at Sean. “You’d better not fail,” he said, then turned to Stella, who had begun crying quietly. Bert put his arm around her and led her toward the front door.
“It’s hard to tell which side they’re on,” Bess said when they were gone.
“They never liked me,” Sean said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “And they hate baseball.”
“They wanted Caitlin to live with them?” Nancy asked.
“That’s right,” Sean said, pacing across the floor. He turned away from the wrecked family room and looked through the window at the tranquil backyard. “They think they’re better parents than I am. For the past year they’ve been on a campaign to convince me of that.”
“Could they want Caitlin bad enough to take her?” Nancy asked.
“They wouldn’t take her and show up back here,” Sean said after a moment. “And besides, I can’t picture either of them in Freddy’s costume.”
“He’s got a point there,” Bess said with a hint of sarcasm as she settled herself on the couch.
“And even if they took Caitlin, they wouldn’t care about the outcome of the game,” George added.
“Unless they were just trying to throw us off the trail,” Nancy said, then sighed. “Still, I suppose you’re right, they’re not very likely suspects. But let’s not count them out completely.”
“So what next?” Sean asked.
“First I want you to take a look at this,” Nancy said, pulling the shopping list from her pocket. “Do you recognize it?”
Sean took the list and examined it carefully. “Yummy Bunnies are Caitlin’s favorite snack,” he said.
“You mean those little cookies that are shaped like rabbits?” Bess asked. “The ones that come in all different colors?”
“That’s right,” Sean said, handing the note back to Nancy. “Caitlin eats them by the boxful.”
“What about the handwriting?” Nancy asked. “Is it yours, or Rebecca’s?”
Sean shook his head. “I didn’t write this list, and I don’t know what Rebecca’s handwriting looks like.”
Nancy went to the counter and compared the list to the note Sean had received during the game, but the writing didn’t match. “I know it’s going to be hard for you to do, Sean, but we really have to call the police.”
“No police!” Sean whirled on Nancy. “Luke said you’d be careful.”
“I will, but I want to help you get your little girl back,” Nancy said gently. “Calling the police is the best way to do that. I know the chief.”
“What can he do?” Sean asked, raising his hands in the air in a gesture of helplessness. “Except bring the press down on us like flies. They’ll get wind of this and won’t let go until it’s on the front page of every newspaper in the country. And then what will happen to Caitlin?”
Nancy remembered Brenda chasing Sean down the corridor and sighed. “Chief McGinnis will know how to deal with this,” she said firmly.
“She’s right,” Luke said.
Sean picked up the picture of Caitlin again and stared at it for a second. “All right,” he said at last. “But if you’re wrong, if the newspapers find out and Caitlin ends up—”
“We’ll be careful,” Nancy cut in gently, moving toward the telephone.
Nancy had to look up Chief McGinnis’s home telephone number in the phone book. She wasn’t going to trust anyone with this case except the chief himself. The phone rang three times before Mrs. McGinnis answered. After introducing herself, Nancy learned that the chief was out but was due back in half an hour.
“He’s not there,” she said, hanging up the telephone. “Luke, why don’t you take us back to the stadium so I can get my car. I’ll call again from there. Sean, meet us there in about thirty minutes. And bring the note and the shopping list. The chief will want to see them.”
Sean nodded and walked to the door as Nancy, Bess, George, and Luke headed for the car.
• • •
“Back again?”
Nancy couldn’t mistake that voice—it was Brenda Carlton’s. She was still carrying her notebook as she crossed the parking lot near the players’ entrance to the stadium.
“Did you get your story?” Nancy asked, forcing a smile.
“Not from Sean,” she said. “But I got some other interviews. How about you?” Brenda cocked her head to one side in a way that told Nancy she was fishing for information. “Have you found out anything interesting?”
“As I told you before,” Nancy said, shrugging her shoulders, “we just came to see an o
ld friend.”
Brenda eyed her suspiciously. “I’m going to be watching you, Nancy Drew,” she said. “And if you have found a mystery at the Roost, I’ll figure out what it is.”
“You’ll be wasting your time,” Nancy said casually. But as she walked after Luke, Bess, and George, all of Sean’s words came flooding back to her.
“Brenda is going to be a problem,” Nancy whispered as she caught up with her friends.
Luke had left his wallet in the locker room and wanted to pick it up. After he got it, he and Nancy dashed up to the pay phone at the main ticket office. Bess and George decided to wait, sitting on a couple of chairs in the corridor outside the locker room. It had been nearly two hours since the game ended, and even the celebrating Rangers had left the stadium.
Chief McGinnis answered, and Nancy explained as briefly as she could about the kidnapping. She told him that she and Sean would meet him in the parking garage of the River Heights Mall in half an hour. She thought it best to let Sean drive, since it would look less suspicious if the kidnappers were tailing him. She got a description of the pitcher’s forest green sports car from Luke and relayed it to Chief McGinnis.
Just as she and Luke were returning for George and Bess, Sean appeared. He had changed into faded jeans and a light blue T-shirt that set off his dark hair and eyes.
“You’re just in time,” Nancy said. “We’re all set to meet Chief McGinnis in the parking garage at the mall. If anyone is following you, it’ll just look like we have to pick up something. I doubt that a tail will follow us into a parking garage. It would be too easy to get caught.”
Sean stopped and nervously checked the exit at the end of the corridor. “Do you think I’m being followed?”
“We can’t be too careful,” Nancy said, shaking her head. “Now let’s go. I’ll ride with you.”
Before they got away, a heavy, balding man in designer sweats stepped out of the locker room. He was at least two inches shorter than Sean and had a small birthmark that looked a bit like a smudge of dirt on his right cheek. Nancy recognized him as Bill Barrows, the Falcons’ manager.