Tracy glanced at her watch. Twelve minutes had passed since she had left the dining room. If she didn’t return by the time the food arrived at the table, it was very probable Brad would come looking for her.
Whatever she ended up doing would have to be done quickly. Ignoring the curious glance of the girl behind the cash register, she opened the door and went back outside. Ducking as she passed the front window so as to avoid being seen by the occupants of the dining room, she hurried around the side of the building and entered the parking lot in which they had left the car. The vehicles that had been in the lot when they had arrived there were just as they had been, but the space next to the Plymouth was empty.
Brad’s Chevy was gone.
For a long moment, Tracy stood staring at the vacant spot where the car had been. Were Brad’s delusions contagious? Had she, too, lost her senses? Had they really parked in this spot, and, if so, where was the car?
Slowly, she walked over to the Plymouth and placed the flat of her hand against one of its dented fenders. The feel of the sun-warmed metal beneath her palm renewed her sense of reality. She was not hallucinating, nor was she dreaming. There could be only one rational explanation for the car’s disappearance. The obvious answer, of course, was that it had been stolen.
The incredible coincidence of having such an improbable event occur at this particular time and place was so beyond belief that it was all she could do to accept the fact that it had happened. Then, it suddenly struck her that this solved her problem! She would not have to take any further steps to prevent Brad from leaving Rock Springs. He had no way of taking them anywhere until somebody came from Albuquerque to collect them.
Her relief was so great, she felt as though she had been administered a tranquilizing drug. Leaving the lot, she completed her circle of the building and reentered the restaurant. Once inside, she headed directly for the dining room and started back toward the booth where she had left Brad and Cricket.
Her view of the table was blocked by a waitress with a tray. It was not until Tracy had reached the table that the girl stepped aside to reveal the fact that, rather than serving food as Tracy had assumed she was doing, she was actually in the process of clearing away uneaten breakfasts—two plates of French toast, a bowl of cereal, and several glasses of juice and mugs of coffee.
The booth itself was empty.
The moment of shock that Tracy had experienced in the parking lot was minor in comparison with what she felt now. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” the waitress exclaimed, glancing up in surprise. “I thought you’d left with the others.”
“Where are the people who were sitting here?” Tracy asked her.
“The young man and the little girl left about five minutes ago. I thought you were all one party and you were leaving with them. I’ll have your plate reheated for you right away.”
“I was part of their party,” said Tracy. “I didn’t expect them to leave like this. Did the boy say anything to indicate where they were going?”
The waitress shook her head.
“I thought it seemed pretty strange, ordering all this food and then nobody staying to eat it. I brought it in, and the young man got up and went over to the doorway as though he were looking for somebody out in the hall. He stood there a minute and then came back and put some money on the table. Then he and the little girl went out the back way, through the kitchen. I thought you must have gone out to the car and they were meeting you there.”
“I see,” Tracy said.
She did see, all too well.
“Don’t you want to sit down and—”
“No, thank you. Not right now.”
Gripping the edge of the table, Tracy made a violent effort not to give way to the wave of faintness that was threatening to overpower her. She had the horrible feeling that if she allowed herself to sit down her legs might turn to rubber and she would never again get up.
She knew what her next call should be, and she dreaded the thought of it. Finally, bracing herself for the horrendous scene that was sure to be forthcoming, she punched in the number of the Stevenson’s home in Winfield.
Her aunt answered the phone on the first ring. “Tracy!” the woman gasped at the sound of her voice. “Oh, Tracy, thank God! We’ve been so worried. Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Tracy said. “I’m fine. I’m sorry I worried you.”
“Where are you?”
“In New Mexico.”
“Cory!” Her aunt’s voice went momentarily distant as she turned away from the telephone. “Cory, it’s Tracy! She’s safe in New Mexico!” An instant later, she was back. “We’ve been worried sick, dear. What’s happened? Is the little Carver girl with you?”
“She was, but she’s not anymore,” Tracy told her. “Brad has taken Cricket off somewhere in the car.”
“Brad? You mean, the boy who broke into the Carvers’ house was Brad? The way Doug Carver described him, we thought it was some maniac. Doug said a boy with a gun threatened to kill him. We’ve been out of our minds, we’ve been so frightened for your safety.”
“I’m fine,” Tracy said again. “And Cricket’s fine too. No matter where he’s taken her, I’m sure Brad won’t hurt her. I heard on the radio there’s a warrant out for our arrest.”
“We tried to tell them you weren’t involved,” said Aunt Rene. “We knew you were taken by force, just the way the child was. Doug Carver wouldn’t listen though. He insisted on telling the police you were part of it also. Nothing your uncle or I could say seemed to make a bit of difference to anybody.”
“The police came to your house to get information about me?”
“They didn’t have to come to our house,” said Aunt Rene. “We were already at the Carvers’ when Doug called them.”
“I don’t understand,” said Tracy. “What were you doing there?”
“We drove over to see why the phone was off the hook for so long. Nobody came to the door, so, since it wasn’t locked, we went ahead and opened it. We could hear Doug Carver shouting from the pantry. The moment we got him out, he went straight to the phone and called his wife and then the police. Then Cory put through a call to your father in Italy.”
“Uncle Cory phoned Dad!” Tracy exclaimed.
“Well, of course we had to phone Richard. You’re his daughter! He was able to get himself booked on a morning flight out of Rome. He should be on his way back to the States this very minute.”
“He couldn’t take off like that! They’re making a movie!”
“There was no way that poor man could work, knowing you were missing,” said her aunt. “He was upset and frightened and, of course, furious at Cory and me. He entrusted you to our care, and we let this dreadful thing happen. For all we knew, you might have been raped or murdered!” Her aunt’s voice faltered and then dissolved into a muffled sob.
The receiver gave a thud as though it had slipped from her hand, and a moment later Cory Stevenson’s voice came on the line. “Where are you, Tracy? I’m coming to get you.”
“That’s not necessary,” said Tracy. “Brad’s mother has already sent somebody to pick us up. I don’t know what’s going to happen, though, when his friend arrives and finds out that Brad and Cricket aren’t here any longer.”
“I don’t want you going off with anybody connected with that crazy Johnson kid,” her uncle said firmly. “I want you home with us and out of this mess.”
“I can’t get ‘out of this mess,’ ” Tracy said miserably. There was an obstruction in her throat that she could not force away. “I’m in it up to my neck.”
“It’s not your job to handle this. It’s up to the police.”
“I’m sorry,” Tracy told him. “I’ll call you soon, I promise. I feel terrible about having caused so many problems. I’ve got to do what I can, though, to help find Cricket. You may not want to believe this, Uncle Cory, but I’m as responsible for what’s happened to her as Brad is.”
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Tracy glanced down at her watch. It was slightly after 10 A.M. If Brad’s mother had been correct in her estimate of the time it would take to drive to Rock Springs from Albuquerque, it would be at least 11:30 before Jamie arrived there. With that much time to kill, she could leave the restaurant and walk around town or pick up something to read. Still, there was always a chance that Brad might have a change of heart and decide to come back and get her. If that should occur, it was imperative that she should be there.
With that thought in mind, she went back into the café dining room, where she ordered coffee and a sweet roll and settled herself at a table to wait out the remainder of the morning.
Time had never seemed to pass so slowly. The men in the black jackets finished eating their pancakes and left. The man with the newspaper ordered himself more coffee, and a large Hispanic family came in and ordered ice cream. Their glossy-haired baby sat in a high chair and ate with his fingers, coating his round, dark-complected face with chocolate.
“Naughty boy!” said his mother. “Naughty Juanito!” She slapped his sticky hands, and Juanito howled.
You don’t know how lucky you are, Tracy longed to tell the woman. Your baby is alive and safe, and you know where he is.
The family eventually left, and the early lunch brigade began to arrive. Self-conscious about having stayed so long already, Tracy ordered a second sweet roll, which she did not want, and forced herself to take an occasional bite of it.
More time went by, and more people kept trickling in. Two overweight women in identical polyester pants suits, one lavender and one pink. A bearded man in boots and a cowboy hat. A gray-haired woman who walked with the aid of a cane. A teenage girl with an exquisite, high-boned face, whose dark hair was pulled back and tied in a ponytail.
The girl did not move immediately to a table. Instead, she paused in the doorway and checked the room over as though she were expecting to find someone waiting there for her.
After a moment, she settled her gaze on Tracy and crossed the room to the table where she was sitting.
“You’re the only girl here, so I guess you have to be Tracy,” she said. “I’m Jamie Hanson, and I’ve come for Brad.”
Chapter 16
“YOU’RE JAMIE?” TRACY SAID blankly. “But Jamie’s a boy!” The girl looked surprised. “Brad told you that?”
“Actually, he didn’t,” Tracy admitted. “I just assumed—I mean, he kept talking about this person, Jamie, who was his best friend, so naturally, I thought—”
“He was right, I am his best friend,” the girl said. “I always have been and always will be. So where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Tracy said.
“You don’t know?” Now it was Jamie who appeared bewildered. “I was out at the Brummer house when you called there. There were some things my mom thought I should discuss with Brad’s mother. I thought you told Mrs. Brummer Brad was with you!”
“At the time I called her, he was here in this dining room,” Tracy said. “I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t still be here when I got back.”
“Brad’s mom is a basket case,” Jaime said. “Gavin Brummer gave her hell when she told him it was Brad who had his sister’s kid. Mrs. Brummer goes all to pieces when people yell at her.” She paused. “Where did Brad go?”
“He slipped out the back way and took Cricket with him.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Don’t ask me why Brad does any of the things he does,” said Tracy. “You’re his best friend. You know him so well, you tell me.”
“I can’t tell you anything until I know what’s been going on,” Jamie said, pulling a chair out from the table and taking her seat across from Tracy. “All I know is Brad told me he was going fishing, and then he seems to have ended up in Texas. I can see why he might have gone there, but I can’t figure out how you fit into the picture.”
“I fit into it because he pulled me into it,” said Tracy. “Brad came over to the high school and picked me out of the lineup of available accomplices. I don’t know why I was the one he zeroed in on, but he gave me a sob story about how he was searching for his long-lost sister, and I was stupid enough to fall for it.”
“Well, maybe you’d better fill me in,” said Jamie. “I don’t even know how he found out Gavin was in Texas. The way Brad feels about his stepfather, Mrs. Brummer didn’t want him to know where Gavin was.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you everything I know,” said Tracy. She drew a long breath and forced herself to begin. “Last Tuesday, while I was eating lunch in the school cafeteria …”
She meant to make the telling short, but it turned out to take far longer than she had anticipated, because Jamie kept breaking in with questions and comments.
“Gavin stopped taking care of his car after Mindy died,” she said, when Tracy mentioned the condition of the Jaguar. “Until then, that bullet on wheels was his pride and joy. After Mindy was killed, he didn’t seem to care about the car any longer—or about anything else, for that matter. He just wanted to get away and start life over where everything he saw wouldn’t stir up memories.”
She reacted again when Tracy described her first glimpse of Cricket seated at the dinner table in the Carvers’ kitchen. “It figures that the kid would be blue-eyed and blond,” she said. “Gavin has blond hair and blue eyes, so I guess his sister, Cricket’s mother, does too. Mindy and Cricket were first cousins. I can see how it might have confused Brad to see a look-alike kid at the table, especially if he’d convinced himself Mindy was at the Carvers’.”
“The windowpane was warped,” Tracy said, remembering. “Everything we saw through it seemed to be distorted. When Gavin was lifting Cricket out of her high chair, I actually thought for a moment I saw him crying.”
“Maybe you did,” said Jamie. “Cricket probably reminds him of his daughter. Gavin has plenty of faults, but he did love that baby. He was a good father to Mindy—at least, he tried to be.”
“That’s not what Brad told me,” said Tracy. She regarded the other girl skeptically. “In fact, he said Gavin was so uncaring and irresponsible he burned the little girl with a soldering iron.”
“He did,” Jamie said, “but that was more my fault than his. Gavin didn’t know Mindy was anywhere around.”
“It was your fault!” Tracy exclaimed. “How could it have been? Wasn’t Gavin the one who was holding the iron?”
“I guess Brad didn’t tell you,” said Jamie. “I was supposed to be watching Mindy. Brad was off camping that weekend, and his mother had gone out shopping, and since Gavin wanted to spend the afternoon working on his car, I volunteered to baby-sit. I got caught up in watching a movie on television and didn’t keep an eye on the kid the way I should have. All of a sudden, I heard the screen door slam, and before I could jump up from the sofa, Mindy started screaming. She must have caught sight of her dad and raced straight over to him. By the time he knew she was out there, it was too late.”
“That’s not the way Brad described what happened,” said Tracy.
“Brad wasn’t there to see it.”
“Didn’t anybody tell him?”
“Of course we told him,” Jamie said impatiently. “Haven’t you caught on yet to how it is with Brad? When you tell him things he doesn’t want to hear, he tunes them out. He couldn’t bear to believe I was responsible for Mindy’s being burned, so he switched things around in his head so all the blame was on Gavin.
“Well, go ahead. What happened after that? How did the two of you get into the Carvers’ house?”
“I got a job as Cricket’s sitter,” said Tracy. “Brad waited outside in the car …” She picked up the story at the point at which she had left off and continued until she brought it at last to its painful final chapter. “After we’d crossed the border into New Mexico, I heard a news report about us on the car radio. The announcer said the little girl Brad had told me was Mindy was really the Carvers’ three-year-old daughter, Julianne.”
By the
time Tracy had finished, Jamie’s eyes were glistening with tears.
“Poor Brad,” she murmured.
“Poor Brad!” Tracy echoed, outraged. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for him? All ‘poor Brad’ has done since I met him is lie to me and use me. I can’t imagine why anybody would do something this bizarre. Why would he pretend Cricket was Mindy? What did he hope to gain? It doesn’t make sense.”
“He wasn’t pretending,” said Jamie. “Brad never consciously lies. He gets things twisted up in his mind, that’s all. He’s never been able to accept the fact that Mindy was dead. The way the accident happened was too awful. He’s kept trying to make himself believe that something else happened to her—that she’s been stolen away by the bad guys, that one day she’s going to come back.” She paused. “Has he talked to you at all about his father?”
“He said they used to have good times together.”
“Brad worshipped his dad,” Jamie said. “Mr. Johnson was an outdoorsy, he-man type. He never should have married the woman he did. He and Brad’s mother didn’t have a thing in common. He was always off doing his own macho thing in the woods, while she sat at home and made a big show of how miserable she was. If he hadn’t made her a widow, I bet that marriage of theirs would have ended in divorce.”
“Did Brad know that?” Tracy asked her in surprise.
“He did at the time, but he’s managed to forget it. In the years since his dad died, he’s shoved the bad memories out of his mind. That’s one reason he got so upset when his mother remarried. The man she picked wasn’t anything like Brad’s father.”
“You’re making Brad sound pretty creepy,” said Tracy. “I thought you said you were his closest friend.”
“I am,” said Jamie, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t know he’s got problems. After all, I’ve known Brad for a lot of years. He and I first met back in grade school, when we were nine years old. He was little—and I mean little. Much smaller than I was. And he had this sweet face and big brown eyes with long lashes. Another thing different about him was he never wore jeans. His mother thought little boys looked cute in short pants.