Releasing her hold, Cricket shoved both hands hard against Tracy’s chest. The child was surprisingly strong for someone so little, and Tracy felt her one-armed grip beginning to loosen.
“Cricket, stop this!” she whispered frantically. “That monkey’s just a toy! You can get a brand new Monk-Monk when you get home.”
“No!” cried Cricket, giving a violent lurch.
The weight of the struggling child was more than she could handle. To keep from having to drop her, Tracy bent and set her down. The moment her feet touched the floor, Cricket broke free and took off at a run in the direction of the bedroom.
Frozen in helpless horror, Tracy could see what was going to happen a split second before it did.
The sound of the little girl colliding with a chair was followed almost instantaneously by the roar of a gun.
Chapter 19
AFTERWARD, BRAD COULD OFFER no explanation for the shooting. His last clear memory before the gun discharged was of standing with Jamie on the tiny front porch of the cabin, looking down into her face and thinking how beautiful she was.
It was strange he had not noticed that before. Perhaps it was because she had become so familiar. For him, looking at Jamie was like gazing at a painting that had been hanging at the center of his life for so many years he had stopped taking in the richness of its colors.
He had chosen Tracy to help him because she had reminded him of Jamie. But no one could take Jamie’s place—not now, not ever.
How could he have failed to recognize her, even at a distance? It had been the car that had confused him. He was accustomed to seeing Jamie behind the wheel of the Hanson family station wagon and had forgotten about the secondhand Charger in their garage. Jamie had bought it for next to nothing through an ad in the newspaper and had been tinkering with it for months, trying to get it running. Now she had accomplished that, as she eventually accomplished everything she set out to do. Determined, clear-eyed, practical—those were the words he had always connected with Jamie.
And now he had another adjective—beautiful.
That realization had struck him with startling clarity while he stood watching her climb toward him up the face of the hill. Her face had been awash with gold from the slanting afternoon sunlight, and the radiance of the vision had set fire to his heart.
She had been flushed and winded when she finally reached him and stood, panting, at the edge of the porch, hanging onto one of the posts like a child swinging on a maypole while she struggled to catch her breath.
“Hey, that’s quite a climb! That hill is steeper than it looks!”
“You could have gone around back and come up the trail,” Brad said.
“It would have taken too long.” She attempted a smile, but it stopped at her lips and was not reflected in her eyes. “It’s pretty grotesque being greeted by a guy with a gun. What are you doing with that? Are you planning to shoot me?”
“Don’t be silly. It’s for—well, it’s for … protection.” Brad let the muzzle drop so the rifle was pointed at the floor. “I’m glad you came. I’ve been hoping you’d come. I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too,” said Jamie. “It’s been a long week.”
“I’ve got a surprise for you. Guess who’s up here with me? Guess who’s in the bedroom of the cabin right now?” Brad reached out a hand and lightly touched her cheek. It was a gesture he had never thought to make before, and he was startled by the softness of her skin. “It’s Mindy! I found her in Texas where Gavin was hiding her! I was thinking maybe the three of us could stay here all summer.”
“That’s a nice idea,” Jamie said, “but it couldn’t work. It’s pretty up here, of course, but you know you can’t stay here long. It was one thing, baching it here by yourself or with your dad, but a little kid can’t be expected to rough it, with no indoor plumbing or anything.”
It was a down-to-earth argument, as all her arguments were. Jamie never angered him the way other people did. So if he wasn’t angry, how had the thing come to happen? One moment, he had been standing there with his back to the open door, the rifle held loosely in one hand with its muzzle aiming downward. Then, there had been a crash, and he had spun to face the cabin, automatically jerking the gun into a raised position.
Somehow, it had gone off.
For several moments after the blast, Brad stood unmoving, cemented in place, too stunned to react at all. Then, as the significance of what had occurred penetrated his consciousness, he let the rifle fall and dashed into the house.
The scene that greeted his eyes was not unexpected. It had been hidden at the back of his brain for four terrible months, held at bay like pain held back by a local anesthetic, waiting for the inevitable moment when numbness would subside. The golden-haired child on the ground, a woman’s figure bent over her—the meaning of the tableau came rushing in upon him, and he could no longer refuse to acknowledge its validity.
The protective wall of denial began to crumble, and as the bricks fell away, there was nothing left but reality.
“I did it,” Brad said quietly. “I killed Mindy.”
The terrible words that slid from his lips so softly, expanded upon their release to fill the room like thunder. I did it. I killed Mindy—Mindy—MINDY! They bounced back at him from walls and floor and ceiling, reverberating from every part of his being.
The world began to spin, and his legs buckled under him. Sinking to his knees, he covered his face with his hands, and against the blackness he again saw the setting. The yard in front of their house had clumps of brown grass sticking through an anemic layer of half melted snow. Gavin’s Jaguar stood out by the curb, highly polished and perfect. His own car, the blue Chevy, was parked in the driveway.
It was winter. It was December.
It was Mindy’s second birthday.
Gavin had arrived at noon to attend the celebration
“This is crazy!” Brad told his mother. “This guy’s not your husband! You’ve divorced the creep, so why is he hanging around here?”
“It’s Saturday,” his mother reminded him. “You know Gavin gets visitation on the weekends. I’d rather put up with him here at Mindy’s party than have them go off and celebrate her birthday without me.”
The accusation hung, unvoiced, in the air between them.
“Dad would have had the heart attack anyway,” Brad said defensively, feeling his stomach tighten with old, familiar nausea.
“We can’t know that,” said his mother.
“The doctors told us—”
“He lay in the woods for three hours without medical attention. If the two of you had stayed here at home as I begged you to, we could have summoned an ambulance in a matter of minutes.” She sighed. “Well, it’s behind us now. What’s done is done. The men in my life may desert me, but I’ll always have my children.”
To Brad’s relief, she did not pursue the subject further.
Mindy was still too little to understand why the day was so special, but she reveled in her position as center of attention. The house was filled with a combination of Christmas and birthday decorations; a tree with lights and tinsel, mistletoe hanging over the doorway, multicolored balloons, and a birthday cake with two legitimate candles and a third one “to grow on” set off to the side.
The birthday presents were wrapped in pastel paper to distinguish them from the Christmas gifts under the tree. There were a Raggedy Ann, a jack-in-the-box, a xylophone (Brad had gotten her that), and a dollhouse half a foot taller than Mindy herself.
What Brad had not been prepared for was the bear.
Until that appeared, he had prided himself on the act that he was managing to keep his animosity under wraps. For his mother’s sake and Mindy’s, he had made an effort to be congenial, making casual conversation, dishing out ice cream to serve to the four of them, answering Gavin’s awkward questions about how school was going.
But when Gavin was ready to leave, he had insisted they all walk out to the car with h
im, and from the back seat he had lifted a big, soft package. He had presented it to Mindy with a dramatic flourish, and a brown toy bear had emerged from the fluff of pink paper.
That was the point at which Brad’s self-control deserted him.
“Mindy already has a bear!” he exploded. “In case you’ve forgotten, I gave her Bimbo a year ago today!”
“This isn’t just any old teddy bear,” Gavin assured him. “Pinch him, Mindy baby, and see what he does.”
Mindy glanced uncertainly from her brother to her father. Then she reached out tentatively and touched the bear’s paw.
Gavin guided her hand to the furry arm.
“Give him a squeeze!” he said, and Mindy giggled.
With Gavin’s hand over hers, she squeezed the bear’s arm, and from somewhere deep in its chest a hidden music box began to play “Deck the Halls With Boughs of Holly.”
Mindy let out a shriek of surprise and grabbed the bear with both hands to pinch it again. Immediately, the tune it played changed to “Jingle Bells.”
The little girl threw her arms around her father’s neck.
“ ‘Dinkle Bells’!” she squealed in delight. “ ‘Dinkle Bells’!”
“He plays twenty different songs,” Gavin informed her proudly, as self-satisfied as though he had programmed the creature himself. “I guess this beats old Bimbo, doesn’t it, baby?”
Those were the words that had opened the emotional floodgate. The rage that had swept over Brad was so all-consuming that it had been all he could do to keep from striking the man. If he had been more heavily built he might actually have done so, but knowing he was no physical match for his former stepfather, he had stood in wretched silence, shaking with unconsummated fury, his fists clenched so tightly his fingernails sliced into his palms.
Exactly what happened next, he had never been sure about. He did recall the fact that the phone had rung inside the house and his mother had left the yard to go in to answer it. The stupid bear was now playing “Silent Night,” and Gavin was going through the ritualistic goodbyes with hugs and kisses for Mindy and a token handshake for Brad.
Brad had glared at the man and turned away, unable to bring himself to take the proffered hand. Instead, he had jumped into the Chevy and started the engine. Gunning the motor, he had thrown the car into reverse, and a moment later had been flying down the road to Jamie’s.
Had there been a thump as the car roared out of the driveway? When he thought back now, he knew of course that there had been. At the time, he had been too furious to focus on anything but his anger, and he had driven away without a glance behind him.
Now, in the terrible blackness of his two cupped hands, he saw the nightmare through from beginning to end.
“It was an accident,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to. Mom says it’s the same as murder, but it was an accident!”
“Of course it was an accident,” Jamie said softly. “That’s why you weren’t indicted; it was an accident.”
The pain of the realization was so intolerable that Brad did not think he had the strength to survive it.
“I killed my sister,” he moaned, “and I can’t bear it.”
“Yes, you can,” Jamie told him, “because I’ll bear it with you.”
Her hands seized his and pulled them down from his face, forcing him to look straight into her eyes. When he did, he saw his agony reflected there and knew she had taken half of it for her own.
She put her arms around him and drew him against her, so the curve of her breast was a pillow for his face. The tears came then, in a rush that almost drowned him, and with the storm of weeping, the great release.
“Why is that boy in there crying?” asked Cricket.
“He was scared,” Tracy told her. “When that gun went off by accident, he thought the bullet hit you and knocked you down.”
“My foot got caught on the chair when I ran for Monk-Monk.”
“I know, but Brad was outside and couldn’t see that. He thought he’d hurt you, and that made him feel just awful.”
She and the child were walking together along the bank of the stream below the cabin. The sun had now slipped behind the hill, creating an artificial twilight in which nothing appeared to be exactly what it had been. The meadow beneath them was lost in mysterious shadows, a fairyland or a breeding place for devils. The stream could have been a gush of blue-black liquid from a witch’s cauldron or a mirror reflecting the high, sweet curve of heaven.
It’s however I choose to see it, Tracy thought suddenly, as she gazed at the painful but glorious world that surrounded her.
“Are we going home now?” asked Cricket, tugging at her hand.
How strange that the word brought with it a vision of Winfield!
“Yes,” Tracy told her quietly, “we’re going home.”
A Biography of Lois Duncan
Lois Duncan is the author of more than fifty books for young adults. Her stories of mystery and suspense have won dozens of awards, and many have been named Best Books for Young Adults by the American Library Association. Some of her novels have been adapted for film, including I Know What You Did Last Summer and Hotel for Dogs.
Lois Duncan was born Lois Duncan Steinmetz in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 28, 1934. Her parents, Lois and Joseph Janney Steinmetz, were both professional photographers. Since her parents’ work required travel, Duncan and her brother often tagged along, and these trips supplied Duncan with ample writing material. Duncan began writing poetry and stories as soon as she could spell. By age ten she was submitting her work to magazines, and she had her first story published nationally when she was only thirteen years old.
That same year the family moved to Sarasota, Florida. Duncan spent many hours daydreaming and writing near the family’s house on the beach. Through her teen years her work was frequently published by magazines such as Seventeen and the Saturday Evening Post.
Duncan briefly attended Duke University, but left school after one year to marry and start a family. She didn’t abandon writing, however, and she published her first book, Debutante Hill (1957), after winning a contest conducted by Dodd, Mead & Company, a major publishing house that has since ceased operations. Her work helped support her family while her husband attended law school.
Duncan had three children with her first husband. After they divorced, Duncan moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. There she taught journalism at the University of New Mexico and finished her own college degree. She met and married Don Arquette, with whom she had two more children. Even while producing hundreds of articles for magazines such as Reader’s Digest and Ladies Home Journal, Duncan penned dozens of books.
Duncan’s novels are often filled with suspense and a sense of the eerie and supernatural, with elements including mystic visions and ghostly presences. In books such as Gallows Hill (1997), her protagonists face unexplainable phenomena while being pressured by classmates or friends to fit in and ignore their instincts. Much of Duncan’s fiction, such as Ransom (1966), They Never Came Home (1968), and The Twisted Window (1987), hinges on missing children, abductions, and the terror of accidental separation.
In 1989, Duncan suffered a great tragedy when her youngest daughter, Kaitlyn, was shot to death at age eighteen. The crime was never solved, and Duncan’s own investigation into the Albuquerque shooting became the basis of her 1992 nonfiction title Who Killed My Daughter? The book digs into the original murder investigation, and describes how Duncan’s daughter and members of the Albuquerque police force seem to have been caught in a complicated web of organized crime.
Lois Duncan now lives with her husband in Florida, where she continues to write.
Duncan was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 28, 1934. Her parents, Joseph Janney and Lois Foley Steinmetz, were professional photographers.
Duncan’s parents enjoyed creating homemade Christmas cards. Because Duncan was named after her mother, her parents called her “Mimi,” and that nickname appears on some of those c
ards. Duncan insisted on switching to “Lois” when she started school.
Duncan’s brother, Bill, was born in 1937. This was his first appearance in a family Christmas card.
In kindergarten, Duncan composed rhymed verse, which she recited at show-and-tell. Instead of the praise she expected, she was punished and had to give up her snack. Her teacher thought Duncan was lying about writing the poems and had stolen them from a published writer. At age ten, Duncan began submitting stories to magazines. Her manuscripts were rejected, but she kept on writing and submitting, until she had accumulated so many rejection slips that her mother asked her if she wanted to paper a wall with them.
In 1946, Duncan’s family moved to Sarasota, Florida, where Duncan and her brother grew up in a rustic, isolated beach house. Today Siesta Key Beach is lined with hotels, but during Duncan’s childhood you could walk for miles and never see a soul. It was a perfect place for Duncan to scribble in notebooks and start pecking out stories on a manual typewriter.
Duncan is pictured here in 1950. She dreamed about becoming a professional writer, and at age thirteen, she made her first sale to a national magazine. Because her name, Lois Steinmetz, was the same as her mother’s, she decided to use her middle name, Duncan, as a pen name. She continued writing for magazines throughout her teens and eventually earned enough money to buy herself a Jeep.
Duncan’s photographer parents often traveled on assignments for magazines. Whenever possible Duncan and her brother went with them, and those expeditions served both as business trips and family vacations.
Everybody in Duncan’s family was expected to act as a photo model. This picture, which Duncan’s father took of her on a Florida beach, ended up as the cover of Collier’s magazine in 1949.
Duncan shown with her two oldest children, Robin and Kerry. A son, Brett, soon followed. Duncan attended Duke University for one year and then dropped out to get married. She wrote her first young adult novel, Debutante Hill, when she was twenty and entered it in a contest. It won the Seventeenth Summer Literary Award and was published as a result. When Duncan’s husband entered law school, she continued to write books, which helped pay for his tuition and support their growing family.