The Trap (4 page)

In a way, there was a parent over my shoulder, too—Mom. I knew there’d be a letter from her, so I clicked on the e-mail icon. Just as I did, a hand touched my shoulder. I let out a yell and leaped out of my chair.

Glenda stared at me in surprise. “I’m sorry I startled you,” she said. “I thought you heard me come into the room.”

“I didn’t,” I answered. My face turned red as I wondered
if she’d been reading over my shoulder. “When did you come in?”

“Just this minute,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep. Too much sherry does that to me.” She held out her car keys in my direction. “If you don’t mind, I think we should go visit Gabe now. That way we’ll be home before dark.”

As I took the keys, my fingers trembled. I didn’t know Aunt Glenda well enough to be sure she was telling me the truth.

But if she had read what Robin and I had written to each other, she’d know that we suspected someone of causing Gabe’s accident, and she’d ask me about it.

Wouldn’t she?

I hated the fact that I had no way of knowing.

THE FIRST THING UNCLE GABE SAID TO ME AS WE WALKED INTO
his hospital room was “Did you get a chance—?”

“Of course she didn’t,” Glenda interrupted. “I told you, we went to a luncheon, and then we took naps.”

“Teenage girls don’t take naps,” Gabe grumbled.

“I set up my laptop,” I told him. I didn’t want to bring up my discovery of the nail holes. I wasn’t sure why they were there. I didn’t want anyone to know about anything suspicious until I had more information. Like maybe knowing
who
and
why.
Robin said I had to find out. She was the one who knew how mysteries were solved. I had to start somewhere.

“Uncle Gabe,” I said, “tell me how Rancho del Oro is operated. I mean, are there cowboys and a chuck wagon and all the things we see in Westerns?”

Gabe smiled and patted the side of his bed, motioning for me to sit down. Glenda had taken the only chair in the room, so I perched on the edge of the bed and listened.

“There’s a ranch manager, name of Martin Cooper,” Gabe said. “He keeps the books and arranges the purchases
and sales of the cattle and the sales of the residences. He takes care of all the financial details and keeps us updated by e-mail.”

“Does he live on the ranch, too?”

“No. He lives in Dallas, where the corporation is headquartered. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t put in an appearance at the ranch very often, but when he comes, he usually flies in his private jet.”

I was puzzled. “To the San Antonio airport?”

Grinning proudly, Gabe said, “We’ve got our own strip for small jets built on the highest point on the ranch. I take it that Glenda didn’t do any sightseeing with you.”

“I can’t do everything at once,” Glenda said in an aggrieved tone. “I plan to show Julie around the entire area soon as I get a chance.”

Trying to distract them from another argument, I quickly asked, “If the ranch manager isn’t at the ranch, then who takes care of the cattle?”

“The ranch foreman, Cal Grant,” Gabe answered. “And he has three cowhands to help him. Nice people. All of them up from Mexico with green cards. Perfectly legal. One of them has a son in high school named Luis who was born here. In the summer and on weekends during the year, Luis hires himself out for small repairs around the houses, or weeds the flower beds, or paints trim—things like that.”

He gripped the sheet and blanket in frustration as he turned to Glenda. “That reminds me. Get Luis in to clean out that trap under the kitchen sink. That was next on my list of things to do, and now there’s no way I can take care of it.”

Glenda nodded. “I’ll call Luis. Don’t you worry about it.”

“Do it right away. You’re going to be cooking more than usual when I get home and—”

“But not tonight,” she said. “Julie and I plan to take it easy and eat out. Italian.”

Uncle Gabe looked like a little kid who’d been told he hadn’t been invited to a birthday party. “Fried ravioli,” he said quietly. “Shrimp scampi. Tiramisu.”

“None of which is good for you,” Glenda said briskly. She kissed the top of his head. “As soon as your blood pressure comes down, the doctor said we can take you home.”

About fifteen minutes later, in a cozy little Italian restaurant, Glenda added, “Tonight I’m going to indulge in something with lots of cheese and calories. After we bring Gabe home, I’ll go back to healthful meals that suit his diet.” She looked at the menu and sighed with pleasure.

I’d found out enough information to know how the ranch operated, but I couldn’t ask Gabe anything that might cause his blood pressure to go up. I decided to try to get more information from Glenda. After we had ordered, I leaned my elbows on the table and asked her, “Is there anyone at the ranch who might be … well, angry at Uncle Gabe?”

She looked puzzled. “Angry? Well, Gabe tends to be a little blunt and is usually likely to grumble about something or other—” she began.

She suddenly stopped, narrowed her eyes, and gave me a piercing look. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Are you
going along with Gabe’s crazy idea that somebody did something to cause him to fall down the stairs?”

I must have looked guilty, because she said, “Humor Gabe, but please don’t get caught up in his fantasy, Julie.”

I decided it would be best to change the subject. “Tell me about the job you used to have at the design center,” I said.

The expression on Glenda’s face went from delight, as she described some of the homes she had decorated, to wistfulness, as she spoke about the impossibility of continuing her work after they had moved to the ranch.

Our salads arrived, and she seemingly forgot the question she had asked me.

I was glad. I didn’t want to give her an answer.

But I thought about it later that evening, after Glenda had gone to bed and I’d returned to my laptop to finally read my e-mail.

The first was from Mom, dated the day before and written the moment I’d left:

Make a list. Fine. I had just gotten here and I was getting instructions from the family already.

So far there wasn’t anything to write about, so I just answered:

Following was an e-mail from my aunt Ellen:

She went on to describe how to make a grid for days of the week and times of the day, as if I were five years old. I groaned and clicked on
Reply
, then wrote:

Will do. Julie
and clicked on
Send Now.

The next letter was from Aunt Samantha, who wrote:

Scowling at the computer, I sent Aunt Samantha the same message I’d sent Aunt Ellen. Why did everyone in the family think they had to tell me what to do?

The next two messages were from stores I’d never shopped in, but somehow they’d gotten hold of my e-mail address. I deleted their ads without opening them.

The last was an e-mail from Robin asking me what I’d found out.

I e-mailed back:
Nothing.

I was about to shut down when I heard a familiar jingle and the buddy screen popped up.

BFF. Best friends forever. I closed my laptop feeling a wave of disappointment. I had hoped Robin would
give me the help I needed to decide what to do about Uncle Gabe. How could she, really? She was far away. I walked through Gabe’s study, turning off the light as I left.

As I flipped off the table lamp in the living room, I sensed movement behind the wide windows and froze. Again I saw a shift in the night’s pattern of faint light and deep black. Someone was outside, near the window.

I inched toward the windows, keeping my back to the wall. When I was close enough, I pressed my face to the glass and squinted into the night.

Something raised a massive head and looked back at me, almost nose to nose. Too startled to even make a sound, I staggered backward, falling over the back of the sofa into its cushions, where I lay without moving, my heartbeat slowly returning to normal.

A cow. The thing outside the window was nothing more than a big-eyed, wide-mouthed, shaggy-faced cow. I remembered what we’d learned in history a few years ago about cows being sacred in India. Well, they seemed to be just as sacred here on Rancho del Oro.

I climbed off the sofa and tried another window. There were three cows out there, each of them munching away at Glenda’s bushes and flowers, and I couldn’t even shoo them off. Tomorrow that part of the garden would be gone, and in its place would be a scattering of cow patties. It was easy to understand why the ladies I’d heard complain at lunch hated the cows, who had first rights.

I could see through the dark well enough to make my way back to the guest bedroom. It didn’t take long to get ready for bed. I kept thinking about what I
should do next to find out what or who had caused Gabe’s fall.

Tomorrow, I told myself. I’ll think about it tomorrow. Tonight I was exhausted. I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

Early the next morning I had the pool to myself. Not even the Hunk was there.

Once again, the cold water was a shock, and because the altitude was a little over fifteen hundred feet higher than Santa Monica’s sea level, I breathed heavily, gasping gulps of air instead of sucking them in smoothly. But as I swam laps back and forth, I felt at home in the water. The kinks began to leave both my body and my mind, and an idea surfaced—an idea worth investigating.

I showered and joined Glenda for breakfast, which consisted of a carton of orange juice and a formerly frozen egg-and-cheese dish in a small plastic casserole. Cooked to bubbling in the microwave, the mixture didn’t taste exactly like eggs or like cheese, but it was edible, and I scarfed down my half, mopping up the last crumb with a slice of toast. The strange little
DIME
BOX
bank caught my eye. I wanted to ask Glenda about it, but she was intent on telling me all about the women I’d met the day before.

“I think Mabel’s older than she’ll admit,” Glenda said. “She’s always losing things or misplacing them. Goodness knows what she does with them or where she puts them. Two weeks ago it was her gold bracelet. Yesterday she said she couldn’t find her emerald ring. I just hope I never get so scatterbrained …”

I wasn’t really interested in Mabel McBride’s state of mind, so at that point I tuned Glenda out and concentrated on my breakfast.

As I took our plates to the sink, the back door swung open and Millie Lee stepped into the kitchen. “Mornin’, y’all,” she said.

“Morning, Millie Lee,” Glenda answered. She beamed. “And good morning to you, Ashley.”

Just behind Millie Lee appeared a girl with freckles across her nose and a mop of curly red hair. Ashley Kemp. Just as Glenda had described her. “Hi,” I said.

Millie Lee smiled proudly, but Ashley’s face was solemn, even a little wary, as she looked at me.

“This is my granddaughter I told you about,” Millie Lee said.

“Hi,” I said again. “I’m Julie.”

Ashley still didn’t smile. For an instant the four of us were trapped in one of those silences during which no one has a thing to say. Then we all started talking at once.

Millie Lee said, “Mostly Ashley helps me, but today she can do whatever you girls want to do.”