The Twisted Window (15 page)

Brad continued to drive north along the rutted road for another half hour, at which time it intersected with a two-lane-blacktop road, and he was able to turn west again.

By now the sun was gold and the sky was blue, and dawn had given way to full-fledged morning. The first sign of human life was a Texaco station perched on the edge of a cornfield.

"That's a beautiful sight," Brad said when he caught his first glimpse of it. "We've been running with our gauge on empty for the past five miles."

He pulled into the station in front of a self-serve gas pump, switched off the engine, and climbed out of the car. Easing Mindy down onto the seat so she was no longer propped against her, Tracy opened the rear door and got out also.

"I'll be back in a minute," she told Brad. "I need to find a rest room."

Inside the gas station, an attendant in olive green coveralls sat dozing behind the cash register. A portable radio on the counter next to him was spouting forth the morning news.

"Could I please have the key to the ladies' room?" Tracy asked him.

"It's on the wall by the Coke machine," the man informed her. "The bathrooms are around at the back. You have to go outside to get to them."

The keys to the rest rooms were attached to blocks of wood, one of which was marked with an S and the other with an F. Reasoning that whatever the "S" stood for, F must stand for female, Tracy took that key down from the nail on which it was hanging and was preparing to leave the office when the voice of the radio announcer spoke the name Carver.

It struck her like a fist driven into her stomach. Her breath went out of her with an audible gasp, and she found herself struggling frantically to refill her lungs.

"... a light blue Chevrolet Impala with New Mexico license plates," the newscaster continued as a windup to his report. "On a happier note, the weather today will be..."

"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 Van," 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 with her hair in curlers 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 cafe 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 Cafe 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 Cafe 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 crossed quickly over to the pay phone in the corner.