Read The Twisted Window for Free Online

can show you my driver's license. I come from Albuquerque, just the way I told you at lunch."
     
    "At lunch you also told me you were a student at the high school."
     
    "I had to say that, or you wouldn't have been willing to talk to me. There's something important I have to get done in Winfield. I went to the school to see if I could find someone to help me."
     
    "And I lucked out and got chosen?" Tracy's voice was edged with sarcasm. "So, when do you plan to tell me what my duties are?"
     
    "I have to locate a girl," Brad said, ignoring the tone of the question. "Her name is Mindy, and I think she may be in Winfield."
     
    "I don't know any girl named Mindy," Tracy told him.
     
    "I didn't expect you would, but you can help me find her."
     
    "Why do you need to find her? Did she run away?"
     
    "Hardly," Brad said shortly. "Do you want to see her picture?" Without waiting for an answer, he fished in a pocket of his shirt and extracted a color photograph. He thrust it out at her. "That's Mindy, the way she looked last summer."
     
    Tracy glanced at the picture, casually at first, and then with more interest. "Why, she's only a baby! I thought you were talking about a girlfriend."
     
    "She was eighteen months old when Mom had this picture taken. Like I said, that was back last summer. By now, she's two and a half."
     
    "Your mother had this picture taken? Mindy's a relative?"
     
    "She's my sister," said Brad. "No, actually, she's my half sister. My father died of a heart attack on my thirteenth birthday. Then my mother married a guy named Gavin Brummer. They had Mindy, and not too long after that, Mom and Gavin got divorced."
     
    "You don't look much alike," said Tracy. "Mindy's so blond."
     
    "She gets that from Gavin. My dad had brown curly hair." He paused, as though trying to decide how to phrase his next statement. "Four months ago Mindy was taken."
     
    "Taken?" exclaimed Tracy. "Do you mean she was kidnapped?"
     
    "That's the term I'd use," said Brad. "The cops call it 'child-snatching.' Gavin had been hanging around our place all that morning. He finally got me so mad I couldn't take it any longer, and I drove over to my friend Jamie's house to simmer down. Mom thought Gavin was leaving when I was. He was out in the yard, saying good-bye to Mindy, when our phone started ringing inside the house Mom went in to answer it, and when she came back out a few minutes later both Gavin and Mindy were gone."
     
    "Does your mother have custody of Mindy?" Tracy asked him
     
    "Of course Mom has custody Gavin's a creep "
     
    "My mother got custody of me when my folks were divorced," Tracy said.
     
    Brad was too caught up in his own story to respond to the statement
     
    "Mom fell apart after Mindy was snatched," he said "So did I, for a while there. I guess you could say we were both m shock You get so used to trusting people in authority, and Mom and I sat back like a couple of zombies, waiting for the police to track Gavin down "
     
    "I shouldn't have thought that would have been hard," said Tracy "From things I've read, it seems like it's almost impossible for people to disappear without a trace They take pieces of their old lives with them when they relocate. They look for the same kind of work and stay in touch with relatives. Gavin wasn't a stranger, he was your stepfather. You must have some idea about how to find him "
     
    "I do," said Brad, "but the police weren't interested in hearing it. Lieutenant Souter, the officer in charge of the investigation, treated me like I was a moron, too young or too dumb to say anything worth listening to Mom was just as bad. She wouldn't listen to me either I tried to get her to hire a private detective, but she couldn't seem to take in what I was suggesting.
     
    "That's when I decided to do my own detective work. I called the office where Gavin had worked and asked if they had any idea where he might have gone His boss wouldn't talk to me, but the boss's secretary did She