The Trap (8 page)

Ashley gave me a strange quick look, then curled into a surface dive. I watched her swim away underwater, then reappear at the opposite end of the pool.

I found it hard to understand Ashley. Sometimes she seemed friendly, sometimes she didn’t—and I didn’t know why. She made it clear that she didn’t like Luis, and at times she didn’t seem to like me. Maybe it was just that she was shy, but for some reason her actions seemed defensive.

I climbed out of the pool and lay on one of the beach chairs, letting the sun blot the water from my back. In a few minutes, Ashley stretched out in the chair next to me. She didn’t speak, and I was trying to decide if I should start another conversation when the Hunk arrived.

He didn’t say hello. He just flexed his bronzed muscles and said, “I hope you kids aren’t going back in the pool for a while. I’m going to vacuum it.”

Kids! What a jerk. I flipped over to take a good look at him. Up close I could see leathery lines in his face and realized that he was probably close to thirty. I thought of Uncle Gabe’s telescope and how I had trained it on the
pool and on some of the surrounding houses. The Jerk/Hunk had looked much better at a distance.

He poked his vacuum wand down to the bottom of the pool. Then, as though he knew I was sizing him up, he looked directly at me. “You ever live on ranch country before?” he asked me.

“No,” I answered.

“It takes getting used to,” he said. “Especially at night when it’s easy to get lost. Don’t go out in the dark again by your lonesome.”

I sat up, alert. “What are you talking about?”

“Last night I heard you yelling for help all the way down here.”

“Here? The pool isn’t open at night.”

“Sometimes I bunk on the couch in the office.”

I examined him suspiciously. “How did you know it was me?”

“Direction. It had to be the Hollister house.”

“If you heard me yelling for help, why didn’t you come?” I asked.

His shoulders rippled in a shrug. “While I was thinking on it, you stopped.”

Angry now, I persisted. “What if I stopped because I’d been hurt?”

“You weren’t hurt,” he said. “Mrs. Hollister opened the door and let you back in the house.”

“How’d you know that?”

Again he shrugged. “Figures. She was there, wasn’t she?”

He moved away, intent on examining the bottom of the pool, while I tried to sort through what he’d said. Was he really guessing correctly at what had happened,
or did he know what had happened because he had been there in the darkness? Had I been right? What if this guy had watched me through the unshuttered windows as I worked in Gabe’s office? Had he opened the back door to reach inside and turn the lock in the doorknob and then hidden at the edge of the woods?

I was lobbing questions to myself at a fast clip until one popped up that stopped me cold.
What reason could he have had for being at the house?
I couldn’t see any possible connection between this pool guy and Uncle Gabe.

Ashley spoke, startling me so much that I jumped. “What was Damien talking about?”

“That’s his name? Damien?” I blurted out. He looked as though his name should be Rocky or Tony, not Damien.

“Yes. Damien Fitch. I told you. He lives in the trailer next to Gran’s and he drives that scratched-up black sedan we parked next to. So? Tell me. Why were you yelling for help last night?”

I told her most of the story, mentioning that I must have accidentally locked the door as I went out, then had panicked when I couldn’t get back inside. I expected her to laugh, but she didn’t.

“It
is
scary up here after dark,” she said. “I don’t blame you for being frightened.
I
would have been.”

I was grateful for Ashley’s support. I guess I could have told her my suspicions that someone actually had reached in and locked that door. However, something held me back. Maybe because I just didn’t know Ashley well enough. Maybe because I still didn’t understand her.

Glenda and Gabe seemed to. During the afternoon,
while the four of us played Chinese checkers, Gabe teased Ashley and made her laugh. Glenda and Ashley found they had read the same biography and practically got into a Great Books discussion. To my surprise, I realized that Glenda and Gabe seemed to know more about Ashley than they did about me.

When Millie Lee drove by to pick up Ashley, Gabe and Glenda appeared to be as sorry to see her go as I was.

“Come back tomorrow,” I said.

“I will, if it’s okay with Gran,” Ashley promised.

“Lovely girl,” Glenda said as she waved at the departing car. “I’m sorry her family …” Her words drifted away, but I remembered what she had told me.

That evening, when I was alone at dinner with Gabe and Glenda, I asked, “Do you know much about Damien Fitch?”

“Who’s Damien Fitch?” Gabe asked, his energies focused on the steaming hot, once-frozen lasagna he was eating.

“He’s the lifeguard at your pool,” I said.

“Never heard of him,” Gabe said. He took a large bite.

“We’re just not much for swimming,” Glenda apologized. “I do remember him, though. He came to the house in early May with a membership form to be signed if we wanted to use the swimming pool. He seemed like a pleasant young man. We had a nice chat while he drank his coffee.”

“You invited him in?” I asked.

“Why, yes,” she answered. “He asked for a drink of water, and I offered iced tea, but he preferred coffee.”
She gave me a questioning look and added, “We’re hospitable in Texas, Julie.”

Gabe looked up from his plate and asked, “What do you want us to know about him?”

“Nothing, really,” I answered, feeling stupid because there was no way I could come up with a sensible answer. “I just wondered if you knew him.”

“We chatted about all sorts of things,” Glenda said. “I remember he asked about the Dime Box, and I told him its story.”

Gabe scraped the last bite of lasagna from his plate, put it in his mouth, and asked, “By the way, does anybody know where my Dime Box is now?”

I glanced toward the kitchen counter near the back door. “It’s over—” I stopped short. “If you mean that ceramic bank with the name ‘Dime Box’ on its roof, I was going to say it’s on the counter where you usually keep it, but now it’s not.”

“Somebody moved it,” Gabe complained.

“It was probably you,” Glenda said. “You’re always moving it around from the kitchen to your study or taking it into the living room to show it off when someone comes visiting. I’m sure everyone in Rancho del Oro has seen that bank.”

I broke in. “It looks like a bank building, but why is it named Dime Box?”

Gabe grinned. “I got it thirty or forty years ago in Dime Box, Texas. Yep, there’s really a town with that name. That old bank is probably a collector’s item by this time, and I’m guessing it must hold a good hundred dollars’ worth of dimes.”

“It’s heavy enough,” Glenda remarked.

“Will you look for it?” Gabe asked. “It’s got to be somewhere around the house.”

Glenda and I both agreed to look, and later we did, but we couldn’t find the bank. Glenda wasn’t worried about its disappearance. “Gabe just laid it down in some odd place he’s forgotten about,” she said. “Sooner or later it will show up.”

I remembered the conversation at Mrs. Barrow’s luncheon about people mislaying things. My face must have shown what I was thinking, because Glenda said, “His age has nothing to do with the Dime Box being missing. It’s just the problem of living in a new place and getting used to new things. Why, my goodness, that bank may be hidden in the same place as my amethyst bracelet. Someplace safe. New cubbyholes …”

Glenda and Gabe had lived here well over a year. Their house wasn’t exactly new. I couldn’t help being puzzled by the missing bank. I had noticed the Dime Box on the counter on Monday morning, while I ate breakfast, but I couldn’t remember when I had last seen it there.

“Where is your amethyst bracelet?” I asked Glenda.

She started, then looked down, pink flooding her cheeks. “I wish I knew,” she said.

“You’ve lost it?”

“No. Only misplaced it,” she answered. “I remember putting it in a place where no one could find it. At least, I think I did. I meant to do so.” She looked up at me and shrugged. “It’s somewhere in this house.”

“Was the Dime Box near the back door last night?” I quietly asked Glenda when we were out of Gabe’s hearing.

“I don’t think so,” she said, but I wondered if she was right.

The next day, aside from time spent with Ashley, I helped Glenda with odd jobs—like reorganizing everything in the linen closet. I played endless games of gin rummy with Glenda and Gabe, and I double-checked Glenda, who made sure Gabe took all his medications by making a chart and using a kitchen timer.

However, in the late evening, when the house seemed a small, brightly lit oasis in a desert of blackness, I couldn’t help feeling that someone was out there watching us. I knew I must be wrong and only imagining things, but in that dark hole of a ranch, when the silence grew menacing, I kept listening intently for something to break the pattern. When it did, when there was a rustle outside, or the snap of a twig, or the thud of what might be a footfall, I jumped, holding my breath.

It didn’t help that Glenda was just as nervous as I was. We didn’t speak about it, but I could tell we felt the same. We both seemed to be waiting for what would happen next.

WHEN MILLIE LEE ARRIVED ON FRIDAY MORNING TO CLEAN
, Ashley wasn’t with her.

Millie Lee, busy pulling cleaning supplies from the top shelf of the pantry, didn’t look at me. “Ashley said I should tell you she was busy this mornin’,” Millie Lee said. Then, lowering her voice, as though she were talking to herself, she added, “That girl’s just as aggravatin’ as her mother.”

The way Millie Lee was grumping around, I began to suspect that she and Ashley had had a major disagreement. I was glad I wasn’t the one Ashley was avoiding.

Because Ashley didn’t talk much when we were together, I’d hunt for something to chat about. Last time I’d opened up about my brother Hayden, who at ten was a real pest, and I’d told a funny story about my sister, Bitsy, who was probably the most spoiled four-year-old in the world. And I hadn’t left out my six-year-old brother, Trevor, who had perfected the art of pouting in a big way.

Ashley hadn’t laughed or groaned at my stories or
come back with a family story of her own, as any other girl I knew would do. She’d abruptly told me she had to meet her grandmother, and she’d walked away.

I said to Millie Lee, “Please tell Ashley I hope she comes tomorrow.”

Millie Lee just grunted as she began unloading the dishwasher. I took that as a yes.

As I helped put dishes in the cupboard, I tried making conversation. “Ashley told me that Damien Fitch, the lifeguard, lives next door to you.”

Millie Lee turned to me, rolling her eyes. “Don’t go gettin’ any ideas about Damien just ’cause he’s so good-lookin’. For one thing, he’s much too old for you.”

Startled, I giggled, and she scowled. “That’s not a joke,” she said.

“I’m not interested in Damien,” I assured her. “I guess that’s why I laughed. The idea struck me funny.”

“It’s not,” she said. “Besides …”

I waited, but she was silent.

“Besides what?” I finally asked.

“Never you mind,” she said. “That’s all you need to know about Damien.”

What she had said made me even more curious, but I knew I wouldn’t get any answers from her. She picked up a fistful of rags and a can of cleanser and headed down the hall toward the bathrooms, and I walked to the den to play cards with Glenda and Gabe.

What had Millie Lee meant when she’d said “Besides” and didn’t finish? I wondered.

“Wake up and pay attention, Julie,” Gabe said. “It’s your turn.”

“Sorry,” I told him. I pushed all thoughts of Damien out of my mind and concentrated on the card game.

A short while later, as we tallied the scores from the first game, Gabe asked, “Julie, would you mind getting my reading glasses? I really don’t need them—my eyes are as good as they ever were—but the marks on these cards seem to be getting smaller.”

I returned Glenda’s smile. “Sure, Uncle Gabe. Where did you leave them?”

“Probably in the bedroom,” he said. “Or maybe in my study.”

“You haven’t been in your study,” Glenda told him.

I got up quickly. “Wherever they are, I’ll find them,” I said, and headed in the direction of Gabe’s study, just to satisfy him.

As I entered the room, Millie Lee slapped down the top of my laptop and took a step backward, her eyes wide. “You scared me, poppin’ in like that,” she said. Then she quickly recovered, adding, “You got a nice little computer. I just had to take a look at it.”

All Millie Lee was doing was looking. I shouldn’t mind. “Would you like me to show you some of its special features?” I asked her.

“Maybe some other time,” she answered. “Right now I’ve got work to finish, and you’ve got things to do.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m looking for Uncle Gabe’s glasses.”

“On top of the dresser in his bedroom,” she told me, and began dusting the top of his desk.