Silent Masquerade Read online

  Strangely, the kid’s parents rushed to the car and dragged the boy out, the way some parents had to do when a kid refused to believe the ride was over. Only, in this case, the boy wasn’t showing any interest in staying on—he hadn’t shown any in the first place.

  They left the concession with the boy in the middle, Ma and Pa each firmly clasping a spindly arm.

  That should have been the end of it.

  But as they walked away, the boy looked back over his shoulder and gave Bill the most tormented, pleading look Bill had ever seen on another person’s face—a look unlike any he would ever expect to see on the face of a child.

  He couldn’t help himself. He followed the trio out to the boardwalk and watched as they walked up the pier. The boy’s head never turned to take in the sights. He never pulled his parents in the direction of a ride, a food booth, a games concession. The three of them trudged along as though they were playing the parts of tourists on holiday.

  And playing them badly.

  They stopped when they got to the ice-cream cart. The man turned to look down at the boy, and Bill saw him ask the boy a question. The boy’s shoulders lifted in a halfhearted shrug.

  The man said something to Cara and then nodded in a questioning way to his wife. Cara scooped ice cream into two cones. After she handed them the cones, and while the man was getting out his money, Cara knelt down and looked into the boy’s face. She said something, and the boy nodded slightly. She said something else, but this time there seemed to be no response. She stood up, and Bill saw that there was a peculiar expression on her face.

  Suddenly, he was impatient to know if she’d reacted as he had to the child. All thoughts of their cold-war status were forgotten as he went back and locked the control box, hung the Back in Five Minutes sign on the chain across the entrance and dashed up the pier to the ice-cream cart.

  It wasn’t until he was facing her closed-off, cold expression that he realized how foolish he’d look if he questioned her about the boy. “Not very busy,” he said, knowing how inane it sounded.

  Cara shrugged, mumbled something indiscernible and turned away. She kept her face averted as she busied herself with scraping down the ice-cream well that contained chocolate.

  “Not many customers today, eh?” he persisted.

  Silence.

  “Noticed you had the same customers I did just now.”

  A curl of ice cream slid from the plastic wall to the center of the tub.

  “Strange-looking group, wouldn’t you say?”

  Cara looked up then, a frown of irritation on her face. “Why are you here making small talk?” she demanded. “And since when are you so interested in any of the tourists?”

  It was the opening he needed.

  “Did you think they were tourists?” he asked eagerly.

  The look of irritation turned suspicious. “What’s with all the questions, Hamlin? What do those people have to do with you?”

  “Nothing.” He wasn’t sure. And he thought he’d sound foolish trying to explain, so he didn’t bother. “Just curious.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s curious in itself.”

  She slammed the lid on the chocolate container and shoved the scoop into a container of water.

  She was occupied with drying her hands when Bill asked, “What did you think of the kid?”

  She gave him her full attention then, staring into his face. “Is this some kind of joke? Or maybe it’s your feeble attempt to restore a friendship between us.” She snatched up the scoop again and threw open another lid. “I can assure you, Hamlin, that isn’t going to happen!”

  His own temper was on the rise. This woman could be totally unreasonable. And here he was, making a fool of himself, and all over a tempest in a teapot. What the hell did he care about the kid or the parents or any of the other fools who came through here on a daily basis?

  “Forget it,” he snapped, turning away. “Sorry I bothered you with an innocent little question about one little boy.”

  “Nothing you do is ever innocent,” Cara said disgustedly.

  Bill decided to ignore that; there was no way he was going to win with her. He headed back toward his own concession.

  Forget her, and forget the kid!

  He realized then that she was shouting something after him. He turned and caught the tail end.

  “...wasn’t a boy, it was a girl.”

  How like Cara, needing to get in the last word, even when she’d made it clear she wasn’t talking to him.

  He stopped in his tracks, his hands plunged deep in his back pockets. People pushed around him, and the sound of the calliope starting up drowned out anything else Cara might have called after him. He turned back, but she was already busy with another group of customers.

  A girl? Had he heard her right? Surely not. The kid had what could only be described as a boy’s haircut, complete with a side part. He wore a sweatshirt under overalls and had on high-top sneakers—boys’ clothing.

  Bill resumed his job at the bumper-car controls, but his mind felt storm-tossed as he played and replayed his memory of the child he had assumed was a boy and Cara had tagged as a girl. That, in itself, would have kept him in a quandary. But the memory of those eyes—tormented, pleading—made the whole thing far more important than a mere puzzle.

  Bill’s relief man showed up at two. “Front office said to tell you to take off for the rest of the day, Hamlin. The crowds are down, and it looks like rain, so we’re shutting down earlier than usual.”

  Normally Bill would have gone back to the little house, puttered around, taken a nap, read the paper, maybe gone shopping if there was something he needed or wanted, or he would have mowed their postage-stamp-size yard.

  Today he hung around the boardwalk, not sure why.

  He stopped at the gyro stand and had a sandwich, keeping his back to Cara, who was only a few feet away. He thought about other times when they’d shared a break, shared a meal, shared walks, drives, sex...

  He threw the remains of his sandwich in a trash basket, strode in the direction of the park, and was soon settled on a park bench. The air had become moister, the sky more overcast—a definite prelude to rain.

  The subject was on everyone’s mind. “It’s only going to drizzle,” a man’s voice proclaimed from the next bench over. Bill turned in that direction.

  They were a young couple with a child of about four. Boy? Girl? Bill really couldn’t tell what, with the short curls and the unisex romper suit.

  It seemed this was his day for noticing kids. This one had blond hair and bright blue eyes. Pretty kid, but not arresting, like the boy at the bumper cars.

  Boy? Girl?

  He slouched down, his legs out before him, his head resting on the back of the bench, his hands shoved in his pockets. Damp air chilled his face, and he could feel drops of moisture clinging to his beard. It felt good. He dozed, the amusement-park noises from the distance all coming together to form a single white sound in his mind.

  He dreamed.

  He was back at his agency’s headquarters, where he and his co-workers were swimming in a room filled with computer printout pictures. As he silently dog-paddled through the paper, the faces of the other agents distorting and receding around him, one picture seemed almost to jump into his hands. As he held it, it turned from a printout to a color glossy. Bill stared at the picture with a sense of recognition, but just as he was about to shout his findings, the paper around him became water and he was being sucked down to the bottomless depths.

  A splash of water in his face jolted him awake. Bill jumped up from the bench and saw that most of the benches were empty. The dampness had turned to drizzle and gathered in puddles on the leaves of the tree limb that hung out over his bench. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face.

  Screams rang out from the direction of the roller coaster over on the boardwalk. An eerie sound when coupled with the music of the calliope. He shivered and started back toward the casino.

&nb
sp; He saw the trio then—the man, the woman, and the child of questionable gender. They were crossing the park, heading toward the parking lot. The child’s eyes met Bill’s, and once more he was struck by their silent message of anguish.

  In that instant, the child’s face seemed to shimmer and change, and suddenly Bill was seeing a picture of another child. A child with long, dark curls and huge, round green eyes bordered by thick dark lashes and dark eyebrows that formed two peaks to emphasize those amazing eyes.

  Kelly Parton. Seven years old. Missing from her home in southern California following a 6.6 earthquake. The Parton home had fallen in the wake of the tremors. One minute she’d been with her parents in the crowd standing around the rubble of houses on their block, and the next she’d just disappeared. Two weeks later, she still hadn’t been found, and the cops had been calling it a snatch. APBs had gone out all over the country. The local FBI office had been called in, and pictures and pertinent info had been faxed to the other agencies’ branches.

  The information came flooding back to him.

  Bill stared after the trio. They could cut her hair and dress her in boy’s clothes, but they couldn’t change those eyes, and Bill felt sure that those were Kelly Parton’s eyes.

  Either that or Kelly Parton had an identical twin. But there’d been no mention of that in her background.

  His feet began to move of their own accord as his mind struggled through the influx of memories. He’d seen the picture while he was waiting for his chief to call him into his office. He’d expected to be assigned to the case. Instead, he’d been told he was going undercover on the Franco Alvaretti case. The biggest career move an agent could hope for—the chance to bring down one of the nation’s five leading capos.

  The couple were pulling the child along as they drew closer to the parking lot. Bill increased his speed so that he was loping across the grass now.

  Over two years since the Parton girl had been snatched. She’d be about nine now. He kept his gaze on the threesome as he reduced the distance between them and himself. Would he know a nine-year-old from one younger or older? He wouldn’t. But he could make an educated guess that the child ahead of him was about nine.

  Too bad the kid hadn’t had any fun on the bumper cars. Kelly Parton had been smiling in her picture. A smile was a real identifier.

  But maybe not. In the picture, Kelly’s front teeth had been missing—two on the top and two on the bottom. At nine, she’d have all her second teeth, and her smile would be quite different.

  They were about fifty feet ahead of him. His lope became a sprint. Forty-five feet.

  There wasn’t any question about what he intended. He had no plan as such, but he kept going.

  And then what?

  He pushed the thought away as if it were a pesky fly.

  Thirty feet. He could hear them breathing. Or was it his own breath, its volume increased by exertion?

  The man was small, spindly, older than Bill by maybe ten years. Bill squinted, rubbing perspiration or drizzle from his eyes. Bowed legs. Good. The man wouldn’t be able to run as fast as him.

  Twenty feet. Now Bill knew how he was going to do it.

  The gap closed. His feet pounded on asphalt, and the couple and the child halted and turned to see where the noise was coming from. It was the reaction he’d counted on. Surprise.

  He never broke his pace. One minute he was in front of the trio, and the next he was past them, the child’s body held firmly against his own as he ran.

  Vaguely he heard their shouts above the sound of his breathing, the sound of his feet on pavement. He kept going. He heard car horns honk as he ran against red lights, but he kept running.

  He began to chart a course, to make a plan. He turned off one street and down another and then turned onto another and another, altering his usual route home, making it impossible for anyone behind him to guess at his next move.

  But was there anyone behind him? He wouldn’t look back, wouldn’t lose one second of the advantage he had. He kept running.

  First he’d get home, get his car. Was there more than one set of feet hitting the pavement? He tightened his grip on the little girl and picked up speed, but he didn’t waste time looking back. His chest was beginning to burn, and his mouth felt dry as sand. He worked his tongue, trying to raise enough saliva to wet his throat, but he never slowed his pace.

  The child whimpered against Bill’s chest, but he didn’t look down. His only response was to move his hand to the back of the child’s head. He didn’t break his stride.

  He turned a corner running at full speed, the house a few feet ahead. He could see the broken screen door at the back.

  He was going to make it! Exhilaration gave him a second wind, that extra burst of speed he needed to get himself and the girl safely into the house.

  And then what?

  No. No time to worry about that now. First he had to get Kelly Parton off the streets and then he’d figure out what to do next.

  He turned into the small backyard and moved quickly toward the back door.

  * * *

  CARA ENTERED THE HOUSE and jiggled the key out of the lock before kicking the door shut behind her. She was just about to reach for the light switch on the wall when she heard the sound from the back of the house. Her hand halted in midair.

  Bill? But it couldn’t be. Bill wasn’t due home from work for another two or three hours.

  She heard the sound again. “Bill?”

  Her heart was pounding as she heard footsteps coming from the back of the house.

  Just as she flipped on the switch, flooding the kitchen with light, Bill appeared in the doorway, gasping hoarsely, a strange-looking bundle clutched to his chest.

  It took Cara a moment to adjust her eyes to the light, to understand what she was seeing.

  The grocery bag in her arms slipped to the floor unheeded, and a scream tore from her throat when Cara recognized the little girl in Bill’s arms.

  Chaos ensued. The child in Bill’s arms came to life at the sound of Cara’s screams, and she, too, began to shriek. Bill spun in a circle, attempting to put the child down, wanting to go to Cara, uncertain of how to proceed.

  He started toward Cara. “Cara, love, please listen. It’s not what you think...”

  But Cara backed away, still screaming, her hands pressed to her mouth, her eyes wide with fright.

  He tried to disencumber himself of the child, but she only screeched louder and clung to him with surprising strength.

  When he saw that there was no other way to gain control, to restore order, Bill stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly.

  The two females froze, their screams echoing in the suddenly silent kitchen.

  Bill set the child on her feet and gave her a look that defied her to move from the spot. When he saw obedience in her face, he turned to Cara, who was slumped against the island, attempting to regain her breath.

  “This child is Kelly Parton,” he told Cara.

  Cara looked from him to the child and back again, a blank expression on her face.

  “You don’t remember the Parton case?”

  She shook her head.

  “Following an earthquake in L.A. two years ago, Kelly Parton was snatched right out from under her parents’ noses.”

  As if she’d just recognized her name, Kelly whimpered, and the two adults turned to her in unison.

  “You are Kelly Parton, right, honey?” Bill asked.

  The little girl nodded and then began to sob. Both Bill and Cara moved toward her. Cara got there first and lifted Kelly up into her arms.

  “It’s okay, hon,” Cara said softly, patting the child and rocking her as if she were an infant.

  Bill put his hand out to touch the child, but Cara spun away, glaring at him over her shoulder. “Don’t even think about it,” she snapped.

  “What? Hey, Cara, I’m the one who brought her here, remember?”

  “Only too well.”

  She mov
ed across the room with the child, putting the island between herself and Bill.

  Her voice was more bitter than he’d ever heard it. “And now I know why you were so desperate to keep from being found, and where you got all that money.”

  Bill shook his head. “The money? What’s the money got to do with anything?”

  She started across the room toward him and then caught herself and stopped where she was. “The ransom money, Bill Hamlin, or whatever your name is!” she cried. She banged the counter with her fist before placing her hand on the child’s head again.

  “I thought I was out of line thinking maybe you’d killed someone.” Her voice rose. “Silly me! You’d never kill anyone. No, you’re better than that, aren’t you?” She almost screamed the words as tears began to stream down her cheeks. “You’re a kidnapper, a child molester!”

  She fell back against the counter, hugging the child tight to her bosom. “When I think that I slept with you, made l-love with you...”

  Bill was around the island in a flash. “You can’t believe that, Cara, you can’t think I’m responsible for kidnapping that child!”

  He put his hand on her shaking shoulder, and she wrenched away. “Don’t touch me, Hamlin! And don’t touch her.” Her voice was cold, steady, though the tears still dripped, unheeded, over her smooth skin. Her brown eyes brimmed with more of them, waiting to spill.

  He wanted to use his fingertips to brush the tears away, to assure her that this was all a mistake, a bad dream.

  But it was clear she believed it, and it was also clear she wasn’t going to hear a word he said to her until she got all her hysteria out of her system.

  He went to the table, pretending a calm he didn’t feel, and took a seat.

  “Think about it, Cara,” he said in a tired monotone. “How could I have kidnapped the Parton girl and held her captive all this time? I’ve been with you for the past month, for heaven’s sake.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t worked it out. But you must have been in cahoots with that couple.”

  Her voice grew stronger as her imagination kicked in. “I thought that business with the little girl was strange this afternoon. When you came over and asked about them.”