Mystery Dad

by Leona Karr

  When Mark had finally arrived at the office, he’d hesitated to say anything to Eleanor about the abandoned kids. He’d been all business, concentrating on telephone calls to return, and attending to details from his business trip that needed prompt attention. He knew it was probably foolish, but he kept hoping that somehow the whole problem would be solved in quick order. Maybe the children’s mother would show up at any moment Mark set his jaw. Cora was supposed to call him immediately if she came back.

  “You’ve been awfully closemouthed today.” Eleanor prodded. “Want to talk about it?”

  “You’re not going to believe this.” He managed a wry grin. “I still can’t believe it myself. When I got back from my trip last night, I found three strange children and a baby-sitter encamped in my apartment. They’d moved in on me while I was gone.”

  “That’s impossible!” Eleanor’s usual composure gave way to an expression of utter disbelief.

  “Jason’s widow dumped them there. She took off. Left me a note saying she had to leave for while.” Mark’s mouth tightened. “She warned me not to try to find her, but I’ve hired Kerri Kincaid at Finders, Inc. to track her down.”

  “I didn’t know Jason married a woman with children.”

  “Neither did I. She must have been widowed or divorced very recently when Jason married her, because she has a baby, a little girl about two, and a five-year-old boy. I’m guessing she married my brother for financial support, and when he died unexpectedly, she was on her own again. Instead of coming to me in an honest fashion, she just dumped the kids and took off.”

  “Good heavens. What are you going to do? A bachelor like yourself can’t look after them. I’ve seen your loft. It’s not set up for family living.”

  Mark laughed grimly. “It is now. My bedroom, bathroom and living room are filled with kids’ stuff and rented furniture like cribs, a swing and a playpen. I’m trying to hold a beachhead in the den, but I fully expect to have lost that ground when I go home today.”

  “This must be awful for you. I know how much you love your privacy. Why would the woman even think that you would be willing to keep them?”

  Mark was saved from trying to answer by the buzz of the telephone. His secretary reached over, punched the right button on the intercom. “Fidelity Investors, Miss Donner speaking.” She frowned and asked briskly, “May I say who’s calling? Just a moment.” She covered the receiver. “Somebody named Cora Dunbar. Says she has to talk to you right away. She sounds terribly upset.

  Mark grabbed the phone. “Yes, Cora, what is it?” “Oh, Mr. Richards, I don’t know what to do. Dear God in heaven,” her voice broke in a choked sob. “I’ve looked every place I can think of. One end of this place to the other. I didn’t want to call but you said I should if I…if I needed to.” She was weeping openly now. “I don’t know how it happened.”

  Mark’s mind raced in all directions, trying to make some sense out of her disjointed babble. Was Cora indulging in unwarranted hysterics or had something serious happened? He wanted to shake the truth out of the woman, but he managed a firm commanding tone. “Stop crying, Cora. I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

  “It’s Timmy,” she sobbed. “He’s gone.”

  “Gone? What in blazes do you mean…gone?”

  “I can’t find him. I’ve looked in every hiding place I can think of, you know, thinking the little rascal was playing hide-and-seek, but he’s not here. I know he isn’t. He’s gone.”

  “But he couldn’t leave the apartment The front door’s locked, isn’t it?”

  Another choked sob. “The deliverymen brought another crib. Patti was making such a fuss over the first one that I decided to rent another one. I guess I didn’t think about locking the door after them.”

  “So, anyone could have walked in or out,” Mark growled, knowing it was too late to indulge in recriminations now.

  “What’ll I do?” Cora pleaded.

  “Nothing. Stay where you are. I’m coming home now.” He slammed down the receiver and turned to Eleanor. “Call Kerri Kincaid at Finders, Inc. Tell her that Timmy can’t be found and ask her to get right over to my place. She’s only a few blocks away, and can walk it faster than I can drive from here.” He swore. “There’s a Rockies game this afternoon. The traffic will be horrendous.”

  “What could have happened to the boy?” Eleanor asked as she followed his strong stride into the outer office.

  “Maybe nothing. He could be playing a game with Cora, stirring up a lot of attention for himself,” Mark said crisply, but his tone denied the sudden churning in his stomach. This physical evidence of a protective streak took him by surprise. He wouldn’t have believed that a little freckle-faced boy could get under his skin so fast. “I’m sure he’s all right,” he said as much to himself as to Eleanor.

  “I hope so,” his secretary said without much conviction in her voice. “There’s a heck of lot about this whole situation that doesn’t add up.”

  KERRI WAS ALREADY at the apartment when Mark arrived, still cursing the congested streets around Coors Field. He could hear the blare of the loudspeakers broadcasting the pregame warm-up. His fifth floor apartment had a good view of the brick stadium out of the large span of windows. Ordinarily, he would have been tempted to slip away and take in the afternoon game, but his thoughts were certainly not on baseball as he strode into the apartment.

  “Any luck?” he asked Kerri, knowing her answer from the creased lines around her eyes. He could hear Cora in the kitchen, talking loudly above the demanding cries of the baby and Patti’s high-pitched voice.

  “The boy’s not in the apartment. I’ve double-checked every place that Cora looked and a few more hiding places besides.”

  “You’re sure?” He wanted the matter to be solved quickly and smoothly. He wanted to find the child playing a foolish game with them, because any other scenario held too many frightening connotations. At Kerri’s firm nod, he put aside such hopes. This was no time for wishful thinking.

  “All right then, what are the other possibilities?”

  “Timmy slipped out of the apartment and decided to go exploring.”

  “On his own?” Mark looked skeptical.

  “It’s possible,” Kerri assured him. “A five-year-old can have a false sense of confidence. When one of my nephews was about that age, he took off on his own for a bus trip. He had enough money to get downtown but he didn’t even think about the fare back home. It’s hard to get into a kid’s mind about some of these things.”

  “Well, Timmy struck me as a stubborn little boy who might do something foolish.”

  “I called the furniture rental agency and talked to one of the deliverymen. They remembered seeing the boy when they came in with the crib.”

  “So, he must have left after they left?”

  “Or while they were here. He could have slipped out then by himself…or with someone else.”

  Someone else?

  They looked at each other in weighted silence. Neither one of them wanted to verbalize what was flashing through their minds. The possibility that the man looking for Ardie had found her children and taken Timmy was too frightening to contemplate. They had no evidence that such a bizarre thing had happened, but it was at the front of their minds anyway.

  “Let’s not get melodramatic,” Mark said evenly. “The boy may have taken an elevator ride. He could be on one of the floors below. Most likely he’ll end up in the foyer, or back here. Let’s check out the building as best we can.” He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt.

  Twenty minutes later, they were back without having seen any sign of the child or gaining any information from anyone who might have run into him.

  Cora was sitting in his recliner chair, giving the baby her bottle while Patti dressed and undressed a doll at her feet. The baby-sitter’s round face fell like a high-altitude cake when they came back alone.

  “I have a brother-in-law on the police force,” Kerri said quiet
ly. “He’ll put the word out for us.”

  Mark paced the den while she made the call. All right, the boy wasn’t in the building as far as they could tell. They’d have to expand the search to the crowded streets of downtown Denver. He blanched just thinking about the congested streets and sidewalks. He knew that today of all days, the area around Coors Field would be a moving mass of humanity, because as often as he could, he walked around the corner and took in an afternoon game. He’d been a Rockies fan since their first game several years ago. As his eyes swung to the glass case holding his autographed baseball, he blinked and stared.

  His prized ball was gone. He’d put it back under the glass case after he’d taken it away from Timmy. He remembered the bright gleam in the boy’s eyes when he’d asked Mark, “Wanna play catch?”

  Kerri hung up the phone. “Harry will put the word out Then seeing a sudden flash of insight deepen Mark’s eyes, she asked anxiously, “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure.” He spun on his heels and went into the living room where Cora was burping the baby. “What was Timmy doing the last time you remember seeing him?”

  She thought for a moment. “Just wandering around, looking out the windows—”

  “Which windows? The ones overlooking Coors Field?”

  She nodded. “There was a lot of noise coming up from the street. Game day, I told him. He said that he liked baseball. I told him that maybe he could watch it on TV. I was going to check and see if the game was on channel two, but the baby needed changing and I forgot. When I came back into the room, he was gone.” Her eyes rounded. “You don’t think…? No, he’s too little to be running off like that.”

  “If he loves baseball as much as I think he does, he could have gotten it into his head to go see the game,” Mark reasoned. The unwanted responsibility for the kid weighed heavily on him. What he knew about kids that age could be put in a child’s thimble.

  “You think he went to the game?” Kerri frowned.

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “Let’s check it out.”

  Even though Kerri thought Mark was really grasping at straws, she didn’t have a better idea. She knew from her nieces and nephews that sometimes kids did crazy things. It was just like a five-year-old to take off, not thinking about tickets or anything else, like safety.

  They rode down the elevator and hurried out to the busy street and crowded sidewalk. Mark took her hand as they moved quickly with the surging crowd toward Twentieth Street and the stadium fashioned of red brick with a large clock over the main entrance. Streams of people were lined up in front of the ticket gates.

  Mark and Kerri craned their necks in every direction, searching for a small towheaded boy. Even if Timmy had gotten this far, the chances of finding him in the throng of people pressing toward the ticket gates looked nearly impossible.

  “I can’t believe he’d have enough courage to try to get into the game, but I don’t see how we can question any of the ticket takers in this mob.”

  Kerri agreed, and wondered how soon the crowd would thin out—and if they’d find him when it did. There was always the possibility that he’d gotten frightened and never made it as far as the stadium, The little boy could have tried to backtrack, lost his bearings, and headed off in God knows what direction.

  Mark tightened his handclasp and she knew he was having similar worries. “There’s no way he could slip past the ticket takers, so if he came here, he has to still be outside.”

  “Maybe we could ask some of the vendors,” she suggested, knowing it was foolhardy to expect anyone to notice a small boy in this bedlam.

  What if someone had picked him up?

  This fear stabbed Mark as they moved past the congestion at the front gates and walked a short distance in one direction and then turned back, passing the main gates, searching on the opposite side. At this end of the stadium, three mammoth baseball figures were mounted on a brick wall. The frescoes had been painted gold and stood out against the deep red brick. Mark was so used to seeing them that he paid them little attention, and was startled when Kerri suddenly threw out her arm and pointed at them.

  Why was she excited about the figures? It wasn’t until she gestured frantically that he realized she wasn’t pointing at the figures, but at a little boy who had his head tipped back, and was looking up at the figures of the baseball players.

  “Timmy! Timmy!” Kerri called.

  The child turned around slowly, and grinned when he saw her and Mark. Then he waved at them with the autographed ball in his hand.

  “Thank heaven,” breathed Mark, admitting to himself that worry had stretched his nerves to the snapping point.

  As they hurried toward him, Timmy’s smile faded and his smile changed to an expression of fear. Kerri thought he was going to turn in the other direction and run away, but instead he ran as fast as he could toward them and threw himself into Mark’s arms.

  Kerri swung around to see what on earth had frightened the child. Something? Or someone? She couldn’t tell. There was only the crowd, the noise and the retreating back of a man with a black ponytail who might have been following them.

  Chapter Four

  With Timmy walking between them, holding on tightly to their hands, they started back to the apartment. Several times the boy looked behind him with rounded eyes and a pinched look around his mouth.

  Kerri and Mark exchanged glances. She could tell he was ready to sail into anyone who even looked the least bit threatening. No question about it, Timmy had found someone to look after him, and the way things were going, Mark was going to be a godsend. He was probably asking the same bewildering question as she. What had sent Timmy racing into Mark’s arms? She knew Timmy was likely to clam up if they pushed too soon, and too hard, so her look warned Mark to be patient.

  Smiling down at the child, she squeezed the sweaty little hand in hers. “Everything’s okay, Timmy. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. Everything’s okay.”

  Mark took his cue from her. “Sure thing, buddy,” he said, even though one part of him wanted to light into the kid for leaving the apartment. The last hour had been hell, but he’d never forget the way the little boy had thrown himself into his arms and clung to him. Timmy’s first smile at seeing them had changed to a look of childish terror in an instant. Why?

  As they walked, Mark surveyed the sidewalk and streets. Only a few stragglers hurried in the direction of the ballpark, and no one was paying the trio any attention.

  When they reached the front door of the building, Timmy darted into the foyer ahead of them, very much like a young animal grateful for a safe burrow. Almost immediately, he lost his haunted look. As they waited for the elevator, he asked eagerly, “Can I push the button? I know how.”

  “Sure, you can,” Kerri agreed readily.

  “Do you know what floor?” Mark demanded. He wasn’t in the mood to play games. He wanted to get on with the business at hand—finding out what in the hell was going on.

  As Timmy hesitated, Kerri answered for him. “It’s five. Do you know your numbers, Timmy?”

  He nodded, and as they stepped inside the elevator, one of his little fingers thumped the number five. He gave them a broad grin as he waited for their approval. “See, I can run it all by myself.”

  “So we’ve noticed,” Mark said dryly, biting back a lecture about staying out of the elevator unless an adult was with him. The kid had no business running all over the place on his own. Now that they had found him, his worry was changing into annoyance.

  Kerri ignored Mark’s frown and said smoothly, “You’re a big boy, all right, Timmy.” She gave his unruly curly hair an affectionate ruffle. “I think you’re going to be a big help to us. I bet we can find some milk and cookies, and then we’ll have a nice little talk. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Timmy agreed.

  As the elevator doors flew open, the little boy bounded down the hall ahead of them in a kind of childish half skip that made Mark shake his head. Kids. Who
could outguess them? Such quicksilver moods left him feeling off balance. He gave Kerri an appreciative smile. “You’re something else.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I would have lighted into the kid and clammed him up for good. Promising him milk and cookies disarmed him completely. Now, you’ve got him eating out of your hand.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Kids are unpredictable.”

  “Well, if you’re as good with adults as you are with kids, I’ve hired the best investigator around.” He admitted to himself that he not only respected her professionalism, but he was beginning to enjoy her company for her own sake.

  “Don’t be handing me any bouquets yet. I haven’t a clue as to what’s going on.” She lowered her voice. “I think Timmy saw something or someone who frightened him.”

  “Maybe he thought he was in trouble for running away and put on that little act to soften us up.”

  “I don’t think a five-year-old is ingenious enough to change from glowing pleasure to sudden terror in a split second. His fear was genuine, all right.”

  “You think he recognized someone? What are the chances that someone he knows would turn up at Coors field?”

  Kerri didn’t answer. She wasn’t ready to offer the possibility that there might be a connection between the man who had called Mark’s office and whoever had spooked Timmy. There were too many what-ifs. What if the caller found out where the children were? What if he somehow knew they were looking for Timmy? And what if he’d followed them to the stadium and saw the boy just about the same time they did?

  She gave herself a mental shake. Too much speculation could be hazardous to clear thinking. She knew better than to try to connect too many things, too soon. Experience had taught her not to leap ahead of the facts, because once an investigation was headed in a wrong direction, valuable time was lost having to backtrack. And with the future of three children involved, it was more imperative than ever that she not make any mistakes.

  When they entered the apartment, Cora came running from the kitchen. She gave a squeal of delight when she saw Timmy. Rushing forward, she enveloped the little boy in her round arms, and nearly hugged the breath out of him.