Frozen Footprints Read online

  My ears focused on the sound of our feet crunching through snow and ice. I noticed Rob wore tennis shoes. “Aren’t your feet cold?”

  He laughed. “Hideous shoes, hey? My wife hates them. She keeps trying to throw them out, and I keep rescuing them. I’ve never owned a more comfortable pair.”

  I’m surprised Grandfather allows them to touch his floors.

  We climbed a flight of concrete steps to reach the mansion’s entrance, huge double oak doors set with hexagon glass. “Not even a wreath,” I said.

  “Yeah, he’s a scrooge all right. No offense,” Rob added as he began searching his pockets. “But it’s nice you came to visit him today.”

  “Yeah, ‘nice’. . .” If only. It was difficult for me to focus on small talk with my mind so consumed by my purpose. Max, hang on. Help is coming.

  It seemed to take Rob forever to unlock the door. “How was your Christmas, by the way?” he asked as he led me inside.

  “Nice,” I repeated lamely. We lingered in the entrance hall, which was like a grand museum. Pillars of marble supported the domed ceiling, its crowning glory a chandelier dripping with diamonds.

  A crackling noise suddenly preceded Grandfather’s commanding voice, and I realized it was coming from a radio that Rob wore.

  “Rob, I need you to go pick up donuts, coffee, and Advil. Pronto.”

  “Got it,” he replied.

  “Interesting breakfast,” I commented.

  “Breakfast?” Rob looked amused. “Nah, this is his before-before-lunch snack. He’s already had a couple of breakfasts. Do you mind if I take off? Your grandfather hates waiting. He’s in his train room. Know where that is? Okay, I’ll leave you then. Nice meeting you.”

  “You too.” The marble floor was slick, so I walked carefully. I followed the sound of a lively fountain, and upon finding it, gave a warped grin. Not a single wishing penny lay at the bottom.

  Continuing on my way, I observed how the walls were bare of family photographs. Framed pictures of oil rigs took their place. Behind me, I heard an increasingly loud clicking sound, then felt the heat of a panting dog at my hand. I absently patted two Rottweilers, “Grim” and “Reaper,” only to be snapped and growled at. “All bark and no bite,” I said, and they retreated.

  Now here was something impressive: A bronze arm and hand reaching with talon-like fingers for a dollar bill—the first Grandfather had ever earned. Sickly dramatic. “Reach for your goals” read the base of the statue. As a child, the display had freaked me out. I feared the hand springing to life. It still disturbed me, and I gave it a wide berth.

  After some wandering—because I’d been to Gardburg far too few times to know my way around, though I hadn’t wanted to tell Rob that—a tooting train whistle led me to the room. It had once been my ambition to draw a map of the estate, but I’d never become sufficiently familiar with the layout.

  The room smelled of smoke and sparking metal. I shouted to make myself heard above the clickety-clack, chugging, and hooting of multiple miniature trains as they wove around model trees, hills, buildings, over bridges, and through tunnels—all meticulously built to scale. Though I knew model trains were Grandfather’s hobby—or better yet, obsession—it still amazed me to see a whole room—larger than some houses—devoted to this stuff.

  Grandfather’s gray head popped up from behind a snow-capped mountain. “Who let you in here?”

  “Rob,” I said, purposely not mentioning the guard.

  “Ah, Rob. I like him. He’s got character.”

  A train whizzed by me, shrieking like a bird in pain. I reached out and flicked off the nearest switch. The engine came to a labored halt. “I didn’t come here to watch your trains.” Remembering what I did come for, I suddenly wished there was a chair in the room so I could sit. Wall to wall stretched a maze of landscape and tracks that made me feel like a clumsy, towering giant, afraid to take one step for fear I’d crush something.

  “Well, I should think not. You’ve come to tell me that you’ve found Maxwell and he is returning my Jaguar and will be over shortly to apologize and beg my forgiveness.” Grandfather’s tone challenged me to deny it.

  “Not quite,” I said dryly. I glanced at his thick hair, skipped over his intense eyes, and spoke to his mustache, which I suspected he wore to help shield his pug nose. Instead, the mustache accentuated his nose by sprouting, weed-like, from his nostrils. “I came to tell you that we have to start an investigation. Right now. Call the police, get a search party going. How can you just stand there, not worried? Max would never disappear without telling me. Something’s very wrong. We need to find him before—” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence, so I just shuddered.

  “Get ahold of yourself, girl. I know exactly what’s going on, as well as what I’m going to do about it.”

  “You do?” I crossed the room to his side. “Have you heard from Max? Has he contacted you—”

  “As a matter of fact, he has.” Grandfather held out a piece of paper, and I grabbed it.

  My stomach dropped as I read the small typed note:

  Maxwell Goodwyne Perigard I:

  I want two million in unmarked bills. Put them in a backpack and lock it in locker #38 in the Whitecap Mountain Ski Resort lodge. Tie a string on the locker key and lower it through the floor drain in the farthest stall in the ladies’ room. Tie the end of the string around the drain’s metal grate. Don’t involve the police, or you’ll never see Maxwell III again.

  I closed my eyes against the glaring note, but the words burned in my mind.

  Max. Kidnapped.

  Maybe this was what I’d feared all along. After all these years of being warned by Grandfather, his prophecy had finally come true.

  “You’re Perigards. People hear that name and think money,” he’d say. “You’re solid gold bars walking around. Never forget that. Don’t talk to strangers and never get yourselves into isolated situations. If you get kidnapped it will be your own fault, so don’t expect me to bail you out.”

  As a little kid, the warning had terrified me; but as I grew, it became obnoxious. Still, whether conscious of it or not, the warning had seeped into me, become a part of me, and I lived with it from morning to night. It was something I accepted, along with the cold shoulder from kids who assumed I was a snob simply because my family was wealthy.

  But Max—I groaned—Max had never been careful. Yes, at least he had friends, but look what it had gotten him: Kidnapped.

  “Don’t stand there gaping like an idiot.” Grandfather snatched the note back from me. “This is a hoax. Your brother’s playing games. He thinks he’s found an easy way to make money—by extorting it from me.”

  I opened my mouth, but the words took time coming. “You’re saying—that Max sent this?”

  “Precisely.” He snapped the paper in the air. “This is obviously the work of an amateur.”

  “Why would you think that?” All Grandfather’s warnings about not helping—I’d thought that was to scare us. Not in a million years would I have thought he could be so callous as to carry out his threat. If he wanted to gloat over the note, with maybe a superior “I warned you,” fine. But now I expected him to spring into action, to do something to help. He was the only one who could.

  I shook my head. “Max would never do this. Not to me and not even to you. There is a kidnapper. I heard him.” Quickly, I explained how the strange voice had answered Max’s phone. “That’s proof!”

  “No, that’s Maxwell. Do you know what his parting words to me were yesterday? ‘I’m through with you, old man. You ain’t ever gonna see me again!’ Now that’s what I call proof. He told me he was leaving, and he did.” Grandfather leveled his eyes at me. “Now Max is out in the real world and he’s realized he needs money if he’s going to last more than a day. Well, he’s not swindling it from me.”

  Frustration overwhelmed me. “How can you be so cold-hearted you—you—scrooge!” I spun my gaze wildly about the room. “Look what you
pour your money into—useless toys—” My eyes jumped back to his, accusingly. “And you’ve had this note how long without telling me?”

  “It only came this morning, but I knew you’d be along soon enough to pester me.”

  “You call concern for my brother pestering?” Suddenly, I felt the urge to pull out my hair. “Don’t you have a speck of a heart? Or are you trying to prove what everyone says about you is true—that you’re a cruel, insensitive, greedy monster!” I couldn’t believe these words were flying from my mouth. I’d never flared up at Grandfather before. Max had always been the one to do that, but he wasn’t here to do it—might never be again if I couldn’t convince Grandfather that this situation was real.

  Grandfather flipped a switch and the train resumed chugging merrily around the track, shrieking and doing its best to drown out my words.

  But I wasn’t finished. My brother’s life was on the line, at the mercy of our merciless grandfather. He held the money and, therefore, the power.

  For a second I was even angry at Max as I remembered the story of “The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf” that our mom used to read to us back in those happy, simple days before the sickness took her. Similar to the bluffing boy, Max had threatened to leave way too many times, and now when it mattered, Grandfather would not believe the truth.

  “Look.” I pointed at the ransom note, but it was useless. Grandfather was back to watching his trains. “It says, ‘Maxwell III.’ Max would never call himself that. He hates it. He goes by Max—you know that!”

  “I know that he’s merely trying to make it appear as genuine as possible. He is a Perigard; he’s not stupid. But neither am I, and I’m a lot smarter than him. I didn’t get where I am today by letting people take advantage of me. I recognize a scam when I see one. Do you know how many letters I get every day from people claiming to be long-lost relatives? Or at death’s door, and all they need is so many thousand dollars for a life-saving operation? Then there are the unimaginative ones who flat out beg for money, groveling at my feet. They’re all trying to take advantage of me because I’m a billionaire and they think I owe them a piece of my fortune. If I gave in to those people, do you know where we’d be living? Out on the streets, that’s where.”

  “But we’re not talking about some beggar, we’re talking about your grandson.”

  “Precisely. The note came from Maxwell.”

  “How was it delivered?”

  “By mail.”

  “Was there a postmark on the envelope?”

  “Yes, mailed yesterday, here in town. Rather convenient, eh?”

  “Yes, for the kidnapper.” I clenched my teeth. “So you’re going to do nothing?”

  “Patience, Charlene. This is a waiting game. Let me tell you a little story. When I was young, my friends and I used to see how long we could stand on the train tracks. The whistle would screech. We’d look the train in its gigantic eye. But always, eventually, we had to jump.”

  I almost said, “I wish you hadn’t.”

  “I always wanted a toy train,” he continued. “I’d look longingly in store windows at Christmas time. All I ever found under the tree were necessities. Socks, boots, a coat if I was lucky. Extras, I learned, we must earn ourselves.”

  He eyed me intently. “What kind of grandchildren am I raising? How do I know you’re not in on this? Two million split between you would make a nice beginner’s fortune.”

  “You’re impossible. How can you even think such a thing?” I swallowed rapidly, forcing down the horrible words that would only worsen my chances of helping Max. “What will it take to convince you?”

  “Proof this isn’t a hoax.”

  “Proof? What kind of proof? A dead body?” I nearly choked on my words.

  “Have you forgotten Maxwell took my Jaguar? Of course you have. People who let their emotions get the better of them cannot think rationally.” He spoke slowly, as if to an ignorant child. “One who is kidnapped does not drive away to captivity, let alone in a Jaguar. Also consider the fact that this is winter break—a convenient time to stage a disappearance. Right now, Maxwell is surely sitting back, relaxing and waiting for his unearned money to roll in. I’m not going to let that happen.”

  “You don’t know the circumstances of the kidnapping. For all we know, the car could be stolen too, or abandoned somewhere. We should look for it. What’s the license plate?”

  “JAGRRR,” Grandfather said with an obvious note of pride.

  It wasn’t hard to commit to memory. “And this being winter break doesn’t mean—”

  “Charlene, you are getting tiresome. Do I need to call Rob to have you removed?”

  “Rob isn’t even here, remember?” I retorted. “You sent him out on some stupid errand.”

  In my anger, I looked around for something to smash. But there were too many options—mountains, buildings, bridges—that I couldn’t decide. And from the weird way Grandfather’s mind worked, smashing something would likely give him satisfaction. Justification for throwing me out.

  “I do have other servants who could remove you,” he challenged.

  “Remove” me. As if I’m a stain on the carpet.

  Scrounging together what remained of my dignity, I said, “That won’t be necessary. I’m leaving now. If you’re not going to take this seriously, then I’m going to the police.” I flicked my scarf over my shoulder like it was mink. Somehow, I managed to close both the train room door and the front door without slamming them.

  Outside, the winter wind blasted away the remnants of my anger, leaving behind weakness and fear. I hurried out of the mansion’s shadow into the emptiness that lay beneath the hollow sky. Underfoot, snow crystals glittered like precious gems.

  Hardly knowing what I was doing, I swung my arm to the ground and, catching a fistful of snow, packed it into a ball. Turning, I hurled the snowball at the door. Bang! Snow rained onto the welcome-mat-free porch.

  I stalked down the driveway, heedless of the ice patches. How could Grandfather turn me away like this? Even if the ransom note didn’t convince him, you’d think the tiniest sliver of doubt would make him do something, at least investigate. It was true what his enemies said about him—he was an insensitive, greedy monster.

  What’s two million to him, anyway? I kicked a crusty black chunk of snow off the sidewalk. Pocket change. He probably spends more than that on his trains.

  As for his insinuation that I could be in on such a scheme—me!, the one who never ran a yellow light—you’d think I’d have earned a little credibility for always being the calm, cool, responsible one.

  I’ll show him, I thought as I crossed the street. I don’t need him. The police will know what to do.

  Chapter Four

  My mind still reeled from the confrontation with Grandfather as I jammed the key into my car’s ignition. I could not fathom how his mind worked. I’d always thought his heart was cold and shriveled, but no. He simply didn’t have one.

  I barreled toward the gate and opened it just in time. My body shifted and strained against the seatbelt as I rounded turns, screeched to stops, accelerated, and sped. What a way to drive to the police station, but my adrenalin-pumping body left me no choice.

  “Don’t involve the police, or you’ll never see Maxwell III again.” The words from the ransom note pulsed ominously in my head as I entered the green-roofed police station. This is the right thing to do, I assured myself. Doing nothing at all would be worse.

  “I need to talk to a detective right away. It’s an emergency,” I demanded at the front desk. “It’s about my brother. He’s been kidnapped—”

  “Charlene Perigard?” a heavy voice overpowered my own.

  I turned to see a large-chinned, middle-aged man in a gray suit. “We’ve been expecting you. Step into this room, please, and we’ll discuss your concern.”

  “Expecting me?” I narrowed my eyes as I entered the small, paper-cluttered office. Filing cabinets lined the rear of the room. My eyes fell on a phon
e. “He called you, didn’t he? My grandfather. ‘Pay no attention to Charlene. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s just overreacting, emotional—’ ”

  “No need to get defensive, Ms. Perigard.” The man gestured to a gray swivel-chair before settling into a cushier one behind a large computer desk.

  I sat, trying to pull myself together. This was not going well so far; I couldn’t let my agitation ruin my chances of being taken seriously. That’s what Grandfather wanted. I took a deep breath, but the big-chinned man spoke first.

  “The name’s Detective Donnelly.” He shook my hand and gave me his card. “And yes, your grandfather called. Now I’d like you to go ahead and tell me your story. I’ll just be taking some notes as you talk, so don’t mind my typing.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” I focused on the deep wrinkles on Donnelly’s forehead as I began relating the details of the last twenty-four hours, including Max’s disappearance, my missed calls, the strange voice, the ransom note, and Grandfather’s lack of concern. Every now and then Donnelly interrupted to ask a question. The tapping of his keyboard was constant.

  Finally, I finished with, “That ransom note is real, and Max is really kidnapped, no matter what my grandfather claims. So we have to do something.” The weight of the horrible situation lightened a little now that I’d shared it with someone capable.

  His eyes met mine over the top of his computer screen. “You did the right thing in coming here, Ms. Perigard, and we appreciate it. Rest assured that we’ll handle the matter from here.”

  How easy it would have been to stand up and leave, comforted with the thought that Max’s welfare was now high priority, but I didn’t budge. There was something vague and evasive in Donnelly’s words that worried me. My grip tightened on the plastic armrests as I leaned forward. “So what’s your plan? Are you going to start looking for Max right away?”

  He crossed his arms and gave me an assessing look. “You’re an intelligent young woman, Ms. Perigard, so I’m going to give this to you straight. We’ll do all we can, but this case isn’t top priority.”