Mother's Day by Joyce Livingston

Author:Joyce Livingston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2012-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

Seven

“The message is from someone named Trustworthy, the name on the folder. He’s talking to someone who calls themselves Twinkletoes. I assume that’s your daughter, since this is her computer.”

Mindy moved closer and gawked at the screen. “I’ve never heard her mention anyone named Trustworthy.”

“How about Twinkletoes?”

Chuck let out a gasp. “That’s the nickname I used to call Bethany when she was a little girl, but I rarely call her that now! From the time she could walk, she danced anytime music came on the radio or I played an audio tape!”

“Evidently that’s what she chose for her screen name.”

Mindy felt light-headed and sick to her stomach. “What does the message say?”

“I won’t read it to you line by line, but Trustworthy is telling her he is a talent scout for a major Hollywood movie producer who is looking for a young girl to play the lead part in his upcoming movie. He’s telling her he thinks she’d be great for the part, if only she could get to California for an audition.”

“She’s never mentioned a thing about this to me,” Chuck said, backing away from the desk with a questioning glance toward Mindy. “Did she tell you about it?”

Fighting off fresh tears, she shook her head. “Not a word. I can’t imagine why. She tells me everything.”

“His next line will tell you why,” the lieutenant said. “He warns her most parents are reluctant to let their daughters go to Hollywood and become a star. He tells her to keep things quiet, and he’ll try to work out a way to pay for her trip. If that works out, then she can tell her parents.”

Feeling faint, Mindy grabbed on to the edge of the chest, her head reeling.

After rushing to Mindy’s side and wrapping his arm around her waist to support her, Chuck asked, “When was this written?”

Lieutenant Terry paused, as if checking to make sure Mindy was all right before answering. “Two weeks before your daughter disappeared.”

The room fell into a petrifying silence, the steady hum of the computer’s hard drive the only sound.

“That’s all I’ve discovered on the computer so far. There may be more. I’ll keep looking.”

“But you found that one message,” Chuck said, looking hopeful. “If she talked to this person, wouldn’t all of his messages be on her computer, too?”

Captain Wyatt shook his head. “You must not spend much time on the computer, Mr. O’Connor. Once an instant-message conversation is over, the participants click out of the window, and that conversation is gone forever.”

“But that one was on there. How did it stay?”

“She must have wanted to save that one. Your daughter highlighted that portion, hit Copy, transferred it over, and saved it to a document, then put it in this file folder. Unless she has saved others, any talks she had with Trustworthy are not retrievable. But I can have one of the computer geeks we occasionally use take a look at her hard drive. If she’s saved others then deleted them, he might be able to find them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.