The Third Eye by Lois Duncan Read Free Book Online

officer… to see
me
? What does he want?”
    “I don’t know. He won’t tell me,” Mrs. Connors said. “Did something happen last night? You and Tim weren’t involved in an accident, were you?”
    “No,” Karen told her. “We went bowling and then had something to eat, and then we came home. No accidents, no problems, nothing.”
    “Well, you’d better get dressed and come downstairs,” her mother said. “Your father had an early golf game with a client this morning, so he’s not here to deal with the police officer who’s waiting downstairs.”
    “You don’t think it could be about Bobby, do you?” Karen asked anxiously. “He was doing fine when I called last Sunday. His mother said he was outside playing.”
    “I have no idea what might have happened,” her mother said. “Hurry up and get some clothes on, and we’ll find out.”
    The jeans and shirt that she had worn the night before lay tossed across the back of a chair. Karen hastily pulled them on while her mother waited, and the two of them went downstairs together.
    The uniformed man who awaited them in the living room was the same young officer who had been at the Zenners’. Even if she had not recognized him by the sandy hair and well-gnawedfingernails, there was no way that she could ever have forgotten the vivid color of his eyes.
    “Are you here about Bobby?” she asked him. “He’s still all right, isn’t he? Has something happened?”
    “No, no, this is about something else entirely.” Officer Wilson looked as out of place in her parents’ formal living room as he had in the Zenners’ more casual one. Without a notebook to hold on to, he didn’t quite seem to know what to do with his hands. “As far as I know, the Zenner kid’s fine. His folks would have been back in touch with us if he wasn’t.”
    “Please, let’s all sit down so we can talk more comfortably.” Mrs. Connors gestured them toward the sofa and took her own seat in a wing chair across from it.
    To Karen, this seating arrangement seemed to place her mother suddenly in a position of regal authority, as though she had ascended a throne, while both her daughter and the police officer sank ineffectually down into the sofa cushions.
    “What’s the reason for this visit, Officer Wilson?” Mrs. Connors asked once they were seated. “I assume you’re not planning to place us under arrest?”
    “Nothing like that,” the young man assured her hastily. He paused, obviously uncertain about how to proceed. “I’m sure your daughter has filled you in on what happened last Saturday. You do know, don’t you, about how the kid she was babysitting got himself locked in the trunk of a car?”
    “Of course,” Mrs. Connors said. “Karen told us all about it. That must have been a terrifying experience for poor littleBobby. It’s a relief to know that he’s suffered no ill effects from it.”
    “He would have, if he’d stayed in that trunk much longer. There was a tear in the fabric lining that let in some air, but it wasn’t enough. The boy was unconscious when we found him.” Officer Wilson turned to Karen. “How did you know he was in there?”
    With effort, she avoided glancing at her mother.
    “I heard Tim slam the trunk lid. When he appeared at the door like that, I suddenly realized—”
    “I don’t buy that,” the police officer said quietly. “That afternoon, you told me Bobby was trapped. You said he wanted to come home, but he couldn’t. You knew it
then
.”
    “That was just a guess,” said Karen.
    “Do you ‘guess’ like that often?”
    “Everybody occasionally makes lucky guesses,” Mrs. Connors said. “There’s certainly nothing all that strange about my daughter’s having done it once.”
    Ignoring the comment, the police officer continued to address himself to Karen.
    “I’m not just prying; there’s a reason I need to know this. How much control do you have over this guessing? Can you do it whenever you want to?”
    “What