Linwood Barclay - Far From True

She had underestimated her former in-laws’ resolve.

They’d had lawyers send her threatening letters demanding custody. Sam had ignored them — torn them up and thrown them in the trash. There was no way, she convinced herself, that they had any legal right to take her own child away from her.

But then they upped their game.

They’d sent someone to spy on her, try to catch her in any kind of compromising position.

They’d gone so far as to put a camera up to her window when she had a quick hookup with David Harwood, whose son, Ethan, was in her son’s class at Clinton Public School. It was an impulsive, reckless thing to do, having sex with the man. And not even in the bedroom, but right there in the kitchen, like they were acting out some tawdry scene in The Postman Always Rings Twice , for God’s sake.

She wondered if it had been Ed who took the picture. If he’d been the one peering through her window. Probably just one hand on the camera, his other one busy.

She still harbored suspicions that Harwood was in on it. That he’d set her up somehow.

And yet...

Hadn’t she been the one who’d initiated it? When she asked him, “How long has it been?” A reference to the last time he’d been with anyone.

A long time, for both of them, as it turned out.

Whoever had been peering through the window with a camera had clearly been in touch with Garnet and Yolanda soon after. Within a day, an e-mail arrived from Yolanda, with an attached photo.

Sam couldn’t believe it when she saw it.

And there was Yolanda’s message: “So this is how Carl’s mother spends her time at home. What kind of mother behaves this way?”

Then, this morning, her ex-husband’s longtime buddy Ed strolled into her work to intimidate her. This was how they planned to do it, she told herself. Scare her into turning Carl over.

No fucking way.

Carl was only nine, but he understood what was going on. She’d warned him to be on the lookout for his grandparents or any of his father’s old friends. Sam worried that one day they’d go too far, that they’d cross the line, and just try to grab Carl and take him back to Boston.

Many days, she drove him to school and picked him up at the end of the day.

You couldn’t be too careful.

She held the card that nice, but sad-looking, man had given her after he’d thrown soap powder in Ed’s face. She was used to seeing him once a week when he came in with his laundry, and had smiled at him the odd time, even talked to him about the book he was reading when he’d come earlier today, but she hadn’t known his name, and she certainly hadn’t known what he did for a living.

But there it was, on the card: Cal Weaver: Private Investigations . And a phone number. At first, she was inclined to throw it into the trash. She didn’t want to drag strangers into her personal business. But a private detective might be someone worth knowing. Not because she was planning to hire him or anything. But a man in that line of work might know people who could be helpful to her. A lawyer specializing in custody issues, for example.

So she’d hung on to the card, left it tucked in the front pocket of her jeans, next to her phone.

The place had been busy around the noon hour, but things had slowed down by midafternoon. No one was there, none of the machines running. Which was why Sam had taken this time to restock the dispenser with small boxes of soap. She glanced at the clock and realized it was almost the end of Carl’s school day. This was a good time to slip away and pick him up.

And then they walked in.

Garnet and Yolanda.

Sam froze. She was stunned that they would actually confront her. Travel all the way from Boston for a face-to-face.

Garnet looking distinguished in a suit, like he was dressed for a day at the bank, even though he’d have had to take the entire day off to come here. Yolanda all in black, save for the strand of pearls at her neck. Fancy silk blouse, slacks, three-inch heels, silver hair all poufed out.

Sam stared but said nothing. It was Garnet who spoke first.

“Samantha, how are you?” Speaking in a soft, nonthreatening tone. His bank voice.

Yolanda flashed a smile that looked remarkably lifelike. “It’s good to see you, Samantha. You’re looking well.”

Sam knew, after seven hours of working in this overheated hellhole, she looked like a drowning victim pulled from the river, and probably smelled like one, too.

“This... is a surprise,” Sam said.

“Yolanda and I’ve been talking, and we, well, we thought it was time to try to make peace,” Garnet said. “Stop with all this bickering and backstabbing. It’s not good for any of us, and it’s certainly not good for Carl, and he’s the one that really matters here.” He pointed to three plastic chairs. “Would it be okay if we sat down?”

Sam, dumbstruck, nodded. Garnet turned the chairs around into a Y so they could all face one another. Before sitting, Yolanda took a long look at the chair and swept it with the back of her hand. If there’d been anything on it, Sam couldn’t see it.

“We know we’ve kind of been playing hardball lately,” Garnet said. “We’ve employed tactics which, in retrospect, have gone too far.”

“You mean taking pictures of me through a window?” Sam asked, starting to feel her way. “When I was with someone?”

“With,” Yolanda said under her breath.

Garnet reached out a hand and touched his wife on the knee. “Now, dear, we promised to be good.”

“I’m sorry,” Brandon’s mother said. “And I’m sorry for sending that photo to you. That was... uncalled for.”

“You think?” Sam said. “Would it be okay with you if I hired someone to spy on you? I’m sure you and Garnet still get it on once in a while. Does that make you bad people?”

Yolanda flinched. She looked ready to bite back, but then composed herself. “You make an excellent point, Samantha.”

“And what about today? Sending that thug Ed in here? What the hell was that about?”

Garnet’s face contorted. “What are you talking about? Ed was here?”

“Are you saying you don’t know?”

He shook his head sorrowfully. “He goes off half-cocked sometimes. Thinks he knows what we want, but really, he shouldn’t have bothered you. We’re very sorry about that, aren’t we, Yolanda?”

“We sure are,” she said.

“We just want everyone to be happy or, if that’s too much to ask, to understand one another,” Garnet said. “And before I forget, Brandon asked me to say hello and pass along his best wishes to you and Carl.”

“You’ve seen him?”

“We go every week,” Garnet said.

“He forgives you,” Yolanda said.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“He forgives you for leading him down a reckless path.”

Sam swallowed hard, made a fist that she managed to keep pointed at the floor. “What that man did was his choice and his choice alone and I had absolutely nothing to do with it. He could have stolen the crown jewels for me and I still wouldn’t have gone back to him. Do you know what he did to me? He kept me living in a constant state of fear. He was capable of violence, and sooner or later I knew I’d be on the receiving end.”

“I seriously doubt that,” Yolanda said. “Not my son. He was always a very gentle child and—”

Garnet grabbed her knee and pinched it hard enough to make her shut up. “We’re getting a little off topic here, love. Let’s not lose sight of why we came here to see Samantha.”

Sam glanced at the clock. It was time for her to leave to get Carl.

“I don’t know why you’ve driven all this way, but I really have to go,” she told them.