Linwood Barclay - Broken Promise - A Thriller

“I understand,” he said. “Really, what I’m looking for here is some assistance. I’m not out to get you, Marla.” He looked directly at her instead of talking through Natalie. “I’m really not. I just want to find out what happened, and I think you may be in a position to help me with that. Fill in some of the blanks.”

“Barry, please,” Natalie said.

“I’m serious, Natalie. Right now no one is talking about kidnapping charges against Ms. Pickens or anything like that.”

“Kidnapping?” Marla said.

Duckworth nodded. “We don’t fully understand how Matthew Gaynor came into your care, Marla. That’s something I hope will come clear in time. Right now I’m trying to find out what happened to Matthew’s mother. I’m sure you’d like to do everything you can to help us in that regard.”

“Sure,” Marla said.

“Don’t answer him,” Natalie said, resting her hand on Marla’s arm.

“But I do,” she said. “I want them to find out who did that. That was a terrible thing somebody did.”

“It sure is,” Duckworth said. “Have you ever met Rosemary Gaynor before?”

“You don’t have to answer that,” Natalie said.

“But I haven’t. At least, I don’t think so. The name isn’t familiar to me.”

Duckworth slid a picture across the table. A blown-up profile shot from Rosemary Gaynor’s Facebook page.

“You’ve never seen this woman before?”

Marla studied it. “I don’t recognize her.”

“Okay. You know what, let me just get a few other things out of the way. What’s your address, Marla?”

“You already know that,” Natalie said. “You took her driver’s license.”

“Please, Counselor.”

Marla rattled off her address and phone number. “I live by myself,” she added.

“And what do you do?”

“What do I do?”

“What’s your job? Are you employed?”

“Yes,” Marla said, nodding. “I write reviews.”

Duckworth’s eyebrows went up. “No kidding? What sort of reviews? Movie reviews? Book reviews? Do you review restaurants?”

“Not movies or books. Some restaurants. But mostly businesses.”

Natalie, not sure where this was going, looked uncertain. “Maybe we should—”

“No, it’s okay,” Marla said. “I do write-ups about businesses on the Internet.”

“How does that work, exactly?” Duckworth asked.

“Well, let’s say you run a — I don’t know — a paving company. You go around paving people’s driveways. I write a review of your company saying what a good job you did.” She smiled tiredly. “I don’t get paid a lot for each review, but I can get a lot done in an hour, so it adds up pretty fast.”

“Wait a sec,” Duckworth said. “I’m confused. You use the services of enough businesses that you can write lots of reviews in an hour?”

Marla shook her head. “No, no, I haven’t used any of them.”

“I don’t think this has any bearing on anything,” Natalie said.

“But hang on,” Duckworth said, holding up a hand. “I’m just curious, personally, how you can review businesses whose services you’ve never engaged?”

Marla said, “The way it works is, if you’re the paving guy, you get in touch with the Internet company I work for, and you say you need lots of good customer reviews so that when people are looking for a paver, they pick you. So then the company sends me the info and I write the review. I’ve got, like, half a dozen online identities I can use so it doesn’t look like they’re all from the same person. So even though I don’t know a lot about paving, I can kind of figure it out, and say they gave me a good price, they were on time, the driveway was really smooth, like that.”

“No more,” Natalie said, gripping Marla’s arm tighter.

“That’s fascinating,” Duckworth said. “So you just completely make it up. You say a few good words about a business you know nothing about and have never used. I’m guessing it wouldn’t even have to be in Promise Falls. It could literally be anywhere.”

Marla nodded.

“So, in other words, Marla, you lie,” Duckworth said.

Her head snapped back as though she’d been slapped. “Not really,” she said. “It’s the Internet.”

“Well, let me ask you this, then. Why did you try to take a baby out of Promise Falls General?”

Natalie blinked. She said, “Whoa, hold on. If you’ve got anything to substantiate the idea that Ms. Pickens took Matthew Gaynor from the hospital, then I’d like to see—”

He raised a hand. “No, not Matthew.” He reviewed some paperwork in front of him. “The child’s name was Dwight Westphall. He was just a couple of days old when your client snuck into the maternity ward and—”

“I would ask that you refrain from a word like ‘snuck,’ Detective.”

“We’re not in front of a jury, Ms. Bondurant.” He paused. “Not yet. As I was saying, Ms. Pickens here was stopped by hospital security before she could exit the building. Police were notified, but an accommodation was reached between the Westphalls and the hospital and no further action was taken. Would that accommodation have anything to do with the fact that your mother is the hospital administrator, Ms. Pickens?”

Her eyes were welling up with tears.

“Strikes me,” Duckworth said to Natalie, “that you haven’t been fully informed of your client’s previous activities.” He leaned over the table and eyed Marla sympathetically. “It’s a good thing Matthew’s okay, Marla. You looked out for him and that’s good. Maybe, when you tried to take him, Mrs. Gaynor came at you. Threatened to hurt you. Is that what happened? Were you just acting in self-defense?”

“It was the angel,” Marla said.

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t take Matthew. It was the angel that brought her.”

“We’re done here,” Natalie said.

“Can you describe this angel?” Duckworth asked.

Marla shook her head. “I can’t.”

Duckworth slid the photo of Rosemary Gaynor toward her again. “Was this your angel?”

Marla gave the picture another look. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? Either this is her or it isn’t.”

“I... have trouble,” Marla said. “With faces.”

“But this only just happened in the last twenty-four hours.”

“It’s the prosopagnosia,” Marla said.

Confusion flashed across the faces of both lawyer and detective.

“I’m sorry. Proso — what?” Duckworth said.

“I have it,” Marla said. “Not real bad, but bad enough. Prosopagnosia.” She paused. “Face blindness.”

“What’s that?” Duckworth asked.

“I can’t remember faces. I can’t remember what people look like.” Marla pointed to the picture. “So it might have been that woman who gave me Matthew. But I just don’t know.”

“Whoa,” I said, backing away from the door, putting my hands in the air. The last thing I wanted to do was appear threatening as Sam — make that Samantha — Worthington pointed that shotgun at my head.

“Who’d you say you were?” she asked. “What are you doing asking about my boy? Did they send you?”

“I think there’s some kind of misunderstanding here,” I said, slowly lowering my arms, but still keeping lots of space between my hands and my body. For all I knew, she thought I was carrying a gun and might reach for it. Why else would you show up at the door with a shotgun?

I continued, trying to keep my voice even. “My name’s David Harwood. I’m Ethan’s dad. Our boys go to school together. Ethan and Carl.”

“What’s the name of the school?” Sam asked.