Linwood Barclay - Broken Promise - A Thriller

Not to mention the problem of what to do with the baby.

That goddamn baby.

He would have to watch Bill Gaynor closely. See if he came to present the same level of risk that this dead-and-buried asshole had. Yes, they’d been friends a very long time, but when it came to saving your own neck, you did what you had to do.

And it wasn’t just his neck, either.

But the more immediate problem was Sarita. Once she’d been dealt with, Sturgess could decide what to do about the poor grieving husband.

As I drove away from Sam’s place, I decided to try again to find Marshall Kemper or, even better, Sarita Gomez. Maybe someone would come to the door of his place this time.

On the way, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had just happened, about what I might be getting myself into. I didn’t need my life to be any more complicated, and Sam Worthington was definitely a complication.

Any other man who’d just had impulsive, spontaneous sex with a woman he barely knew — and at her kitchen table, no less — might be feeling pretty full of himself. Ain’t I somethin’? And who knew? Maybe this was the start of something. Maybe this rough, animalistic act was the beginning of an actual relationship. Maybe, out of this what some might call sordid encounter, something pretty decent might emerge. Granted, it might not be the sort of story you’d share with your grandkids one day, but hey, it was the kind of memory, when you called it up, someone might ask why you had that stupid grin all over your face.

Except it wasn’t in my nature to see the glass as half-full. Not after the kinds of things I’d been through in recent years. I had more than enough to deal with at the moment: raising Ethan on my own, starting a new job, living with my parents. I was hoping that working for Finley, even if it didn’t last forever — God forbid — would allow me to rent a place for Ethan and myself. It’d be an interim step to finding us another house.

The one thing I didn’t need to bring into the mix was a relationship. Especially not one with a woman who had as many problems going on in her life as I did. Arguably more.

And yet, sometimes we do stupid things. Some needs blind us to reason.

Maybe Sam had been thinking the same thing. As I was leaving, she’d said, “That was nice. We might do that again sometime.”

Not, Call me . Not, What are you doing this weekend? Not, Would you like to come over for dinner tonight?

Maybe she figured getting involved with me would screw up her life, too. I was reminded of what my father had said. What, exactly, did I have to offer, anyway?

And yet, as I headed for Kemper’s address, I found myself wondering when the wifi at Sam’s house might kick out again.

I decided this time not to park right out front. I pulled over and stopped the car three houses this side of Kemper’s apartment. I had a good view, although I couldn’t see in the windows to tell whether anyone was walking around in there.

There was still no other car parked out front, so Kemper was probably out somewhere. I could sit here in my mother’s Taurus awhile and hope he showed up.

Do some thinking.

It had been half a decade since Jan had died, and yet there wasn’t a day I did not think about her. To say my emotions were mixed was to put it lightly. I’d loved Jan once. A love so great it ached. But those aches had eventually mutated into something very different, something bordering on poisonous. Jan had never been who she claimed to be, and it made everything I’d once felt for her false in retrospect.

I was a different man now. More cautious, less foolish. Or so I’d thought. Maybe the way to handle things with Sam was—

I’d have to put that thought on hold.

A door was opening. But wait, it wasn’t Kemper’s apartment; it was the place where the old woman lived.

Someone was stepping outside. Maybe the old woman was coming out for a breath of fresh air.

Except it wasn’t her.

It was a much younger woman. Late twenties, early thirties, I guessed. Slim, about five-four, with black hair. Dressed in jeans and a green pullover top. A friend of the old woman’s, I figured. A care worker of some kind, maybe.

I thought she’d start walking down to the road, but instead she took a few steps over to the door of Marshall Kemper’s apartment. She used a key to open it and disappeared inside.

I’d never seen a picture of Sarita Gomez, but I was betting I’d found her.

I had my hand on the door handle, preparing to get out, when a cab drove past me and stopped out front of Kemper’s place. Seconds later, the apartment door opened and Sarita reappeared, pulling behind her a medium-size suitcase on wheels. The cabdriver popped the trunk, put the bag in for her, but let Sarita handle the rear passenger door herself. The man got back behind the wheel, and the tires kicked up gravel as he sped off.

“Shit,” I said, and turned the key.

The cab was heading back into downtown Promise Falls and came to a stop outside the bus terminal. I pulled to the curb and watched as Sarita got out, handed the driver some cash, then waited for him to haul her bag out of the trunk. Dragging it behind her, she entered the terminal.

I got out of the car and ran.

The Promise Falls bus terminal is hardly Grand Central. Inside, it’s about the size of a school classroom, with two ticket windows at one end and an electronic schedule board overhead. The rest is filled with the kind of chairs you’d find in a hospital emergency room.

The woman I’d followed was at the ticket booth. I went and stood behind her, looking like the next in line, close enough to hear the conversation.

“I want to buy a ticket to New York,” she said.

The man behind the glass said she could buy the entire ticket now, but she would have to change buses in Albany.

“Okay,” she said. “When does the bus leave for Albany?”

The man glanced at a computer monitor angled off to one side. “Thirty-five minutes,” he told her.

She handed over some more cash, took her ticket. When she turned around she jumped, evidently unaware someone was behind her.

“Excuse me,” she said.

“Sorry,” I said. I let her wheel her bag past my toes, then stepped up to the window.

“Help ya?” the ticket agent said.

I paused, then said, “Never mind.”

I turned around and spotted the woman, sitting in the far corner of the room, as if trying to make herself invisible, which was not easy, since there were only half a dozen people here waiting to catch a bus.

I walked over and took a seat two over from her, leaving the one between us empty. I took out my phone, leaned over, my elbows rested on my knees, and opened up an app at random.

Without looking in her direction, I said, “You must be Sarita.”

I sensed her stir suddenly. “What did you say?”

This time I turned, sitting up at the same time. I could see fear in her eyes. “I said, you must be Sarita. Sarita Gomez.”

Her eyes darted about the room. I could guess what she was thinking. Who was I? Was I alone? Was I a cop? Should she try to run?

I said, “I’m not with the police. My name’s David. David Harwood.”

“You are wrong,” she said. “I am not whoever you said. My name is Carla.”

“I don’t think so. I think you’re Sarita. I think you worked for the Gaynors. And I think you’ve been hiding out with Marshall Kemper the last couple of days, and are now looking to get out of Dodge.”

“Dodge?” she said.

“You want to disappear.”

“I told you, I am not that person.”

“I’m Marla Pickens’s cousin. I don’t know if that name means anything to you, but the Gaynors’ baby was left on her doorstep two days ago. The police think she stole the baby, and probably killed Rosemary Gaynor in the process.”