Linwood Barclay - Broken Promise - A Thriller

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

“I just did tell you. Right now. You were gone, and I went for coffee, and now I’m back, and I’m telling you.”

Duckworth looked through his notebook again, found David Harwood’s number. He was pretty sure it was his cell, not a home number.

He made the call.

It rang twice, and then: “Yes?”

“Mr. Harwood? Detective Duckworth here. You were trying to reach me?”

“Marla didn’t do it,” Harwood said. “Sarita Gomez, the Gaynors’ nanny? Well, she didn’t do it, either, but she was the one who took the baby to Marla’s house. Because Matthew really is Marla’s baby.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because I found Sarita, and she told me, and she’s with me right now.”

“And where the hell is that?” Duckworth asked.

“My parents’ house,” I told Detective Duckworth. “I think you know where that is.” He had, after all, been here a few years ago when I was having my other troubles.

I put the phone away and said to Agnes, “Sorry. The police are coming.”

“Of course they are,” she said wearily.

“You said that you wished deceiving Marla had been the worst of it,” I said. “What could be worse than that?”

“I can answer that,” my mother said. “The lie was just the beginning. It was the aftermath. Look what you did to her. Look what you did to your child.”

Agnes mumbled something.

“What was that?” Mom asked.

“I thought it was the right thing to do. I was trying to look out for her. I was trying to give Marla a future.”

“By driving her mad? Agnes, she tried to steal a baby. You did that to her.”

“I know.”

Mom shook her head slowly, not taking her eyes off her sister. Agnes was still running her palm across the bedspread, studying the nap, but I was betting she could feel my mother’s eyes boring into her.

“You’ve always been hard, Agnes,” she said, “but I never knew you were a monster.”

I said, “But that’s not what you were referring to, is it, Agnes? When you said there were even worse things.”

Her head turned slightly my way. “Jack — Dr. Sturgess — had matters he had to deal with. When things started to unravel. Actions he had to take.”

“Like Rosemary Gaynor,” I said. “Did Sturgess kill her?”

Agnes shifted around so she could look at me directly. “No, he wouldn’t have done that. He... would never have done that. It doesn’t fit... It’s unthinkable.”

“All of this is unthinkable,” I said. “But Sarita had figured out what happened, and she told Rosemary.” I looked at Sarita. “Isn’t that right?”

She nodded. “I told her. She said she didn’t believe me, but I think she did.”

I continued. “Rosemary had to realize Matthew wasn’t a baby someone willingly gave up. The adoption was bogus. If she came forward, if she started asking questions, if it came out with what Dr. Sturgess had done, he’d be finished. He’d go to jail. You think he wouldn’t do whatever he had to?”

Agnes shook her head adamantly. “No...”

“If not Rosemary, then what are you talking about?”

“There was a man — he tried to blackmail Gaynor. Today.”

Sarita breathed in. “Marshall. I told him not to do it. I told him—”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Agnes said. “Jack... dealt with him.”

Sarita put her hands to her mouth. “No, no, no.”

Agnes glanced at her. “Was he your boyfriend? He shouldn’t have done it. He was the author of his own misfortune. And... I believe there may have been someone else. An old lady.” A strange calm seemed to be coming over her. “It’s all over. Everything is over.”

There was a hard knock at the front door that we could all hear upstairs.

“Duckworth,” I said. “That was fast.”

“I’ll go,” Dad said, and slipped out of the room.

“You’re going to go to jail,” Mom said.

“Yes,” Agnes said. “Probably for a long time.” Then, almost wistfully: “Or maybe not.”

“I don’t see how Marla can ever forgive you. I know if it were me, I couldn’t.”

Agnes said nothing.

I walked over to Sarita, put a hand on each shoulder, and let her lean up against me. She was crying.

So much misery in one room.

Downstairs, I heard the front door open.

Agnes said to Sarita, “You’ll tell them?”

Sarita, half shielded by my shoulder, looked at my aunt and said, “I will tell them everything.”

Agnes’s face looked like it would crack when she smiled. “Thank you for that.”

It sounded like there was a heated discussion going on at the front door. I thought I heard Dad say, “Fuck you.”

Not the sort of thing I’d have expected Dad to say to a Promise Falls detective.

“Hang on,” I said, letting go of Sarita and heading for the bedroom door. As I came into the hall, I became aware of something in the air, as if someone were burning leaves or brush in the neighborhood. Then I saw two heads coming up the stairs. Dad in the lead, and Jack Sturgess just behind him. Sturgess’s left hand was gripped around my father’s right arm. In his right hand was the syringe I’d glimpsed before. He was holding the tip of the needle about an inch away from Dad’s neck.

“Agnes!” Sturgess said. “You in there?”

From inside the bedroom, Agnes said, “Jack?”

“Thought that was your car out front.” Sturgess and Dad had reached the top of the stairs. I stood, frozen, my eyes on the needle.

“It’s going to be okay, Dad,” I said. “Put the needle down,” I told the doctor.

Agnes appeared in the bedroom doorway. “Jack, Jesus Christ.”

Sturgess could see into the room. Saw Sarita, Mom on the bed. “What have you told them?” he asked Agnes.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Agnes said.

“It’s over,” I told him. “It’s all coming out.”

Sturgess’s eyes seemed to dance, as though he were trying to focus on a swarm of fireflies. The needle wavered by my father’s neck.

“Where’s the baby?” Agnes asked. “Is Matthew okay?”

“Outside, in the car, with his father,” the doctor said, stressing the last word. “His legal father.”

“What’s Gaynor doing?” I asked. “Waiting for you to come in here and kill the lot of us? How many needles you got? You think you can kill everyone here? Is that your plan? Because there’s more than just us. The police know, too.”

“Shut up,” he said. “Think you’re smart, but not smart enough to hide your fucking car.”

He had me there. He knew Mom’s Taurus from tailing me minutes earlier, and leaving it out front wasn’t the brightest thing I’d done today.

“Put the needle down,” Agnes told him. “You’re not hurting Don.”

I could see the fear in Dad’s eyes. He was frozen, scared to make any kind of fast move for fear that needle would be driven straight into him. We didn’t have to know what was in it. We knew Sturgess wasn’t giving out flu shots.

“We have to make a deal,” Sturgess said. “Everyone stays quiet, and I won’t kill him.”

If the situation hadn’t been so dire, it would have been laughable. “The police are already on their way,” I told him. “There aren’t any deals to be made.”

Sturgess tightened his grip on my father. Moved the needle a few millimeters closer to his neck.

“Then the old man comes with me. I need time. I need time to get away.”

I decided to stick with my best argument. “The police will be here before you hit the front door.”

“No,” Sturgess said. “They’re not coming. That’s bullshit. We’re leaving.”