Linwood Barclay - Broken Promise - A Thriller

“Mama?”

I watched Agnes return to her car, the door still open. She got behind the wheel, slowly backed out onto the street, and drove away as Marla took hold of Matthew’s tiny wrist so that he could, along with his mother, wave good-bye.

“So, you ready to get started?” Randall Finley asked me.

When I’d seen his name pop up on my cell I should have let it go to message. But like a fool, I answered.

“It’s only been twenty-four hours,” I told him.

“Yeah, but from what I hear, your sister’s in the clear.”

“Cousin,” I said.

“Cousin, sister, whatever. She’s innocent, right?”

“Right. But there are a few other things we still have to deal with.”

“Like?”

“A funeral for my aunt, for one,” I said.

“Oh, shit, yeah,” Finley said. “Fucking hell, I heard about that. She jumped off the falls?”

Right after she drove away from my parents’ house.

“Yes,” I said.

“My condolences,” the former mayor said.

“Plus, I have to find a place to live. There was a fire at my parents’ house.”

“That might be a blessing in disguise. Living with your parents at your age, that’s not good.”

“They’ll be moving in with me while they rebuild the kitchen,” I said.

“Ouch. Man, you are the poster boy for shit out of luck. So, what do you think? A couple of days? Because soon I want to announce that I’m running. I need to put together a platform, shit like that. About how empathetic I am, how I feel for the common man.”

“It seems so self-evident,” I said.

“Yeah, but some people don’t pick up the signals. You have to spell it out for them. You know what I’m saying.”

“I think so. Why don’t I call you toward the end of the week.”

Finley sighed. “I suppose. It’s a good thing I’m a soft touch. Most employers, they might not take it so well, someone taking time off before they’ve even started the fucking job.”

He ended the call.

I was parked out front of the Pickenses’ house. Gill and Marla were inside. She’d be looking after Matthew, and no doubt he was busy making funeral arrangements for Agnes.

The Promise Falls Department of Child and Family Services, pending a more formal review later, decided to let Marla look after Matthew for now, so long as she was living with Gill. Even though the child was hers, and a terrible crime had been perpetrated against her, there was still the issue of her mental stability. She had, after all, tried to kidnap a baby from the hospital. In addition, she’d tried to take her own life. But Marla had agreed to intensive counseling and regular visitations from a caseworker.

While Marla was the only one getting professional help, that didn’t mean she was the only one who needed it.

My mother was devastated.

Her sister was dead. And Agnes might have had her sister’s last words to her in mind as she plunged to her death off Promise Falls.

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

Despite the monstrous things Agnes had done, Mom wished she had said something else.

At some level, I think Mom blamed herself. That maybe if she’d been a better older sibling, none of this would have happened.

They found Agnes downriver, her body lodged on a rock where the rapids get shallow. She wasn’t the first person to die from going off the bridge that spans that rushing cliff of water, and she probably wouldn’t be the last. But I doubted anyone before or after had done it with the same sense of purpose.

According to witness accounts, Agnes walked calmly along the sidewalk to the center of the bridge, set down her purse, perched her butt on the railing, and gracefully swung both legs around and over.

Before anyone else could even react, she was gone.

I couldn’t decide whether there was courage in what she did, or colossal cowardice. Maybe some of both. The fact that she never told Marla what she’d done to her tipped me toward the latter.

She’d left that for Gill and others to explain.

Considering everything, Ethan was riding this out okay. Moving to a motel for a few nights while I looked for a place for us to live was an adventure. The fire’d been contained before it spread upstairs and destroyed any of his things. The model railroad Dad had built in the basement had gotten soaked, but the engines and boxcars and the Promise Falls water tower would dry out eventually.

My son had been through worse. We’d get through this together.

I was about to get out of the car to see how Marla and Gill were doing when my cell phone rang. I didn’t immediately recognize the number, but at least it wasn’t Finley’s, so I answered.

“Hello?”

“You son of a bitch.”

A woman’s voice.

“Sam?” I said. “Is this Samantha?”

“You suckered me right in, didn’t you? Nicely done. I should have known you were working for them. I knew they wanted Carl back, but I never thought they’d stoop this low.”

“Sam, I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That was good, fucking me right there in the kitchen where they could look in through the window, get some nice pics. Talk about getting screwed in more ways than one.”

Even as my heart pounded, I tried to figure out what had happened.

The blue pickup truck with the tinted windows.

“Sam, listen to me — I didn’t do anything. I never—”

“I’ll get you for this. I will. Don’t come knocking on my door again. Next time I’ll pull the trigger.”

And then she hung up.

I called her back immediately but she wouldn’t answer. When it went to voice mail, I said, “Whatever you’re thinking I did, I did not do it. I swear. If I’ve caused you trouble, I’m sorry, but I did not set you up.” I hesitated. “The truth is, I want to see you again.”

I tried to think of anything else I could say and came up blank. So I ended the call and pocketed the phone.

“Shit,” I said under my breath.

Gill opened the door ten seconds after I rang the bell. “David,” he said, his voice flat, empty. “Come in.”

“I wanted to see how Marla was doing,” I said.

“Of course. She’s in the kitchen with Matthew. I’m just on the phone, sorting out the details. For Agnes.”

I nodded.

“I hope you’re not expecting me to thank you,” Gill said.

“I’m sorry.”

“You were instrumental in getting to the truth. I suppose that’s something. But now my wife is dead, and I’m looking after my daughter and a grandson. That’s what the truth brought me.”

There was nothing I could say.

I followed him into the kitchen. A high chair had been acquired in the last day. Matthew was secured into it with a tiny safety belt that ran around his waist. Marla was sitting in a kitchen chair opposite him, feeding him with a tiny red plastic spoon some green pureed stuff from a small glass jar.

“David!” she said. She put down the baby food, jumped to her feet, and threw her arms around me. She planted a kiss on my cheek. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You, too,” I said.

Marla sat back down, said, “Grab a chair. I’m just in the middle of giving him his lunch.”

I found a chair and sat. “What is that stuff?”

“Peas,” she said. “He’s Hoovering it.” She glanced at me. “Let me ask you a question.”

“Sure.”

“Do you think I should keep calling him Matthew? I mean, that’s the name the Gaynors gave him, but I would have named him something different.”

“I don’t know,” I said.