I'll Walk Alone - Mary Higgins Clark [65]
Fools rush in …
43
Matthew had begun to be really scared of Glory. It had started yesterday when she yelled at him for forgetting his truck and leaving it where that lady saw it. He had run back into the closet and then she locked him in and then after a while she said she was sorry, but he couldn’t stop crying. He wanted Mommy.
He kept trying to think about Mommy’s face but it was like seeing shadows. But he could remember her wrapping him inside her bathrobe, and he could even remember when her long hair would tickle his nose and he would brush it away. If she was with him now, he wouldn’t brush it away. He’d hold it so tight that he’d never let go even if it hurt her.
Later on, after Glory had put that smelly stuff in his hair, she gave him one of the muffins the lady brought. But afterward he felt sick and threw up. It wasn’t the muffin. He knew that. It was because some days when Mommy didn’t go to work, she used to bake muffins with him. It was like the soap that he kept under his pillow. The muffins made him think of Mommy.
After that Glory had tried to be nice. She read a story to him, but even though she told him he was really smart and read grown-up words better than any kid his age, he hadn’t felt any better. Then Glory told him to make up a story. He did make up one — that a little boy had lost his mother and knew he had to go out and find her.
Glory didn’t like that. He could tell that she was tired of taking care of him. He was tired, too, and went to sleep early.
After he had been asleep for a long time, he woke up when he heard a phone ring. Even though his door was only opened a little, he could hear some of what Glory was saying. He heard her talking about keeping this kid from his mother. Was he the kid she was talking about? Was it her fault he wasn’t with Mommy? She had told him that Mommy wanted him to hide because bad people were going to steal him.
Was she lying to him?
44
When he left the police station at ten A.M., Ted Carpenter pushed through the assembled media, his eyes resolutely fixed on his waiting car. But when he reached it, he stopped and spoke into the microphone that had been thrust in front of him. “For nearly two years, despite her emotionally unstable personality, I have tried to believe that my ex-wife, Alexandra Moreland, was in no way responsible for my son’s disappearance. Those pictures are absolute proof that I was wrong. I can only hope that she will now be forced to tell the truth and that by the grace of God Matthew is still alive.”
As questions began to be thrown at him, he shook his head. “Please, no more.” Tears glistening in his eyes, he got into the car and buried his face in his hands.
His driver, Larry Post, pulled away, then when they were clear of the police station, asked, “Will you be going home, Ted?”
“Yes, I will.” I can’t face going into the office, he thought. I can’t face talking to people. I can’t face trying to persuade Jaime-boy, that no-talent, egocentric, crude jackass whose so-called reality show is making him millions, that he should sign up with me. What in the hell was I doing even going to dinner with that blood-sucker Melissa and her hangers-on the night of Matthew’s birthday? My ex-wife is going to be grilled by the cops, and maybe she’ll say or do something that will break this wide open.
Larry glanced in the rearview mirror and took in the haggard, strained expression on Ted’s face. “Ted,” he said, “I know it’s none of my business, but you look as though you’re getting sick. Maybe you should see a doctor.”
“There’s no medicine available to solve my problems,” Ted said wearily. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. His meeting with the detectives replayed itself, moment by moment, in his mind. The expression on both their faces had been inscrutable.
What’s the matter with them? he asked himself. Why haven’t they arrested Zan? Is there something wrong with those photos? And if so, why wouldn’t they tell me? I’m the father. I have every right to know. Zan had always insisted that Bartley