I'll Walk Alone - Mary Higgins Clark [94]
Kevin replaced the phone on the cradle, then turned away so that Louise Kirk, who was opening the door of his office, would not see the tears in his eyes.
62
Friday afternoon he called Glory. When she answered, as he had expected, her voice was sullen and angry. “It’s about time I heard from you,” she snapped. “Because your one-week-or-ten-day plan just isn’t going to pan out. I probably have to get out of here within thirty days, and Sunday afternoon the real estate broker is going to come trooping in here with the guy who’s buying the house. And if you think you’re going to dump me in another godforsaken hole like this, you’re wrong. By Sunday morning, you’d better have the money in my hands or I go to the police and claim that five-million-dollar reward.”
“Gloria, we can wind this up by Sunday. But if you think you can make a deal to collect that reward, you’re dumber than I thought. Remember Son of Sam? If not, look him up. He killed a couple of people and shot three or four others. He was writing a book about his crime spree and they passed a law saying that no criminal can profit from his crime. Lady, whether you know it or not, you’re up to your neck in this one. You kidnapped Matthew Carpenter and you’ve been holding him captive for two years. You get caught, you go to prison. Got it?”
“Maybe they make exceptions,” Gloria said defiantly. “But this little kid is bright. If you think that once they find him, he won’t tell them that Mommy didn’t take him that day, you are wrong. I’m pretty sure he remembers. When he woke up in the car, I was still wearing the wig. He started shrieking when I took it off. He remembers that. And once, when I thought the door was locked, I tried on the wig after I washed it. My back was to him. He opened the door and came in before I could get it off. He asked me, ‘Why do you try to look like my Mommy?’ Suppose he tells them that Glory took him out of the stroller? Won’t that be great for me?”
“You haven’t let him see any of the tapes they’ve been showing on television, have you?” he asked, as the appalling truth washed over him. If Matthew tells the police he knew his mother had not taken him, every plan I have made would collapse.
“You do ask stupid questions, don’t you? Of course I haven’t,” she said.
“I think you’re crazy, Brittany. That happened almost two years ago. He’s too little to remember.”
“Just don’t count on him being a dumb bunny when they find him. And don’t call me Brittany. I thought we agreed on that.”
“All right, all right. Look, we’re going to change our plan. Forget about making yourself up to look like Zan and going back to that church. I’ll take care of that myself. Pack your car with everything you own. We’ll meet tomorrow night instead at LaGuardia Airport. I’ll have the money for you, and a plane ticket home to Texas.”
“What about Matthew?”
“Do what you’ve always done, only this time it will have to be a little longer. Put him to bed in the closet, leave the light on, and give him enough cereal or sandwiches and soda to last him. You say those people are coming in on Sunday to go through the house?”
“Yes. But suppose they don’t come? We can’t leave that little boy locked in the closet.”
“Of course not. Tell that real estate agent that you’re leaving Sunday morning and that you’ll notify her where to send your refund. You can be sure that by noon on Sunday she’ll be checking out that house, whether or not she has the new buyer with her. And then she’ll find Matthew.”
“Six hundred thousand dollars, five thousand in cash, the rest wired to my father’s bank account in Texas. Get out your pen. I’ll give you the account number now.”
His hand was perspiring so much that he couldn’t keep the pen from slipping, but he managed to jot down the numbers she was snapping at him.
It was the one possibility that he had never considered — that Matthew would remember it was not his mother who had kidnapped him that day.
If that happened, Zan’s story would