I'll Walk Alone - Mary Higgins Clark [97]
Other times he had mailed her a box of clothes that were identical to some that Moreland had bought. “In case I really want to rub it in,” he said.
Glory had been wearing one of those suits, the black one with the fur trimming, and all her makeup when she drove into Manhattan on Monday. He’d told her to buy clothes at Bergdorf’s and charge them to Moreland’s account. She didn’t know exactly what else he planned for her to do, but when she met him, she could tell he was upset. “Just get back to Middletown,” he had told her.
That was late Monday afternoon. I got mad, Glory thought. I told him to go to hell and that I’d walk to the parking lot. I should have taken off my wig and tied my scarf around my neck so I didn’t look like her, but I didn’t. Then when I passed the church, it was crazy, but I stopped in. I don’t know what made me go to confession, or start to anyhow. My God, was I losing it? And I ought to have known that he’d be following me. How else would he have known I was there?
“Glory, can I come in?”
She looked up. Matthew was standing at the door. Focusing on him, Glory could see that he had lost weight. Well, he hadn’t been eating much lately, she thought. “Sure. Come in, Matty.”
“Are we going to move again?”
“I have very good news for you. Mommy is coming to get you in a couple of days.”
“She is?” he said excitedly.
“You bet she is. That’s why I won’t be minding you at all anymore. And the bad people who were trying to steal you are all gone. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“I miss Mommy,” Matthew whispered.
“I know you do. And believe it or not, I’m going to miss you, too.”
“Maybe you’ll come and visit us sometime?”
“Well, we’ll see.” Looking into Matthew’s intelligent, seeking gaze, Glory suddenly thought, In two years if he sees me on television or in a movie, he’ll say, “That’s Glory, the lady who minded me.”
Oh my God, she thought, that’s the way he’s thinking, too. He knows he can’t let Matty be found. Could he possibly… ?
Yes, he could. She already knew that.
I can’t let it happen, Glory thought. I’ve got to call and try to get that reward. But right now, I’ll do what he said. In the morning, I’ll call the real estate woman and tell her I’m leaving Sunday morning. Then I’ll meet him in New York tomorrow night, like we planned, but before that I’ll go to the cops and make a deal with them. They can tape me so that they’ll have absolute proof that I’m on the level.
“Glory, can I go downstairs and get a soda?” Matthew asked.
“Sure, honey, but I’ll go down with you and get you something to eat.”
“I’m not hungry, Glory, and I don’t believe you that I’ll see Mommy soon. You always tell me that.”
Matthew went downstairs for a soda, brought it back up, lay on his bed, and reached for the bar of soap. But then he pushed it away. Glory tells lies, he thought. She’s always telling me that I’ll be seeing Mommy soon. Mommy doesn’t want to come for me.
65
Fr. Aiden made his way from the Friary to the lower church at ten minutes of four on Friday. He walked slowly. He had been sitting at his desk for hours and the arthritis in his back and knees always pained him when he’d been in one position for too long.
Today, as always, there were people queuing up at the two Reconciliation Rooms in the entrance area where confessions would be heard. He could see that someone was paying a visit to the Lady of Lourdes grotto and someone else was at the kneeling bench before St. Jude. A few people were sitting on the bench against the outside wall. Resting their feet, he wondered, or waiting to work up courage to go to confession? It shouldn’t take courage, he thought. It only requires faith.
As he passed the recessed Shrine of St. Anthony, he noticed a man in a trench coat with a thick head of dark hair kneeling there. The thought crossed his mind that maybe this was the man who Alvirah claimed was taking an odd kind of interest