Broken Promise

by Tara Thomas

  * * *

  Alyssa was uncharacteristically quiet on the way to her parents’ house. At first, he thought it was because she was apprehensive about meeting with them. From what he’d inferred, they didn’t have a close relationship. But as he continued glancing at her every so often, he realized she was reading the same handwritten note over and over.

  “Interesting read?” he finally asked her.

  “I think it’s a clue.”

  “How’s that?”

  “It’s a note your sister left Bea that time she set off the alarm at Benedict House. Listen to this:

  I’m sorry I had to take off without saying good-bye. Maybe one day, I’ll be able to explain. I really hope I can. If not, thank you for being so kind to me. If I ever had a sister, I’d want her to be like you.

  “Now, at face value, it could be exactly that—a lonely orphaned girl wishing she had a sister. But, if we go with the assumption that Jade knows she’s actually a Benedict, then she also knows that Bea is her sister.”

  Kipling nodded. “Interesting.”

  “Next, she talks about Tom and how Bea should be careful around him, which, looking back, I think we can all say was an understatement. But listen to this last part:

  My name is Kaja Jade, but Mann isn’t my last name. I’m sorry I can’t give it to you yet, but if I have any hope of surviving, I have to go where no one knows me from Adam.

  As you have probably guessed, my guardian is no gentleman. My mother died before I was five and he took me in. I don’t remember much about my mother, but I remember she loved me and she could sing like an angel.”

  He had to admit, she had a point. “Taken as a whole, it does sound a bit strange.”

  “Right,” she said. “‘My guardian is no gentleman?’ What does that even mean? And why word it that way?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m getting ready to move heaven and earth to find out.”

  * * *

  He was still thinking about the strange note when they pulled up to her childhood home a few minutes before eleven. They sat for several seconds, neither one of them saying anything.

  “The lights are on,” he finally said.

  She just nodded. He tried to imagine what it was like in that house, when she was growing up. How it felt knowing that her sister had been murdered, and that she wasn’t supposed to breathe her name again. How hard that must have been for someone who loved her sister.

  Knowing that, what did it say about her mother, that she let her husband dictate what she did with her child? That she allowed him to determine if she even spoke about her? There were no words of encouragement he could think of to make Alyssa feel better. All he could do was place his hand on her knee and given it a gentle squeeze. I’m here if you need me.

  Alyssa looked up at him and he knew that was what she needed. “Thank you,” she whispered softly.

  Not only were the lights on in the house, but there was a car parked in the driveway. He wasn’t sure how many cars they had, but at least the evidence pointed toward somebody being at home. They walked to the front door, he remained a step behind her. This was her family and she had to be the one to make the first move.

  He saw the curtains move in the front room seconds before they heard footsteps approaching the door. Before too long, an older version of Alyssa was at the door and was looking at them.

  “Good heavens,” was all she said; her face a deadly chalky white. As if she’d just seen a ghost.

  “Who is that, Mildred?” could be heard from a second room.

  It didn’t appear that Mildred was going to answer him. She stood there in shock, looking at both her daughter and him.

  “Mildred?” came the voice again.

  When she didn’t answer that time, they heard more footsteps approaching. From his spot at the doorway, Kipling saw a large giant of a man appear. He looked huge. With muscles that would make one believe he could snap a man in half like a twig. The other man looked at him, looked at Alyssa and then back to him. His lips curled into a snarl. But Kipling was used to working with his share of giants, both in and out of the boardroom. And he wasn’t about to let this man intimidate him. He looked at Alyssa and was glad to see she wasn’t going to back down either. She took a step forward, but the man held out his hand to stop her.

  “Oh no, not again,” he said. “Hell no. Get out of my house. Got off my street. Don’t ever come back.”

  Beside him, Alyssa’s mother wailed, “No!”

  “Mildred,” he said. “Can’t you see the same thing is happening again? It is the same thing. I won’t have it, they can leave now.”

  Finally, Alyssa spoke up. “What do you mean the same thing?”

  “Go away,” he said, and slammed the door in front of them.

  “Asshole,” Alyssa mumbled under her breath.

  Kipling took a deep breath and took a step back from the closed door. “Well,” he said. “That was certainly interesting. When was last time you saw them?”

  Alyssa rubbed her head. “It’s been years.”

  Kipling bit back the remarks he wanted to say badly. He would bite his tongue for now because this was Alyssa’s family.

  She banged on the door. “It doesn’t work that way. We’re not going anywhere.”

  There was only silence on the other side of the door.

  She lowered her voice, “If I knew the neighbors wouldn’t call the police, I’d shoot the damn door off its hinges.”

  “As much as I’d like to see that,” Kipling admitted. “I agree. Not the best course of action here.”

  “Mom.” Alyssa knocked on the door. “Mom, please. You know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important. I’m close to solving this case. Help me.”

  They looked at each other at the sound of raised voices from inside the house. The sound escalated until it suddenly stopped. The door creaked open, just a little, but wide enough for them to see the red eyes and wet cheeks of Alyssa’s mother.

  “Mom.” She pushed the door open further and wrapped her arms around her mom when the older woman started crying. Kipling heard the low murmers of mother and daughter talking as they walked further into the house and took a step forward to join them.

  He was stopped by Alyssa’s stepdad. “You’re not welcome in my house.”

  Kipling glanced at the man before him to make sure he was serious and for all appearances, from his crossed arms to the near constant frown, showed he was.

  Kipling took a step backward. “Listen to me,” he said. “Someone has threatened Alyssa’s life and I take that sort of thing very seriously. I don’t care what you have against her. I don’t care what you have against me. Neither of those matter as long as that threat exists. And for as long as it does, I’m going to be right by her side to make sure she’s okay. I don’t care if you like it or if you agree with it. This has nothing to do with you. It has nothing to do with your murdered stepdaughter. It has everything to do with keeping Alyssa safe. Do you understand?’”

  Everything was strangely silent when he finished speaking his mind to Mr. Adams. He no longer heard Alyssa and her mother talking, either. Without saying a word, her stepfather moved to the side, allowing him to pass. He walked into the hallway, where he saw Alyssa and her mother.

  “Mrs. Adams,” he said, holding his hand out to her. “Kipling Benedict. Nice to meet you.” The poor woman didn’t seem to know whether to talk to him or not. She looked from him to her husband to her daughter and back again to Kipling.

  She shook his hand, but didn’t reciprocate his sentiment. She sighed. “What can we do for you? I’m assuming you didn’t come by just to see how we were doing.”

  Alyssa hadn’t been lying when she said there was still tension between her and her parents. Not only that, but her mother looked cold and distant. Her expression was flat when she spoke, “I suggest we all go sit down.”

  Kipling turned around to head in the direction Mrs. Adams indicated and almost ran into the Neanderthal, holdin
g a newspaper.

  “There.” He shoved the paper at Alyssa. “Look at that, look at you, and tell me what you think.”

  At first, Kipling thought he was looking at a picture of himself, but as he kept looking, it became obvious that it was his father. Even with that revelation, however, he couldn’t take his eyes off his father. Kipling couldn’t remember him being that happy or smiling so brightly. And the woman at his side was not his wife of almost twenty years. But rather, it was a woman who looked all too much like Alyssa.

  She must have noticed the same thing, at the same time, because she gasped.

  “Striking resemblance, yes?” her father asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “I thought so, too. So if you think you’re going to sit here in my house, like your sister and your sorry excuse for a father, you can think again.”

  “It’s not like that,” Alyssa said quietly. Kipling wanted to touch her, to simply place his hand on the lower part of her back, to give her some sort of strength, some sort of secret sign to let her know that he was with her. But his actions would not go unnoticed by her stepfather, and he didn’t think it would make anything better.

  In the end, Alyssa finally pushed past her stepfather to continue on her way into the other room. They all followed her, first Kipling, then her mother, with her stepfather trailing behind them. Kipling just had a chance to take the briefest glance around the room. For all intents and purposes, it was a typical middle-class house in the typical middle-class neighborhood. They all sat down on the living room’s couch and love seat.

  “What was that I overheard you say about Alyssa being threatened?” Alyssa’s mother asked.

  “There’s been some recent activity in the case. New evidence has been brought to light,” Alyssa said. “And whoever killed my sister…” She looked at her stepfather briefly, letting him know she wouldn’t say her name. “We believe he’s still alive and might be after me.”

  “How is he involved?” her stepfather asked, with a nod toward Kipling.

  Kipling raised his eyebrow at Alyssa. Do we tell him?

  She shook her head no.

  Kipling cleared his throat. “I have a family member we fear has been kidnapped. Based on some of the similarities, we think she may have been taken by the same man in your case. We need to find her and put whoever is behind this away for good. We don’t want her to meet the same end that your stepdaughter did.”

  Certainly her stepfather should understand that. Of course he wouldn’t want anybody to meet the same fate as his stepdaughter. But as it turned out, her stepfather wasn’t like normal people.

  “She deserved what she got,” he said. “Being a whore for your daddy.”

  Kipling closed his eyes. If he stood any chance of swallowing the rage building inside him and not unleashing it on Mr. Adams, he needed not to look at the man for a few seconds. A few deep breaths and he felt calm enough to continue.

  He leaned forward. “Sir,” he said, far more evenly than he felt. “Your stepdaughter was killed in a vicious and violent attack. Nobody, I repeat nobody, no matter what they have done, deserves to have their life end that way.”

  Mr. Adams didn’t say anything, he just nodded and sunk back into his chair with his arms crossed. But the look he gave Kipling was of pure hatred.

  Mrs. Adams, on the other hand, looked visibly distressed. She looked at both of them, seeming to ignore her husband on purpose. “What can we do for you? Do you need to see something?”

  “What we’d really like is to see her room,” Alyssa told her mother. “Along with the items the police gave you.”

  “Of course,” her mother said. “Everything’s still in there.” She took a side glance at her husband. He didn’t look any happier. “I believe your stepfather and I will go out for lunch. We’ll leave the key here in case you finish and need to leave before we get back. Just lock up and put the key under the mat.” The understanding and unsaid meaning, of course, was that they would leave before they got back.

  “How long do you think you’ll be gone?” Kipling asked.

  “Probably about three hours,” she said. “We have some shopping to do as well.”

  Mr. Adams looked less than thrilled to be shopping or going out, much less leaving his house empty except for Alyssa and a Benedict. But he got up and followed his wife out the door.

  Kipling didn’t think it was his imagination that he could hear him yelling as they left in the car.

  * * *

  Alyssa watched her parents drive away with a mixture of anger, shock, and embarrassment. She couldn’t believe the way they treated Kipling. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I had no idea they were going to be like that.”

  Kipling shook his head. “There’s no need to apologize for them not liking me. There are plenty of people who can’t stand me. At least your parents have a reason.”

  “But you didn’t do anything to them,” she said.

  “It’s not me personally,” he said. “It’s my dad.”

  “It’s not right. You shouldn’t be judged on what your parents did,” she said.

  “Unfortunately, a lot of us are. And in this case, one can see why your parents aren’t happy to see me.”

  His words sounded sincere, but she wondered if he was being truthful or if her parents’ actions upset him more than he was letting on.

  “Which room is hers?” he asked. They had made it to the hallway.

  Preparing herself for what lay ahead, she straightened her shoulders and led him into her sister’s room. She stopped in the doorway, taking deep breaths. She always felt her sister’s presence so heavily in this room.

  “It’s okay.” He stepped behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. “I’m right here with you.”

  His touch did more than all the deep breathing she’d done on her own, and she stepped further into the room. As expected, her mother had not changed anything since her sister’s death. Everything was exactly the way it had been the day she walked out, other than having been dusted every so often. She bet her stepfather hated that.

  It had been years since she’d been in this room. The last time, when she stood in this exact spot, she still felt her sister. She no longer could and not only that, but her memory seemed to be fading as well. She couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. But she told herself not to think about it because no matter what the answer ended up being, either way, she’d cry.

  What she needed to do was to remove her personal bias. To be the policewoman she’d claimed to be when Kipling first asked her if she was too personally involved.

  He stood off to the side, watching her, but not with doubts in his eyes.

  “I can do this,” she told him.

  “I know you can.”

  She held out her hand. “Let me see the crime-scene photo.”

  He took the picture out of the folder he carried and handed it to her. Though she had verified the night before that the purse wasn’t in the photo, she wanted to check one more time to make sure she wasn’t overlooking anything.

  Not seeing anything in the photo, she looked at Kipling. “Ready to look in the box?’

  He nodded solemnly. “Need me to get it? Is it in here?”

  “Top shelf of the closet.”

  She watched him as he went to retrieve the box and wondered how he would react if it were his brothers who had been kidnapped or killed.

  But one of his own, had been kidnapped, and most likely by the same man who killed her sister.

  “We’re going to get him,” she said when he returned with the box. “I’m sorry. I make such stupid promises sometimes.”

  “In that case, put me down as stupid right along with you, because I believe we’re going to get him, too.”

  Kipling looked around, obviously trying to find a place to put the box. The only piece of furniture with any space free was the bed. He didn’t seem to mind, walking instead to the middle of the room and having a seat on the rug. Alyssa joined him.

  “Do
you want open it?” he asked.

  “No, you go ahead,” she said. Truth be told, always before, she had been the one to open the box. She wanted to see if she noticed anything different with someone else opening the box.

  Kipling took the top off and looked at her. “I know it’s okay to touch the stuff inside, but I still feel like I shouldn’t be doing it.”

  She nodded, knowing exactly how he felt and watched as he one by one took the items out of the box. There wasn’t much and by far the largest item was the purse. She reached for it, but he said, “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “Where is the Finition Noire envelope?” He shuffled through the remaining items in the box. “I don’t see it here.”

  “I took it with me the last time.” She shrugged. “Call me crazy, but I could see it getting lost or stolen.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “I mean, it’s all already been looked over. It’s not like I was stealing evidence or anything.”

  “Alyssa,” he said. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. You’re the expert here. I’m not going to question you.” He held the purse up. “I’ll let you do the honors.”

  “Humor me,” she said. “Look it over and see if you can find the hidden compartment.”

  He gave her a look that told her he didn’t think he’d have any trouble at all finding it. It was a basic clutch with a small strap and while most of the girls in her troop opted to put the hidden pocket along the inner lining, she thought it was hidden better by putting it in the folder flap. While she knew that the killer had more than likely found the compartment, she wanted to see if she could fool Kipling at least. Or maybe she was delaying the inevitable.

  She watched him as he looked over and through the purse. It was so hard to believe he was the same man who drove her up a wall after they first met. How wrong she’d been about him then. At the time, she thought he was a spoiled playboy who only cared about money and women. Now she knew she couldn’t have been more wrong.

  He was fiercely protective of his family, she’d seen that up close. Before she’d arrested him, she’d looked into his business dealings and discovered a man who was tough, but fair. Even those who had been opposite him at the negotiation table spoke highly of him.