Dark Vows by J.S. Cook

Author:J.S. Cook [Cook, J.S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-64108-512-0
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2022-12-12T00:00:00+00:00

THE BOY was still sitting on the bed. “Come on! Tabarnak!” She caught him by the arm and yanked him forward. He fell to his knees and began to cry, enraging her. “Get up.” Still holding tightly to his wrist, she dragged him through the door and out into the corridor, the rubber toes of his sneakers catching on the carpet, the video game falling from his hands.

The rental car was waiting in the hotel parking garage, a BMW convertible. The day was warm for September, so she decided to drive with the top down. The boy climbed meekly into his seat, still sniffling, and fastened the seat belt around himself. “Where are we going?” he asked.

“We are going on une grande aventure,” she replied. Maybe she’d let Pascal find her this time. Perhaps she could lure him from that goddamn little shithole of a town in Terre-Neuve where she’d left the dear old family home a smoking ruin. Of course she had the entire Sûreté out looking for her. Pascal wasn’t stupid; he’d have alerted them already, unless the Newfies got there first. Yes, perhaps she would let him find her. Let him find her and fuck her. It had been a while, after all.

They stood in line for a long time at the Grande roue, the huge observation wheel located in the Old Port section of the city, but it was worth it. The boy shrieked as their car ascended, carrying them higher and higher into the sky, until they hovered some sixty metres above Montreal, with all of the surrounding landscape laid out before them.

“Maman, look!” he said, pointing to this or that structure and shuddering with delight. “C’est merveilleux!” It’s marvelous. He yelled as it descended, curving them slowly back to earth, and when the great wheel stopped and they disembarked, he begged to be allowed to go again.

“There’s no time,” she said. They hurried to the Plage de l’Horloge, where they lay on the warm sand of the urban beach and watched ships passing on the St. Lawrence. The boy was well-behaved, and he didn’t ask for anything or pester her with questions. She almost liked him.

At noon they ate the sandwiches she’d bought and drank fizzy orange soft drinks that left curlicues of dye at the corners of their mouths. He asked her where Papa was. “Papa has gone on a long journey, mon fils. A very long journey indeed.” A filthy root cellar was an awful place to take one’s final bows, but it couldn’t be helped. For Caron she’d needed privacy and quiet. And Gary Pretty, whose eviscerated corpse she’d laid out on his bed like a fresh-carved October turkey for this year’s Action de grâce. Grateful indeed for the blessings of the harvest. She was, and she was clever enough, too, to dispose of the knife in the sea. These people, they always get caught, Pascal had often told her. They hang on to the murder weapon or they keep a souvenir.

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