The Promise by Patrick Hurley Read Free Book Online

money, I’d do the same thing whether I was innocent or guilty."
     
                  Elie and the chief sat in the office silent for several moments. Their collective thoughts crisscrossed in the quietness only interrupted by the sounds of typewriters in the adjoining office.
     
    Finally, Larsen spoke up, "Do you think he had anything to do with his daughter's disappearance?"
     
                  Chief Parker spoke quickly, "I really don't think he did. He seems to be an honorable man and one who adores his daughter. 
     
    But, his statement to me has made me wonder about the possibility of something more to this case. I want to believe she is alive and that he is not involved in any way. 
     
    I want to believe she is a runaway and she did it to get away from the pressure of being who she is and whose daughter she is. 
     
    But, I just don't know."
     
                  Larsen nodded her head. She didn’t know, either.
     
                  At that point, Detective Mike Gallagher walked through the door. Glancing at Larsen he went directly to Chief Parker's desk and smiled, "Sir, I’ve uncovered something that’s very interesting.
     
    The week before Allison Taylor disappeared her father took out a life insurance policy on her for five million dollars. The company granted it on the basis of her being the sole heir and probable CEO when her father died.
     
    What do you think about that?"
     
                  Chief Parker just shook his head, ”Okay, my mind is now open concerning Arch Taylor,” he blurted out, “Extremely open.”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Six-initial Clues
     
                  The campus library at the University of Georgia is one of the finest in the south. It is large and imposing as it sits in the heart of the educational institution. 
     
    Students flock to it like worker drones to the queen and from early morning until late night for it is the thriving hub of the academic system that nurtures the future generation of scholars from that fine school.
     
    Of all the places least likely to participate in a disappearance of a student, this ongoing center of human research would be the leading architectural candidate.
     
    That is why the investigators had one thing in mind when they realized Allison Taylor's point of departure and the way she disappeared there.
     
    That particular day, there were hundreds of students swarming around that area of the campus. For Allison to be forcibly taken was unlikely to say the least.
     
    The prevailing thinking, if she was kidnapped, was that she knew her abductor. It just didn’t seem possible that Ms. Taylor, as physically strikingly as she was, could vanish as quickly as she did in when the sun was shining high in the sky. 
     
    It was on this premise that the police detectives pursued the family and friends of Allison Taylor. That type of crime told them that there were much better places for a stranger to strike if he or she wanted Miss Taylor. 
     
    The time of day, around noon, was significant. That told them she was probably safe from unknown assailants who would generally wait until darkness fell.
     
                  Yet, as the next two days went by and no new evidence turned up, the statuesque library seemed to stand as a symbol of illogic, mocking the notion that someone so charismatic and striking could evaporate so easily.
     
    Something was not making sense. 
     
    If that library could only talk and tell the police what it saw and what it knew.  But, it's staid silence was chilling and its presence reminded everyone involved in the case that in America there is no safe time or place to be a crime victim.
     
                  The forensic people had combed the sidewalk and lawn looking for hair samples, footprints, fibers, anything that would give them a remote hint of the