Hello, Darkness

by Sandra Brown

  Incongruous with the coziness of the property was the patrol car parked at the curb. The two young policemen practically leaped from it when Dean and Paris pulled up behind them.

  Dean waved back the ever-ready Griggs. “I’ll see her in.”

  He’d insisted on going inside with her, and even though her alarm control panel hadn’t registered a disturbance since she set it, he went through every room of the house, looking inside closets, behind shower doors, and even beneath the bed.

  “Valentino doesn’t strike me as the type who would hide under a bed,” she said.

  “A rapist often hides in his victim’s house, waiting for her to return home. That’s part of the thrill.”

  “Are you trying to frighten me?”

  “Definitely. I want you good and scared, Paris. This guy wants to punish women, remember? He’s angry with Janey—at least we’re still presuming it’s Janey—for cheating on him. He’s angry with you for taking her side.”

  “I didn’t even know there were sides to be taken.”

  “Well, that’s his skewed perception of it and perception is—”

  “Truth. I know.”

  “The suggestion that you and he would soon be together as lovers actually meant that you would be his next victim. He doesn’t differentiate between the two.”

  She pulled her lower lip through her teeth. “When he’s finished with Janey, he’ll come after me.”

  “Not if I can help it.” He went to her then and placed his hands on her shoulders. “But until we have him in custody, be afraid of him.”

  She smiled wanly. “I’m not actually afraid. But I’m not stupid either. I’ll be careful.”

  When she’d tried to move away, he hadn’t let her go. “This is the first time in our friendship that we’ve been in a bedroom together.”

  “Friendship?”

  “Weren’t we friends?”

  She hesitated for several beats before saying quietly, “Yes. We were friends.”

  “Good friends.”

  That’s when he had reached up and removed her sunglasses, tossed them into a nearby chair, then anxiously searched her eyes. They were as beautiful as he remembered. Deeply blue, intelligent, expressive. They gazed back at him steadily and with seeming clarity.

  He exhaled a deep sigh of relief. “I was afraid that you’d lost sight in one eye, or suffered a serious injury, and that was the reason for the sunglasses.”

  “No permanent damage was done,” she said huskily. “I wasn’t even left with noticeable scars. But my eyes are still very sensitive to bright light.”

  Without breaking their eye contact, he leaned forward to reach behind her for the wall switch. He flicked it down and the room went dark. He remained inclined forward, so they were touching from chest to knees, and when she didn’t move away, he slid his hands around her neck and up into her hair. He tilted her face up as he lowered his.

  “Dean, don’t.”

  But the words were no more than an uneven sigh against his lips as he settled them upon hers. They parted simultaneously, and when their tongues touched, her groan echoed the hunger behind his own. He backed her against the wall, wanting to feel her and taste her. Wanting.

  He curved his arm around her waist and drew her lower body up against his, increasing the pressure where already the pressure was intense. She broke off the kiss and moaned his name.

  He brushed his lips across her eyes, her cheekbones, whispering, “We’ve waited long enough for this, Paris. Haven’t we?”

  Then he returned to her mouth and kissed her even more passionately than before. He worked his hand between their bodies and covered her breast. Her nipple was erect even before his thumb found it. He felt her hands tensing on the muscles of his back, felt the upward and forward angling of her hips.

  He remembered muttering something unintelligible, even to himself, as he lowered his head, his mouth blindly seeking her breast.

  “Ms. Gibson? Dr. Malloy?”

  Dean jerked as though he’d been shot. Paris froze, then squeezed out from between him and the wall.

  He saw red. “That goddamned rookie. I’m gonna kill him.”

  And at that moment he had meant it. He might have stormed down the hallway and throttled Griggs with his bare hands—as he’d wanted to do—if Paris hadn’t grabbed his arm and held him back. She stepped around him and, straightening her hair and clothing as she went, made her way through the house and into the living room.

  Griggs was standing on the threshold of the front door. “You left the front door standing open,” he said to Dean, who was only half a step behind Paris. “Everything all right?”

  “Everything is fine,” Paris told him. “Dr. Malloy was kind enough to check my house.”

  Griggs was staring at her strangely. Either he had noticed that her color was high and her lips were swollen, or he was surprised by her breathlessness, or he was shocked to see her without her sunglasses, or a combination of all of that.

  At that moment Dean was incapable of diplomacy and stated bluntly, “You can leave now.” He had never liked cops who pulled rank, but this was one time he did and didn’t feel bad about it.

  Paris was more gracious. “Dr. Malloy will be leaving momentarily. We both appreciate your diligence.”

  “Uh, some guy . . . Stan? Dropped these off for you.” He extended several cassettes.

  “Oh, right. Thank you.”

  “Just leave them there on the table.”

  Griggs did as Dean ordered. He took another apprehensive glance in his direction, then scuttled out, pulling the door closed behind him.

  Dean reached for Paris again, but she avoided his touch. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

  “The interruption? Or the kiss?”

  She shot him a baleful look. “It was more than just a kiss, Dean.”

  “You said it, not me.”

  She wrapped her arms around her middle. “Don’t read anything into it. It won’t be repeated.”

  He looked at her for several moments, taking in her tense expression, her taut posture, and said quietly, “Don’t do this, Paris.”

  “What? Come to my senses?”

  “Don’t withdraw. Close up. Shut me out. Punish me. Punish yourself.”

  “You need to go. They’re waiting for you to leave.”

  “I don’t care. I’ve waited for seven years.”

  “For what?” she asked angrily. “What were you waiting for, Dean? For Jack to die?”

  The words hurt, as she’d known they would. She’d said them deliberately to hurt and provoke him, but he’d be damned before he allowed himself to become either. Tamping down his own anger and keeping his voice calm, he said, “I’ve waited for a chance to get even this close to you.”

  “And then what did you expect to happen? Did you expect me to fall into your arms? To forget everything that happened and—”

  When she broke off, he raised his brow inquisitively. “And what, Paris? And love me? Is that what you were going to say? Is that what you’re so goddamn afraid of? That we might actually have loved each other then and still do?”

  She had refused to answer him. Instead she’d marched to her front door and pulled it open.

  With watchdogs at the curb, he’d had no choice but to leave.

  By now the water in his shower had grown cold, but his body was still feverish with a burning desire to know—if he had been able to wring it out of her—what her answer to his question would have been.

  chapter 16

  Janey had abandoned her plans for retribution and was focusing strictly on survival.

  Her attempts to escape from this room seemed as remote as her memories of childhood birthday parties. She’d seen photographs taken at those parties, but felt no connection with the little girl wearing the silver paper tiara and blowing out candles on a bakery-made cake. Likewise, her memories of trying to escape from her captor, of plotting his punishment, seemed to be vague recollections of someone else. Such
courageous strategizing was unimaginable to her now.

  She was so weak that even had her arms and legs not been restrained, she couldn’t have moved. He hadn’t given her food or water the last two times he’d been there. She could live with the hunger but her throat was raw from thirst. She had implored him with her eyes, but her silent pleas were ignored.

  He was cheerful and talkative, blasé even. He tilted his head to one side and regarded her with renewed interest. “I wonder if you’re missed, Janey. You’ve treated so many people badly, you know. Especially men. Your special talent, certainly your hobby, has been to get men to desire you and then to humiliate them with a public rejection.

  “I’d been watching you for a long time before you approached me that first night. You didn’t know that? I had. I figured out your email name: pussinboots. Right? Very clever. Especially since you enjoy wearing western boots. Your favorites are the red ones, aren’t they? You even wore them here one night. Wait! Hold on.”

  He rummaged around the room until he found the photo album he was seeking. “Yes, here you are in your boots. Only your boots, in fact,” he added with a sly grin.

  When he turned the photograph toward her, she averted her head and closed her eyes. Which made him angry. “Seriously, do you think anybody is really sorry that you’re missing?”

  He’d left shortly after that. She had been relieved to see him go but terrified that he would never return. In spite of the tape across her mouth, she sobbed noisily. Or maybe her weeping only sounded loud to her own ears. When she choked, she panicked, wondering if a person could drown in tears.

  Get a grip, Janey!

  She could do this. She could survive him. She could hold out until rescue came, and it would come soon. Her parents would be turning Austin upside down looking for her. Her daddy was rich. He would hire private investigators, bring in the FBI, the army, whatever it took to find her.

  She’d hated some of the die-hard cops on the Austin PD force, the ones who gave her a hard time about driving drunk, and disorderly conduct, and the illegal substances often in her possession. If she hadn’t been Judge Kemp’s daughter, the cops who went by the book would have busted her too many times to count.

  But she had also balled a few of Austin’s finest, the younger, good-looking officers who had a more liberal outlook than the veterans, like the narcotics officer who worked undercover at her high school. He’d been a challenge to seduce, and when he’d finally surrendered, a letdown.

  Nevertheless, she wasn’t entirely without friends in the police department. They would be searching, too.

  And her tormentor had called Paris Gibson. Why he had, Janey couldn’t imagine and didn’t care. He was obviously proud of that call, because he had recorded it just so he could play it for her. Had he wanted her to know that he was on a first-name basis with a well-known radio personality? The egotistical idiot. Didn’t he know that Paris was on a first-name basis with anybody who called her?

  Whatever. The important thing was that he had involved her. She could pull a lot of strings. No one was going to ignore Paris Gibson.

  But Janey’s burst of optimism quickly fizzled. Time was running out. Her captor had told Paris that he was going to kill her within seventy-two hours. But when had he made that call? How much of that time had already expired? She’d lost all track of the days and rarely even knew if it was daylight or dark. What if she was in hour seventy-one of the seventy-two?

  Even if he didn’t murder her, she could die of neglect. What if he simply never came back? How long could she survive without food and water? Or what if—and this was her greatest fear—what if he was right and nobody gave a damn that she was gone?

  • • •

  He hadn’t enjoyed the comfort of his own bed last night, but Dr. Brad Armstrong was feeling sprightly when he arrived at the dental clinic a half hour before his first appointment.

  He’d had a busy night and had snatched no more than a couple hours of sleep. But sleep wasn’t the only way one could get energized. A girl with a silver ring through her nipple—now, that could get a man supercharged.

  He was chuckling to himself as he entered the building and greeted the receptionist.

  “Good morning, Doctor. I assume Mrs. Armstrong located you last evening. She was so disappointed that her surprise date was spoiled.”

  “We had a quiet dinner together after the kids went to bed, so it worked out okay. Any messages for me?”

  “A Mr. Hathaway has called twice, but he didn’t leave a message either time. He only asked that you return his call. Shall I get him on the line for you?”

  Mr. Hathaway was his probation officer. On his best day, Hathaway was a humorless tight ass who loved peering at people over the top of his granny glasses. His idea of intimidation, Brad supposed. “No thanks, I’ll try him later. No other messages?”

  “That’s it.”

  Toni must really be upset this time. Ordinarily she would have tried to reach him by now if only to assure herself that he hadn’t had a head-on with an eighteen-wheeler, suffered a heart attack, or been mugged and murdered. It was always she who took the initial steps toward making up. Isn’t that what a loving, supportive wife was supposed to do when her husband stormed from the house after a quarrel?

  So he really couldn’t be blamed for anything he’d done last night, could he? He’d broken vows, but his backsliding was more Toni’s fault than his. She hadn’t even tried to be compassionate and understanding. Instead she had scolded him.

  He had a collection of erotic magazines and pictures. Big deal. Some might call the material pornographic, but so what? And maybe his collection was more extensive than the next guy’s. Was that grounds for making it into a federal case?

  After last night, her next accusation would be that he had played too rough. He could hear her now. Where is that aggression coming from, Brad? I don’t know you anymore. Toni had many fine qualities, but she lacked a spirit of adventure. Anything novel or experimental frightened her. He’d seen the fear in her eyes last night.

  She should take lessons from that girl he’d met at the lake. Melissa, her name was. That’s what she’d told him anyway. He certainly hadn’t given her his name, but he didn’t remember her asking. To an adventurous girl like her, names were unimportant.

  He’d seen this one around a lot, with many different partners, so, not surprisingly, she hadn’t been shocked by his graphic pictures. In fact, she had demonstrated a sincere appreciation for them. They had really steamed her up. She’d been all over him. That girl was something else, her and her nipple ring. Toni would probably have him committed if he suggested a body piercing. But, damn, what a turn-on.

  He settled into his desk chair and booted up his computer. Other people in the office had been curious as to why he’d placed his monitor with the back of it facing out into the room rather than up against a wall so all the cables wouldn’t show. He’d contrived an explanation, but the real reason was that it was nobody’s business but his what was on his monitor.

  He visited his favorite websites, but was disappointed that the material hadn’t been updated since yesterday morning. Even so, he scanned them all, looking specifically for women with nipple rings. He didn’t find any.

  He would do some research later, surf the Internet until he located some new, exotic websites. Maybe a Sex Club member had discovered some interesting ones that he didn’t yet know about. Leave it to kids to be at the forefront of discovery.

  He entered his password and went into the site. He went straight to the message board and was about to type in an inquiry when someone knocked on his office door, then immediately pushed it open.

  “Dr. Armstrong?”

  “What?” he said brusquely.

  “Sorry,” an assistant said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. Your first patient has been prepped.”

  He forced himself to smile. “Thank you. I’ll be there as soon as I finish this email to my mom.”

  She ducked out
. He glanced at the clock. He’d been in the office for over a half hour, but it had seemed like five minutes. “Time flies . . . ,” he chuckled to himself. Some men read the stock-market report over their morning coffee, some the sports page. He had another interest. Was that a crime?

  He returned to his home page and, just to be on the safe side, engaged the service that deleted all his Internet connections so they couldn’t be traced.

  He’d treated three patients before he was able to take a break. A newspaper had been left at the coffee bar. He carried it, a doughnut, and a cup of coffee into his office with him. He sipped the coffee, took a bite from the doughnut, and flipped up the front page of the newspaper . . . nearly choking when he saw her picture.

  It was a serious portrait, probably last year’s school photo. Laughably ironic, she looked demure. She seemed to be staring straight at him in a way that made him want to look away. He couldn’t.

  Accompanying the picture was a story about her: county judge’s daughter—Jesus; high school senior; previous malfeasances; a three-day suspension from school last semester; her mysterious disappearance.

  The reporter went into detail about her membership in an Internet club, the purpose of which was to solicit sex partners. It was all there in black and white. The writer described how it worked, the chat rooms, the sexually explicit messages left on the website, the secret gatherings—which were no secret to the members—and the licentious acts that ensued at these meeting places. Anyone with whom Janey had had contact was being pursued and questioned by the police. A reference was made that hinted at a possible connection to Paris Gibson’s radio program.

  Brad placed his elbows on his desk and clasped his head between his hands.

  Sergeant Robert Curtis, who has organized a team of investigators, wouldn’t comment on Ms. Kemp’s alleged connection to the Sex Club, although Officer John Rondeau of the Computer Crimes Division said that such a connection had not been ruled out.

  “We’re still exploring that,” Rondeau said.

  The officers declined to comment when asked about the possibility of foul play.