Hello, Darkness

by Sandra Brown

  She said nothing for a time, and he held his breath hopefully. But tonight his wife was springing one ugly surprise after another on him.

  “One night last week I followed you out to Lake Travis, Brad.”

  Blood rushed to his head as his penitence turned to rage. “You were spying on me. I knew it. You admit it.”

  “I saw you with a high school girl. You and she got into your car. I can only presume that you had sex with her.”

  “You’re goddamn right I did!” he shouted. “Because my wife cringes every time I touch her. Who could blame me for getting laid where and when I can?”

  “Have you ever been with that girl who’s missing? The judge’s daughter. Janey Kemp?”

  His breathing sounded abnormally rapid to his own ears, and he wondered if it sounded that way to Toni—or to anyone else who might be listening in. That possibility struck terror in him. Why was she asking him about Janey Kemp?

  “Do the cops have the house phone tapped?”

  “What? No. Of course not.”

  “While you were making chummy with the cops, did you set me up to get caught? Are they eavesdropping on this conversation? Is this call being traced?”

  “Brad, you’re talking crazy.”

  “Wrong, I’m not talking at all.”

  He disconnected, then dropped the cell phone as though it had painfully stung his hand. He began to pace the stuffy, claustrophobic room. They knew about him and Janey. They had found out, just as he had feared they would.

  That . . . that Curtis. Sergeant Curtis. Is that who Toni said she had talked to this afternoon? Wasn’t he in charge of investigating Janey’s disappearance?

  He’d been afraid of this. As soon as he saw her picture on the front page of this morning’s paper, he had known it was only a matter of time before the police would be looking for him. Someone would have seen him with Janey and reported it.

  Now he would have to be very careful about where he went. If he was spotted, he could be arrested. That couldn’t happen. That could not happen. In jail, other prisoners did terrible things to men like him. He’d heard stories. His own lawyer had told him about the horrors that awaited a sex offender in prison.

  God, he was in a fix. And he had Janey Kemp to thank for it, the teasing little slut. Everyone was against him. Janey. His wife, the raging nag. Hathaway, too, who wouldn’t know what to do with a boner if he ever got one, which was unlikely. The parole officer was jealous of Brad’s success with women. Out of spite, he would happily hand him over in handcuffs to be taken straight to prison.

  But Brad’s rage was short-lived. His fear returned, overwhelming him. Sweating profusely, gnawing his inner cheek, he paced the room aimlessly. This business with Janey could spell real trouble for him.

  He should’ve stayed away from her. He saw that clearly now. He had known her by reputation even before she approached him the first time. He had read the messages posted about her on the Sex Club website, knew she was as sexually adventurous as he. He also knew she was a spoiled, rich brat who treated former lovers like dirt and poked fun at them on the Internet message board.

  But he had been flattered that one of the most desired girls in the Sex Club had come on to him. What was he supposed to do, turn her down? What man could? Even knowing that he might be dooming himself, he hadn’t been able to resist her allure. It was worth the danger that being with her posed.

  Indulging his fantasies came with accepted risks. He knew he was courting disaster each time he picked up a high school girl, or fondled a patient, or jerked off in a video store, but the risk of getting caught contributed to the thrill.

  He constantly challenged himself to see how much he could get away with. Paradoxically, his desire fed on gratification. The farther his escapades took him, the deeper he wanted to explore. Novelty was fleeting. There was always another boundary to cross, one more step to take.

  But as he agonized in his private hell, he realized that he might have carried this fantasy one step too far.

  chapter 23

  “Boo!”

  Paris, who had just stepped into the dark hallway from the snack room, reacted by sloshing hot tea over her hand. “Damn it, Stan! That wasn’t funny.”

  “I’m sorry. Jeez. I wasn’t really trying to scare you.” He rushed into the tiny kitchen and tore several paper towels off the roll. “Need butter? Salve? The emergency room?”

  She blotted the tea off her hand. “Thanks, but no.”

  “I can’t see your eyes, but I get the impression you’re glaring.”

  “That was a silly thing to do.”

  “Why’re you so jumpy?”

  “Why’re you so juvenile?”

  “I said I was sorry. I’m just feeling exuberant tonight.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “Uncle Wilkins is winging his way back to Atlanta. Anytime there are several states between us, it’s cause for celebration.”

  “Congratulations. But, just for the record, I don’t like being scared. I never think it’s funny.” Stan fell into step behind her as she made her way back to the studio. Once they were in the light, she saw the bruise. “Ouch, Stan, what happened to your face?”

  Gingerly he touched the spot at the side of his mouth. “Uncle smacked me.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “No.”

  “He struck you?” she exclaimed, then listened with dismay as he told her about their meeting in the lobby of the Driskill.

  At the end of his account, he shrugged indifferently. “What I said pissed him off. It’s not the first time. No big deal.”

  Paris disagreed, but Stan’s relationship with his uncle was none of her business. “All around me, men are getting punched today,” she muttered, thinking of Gavin’s unexplained bruise. She sat down on her stool and glanced at the log monitor to see that she still had over five minutes of music on deck.

  Without being invited to, Stan took the other stool. “Are you spooked by this Valentino business?”

  “Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Uncle Wilkins asked if I was your mystery caller.”

  She cut a glance toward him as she stirred a packet of sweetener into her tea. “You’re not, are you?”

  “As if,” he replied. “Although I am sexually maladjusted. At least according to Uncle Wilkins.”

  “Why would he think so?”

  “Bad genes. Mother was a slut. Father was a lecher. Uncle hires hookers he thinks no one knows about. I suppose he thinks the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. But aside from being a sexual deviate, he thinks I’m a royal fuckup.”

  “He told you that?”

  “In so many words.”

  “You’re a grown man. Why do you take that crap from him? You certainly don’t have to stand for his slapping you.”

  Stan looked at her as though she was deranged. “How do you suggest I stop it?”

  He had a knack for making her want to throttle him one minute and pat him consolingly the next. A lot of juicy gossip had been circulated when Stan’s father committed suicide. If there was any basis to it whatsoever, the Crenshaw family was indeed dysfunctional on many levels. It wasn’t surprising that Stan had psychological issues that needed sorting out.

  As the last of the songs wound down, she signaled him to be quiet and engaged her mike.

  “That was Neil Diamond. Before that Juice Newton was singing about ‘The Sweetest Thing.’ I hope you were listening, Troy. That song was a request for you from Cindy. I’ll be taking other requests until two o’clock. Or, if you have something on your mind, I invite you to share it with me and my listeners. Please call.”

  From that she went directly into two minutes of commercials.

  “Do you think he’ll call tonight?” Stan asked after she’d turned off her mike.

  “I assume you mean Valentino. I don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “No clues as to who he is?”

  “The police are investi
gating several possibilities, but they have little to go on. Sergeant Curtis is hoping he’ll call tonight, maybe say something that would give them fresh leads.” She looked at the blinking telephone lines on the control board. “I know another call from him could be valuable, but it gives me the creeps to talk to him.”

  “Now I really feel bad about scaring you. I was teasing.”

  “I’ll survive.”

  “Holler if you need me.” He headed for the door.

  “Oh, Stan, Dr. Malloy will be arriving shortly. Would you please keep an eye on the front door and let him in?”

  Stan did an about-face and returned to the stool. “What’s with you and the studly shrink?”

  Paris shushed him and answered one of the phone lines. “This is Paris.”

  The male caller requested a Garth Brooks song from the sound track of the movie Hope Floats. “For Jeannie.”

  “Jeannie sounds like a lucky girl.”

  “It’s on account of you that we’re together.”

  “Me?”

  “Jeannie was offered this job out in Odessa. Neither of us had told the other how we felt. You advised her not to leave before telling me her feelings. She did, and I told her I felt the same, so she stayed at her job here and we’re getting married next year.”

  “I’m glad it worked out so well.”

  “Yeah, me, too. Thanks, Paris.”

  She inserted “To Make You Feel My Love” into the program log and answered another line. The caller requested that she send a happy birthday wish to Alma. “Ninety? My goodness! Does she have a favorite song?”

  It was a Cole Porter tune, but within seconds Paris had located it in the computerized music library and programmed it to play behind the Brooks ballad.

  After taking care of that business, she looked over at Stan. “Are you still here?”

  “Yes, and my question stands. And don’t tell me you and Malloy are old friends from Houston.”

  “That’s exactly what we are.”

  “How’d you meet?”

  “Through Jack. Their friendship outlasted college.”

  “But it didn’t outlast you.” She whipped her head toward him. “Ah, just a wild guess, but a correct one, I see.”

  “Get lost, Stan.”

  “I take it that this is a sensitive subject.”

  Exasperated, and knowing that he would bug her about this until she was forthcoming, she asked, “What do you want to know?”

  “If Malloy was such a good friend of yours and Jack’s, I want to know why I never heard of him until last night.”

  “We drifted apart when I moved Jack here.”

  “Why did you move Jack here?”

  “Because Meadowview was the best health care facility for his particular needs. Jack was unable to maintain a friendship. I was busy overseeing his care and establishing myself in this job. Dean had his own busy life in Houston, including a young son. It happens, Stan. Circumstances affect friendships. Haven’t you lost touch with some of your friends in Atlanta?”

  Undeterred, he said, “Jack was the reason you gave up a career in TV news and came to work at this dump?”

  “Around the time of his accident, I made a career change. Okay? Satisfied? Therein lies the whole story.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said, his eyes narrowing on her. “It sounds logical, even plausible, but it’s too pat. I think you’re leaving out the shadings.”

  “Shadings?”

  “The nuances that make for a really good story.”

  “I’m busy, Stan.”

  “Besides, nothing you’ve told me explains the electricity that was arcing between you and Malloy last night. It nearly singed my eyebrows. Come on, Paris, give,” he wheedled. “I won’t be shocked. You’ve glimpsed the ugly underbelly of my family and nothing could be more scandalous. What happened with the three of you?”

  “I’ve told you. If you don’t believe me, that’s your problem. If you want shadings, invent your own. I really don’t care as long as it keeps you occupied. In the meantime, can’t you find something productive to do?”

  She returned her attention to the board, the phone lines, the log monitor, and the studio information monitor, where a new weather report had been submitted by a local meteorologist.

  Stan sighed with resignation and moved toward the door once again. Speaking over her shoulder, Paris called to him, “Don’t touch anything breakable.”

  But as soon as he walked out, her flippancy dissolved. She tossed her tea, which was now tepid and bitter, into the trash can. She wanted to choke Stan for resurrecting disturbing memories.

  But she couldn’t dwell on them. She had her job to do. Engaging her mike, she said, “Once again, happy birthday to Alma. Her request took us back several generations, but every love song is a classic here on FM 101.3. This is Paris Gibson, your host until two o’clock tomorrow morning. I hope you’ll stay with me. I enjoy your company. I also enjoy playing your requested songs. Call me.”

  She and Dean had agreed that she wouldn’t address any remarks to Valentino or mention Janey until he arrived. They’d left her house at the same time, but he was going to drive Gavin home before coming to the station.

  Dinner had gone well. By tacit agreement, they didn’t talk about the case in which they had all become involved. Instead their conversation touched on movies, music, and sports. They laughed over shared memories.

  As they were leaving, Gavin thanked her politely for the dinner. “Dad’s a lousy cook.”

  “I’m no Emeril either.”

  “You come closer than he does.”

  She could tell that Dean was pleased by how well she and Gavin had gotten along and how relaxed their dinner together had been. She had felt very mellow herself, and she had drunk only a half glass of Chardonnay—her limit on a worknight. Her enjoyment was lessened only by knowing that she’d kept them away from Liz Douglas for the evening.

  During the next series of commercials, she cleared the phone lines. Each time she depressed a blinking button, she did so with dread, which made her angry with Valentino. He had made her afraid to do the work that had been her salvation. This job had kept her grounded during the seven years she had overseen Jack’s health care. She’d been able to endure those interminable days spent at the hospital only by knowing that she could escape to the radio station that night.

  She received a call from a young woman named Joan, whose personality was so bubbly Paris decided to put her on the air. “You say you’re a Seal fan.”

  “I saw him once in a restaurant in L.A. He looked super cool. Could you play ‘Kiss From a Rose’?”

  Moving by rote, she slipped the request behind three songs already on the log.

  What was keeping Dean? she wondered. He was putting up a good front, but she could tell he was deeply worried about Gavin’s connection to Janey Kemp. Any parent who loved his child would be concerned, but Dean would blame himself for Gavin’s misconduct and look upon it as a failure on his part.

  Just as he had assumed blame when Albert Dorrie’s standoff with Houston police resulted in tragedy.

  There it was again. Another reminder. No matter how hard she tried to avoid it, her mind kept going back to that. To that night.

  • • •

  Dean showed up at her condo eighteen hours after Mr. Dorrie had made orphans of his three children by killing first his estranged wife and then himself.

  He arrived unannounced and apologetic. “I’m sorry, Paris. I probably shouldn’t have come over without calling first,” he said as soon as she opened the door.

  He looked as if he hadn’t even sat down during the last eighteen hours, much less slept. His eyes had sunk into the dark circles surrounding them. His chin was shadowed with stubble.

  Paris had rested very little herself. Most of the day had been spent in the TV newsroom, where she had edited together an overall perspective of the incident for the evening newscasts.

  Tragically the story wasn’t that unu
sual. Similar incidents happened routinely in other cities. It had even happened in Houston before. But it had never happened to her. She had never witnessed something like that up close and personal. Being on the scene and living through it was far different from reading about it in the newspaper or listening with half an ear to television news reports while preoccupied and doing something else.

  Even her jaded cameraman had been affected. His ho-hum attitude was replaced by dejection when the news van followed the ambulance bearing the two bodies to the county morgue.

  But no one who had experienced it took the calamity to heart the way Dean did. His despair was etched deeply into his face as Paris motioned him inside. “Can I get you something? A drink?”

  “Thanks.” He sat down heavily on the edge of her sofa while she poured each of them a shot of bourbon. She handed him a highball glass and sat down beside him. “Am I keeping you from something?” he asked dully.

  “No.” She motioned down at her white terry-cloth spa robe. Her face was scrubbed clean; she’d let her hair dry naturally after a long soak in the tub. He usually didn’t see her like this, but she wasn’t concerned about her appearance. Things that had seemed important twenty-four hours ago had paled into insignificance.

  “I don’t know why I came,” he said. “I didn’t want to be out, with people. But I didn’t want to be alone either.”

  “I feel the same.”

  She had begged off spending the evening with Jack. He’d been desperate to cheer her up and help take her mind off what she’d been through. But she wasn’t yet ready to be cheered up. She wanted time to reflect. Furthermore, she was exhausted. Going to a movie or even to dinner seemed as remote as flying to the moon. Even making small talk with Jack would have required energy she didn’t have.

  Talking didn’t seem to be the purpose of Dean’s visit. After those few opening statements, he sat staring into near space, taking periodic sips from his highball glass. He didn’t fill the silence with pointless conversation. Each knew how rotten the other felt about the way the standoff had ended. She guessed that, like her, he derived comfort just from being near someone who had shared the tragedy.