Hello, Darkness

by Sandra Brown

  She was quoted as thanking all her friends, associates, and fans who had sent flowers and cards wishing her and her fiancé well. She would miss her job and all the wonderful people in Houston, but her life had taken an unexpected turn, and now she must follow a new path.

  There was no mention of Dean Malloy in the final story, an omission that practically screamed at Curtis. When one disappears from the radar screen of a strong and lasting friendship, there’s got to be a good reason.

  No deep, dark mystery there. He’d seen the way Malloy looked at Paris Gibson and vice versa. With I-want-to-see-you-naked lust. But it was also the care they took not to look at each other that gave away a yearning that went deeper than just the physical. It was the avoidance that incriminated them. If this was visible to him after having known them for only two days, it must have been glaringly obvious to Jack Donner.

  Conclusion: In a love affair, three was one too many.

  • • •

  As he listened to Paris’s program, his anger mounted.

  She made no mention of him, of Valentino.

  But she talked endlessly about Janey Kemp. She went on about how badly her parents wanted her to be returned to them unharmed. Told about her friends, who were worried for her safety. Extolled her virtues.

  What a farce! Janey had told him how much she despised her parents, and the feeling was mutual. Friends? She made conquests, not friends. As for virtues, she was without them.

  But to hear Paris tell it, Janey Kemp was a saint. A beautiful, charming, friendly, kind American ideal.

  “If you could only see her now, Paris,” he said in a whispered chuckle.

  Janey disgusted him so much now that he had stayed with her only briefly today. She didn’t look beautiful and enticing anymore. Her hair, once bouncy and silky, had looked like old rope coiled about her head. Her complexion was sallow. The eyes that could be sultry or scornful at will were now dull and lifeless. Barely acknowledging his presence in the room, she had stared vacantly and unblinkingly, even when he snapped his fingers an inch from her nose.

  She seemed half dead and looked even worse. A shower would improve things, but he just couldn’t be bothered with carrying her into the bathroom to wash her.

  He couldn’t be bothered with much of anything except dealing with this jam he’d gotten himself into. Time was running out for him to arrive at a workable solution. He had extended to Paris a seventy-two-hour deadline, and if he had any character at all, any sense of pride, he really should stick to that timetable.

  Janey had become more of a liability than he had anticipated. There also remained the question of what to do about Paris.

  He really hadn’t looked beyond bringing Janey here and using her the way she begged to be used. She was a whore who advertised her willingness to try anything. He had called her bluff, that’s all. Her boasts hadn’t been empty ones either. She’d proved herself to be a gourmand of debasement.

  He hadn’t seriously planned on this ending with her demise, any more than he had planned to kill Maddie Robinson. That’s just the way his relationship with Maddie had evolved. She’d said, “I don’t want to see you anymore,” and he had made certain that she wouldn’t. Ever. When you looked at it that way, she had decided her fate, not him.

  As for Paris, he hadn’t thought much beyond placing that first call and telling her that he had taken action against the woman who had wronged him. He had wanted to frighten her, rattle her, and hopefully make her aware of her intolerable smugness. Who was she to dispense advice on love and life, sex and relationships?

  What he hadn’t anticipated was that his phone call to her would launch a police investigation and become the media event that it had. Who would have thought everyone would get so uptight over Janey, when she was getting exactly what she had asked for?

  No, it had grown into something much larger than he had bargained for. He felt himself losing control of the situation. To survive, he must get back that control. But where to start?

  One way would be to release Janey.

  Yes, he could do that. He could dump her near her parents’ house. She didn’t know his name. He could clear out this room so that if she ever brought the cops to the “scene of the crime,” he would be long gone. He would have to stop going to the meeting places of the Sex Club or risk being seen by her, but finding action was never a problem. The Sex Club was only one resource.

  It wasn’t a perfect plan, but probably the best course of action left to him. He would call Paris tonight at the appointed time and tell her that he’d only wanted to toy with her, make her realize that she shouldn’t play with people’s emotions and hand out glib advice. I never dreamed you would take me seriously, Paris. Can’t you take a joke? No hard feelings, okay?

  Yes, that was definitely a workable plan.

  “ . . . here on FM 101.3,” he heard Paris say, interrupting his thoughts. “Stay with me until two A.M. I just got a call from Janey’s best friend, Melissa.”

  Melissa.

  “Melissa, would you like to say something to the listening audience?” Paris asked.

  “Yeah, I just, you know, want Janey back safe,” she said. “Janey, if you can hear this and you’re okay, come home. Nobody’s gonna be mad. And if someone out there is holding my friend against her will, then I have to tell you that’s totally uncool. Let her go. Please. We just want Janey back. So . . . I guess that’s it.”

  “Thank you, Melissa.”

  Wait, was he supposed to be the villain of this piece? He hadn’t done anything to Janey Kemp that she hadn’t wanted done. And Paris wasn’t the snow princess she wanted everyone to believe either. She was no better than anyone else.

  He dialed a number he knew by heart, knowing that this call couldn’t be traced to his cell. He’d made certain of that.

  “This is Paris.”

  “The topic tonight is Dean Malloy.”

  “Valentino? Let me speak to Janey.”

  “Janey is in no mood to talk,” he said, “and neither am I.”

  “Janey’s parents wanted me to ask you—”

  “Shut up and listen to me. If you and your boyfriend don’t move quickly, you’ll have two deaths on your consciences. Janey’s. And Jack Donner’s.”

  • • •

  “I’d feel better if you stayed at my house until this is over. I’ve got an extra bedroom. Nothing fancy, but you’d be comfortable. And safe.”

  Dean had insisted on following her home and seeing her inside. As before, Valentino’s call had been routed through a deserted pay phone, which provided no leads. The police were now convinced that he never went near those pay phones.

  This call had been most disconcerting because he had sounded even angrier and edgier than before. He had alluded again to Janey’s death. And of course the reference to Dean and Jack had been an alarming new element. Either Valentino was excellent at guessing, or he knew with certainty that Jack’s death implicated her and Dean to some extent.

  “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll be safe here.” She went through her front door ahead of him. Once inside, he switched on a table lamp. She immediately turned it off. “I feel like a goldfish with the lights on. They can see in.”

  Dean glanced at the squad car parked at her curb. “Griggs has a replacement, I see.”

  “His night off. Curtis told me the personnel would be different but that this team of officers was just as vigilant.” As Dean closed the door, she asked, “What about Gavin?” Valentino had spoken about Dean with such disdain, they were concerned not only for his and Paris’s safety, but for Gavin’s as well.

  “Taken care of. Curtis dispatched a squad car to my house. I called Gavin and told him to expect it.”

  “Liz?”

  “I didn’t think officers were necessary, but I called and gave her a heads-up. Told her to be sure her alarm was set and to call me if anything unusual happened.”

  “Maybe she’s the one who should be staying in your spare bedroom.”

/>   Rather than picking up the gauntlet, he said, “That’s another conversation, Paris.”

  She turned and headed for the kitchen. He followed. It was two-thirty in the morning, but they were too troubled to sleep. “I’m going to have some hot chocolate,” she said. “Want some?”

  “It’s eighty degrees outside.”

  She gave him a take-it-or-leave-it look.

  “Juice?” he asked.

  While her water was heating in the microwave, she poured him a glass of orange juice and took a package of cookies from the pantry. “What do you think he’s lying about?”

  “Valentino?”

  “Gavin. Earlier tonight, you told me you thought he was lying to you. We got busy with all the calls coming in and never got around to finishing the conversation.”

  He stared into his glass of juice for a moment, then said, “That’s the hell of it. I don’t know what he’s lying about, I just know that he is.”

  After stirring a packet of instant cocoa mix into her cup of hot water, she motioned for him to bring the cookies and follow her into the living room. She took one corner of the sofa, he the other. The package of cookies was placed on the cushion between them. The lamp stayed dark, but the glow from the porch lights came through the front windows, so they could see well enough. She removed her sunglasses.

  “Do you think he’s lying about his activities that night?” she asked.

  “By omission, maybe. I’m afraid that there was more to his meeting with Janey than he wants to share.”

  “Like that they had sex?”

  “Possibly, and he doesn’t want anybody to know.”

  “Because that would make his story of leaving her to join friends less credible.”

  “Right.” Dean munched a cookie. “But realistically, how could he be Valentino? It doesn’t sound like him. He doesn’t know about us.” He looked over at her. “That part, anyway. He doesn’t have the technical skills to reroute telephone calls.”

  “I asked Stan about how that technology works.”

  “How would he know?”

  “He likes gadgets, expensive toys. Don’t give me that look,” she said when his eyebrow formed an inquisitive arch. “He’s not Valentino. He hasn’t got the balls.”

  “What do you know about his balls?”

  “Please,” she groaned. “Do you want to hear this or not?”

  He gave a noncommittal harrumph as he reached for another cookie.

  She continued. “Stan said it wouldn’t be hard to do. Anyone with access to some equipment could probably learn how to do it over the Internet.”

  “What about somebody who had worked for the phone company?”

  “It would probably be a snap. Why?”

  “Before becoming a janitor, Marvin Patterson was an installer for Southwestern Bell.”

  Dean had followed her home from the radio station in his own car. During the drive, he’d had a lengthy cell phone conversation with Curtis. He recounted for her now everything that the detective had learned about Lancy Fisher.

  “He had a collection of audiotapes? Of my show? What could that mean?”

  “We don’t know,” Dean replied. “That’s why Curtis has intelligence guys out tapping all their informers, trying to find the shy Mr. Fisher. We’ve got plenty of questions for him, number one being why the preoccupation with you.”

  “Which comes as a shock. He never showed the least bit of interest in me. Kept his head down and rarely spoke.”

  “Strange behavior for a former actor.”

  “Actor? Marvin?”

  “He appeared—all of him—in a couple of porno videos.”

  “What!” she exclaimed. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same man?”

  He told her what Curtis had learned from Lancy Fisher’s mother. “None of which explains why he taped your show every night. Or so it seems. He had ninety-two cassettes in all. Not very good quality, Curtis said. Probably recorded directly off the radio. Hours of love songs and Paris Gibson’s sexy voice. It could be that Marvin just jerked off while listening to you. But that’s a lot of jerking off.”

  “Spare me that image, please.”

  “Did he ever—”

  “Nothing, Dean. He never mumbled more than a few words to me. Never even looked me in the eye that I can recall.”

  “Then as far as this case goes, he may be as innocent as the driven snow. He may have disappeared only because he’s an ex-con and as such has a natural aversion to police interrogations even if he’s got nothing to hide.”

  He paused and watched her closely for several moments, long enough for her to ask, “What?”

  “Curtis has become a regular Sherlock Holmes into our past.”

  She blew on her hot cocoa, but she’d suddenly lost her appetite for it. “What’s the good news?”

  “There isn’t any. He told me straight out that he knew the facts behind your leaving Houston. The accident. Jack’s head injury. Your resignation from TV. And so forth.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Well, he stopped with that, but the silence that followed was teeming with curiosity and insinuation.”

  “Let him insinuate all he wants.”

  “I did.”

  She set her cup on the coffee table, then with a heavy sigh laid her head against the sofa cushion. “I’m not surprised by his curiosity. He’s a detective, after all. And he didn’t even have to dig very deep. Just scratch the surface and there’s my life for all to see.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She smiled faintly. “Doesn’t matter. Other aspects of this are more important. Namely, Gavin.” Leaving her head against the cushion, she turned it to look at Dean. “What happened to his face today?”

  “I didn’t hit him, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  Affronted by his tone and the statement itself, she shot bolt upright. “That’s not at all what I was ‘getting at.’ ” Retrieving her mug of cocoa, she angrily stalked from the room, saying as she went, “Lock the door on your way out.”

  chapter 25

  With jerky, angry motions, Paris rinsed out her cocoa mug, then switched off the light above the kitchen sink. When she turned, Dean was standing in the open doorway, silhouetted against the faint light coming from the living room.

  “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

  “That’s not what made me mad,” she said. “It’s that you would think that I would think that you had hit Gavin.”

  “But I did, Paris.”

  The admission stunned her into silence.

  “Not today,” he continued. “Several days ago. He provoked me, I lost my temper and backhanded him across the mouth.”

  Her anger evaporated as quickly as it had formed. “Oh. Then I struck a nerve, didn’t I?” After a beat, she added softly, “I know what happened that time at Tech.”

  He looked at her sharply. “Jack told you?”

  “He told me enough. But only after I’d commented on your rigid self-control.”

  He slumped against the doorjamb and closed his eyes. “Well, my self-control failed me the other night with Gavin, and again today with Rondeau.”

  “Rondeau?”

  He told her about the scene he’d interrupted when he went into the men’s room. “He had Gavin’s face shoved up against the mirror. That’s what caused the bruise on his cheek. I wanted to kill the guy.”

  “I would have wanted to myself. Why would he do such a thing?”

  “He said he had a mother and a sister, and the obscene messages that Gavin had left on the website offended him so much that when he saw him, he lost it. A sorry excuse that stank of bullshit.”

  “Does Curtis know about this?”

  “I didn’t tell him, and I can’t see Rondeau confessing.”

  “You’re going to let the matter drop?”

  “No. Hell no. But I’ll deal with Rondeau in my own way and without any interference from Curtis.” He laughed without humor. “Going back to our d
etective friend, he’s a dogged cuss. He’s not going to give up until he knows everything about our ‘cozy little trio,’ as he put it.”

  “Meaning you, me, and Jack.”

  “He’s not dense, Paris. He knows there’s more to the story than what was reported in the media, and much, much more that we’re not telling him.”

  “It’s none of his business.”

  “He thinks it is. He thinks Valentino may harken back to that.”

  She tried to turn away, but he reached for her and turned her back around. “We’ve got to talk about this, Paris. We didn’t address it when we should have, seven years ago. If we had, Jack might not have gotten drunk that night. We should have gone to him, sat him down, and told him—”

  “That we had betrayed him.”

  “That we had fallen in love, that neither of us had set out to, but it had happened, and that’s just the way it was.”

  “So sorry, Jack. Rotten luck. See ya ’round.”

  “It wouldn’t have been like that, Paris.”

  “No, it would have been worse.”

  “Worse than what, for godsake? Worse than how it ended?”

  He took a deep breath and continued in a quieter, more reasonable tone of voice. “Jack was smarter than you gave him credit for. And a lot more perceptive. He could tell we were avoiding each other. Didn’t you know he would want to learn the cause of it?”

  Of course, he was right. She had sold Jack short by thinking that if she pretended nothing had changed, he would never learn that everything had. His fiancée and his best friend had made love. Their relationships—hers with Jack, his with Dean, hers with Dean—had been irrevocably altered. They couldn’t revert to the way things had been. She’d been naive to think they could.

  “I thought . . . thought . . .” She lowered her head and massaged her temple. “I don’t remember what I thought, Dean. I just couldn’t go to him and say, ‘Remember the night after the standoff, and I told you that I wanted to be alone? Well, Dean came over to my place and we had sex on the living room rug.’ ”

  Instead she’d taken a more subtle approach and declined each time Jack tried to get the two of them together. Her excuses became increasingly lame. “Eventually Jack demanded to know why I didn’t like you anymore.”