Hello, Darkness

by Sandra Brown

  “He’s done what he said he was going to do, Paris. Do you think he’ll call again?”

  “I hope he does. The more he talks to me, the better chance we have of identifying him.”

  “Too bad you couldn’t have caught him before he killed her.” After a pause, he added, “Guess I shouldn’t have reminded you of that, huh? I’m sure you already feel bad enough for being the one who set him off in the first place.”

  “I’ve got to go, Stan.”

  “Are you mad? You sound mad.”

  “I just don’t want to talk about it anymore right now, okay? I’ll see you tonight.”

  She clicked off. He wished he could have kept her talking longer because it tied up his phone line. If his uncle continued to get a busy signal, he might become discouraged and stop calling.

  Ever since he’d learned that Janey Kemp’s body had been discovered, Uncle Wilkins had been phoning periodically. He pretended to be concerned about the station’s involvement, but Stan knew the reason for the frequent calls—Uncle Wilkins was checking up on him.

  He should never have admitted to being attracted to Paris. You’d think that was all his uncle had heard during their meeting. He’d been referring to it ever since.

  During their last telephone conversation, Wilkins had said in his most menacing voice, “If you’ve done anything perverse or inappropriate . . .”

  “I’ve been an altar boy around her. I swear to God.”

  How could he have behaved otherwise with Paris? She wasn’t rude, but she never acted particularly happy to see him. Sometimes, even when she was talking to him, she seemed preoccupied, as though she had something on her mind that was more important or interesting than him.

  He was certain that if he’d ever made a move on her, she would have cut him off at the knees. She’d never invited even the slightest flirtation. In fact, she often looked through him, as though he wasn’t there. Much like his parents, she treated him with a casual disregard that was as hurtful as an outright rejection. He was always an afterthought.

  His chance for a romance with Paris had always been remote. But it had been totally squelched when Dean Malloy entered the picture. Malloy was an arrogant son of a bitch, confident of himself and his appeal to the opposite sex. He would never need to coerce a secretary into raising her skirt or cajole a date into bed.

  Fact of life: Things came easier to men like Malloy.

  Another fact: Women like Paris were attracted to men like that.

  People like Paris and Malloy had never known a day of rejection. It would never occur to them that love and affection didn’t come as easily to others as it did to them. They shone like bright little planets, without an inkling of what it was like to be someone who could only orbit around them. They had no idea the lengths to which someone would go to attain the adoration they took for granted.

  No idea.

  • • •

  Gavin’s head was bowed so low, his chin was almost touching his chest. “In the lake?”

  “Her body is being transported to the morgue, where it will undergo an autopsy to determine the cause of death.”

  Gavin raised his head. The news of Janey’s death had caused him to go pale. He swallowed with difficulty. “Dad, I . . . You gotta believe me. I didn’t do it.”

  “I believe that. But I also believe just as strongly that you’re keeping something from me.”

  Gavin shook his head.

  “Whatever it is, wouldn’t you rather tell me than have it come out during a lie detector test? What don’t you want me to know?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re lying, Gavin. I know you are.”

  The boy surged to his feet, fists clenched. “You have no right to accuse someone of lying. You’re the biggest liar I know.”

  “What are you talking about? When have I lied to you?”

  “My whole life!” Dean watched in dismay as tears sprang to his son’s eyes. Angrily, Gavin swiped at them with his fists. “You. Mom. Always telling me you loved me. But I know better.”

  “What makes you say that, Gavin? Why do you think we don’t love you?”

  “You didn’t want me,” he shouted. “You got her pregnant by accident, didn’t you? And that’s the only reason you got married. Why didn’t you just get rid of me and save yourselves the trouble?”

  He and Pat had never specifically discussed how much they would tell Gavin if he ever asked this question. Perhaps they should have. She wasn’t here to consult, so Dean was left to answer his son’s tortured questions alone. Despite the embarrassment it might cause Pat, and himself, he decided Gavin deserved the unmitigated truth.

  “I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but not until you sit down and stop looking at me like you’re about to go for my throat.”

  Gavin battled with indecision for several moments, then plopped back into the chair. His expression remained belligerent.

  “You’re right. Your mother was pregnant when we got married. You were conceived during a weekend fraternity party in New Orleans.”

  Gavin laughed bitterly. “Jeez. It’s even worse than I thought. Were you college sweethearts at least?”

  “We had dated a few times.”

  “But she wasn’t someone you . . . not someone special.”

  “No,” Dean admitted quietly.

  “So I was a mistake.”

  “Gavin—”

  “Why didn’t you use something? Were you drunk or just stupid?”

  “A little of both, I guess. Your mother wasn’t on the pill. I should have acted more responsibly.”

  “Bet you shit when she told you.”

  “I’ll admit that it came as a shock. For your mother as well as me. She was about to graduate and launch her career. I was beginning grad school. Her pregnancy was a hurdle neither of us had counted on at that time in our lives. But—and I want you to believe this, Gavin—abortion was never even considered.”

  He could tell by his son’s expression that he wanted desperately to believe that, but was still finding it difficult to accept. Dean couldn’t blame him. Perhaps he and Pat had been wrong to not discuss this with Gavin once he was old enough to understand how women became pregnant. If they had explained it to him, he wouldn’t have developed insecurities about his self-worth, and harbored such resentment toward them.

  “Nor was adoption discussed. From the start, Pat planned to have you and keep you. Thank God she paid me the courtesy of telling me that I had fathered a child. And when she did, I insisted that you have my name. I wanted to be in your life. Although neither of us wanted to marry the other, I wanted to make you legally mine. She finally agreed to go through with the ceremony.

  “We didn’t love each other, Gavin. I wish I could tell you otherwise, but it wouldn’t be the truth, and that’s what you’ve asked for and I think that’s what you deserve to hear. We liked each other. We were companionable and respected each other. But we didn’t love each other.

  “We did, however, love you. When I held you for the first time, I was nothing short of awed and overjoyed. Your mother felt the same. She and I lived together until you were born.

  “During that time, we tried to convince ourselves that love would eventually blossom and that we’d come to realize we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives. But it wasn’t going to happen and both of us knew it.

  “We cried on the day we finally agreed that staying together would only make for three unhappy people and postpone the inevitable. It was in your best interest that we split sooner, before you could even remember, rather than later. So when you were three months old, she filed for divorce.”

  He spread his hands wide. “That’s it, Gavin. I think it would help if you also talked to your mother about this. Understandably, she didn’t want you to know because she didn’t want you to think badly of her. I don’t want that either. She wasn’t a party girl who slept with every guy on campus. That weekend was the last fraternity party we would ever attend bec
ause we were both about to graduate. We got wild and crazy and . . . it happened.

  “Your mother sacrificed a lot in order to raise you as a single parent. I know you’re upset with her for marrying now, but that’s just too damn bad. Pat’s not only your mother, she’s a woman. And if you’re entertaining some childish fear that her husband is going to replace you in her life, you’re wrong. Believe me, he couldn’t. No one could.”

  “I don’t think that,” he said, speaking to his lap. “I’m not an idiot. I know she needs love and all that.”

  “Then maybe you should stop sulking about it and tell her that you understand.”

  He gave a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders. “I just wish you’d told me, you know, before now. I knew anyway.”

  “Well, if you knew anyway, and it didn’t make a significant difference in your life, then why are you using it as an excuse now?”

  His head snapped up. “An excuse?”

  “Lasting marriages don’t necessarily make for happy homes, Gavin. Lots of kids who live with both parents have a far worse childhood than you’ve had, and, believe me, I know this.

  “You’re using your accidental conception as an excuse to behave like a jerk. That’s a cowardly cop-out. Your mother and I are human. We were young and reckless and made a mistake. But isn’t it time you stopped brooding over our mistake and started accepting responsibility for your own?”

  Anger infused Gavin’s face with color. He breathed heavily through his nose. But tears had once again collected in his eyes.

  “I love you, Gavin. With all my heart. I’m grateful for the mistake your mother and I made that night. I’d willingly die for you. But I refuse to let you use the circumstances of your birth to distract me from what is more imperative and, right now, considerably more critical.”

  He moved his chair closer to the one in which Gavin sat and planted his hand firmly on his shoulder. “I’ve talked to you frankly, man to man. Now I want you to act like a man and tell me what you’ve been holding back.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit. There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “No there’s not.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Get off my back, Dad!”

  “Not until you tell me.”

  His features reflected the turmoil within as he wrestled with his fear and possibly his conscience. Finally he blurted out, “Okay, you want to know? I was in Janey’s car with her that night.”

  • • •

  Paris checked her wristwatch. She’d been waiting outside the CIB for over an hour. Dean’s attorney, whom she recognized from the day before, had arrived. He’d disappeared through the doorway and into the department. Beyond that, she knew nothing of what was going on. She didn’t know if they’d begun Gavin’s lie detector test or not.

  Lack of sleep was beginning to catch up with her. She leaned her head against the wall behind the bench and closed her eyes, but still she couldn’t rest. Haunting thoughts crowded her mind. Janey Kemp was dead. A sick, twisted individual had killed her, but Paris felt partially responsible.

  As Stan had so tactlessly reminded her, Valentino had been motivated by the advice she’d given Janey. If only she hadn’t aired Janey’s call-in that night, Valentino wouldn’t have heard it.

  But tragically, he had. Once he’d issued his threat to punish Janey, what could she, Paris, have done differently? What could she have said to prevent him from taking the final step and killing her?

  “Ms. Gibson?”

  She opened her eyes. Before her stood a petite woman who was evidently in distress. Her face, though very pretty, was drawn. She was holding her handbag in a death grip. The skin was stretched so tightly across her knuckles, they looked like bare bone. Anguish had reduced her from dainty to frail. Although she was putting up a brave front, she looked about as stalwart as a dandelion puffball.

  Paris immediately tried to ease the stranger’s apprehension with a smile. “Yes, I’m Paris.”

  “I thought it was you. May I join you?”

  “Of course.” Paris made room for her on the bench and the woman sat down. “I’m sorry, I . . . Have we met?”

  “My name is Toni Armstrong. Mrs. Bradley Armstrong.”

  Paris recognized the name, of course, and immediately understood why the woman was discomfited. “Then I know why you’re here, Mrs. Armstrong,” she said. “This must be awfully difficult for you. I wish we were meeting under pleasanter circumstances.”

  “Thank you.” She was hanging on to her composure by a thread, but she did hold on, and that earned her Paris’s respect. “When the police searched our house, they overlooked this.” She removed a CD from her handbag. “Since they confiscated Brad’s computer, I thought I should hand this over, too. It could have something important on it.”

  A confusing thought caused Paris to frown. “Mrs. Armstrong, how did you recognize me?”

  Even with all the news coverage the story of Janey’s disappearance had generated, Paris’s picture had been kept out of it. Wilkins Crenshaw had personally intervened and put pressure on the local media to not use her photograph. Paris had no delusions: He wasn’t concerned for her. He wanted to protect the reputation of the radio station. In any case, the local media had agreed to extend that professional courtesy. She wasn’t sure how long their largess would last.

  Toni Armstrong nervously wet her lips and ducked her head. “This CD from Brad’s computer was only the excuse I gave myself for coming to see Sergeant Curtis. The real reason is that I didn’t tell him everything yesterday.”

  Paris said nothing, her silence inviting Toni Armstrong to continue.

  “Sergeant Curtis asked me if Brad ever listened to late-night radio. I said yes, sometimes. He went on to ask something else and never came back to that subject. Your name wasn’t mentioned, so I didn’t volunteer that we—Brad and I—had known you from Houston.”

  Her eyes were imploring, almost as though willing Paris to remember on her own so she wouldn’t be required to recount the circumstances under which they’d become introduced.

  “I apologize, Mrs. Armstrong. I don’t remember ever meeting you.”

  “You and I never actually met. You were Dr. Louis Baker’s patient.”

  Suddenly Paris’s memory crystallized. How could she not have remembered his name? Of course, Armstrong was an ordinary name. Neither Curtis nor Dean had mentioned that their suspect Brad Armstrong was a dentist.

  “Your husband’s a dentist? That dentist?”

  Toni Armstrong nodded.

  Paris inhaled a swift breath. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You don’t owe me an apology, Ms. Gibson. What happened wasn’t your fault. I didn’t blame you. You did what you had to do. Brad felt differently, of course. He said that you . . . that you had flirted with him, led him on.” She smiled sadly. “He always says that. But I never thought for a moment that you had encouraged him to do what he did.”

  Paris had gone to Dr. Louis Baker for some dental work, but when she arrived at the clinic, she was informed that he’d been called away on a family emergency. Her choice was to reschedule or let one of his partners treat her. The appointment had been postponed twice, she was already there, so she opted to see the other dentist.

  She remembered Brad Armstrong as a nice-looking man with an engaging manner. Since she was scheduled for several procedures, some of which might be uncomfortable, he’d suggested using nitrous oxide to help her relax.

  She’d agreed, knowing that “laughing gas” had no lasting effect as soon as one stopped inhaling it and that it was safe when administered in a clinical environment. Besides, if a numbing shot was required, she would just as soon not know when it was coming.

  Soon she was feeling completely relaxed and carefree, as though she was floating. At first she thought she had only imagined that her breasts were being touched. The caress had been featherlight. Surely it was only a false physical sensation brought on by her state of eu
phoria.

  But when it happened a second time, the pressure was distinctly firmer and applied directly to her nipple. There could be no mistake. She opened her eyes and, shaking off her lethargy, removed the small mask from her nose. Brad Armstrong smiled down at her, and the leering quality of his grin convinced her that she had imagined nothing.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it,” he’d whispered. “Your nipple is still hard.”

  Even reclined in the dental chair as she was, she came off it like a shot, knocking over a metal tray of implements and sending it crashing to the floor. An assistant, whom he had sent out on a trumped-up errand, came rushing back into the treatment room. “Ms. Gibson, what’s wrong?”

  “Have Dr. Baker call me at his earliest convenience,” she told her before storming out.

  The dentist had called her later that day, expressing his concern. She reported what had happened. When she finished her story, he said with chagrin, “I’m ashamed to say that I thought the other woman was lying.”

  “He’s done it before?”

  “I assure you, Ms. Gibson, this will be the last time. You have my utmost apologies. I’ll take care of it immediately.”

  Dr. Armstrong had been dismissed. For several days afterward, Paris had shuddered in repulsion whenever she thought about the incident, but after a time it had faded from her memory. She hadn’t thought any more about it until now.

  “I assume your husband blamed me for getting him fired.”

  “Yes. Although he’s been forced out of other practices for similar incidents since then, he’s always held a grudge against you. While you were still in Houston, he turned off the television set anytime you appeared. He called you ugly names. And when your fiancé got hurt, he said you deserved it.”

  “He knew about Jack, the accident?”

  “And Dr. Malloy. He theorized that it was a love triangle.”

  Paris exclaimed, a soft “Oh.”

  “When we moved here and Brad discovered you were on the radio, his resentment flared up again.” Mrs. Armstrong lowered her head and twisted the straps of her handbag. “I should have told Sergeant Curtis about this yesterday, but I was so afraid they would think Brad was involved with this missing-girl case.”