Parker 05 - The Darkness (11 page)

mixed with the tangy smell of something burning.

Making my way through the pungent stench to the

kitchen, I found the oven on and some sort of concoction

roiling and baking inside that, from the look of the sauce

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coating the insides of the appliance, didn't seem to be

enjoying it. As I got closer, a small bit of smoke escaped

the oven, so I quickly shut the device off.

"Amanda?" I yelled. "Are you here?"

There was no answer, so I tried again.

"Amanda?"

I heard a squeak as the bathroom door opened. The

shower was still running, and I could see Amanda's wet head

poking from behind the curtain. Her hair was filled with

shampoo and her eyes looked at me through a haze of steam.

"Henry?"

"Amanda, what the hell are you doing?"

"Bowling. What does it look like I'm doing?"

"You're aware that this apartment was about thirty

seconds from being on the eleven o'clock news."

"What?" she said, wiping suds from her face.

"I saved your mystery meat dish just in time before it

burned down the neighborhood."

"No way. The timer was supposed to go off after half

an hour. I didn't hear anything."

"You are in the shower, you know."

"No way. I have a keen sense of hearing."

"When you pressed half an hour," I said, "what exact

buttons did you press?"

"I held the button until it read three zero minutes and

zero seconds."

"Really," I said. "You're sure about that?"

"Sure. Why?"

"There's no seconds on the oven. It's just minutes and

hours. You set the timer for three hours and zero minutes."

"Oh. Crap. Sorry."

"It's okay," I said. "Just...never cook again. And apologize to the fish in there."

86

Jason Pinter

"It was supposed to be orange chicken," she said.

"Well it's probably got the texture of volcanic rock

right now. You feel like pizza?"

She offered a sheepish grin, and said, "Let me finish

up in here and we'll order."

"Sure you don't want me to join you?"

"No, the toaster is on, too. Would you mind checking

on it?"

"The toaster? Are you ser..."

"Just kidding. Give me five minutes."

She closed the door and I collapsed on the couch. I

turned on the television and clicked through a hundred

and fourteen channels before deciding that there was

nothing worth watching. It was just as entertaining to sit

there and go through the events of the day, and prepare

for the next.

Hopefully Brett Kaiser could fill in much of the information that was missing. Somebody had to be paying

Kaiser's firm's share of the lease money, and with any

luck that person would have intimate knowledge of just

who my brother was working for and why he was

killed. I still didn't buy that it was totally a power play.

Stephen came to me because he was scared of something. If you work in a company and have problems

with underlings, there are ways to circumvent any

actions. Now when somebody above you wants you

gone, that's when you have a problem. If you feel that

your termination--pardon the term--is inevitable, you

begin planning an exit strategy. In the workplace,

maybe you look for another job, prepare a lawsuit,

something so that you're not thrown from an airplane

without a parachute. When Stephen came to me that

night, scared out of his mind (a mind already addled),

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he was looking for his exit strategy. Granted the actions

you take are a little different when you led a life of

crime as opposed to life in a cubicle, but the principle

still stood.

What I needed to know was who set Stephen on the

path to his eventual exit. Even though he didn't make it,

he had something to say. A story to tell.

Amanda came out of the shower. She was wrapped in

a towel, and over the towel she wore a pink bathrobe.

Above this contraption she was tousling her hair with

another towel. The combination of towels and thick

bathrobe made Amanda look about twice as thick as she

normally did, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"This is my routine," she said. "You should be used to

it by now."

"I am," I said, "but that doesn't mean you don't look

a little silly."

She took a seat on the couch, wrapping the towel into a

turban where it sat perched a whole foot above her head.

I'd bought the couch at an apartment sale for about a third

of what it would cost at a department store. It was brown

leather, with big cushions that I constantly rotated to change

up the stains. Made me feel like it was a little less worn.

"How was your day?" she asked, absently flipping

through the stack of the day's newspapers I kept on the

coffee table.

"Still working on this story with Jack," I said. "It's

interesting, working with him for the first time."

"In what way?"

"Jack was in pretty bad shape my first few years at the

Gazette.
I hate to admit it, but there was a moment or two

when I wondered if this was really the same guy I grew

up wanting to be. Not many kids dress up like a journal-88

Jason Pinter

ist for Halloween. It was important to me that he was who

I thought he was."

"You did not dress like a journalist," Amanda said.

"You bet your ass. Had a row of pens in my shirt

pocket, a camera and notepad and everything. Everyone

assumed I was Clark Kent."

"I would have paid to see that," Amanda said.

"There aren't a whole lot of photo albums back in

Bend. My dad wasn't exactly the sentimental type."

"How do you feel about how things are going?" she

asked. I took a seat next to her, thought for a moment.

"When I found out Stephen was dead, I felt numb. Like

someone was prodding me with a stick I could see but

couldn't feel. I was
supposed
to feel remorse, but it didn't

come at first. Someone can tell you that you lost a family

member, but if you didn't even know the person it's not

the same. It should be, I guess. Blood is blood, but in a

way it isn't. Now, it feels different. Like maybe I did lose

someone who could have--
should have
--been closer to

me." I looked at Amanda, saw she was listening to every

word. "Without you, I'd have no one."

"Don't say that," she said, looking away. "That's not

true."

It was true, but I didn't want to argue. I'd made mistakes during our time together. Knowing when to shut up

was an important lesson.

She went back to reading the paper. Her fingers were

still a little wet, and I could see the print rubbing off on

them. She went to wipe her hands on the towel, then

smiled and thought better of it.

"You see this?" she said, holding up a copy of that

morning's
Dispatch.

I shook my head. I rarely read the
Dispatch.
Not

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because I held a grudge against them--though I did--it's

because they never had much I felt was worth reading. It

was the kind of paper that rarely presented an even story.

It was all about eliciting a reaction, stoking a fire, presenting a story so biased in one direction or the other that

readers would either be incensed or infatuated. I had all

the major New York City papers delivered to my door in

one bundle. I could care less about the
Dispatch,
but it

didn't cost anything more and every now and then I

enjoyed reading the sports section.

"I must have missed it," I said. "What'd you see?"

"Paulina Cole," Amanda said. "Says here her column

will be suspended until Thursday while she deals with a

personal matter."

"Really?" I asked. That surprised me. Paulina Cole

was the kind of woman who didn't take personal leaves.

If my mental image of her was accurate, she stayed in her

office while darkness crept in, waiting for some scoop to

brighten her desk. And if she didn't get one, it would only

fuel her fire to make the next scoop even juicier.

I wondered what could be so important that she'd

suspend her reporting, even just for a few days. It would

take either an act of nature or a revolt by the paper's

shareholders to get rid of Paulina. Which meant somewhere a storm was brewing. Not to mention I'd be lying

if I didn't hope, after everything she'd done to Jack and

me, that it made her life a living hell.

No doubt Paulina would come back on Thursday with

a story that would open some eyes.

11

Wednesday

Paulina Cole glanced over her shoulder. Still nobody

there. The Mercedes was empty when she climbed in,

empty when she started the engine, and empty when she

pulled onto the FDR Drive toward I-95. She even checked

the trunk--nothing--but wondered if there had been

enough time for someone to climb in during the split

second when she closed the trunk and climbed into the

driver's seat.

The anger welling up inside Paulina was a firestorm.

She was scared, and God, she couldn't stand that feeling.

The idea that someone controlled an aspect of her life that

she did not, it was like being trapped in cement while

people poked you with a stick. That night, the night that

man took her, Paulina had experienced emotions she

didn't think she'd ever felt. Not when her husband left her.

Not when he took half of her money because his deadbeat

ass barely made a dime, not when she was fired from her

first job as a secretary for "not being presentable." Of

course this translated as she wouldn't wear a blouse lowcut enough that the partners could see her tits, but even

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91

then Paulina Cole didn't feel this sensation. Even then,

she knew her future was in her hands. Small people

thought small. She was meant for something bigger,

grander, and nobody, no idiotic men--whether spouse or

employer--would ever slow her down.

Until that night.

There were burn marks on her right side, just below

the curve of her breast. It ached every second of every

day, and she had to wear a massive bandage, otherwise

all the aloe she put on it would seep through her shirts.

She'd never been brutalized. Not like that. She could take

criticism. She could take people hating her. Hate came

when you got under somebody's skin, and Paulina was

nothing if not a provocateur.

But she did nothing to deserve this.

And neither did Abby.

Thinking about what that man threatened to do to her

daughter made Paulina shriek inside. And when Paulina

Cole got scared, she took those emotions and turned them

inside out. Fear turned to rage, and rage had to be directed

somewhere. She just didn't know where yet.

She arrived at Smith College at just past noon, the

entire hundred-and-sixty-mile-plus drive taking just over

two and a half hours. Luckily there wasn't much traffic

leaving Manhattan that early in the morning. Lots of

people lived outside the city and commuted in. Not a

whole lot did the opposite. No sense paying New York

living prices and make a non-NYC wage.

Finally Paulina found herself on College Lane, which

was bracketed on the north by Elm Street. Figured, she

thought, that this pagan sanctuary of a university would

have an Elm Street.

The office of admissions was a three-level white-92

Jason Pinter

thatched cottage with a second-level deck that hung over

the entryway. The front door had several sun chairs on the

porch, though Paulina couldn't for the life of her figure

out who exactly would choose to spend a beautiful day

sitting in front of the admissions office.

Paulina parked the rental on the lawn directly outside

of the admissions office, purposefully ignoring the yellow

sign that clearly stated VEHICLES WITHOUT PARKING PERMITS WILL BE TOWED. Paulina knew this

game. In order for her car to be towed, the admissions

office would have to call the college's office of public

safety. The public safety office would have to dispatch an

officer to survey the vehicle. If the vehicle was, in fact,

parked without a permit, the public safety officer would

then have the go-ahead to call the local police department,

who would then dispatch a tow truck to remove the offending vehicle. The entire process, beginning to end,

would take about forty-five minutes.

Paulina didn't plan to be there more than five.

She walked into the admissions office, trying to avoid

eye contact with the students huddled in the foyer reading

the campus paper and checking their cell phones for text

messages. She went right up to the registrar and planted

her hands on the counter in front of the ruddy-faced man

who looked at her like she was some vicious bear come

in from the wilderness.

"Hi," Paulina said with the conviction of a woman