Read Online Hello, Darkness by Sandra Brown - Free Book Online

the truth? Has he kidnapped a girl he plans to murder?”
    Curtis made balloons of his ruddy cheeks before expelling a long breath. “I don’t know, Ms. Gibson. But if he has, and if he sticks to his three-day deadline, we don’t have time to sit around and talk about it. I don’t want another kidnap-rape-murder case on my desk if I can possibly avoid it.” He stood up and reached for his jacket.
    “What can we do?”
    “We start by trying to determine if he’s for real or just a nut trying to win the attention of his favorite celebrity.” By now he was ushering her through the maze of similar cubicles toward the set of double doors through which she’d entered the CIB.
    “How do we make that determination?”
    “We go to the authority on the subject.”
     
    Just as Dean was leaving the house, Liz called from theHouston airport. “You’re already inHouston ?”
    “My flight fromAustin was at six-thirty.”
    “Brutal.”
    “Tell me.” After a short pause, she asked, “What happened with Gavin when you got home last night?”
    “Your basic open warfare, both sides scoring hits and suffering casualties.”
    He balanced the cordless phone between chin and shoulder and poured himself a glass of orange juice. He’d lain awake for hours last night, and when he finally did fall asleep, he’d gone comatose. His alarm had been going off for half an hour before it awakened him. No time to brew coffee this morning.
    “Well, at least he was home when you got there,” Liz said.
    “He hadn’t disobeyed.”
    Not wanting to recount his argument with Gavin, Dean harrumphed a nonverbal agreement. “What time is your first meeting in Chicago?”
    “As soon as I arrive at the hotel. I hope O’Hare isn’t too hairy and I can get through it quickly. What have you got on tap today?”
    He outlined his day. She said she needed to run, that she’d just wanted to say hi before her flight to Chicago. He told her he was glad that she’d caught him and wished her a safe flight. She said, “I love you.” And he replied with, “Love you, too.”
    After disconnecting, Dean bowed his head, closed his eyes, and tapped his forehead—hard—with the telephone as though he were paying some kind of unorthodox self-flagellating penance.
    Rather than getting his day off to the good start that Liz had obviously intended, her call put him out of sorts. Add the blasted heat and Austin’s rush-hour traffic, and he was in a testy mood when he reached his office fifteen minutes late.
    “Good morning, Ms. Lester. Any messages?”
    Dean shared the secretary with several other people. She was competent. And friendly. His first day on the job, she had informed him that she was the divorced mother of two daughters and that it was okay for him to call her by her first name.
    Unless his eyes were deceiving him, and he didn’t think they were, since his arrival her necklines had gotten progressively lower and her hemlines higher. This gradual reduction of textiles could be in correlation with the rising summertime temperature, but he doubted it. Just to be safe, he had stuck to calling her Ms. Lester.
    “Messages are on your desk. A fresh pot of coffee is brewing. Soon as it’s ready, I’ll bring you some.”
    Fetching him coffee wasn’t in her job description, but this morning he was glad she’d volunteered. “Great, thanks.”
    He went into his office and closed the door, discouraging further conversation. He slung his jacket onto the wall rack, loosened his tie, and unbuttoned his collar button. He sat down at his desk and riffled through his messages, happy to see there were no urgent ones. He needed a few minutes to decompress.
    He swiveled his desk chair around and adjusted the window blind so he could see out. The sunlight was glaring, but that wasn’t why he dug his fingers into his eye sockets, then wearily dragged his hands down his face.
    What was he going to do about Gavin? How many times could he ground him? How many more