The Darkness hp-5 Read online

  “Well, I don’t want to tell you what to do. But there is news.”

  “Did you find the man?” Paulina said. She said it like she’d expected us to do so all along. There was no appreciation in her voice. Whatever, that wasn’t quite her style.

  “No. But we know where the photo came from. The one of your daughter at the beach.”

  “How did you find it? Where did it come from?”

  “Well, I’ll let the person who figured it out tell you all about it. Hey, Jack.”

  Paulina whipped around to see Jack O’Donnell standing right behind her. He had a massive smile on his face, and he was standing close enough to her that he could almost tickle her nose with his beard.

  “Hey, Cole,” Jack said. “Long time. How’s the exhusband and your kid?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  The surprise in Paulina’s voice proved that Jack

  O’Donnell was the last person she expected-and wanted-to see.

  The reporter stood there, looking like she wanted to kill Jack, kill me, then tear our bodies to pieces.

  Instead she merely said, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  “I am neither kidding nor fucking you,” Jack said.

  “But I am going to help you.”

  Paulina’s face contorted, as she sneered at Jack. I stood there wondering if this was a good idea. But Jack insisted that this meeting take place. He said it wasn’t a vendetta, and it wasn’t because he needed to get even with the woman who nearly ruined his career. He said it was because it was the right thing to do.

  “What the hell do you want, you dried-up old mummy?”

  I wondered if Jack still felt like it was the right thing to do.

  “You know the old saying, people only call you names if they really care about you? Well, between your sweet nothings and that big kiss of an article you wrote about me, I’m willing to bet most New York psychiatrists would testify that you’re head over heels in love with me.”

  “What the hell is this, O’Donnell? Parker, you’d better have a reason for this that goes well beyond morbid curiosity.”

  “Jack asked me to set this up,” I said. I didn’t have to worry about throwing Jack under the bus here; he told me he wanted it fully known that this was his decision. “But

  I knew you’d want to hear what he has to say.”

  “I only want to hear one of two things come out of your mouth,” Paulina said. “One, that you know who threatened my daughter. Or two, you’re leaving this business and wanted to thank me for showing this city what a washed-up, drunk old hack you really are.”

  I saw Jack flinch at that, but he stood his ground. Paulina was staring daggers into Jack’s eyes, but he didn’t waver.

  “I can’t say either of those,” Jack said.

  “Then why the hell am I here? Serves me right for trusting you, Parker.”

  “You trusted me for a reason,” I said. “Now hear him out.”

  Paulina looked at Jack, shook her head. “I’m surprised you had the balls to poke your head out from whatever rock you’ve been under the last few months.”

  “Balls have never been my problem,” Jack said. “It’s knowing when to think with my head instead of my balls that’s gotten me into trouble.”

  Had Jack been thirty years younger, I could see these two having the best enemy sex in history.

  “Seems like that’s a problem a lot of male journalists have. Even Henry here. Right, Parker? No reporter’s had his life threatened more times in a few years than your protege, Jack. These balls? How would you feel if one day

  Henry gets too close to the fire and gets burned to a crisp?”

  “Shut the hell up,” I said. Paulina smiled.

  “There are those balls I talked about,” she said. “You’re a reporter, Henry, not a soldier. You’re not supposed to have emotion or take sides. And you’re not supposed to come this close to getting yourself killed on every story you report.”

  “I do what I need to in order to get to the truth,” I said.

  “You don’t seem to care much about the truth in the story I wrote about Jack,” she said. “You might hate me for it, but every word in that was true. And you don’t judge him the way you’re judging me right now.”

  “You see, that’s where you and I aren’t alike,” I said.

  “I don’t look at life as one big story to report. There’s a big difference between blood and ink. It’s a shame you never learned that.”

  “Enough of this crap,” Jack said. “Do you want to hear what we found or not?”

  “Fine,” Paulina said, folding her arms across her chest.

  I could tell this was a practiced look, sternness crossed with just a hint of pouty sexuality. She was used to pressing just hard enough to elicit a reaction, but not hard enough to drive people away. Jack had information she needed, but she wouldn’t stay quiet without letting him know what she thought. And it was then that I realized

  Paulina didn’t write that article just to get publicity, she did it because she truly loathed Jack.

  “Does a girl named Pamela Ruffalo ring a bell?” Jack said.

  Paulina didn’t give any indication that she recognized the name. “No. Who the hell is that?”

  “She’s a student at Smith College,” Jack said. “A junior, I believe, according to her Facebook page.”

  As Jack spoke, I could see the blank look on Paulina’s face changing. She recognized the name from somewhere.

  “What does Pam have to do with any of this?” she said in an argumentative tone, hoping Jack would answer her in a way that would vindicate Pam. Not only did Paulina know Pam Ruffalo, but for some reason whatever Jack was going to say was going to hit her-hard.

  “A few months ago, Pam Ruffalo began posting to a personal blog. She talked about a lot of things on the site, one of which was her relationship with her new girlfriend. A girl named Abigail Cole.”

  Paulina watched, and I could have sworn she didn’t blink for a minute straight.

  “Keep talking,” she said.

  “She posted a lot of photos on the site. But she never posted any photos like the one you described the blond man having that night.”

  “So if she didn’t post those photos,” Paulina said, “why do you think she was involved?”

  “Pam shut the blog down, according to records, just a few days after you were abducted. In the days leading up to the cancellation, there was nothing to suggest that there was anything wrong in her life. Did you ever tell your daughter what happened to you?” Jack said.

  I was surprised, looking at Jack, to see a hint of sympathy in his face. He had no love for Paulina Cole as a reporter, but considering her as a human and a mother outweighed that.

  “Yes,” she said. “A few days after it happened. I went up to Smith and told her about it. Only to keep her safe.”

  “Do you think it’s fair to assume,” Jack said, “that Abigail told her girlfriend what you told her? That she told Pam?”

  Paulina stood there, then wiped at her eyes which were reddening. For some reason I felt ashamed watching this.

  “It’s possible,” Paulina said. Jack nodded slowly.

  “Henry was able to log on to Facebook and contact a few of Abigail’s friends. Through them, he found the photos you referred to, the beach shots. They were taken by a girl named Samantha Isringhausen, who then uploaded them to her account.”

  “I called Samantha,” I said, “in her dorm room. When

  I asked her about the photos, specifically the one of

  Abigail in front of the hole, she told me that when Pam saw it she immediately asked for the only copy. She loved that picture so much that she never wanted it to be seen by anyone other than her. Samantha agreed, and said after sending the file to Pamela and uploading the rest, she deleted them from her digital camera.”

  “So the only person who had that photo,” Jack said,

  “was your daughter’s girlfriend.�
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  “Wait,” Paulina said, tears starting to run freely now.

  “Are you saying…”

  “I’m saying that the man who attacked you that night,”

  Jack said, “got the photo from Pamela Ruffalo, your daughter’s girlfriend. She sold your daughter out.”

  32

  Paulina didn’t move. Her entire upper body trembled as she looked from Jack to me and back again. Then she stared at me long and hard, without taking her eyes away.

  I couldn’t understand why at first, but then I realized that she trusted me more than she trusted Jack.

  Paulina was hoping I would tell her that none of this was true.

  Instead I walked up to Paulina, and I’ll be damned if

  I know why I did this, but I took the woman’s hand in mine and held it.

  “It’s true,” I said. “We haven’t spoken to Pam or Abigail yet.”

  “Why not?” she said.

  Jack replied, “Because you’re Abigail’s mother. And you’re a reporter, too. Because this part of the story needs to be reported by you.”

  “How can I…” Paulina said, trailing off. “My daughter, she’ll be…”

  “She’ll hate you,” I said, “for a while. But eventually she’ll know the truth. And she’ll respect you for it.”

  Paulina laughed bitterly. “My daughter hasn’t respected me in a long time.”

  “Well, if she doesn’t respect you,” I said, “she’ll sure as hell love you for it.”

  “What about you two? What happens next?”

  Jack said, “We’ll be waiting for your call. Your promise to Henry still stands. We did our part and will continue to.”

  Paulina nodded. Then she looked at her watch.

  “I can be there in a few hours,” she said.

  “So go,” I said.

  “Yeah. Right.” She looked at her hand, still held in mine, and pulled it back. Then she ran it through her hair, and straightened her jacket. “I’ll call you once it’s done.”

  As Paulina turned to walk away, Jack called, “Don’t we get a thank-you?”

  She turned back, glared at Jack. “I’ll thank you once that blond bastard is either behind bars or in the ground.”

  Then Paulina Cole walked away.

  “I think that’s the closest she’s ever come to a real thank-you,” Jack said. “I had a wager with myself, fiftyfifty odds that she slapped me before she left.”

  “You might have just saved her daughter’s life,” I said.

  “I think that’s at least enough to avoid a slap.”

  “Eh, women like Paulina don’t always need a reason.

  Especially when they feel like they’ve lost some sense of power or authority, they get it back by lashing out. It’s a gimmick for sure. In a way, I respect her more for that.

  She’s so confident, she didn’t even feel the need to slap me.”

  “If you’re disappointed, I can take her place. I have a mean right hook.”

  “I think I’ll pass,” Jack said, “though at least you wouldn’t have nails. Those things leave scars.”

  As we watched Paulina leave, my cell phone began to vibrate. Jack heard it, too, said, “Your lady friend?”

  I checked the ID, recognized it as Curt Sheffield.

  “Hey, Curt,” I said. “How’s my favorite boy in blue?”

  “Been better,” he said.

  “Dunkin’ decided to discontinue their donuts?”

  “That’s a terrible stereotype perpetuated by the media, just like you.”

  “My bad, man. What’s up?”

  “It’s been a hell of a day,” he said. “I’ll give you the heads-up because I didn’t know about Paulina’s story until too late…but it’s true.”

  “What’s true?” I asked, feeling my heart begin to beat a little faster. It was a strange sensation. The excitement of another thread unspooling mixed with the dread that came with Curt’s apprehension.

  “Homicide down in Chelsea,” Curt said. “Gruesome stuff. I just left the scene, and…it’s bad, man. Real bad.”

  “What happened?”

  Jack’s composure from talking to Paulina was gone, as he watched the conversation, trying to decipher my reaction. I tried to keep a straight face, but when Curt told me the details I felt my whole body drain of blood.

  “We got the call about an hour ago,” he said. “A tenant on the floor above. A girl comes home to find her husband passed out on the floor. He’d been laid off a month ago, and took every spare cent they had and spent it on drugs.

  When she found out, she told him she was going to leave him, then divorce him and take all their savings. And that’s when he took a knife from the kitchen and sliced her head nearly clean off.”

  “That’s horrible,” I said. “Who’d you hear this from?”

  “The killer himself,” Curt said. “The guy confessed to everything, right before his brain nearly short-circuited.

  He’d spent every cent they had around the house on what he said was some new drug, something called Darkness he said. Said it was the best high he’d ever had, and he wasn’t going to give that up for anything, including his bitch of a wife.”

  “So Paulina’s story was true,” I said.

  “We’ve had half a dozen calls today, from robbery to assault to this, and all of them have one thing in common.

  All the perpetrators ingested these little black rocks.”

  “That’ll be all over the news tomorrow,” I said. “Not just the Dispatch, but we’ll have to cover it, too.”

  “Best publicity you can get,” Curt said. “But man, I hope Paulina’s wrong about one thing, because if this drug blows up we’re gonna have major problems in this city.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hell, the NYPD’s lost a thousand jobs since last year.

  The narcotics division is strapped thin as it is, and our men and women on the street haven’t caught a wink of this thing. If the Darkness is being sold, it’s not being sold through traditional dealers.”

  I heard a siren in the distance, and I lost my focus.

  Then I heard Curt’s voice again.

  “Henry, Henry, you there, man?”

  “Yeah, sorry, Curt. Just thinking about all of this.”

  “Yeah, us, too. But listen, Henry, the main reason I called, I wanted to tell you about one more thing.”

  “What, this stuff isn’t enough? I got enough material here for a week’s worth of stories.”

  “Yeah, well, try this on for size and tell me if you want to drop it. I think I found your man. The blond guy who kidnapped Paulina.”

  “No shit,” I said. “Who is he?”

  “I haven’t told anyone else yet because, hell, after what you told me and Paulina’s story quoting nonexistent members of the department, I’m officially a member of the church of paranoia.”

  “I’ve belonged there for a while,” I said. “So what did you find?”

  I heard Curt take a deep breath and say, “You gotta swear to me this doesn’t come back with my name on it until you figured out what the hell is going on. ’Cause this stuff is scaring even me.”

  “You know you have my word.”

  “I think you’re going to want to sit down for this one.”

  And when he told me who and what this man was, I felt my knees go weak. Jack came over and we both sat down on a bench in Rockefeller Plaza. I thought I was through with stories like this, stories where the fire was so close it could burn me. I looked at Jack, wondered how many times he’d been through the kind of hell I’d gone through.

  And knowing it all, feeling the scars beneath my clothing,

  I knew there was a chance it could get bloody again.

  “What is it, Henry?” Jack said.

  The fact that he didn’t call me sport or kiddo or any one of those nicknames scared me even more.

  “Curt,” I said. “He found our man.”

  “Who is it?” Jack asked.

&n
bsp; “You know how Paulina wrote, in that article, about how close this city was to burning down twenty years ago?”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, his voice soft, monotone. “I lived through it.”

  “Well, I think someone’s turned the gas tank back on and is getting ready to light this place up all over again.”

  33

  Morgan threw open his apartment door, tossed his coat onto a chair and plopped down onto his couch with an audible thump. He could feel his pulse racing as he clenched and unclenched his fists.

  He couldn’t sit there, not with this kind of energy, this kind of juice flowing through him.

  Standing back up, Morgan walked to the refrigerator and to his delight saw that there were two more tall boys resting inside, nice and cold. He popped the top on the first one and guzzled it down in one long messy gulp, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He took the second beer back to the couch and sat back down, buzzing, feeling alive for the first time in months.

  When he and Theo finally parted ways at five o’clock,

  Morgan could scarcely believe how the day had unfolded.

  At first he was unsure about this new opportunity. Sure

  Morgan had done some blow in his day, never one to throw a good party off its axis. But he never knew just how high the demand was for product right now, and he never realized just how many poor saps there were sitting in their apartments without a job, without hope, all their joy coming in the form of some fine white powder…or a small black rock.

  Morgan had no idea what the stuff did beyond what

  Theo told him. According to his partner, this stuff, the

  Darkness, was the most potent and addictive substance to hit the populace since opium. It was cheap, it was strong, and it gave you a rush every single time.

  Morgan had no desire to try the stuff. Theo didn’t seem to care either. When you had a good thing going, like they did, you didn’t gum up the works by losing your head.

  At the end of their first day on the job, Morgan and Theo had sold nearly ten thousand dollars’ worth of product.

  Over a full year, that amounted to well over three million dollars.

  And they were just one team out of God knows how many.