Free Hello, Darkness by Sandra Brown Page A

to me.”
    “No, I wouldn’t.”
    “Why not?”
    “It would have been inappropriate.”
    Leaning toward her, he said, softly but angrily, “After seven years?”
    Jack had been the first to say that nobody could get to Dean the way she could. She seemed to be the only person on the planet with a knack for gouging a chink in his rigid self-control.
    Still sounding angry, he said, “I thought the sunglasses were only for the funeral. Have you still got—”
    “I’m not going to talk about this, Dean. I’d leave if I could. If I’d known who Sergeant Curtis was bringing me to see—”
    “You’d have turned tail and run. That’s your MO, isn’t it?”
    Before she could form a reply, Curtis returned. “They’re checking out the janitor, Marvin Patterson. Nothing solid so far. There appears to be some confusion that they’re trying to sort through. Should have some info soon. Stan Crenshaw…” Here he paused and looked at Paris. “He’s related to the station’s owner?”
    “He’s Wilkins Crenshaw’s nephew.”
    “A nepotistic hiring?”
    “To be sure,” she said candidly. “Stan does as little as possible and isn’t very good at what little he does. His laziness is irritating and often inconvenient for those of us who work with him, but on a personal level we get along. Besides, it couldn’t have been either him or Marvin, even if one of them would do such a thing. They were in the building when the call came in.”
    “Telephones being the high-tech gadgets they are these days, I’ve got the department’s electronics wizard working on that angle. Officers are also talking to the people who work in the nearby pharmacy, seeing if they can pick up something there. Either an employee or a customer who’s got a fixation on you. But…” He paused to tug on his ear. “We don’t actually have the commission of a crime here. Just the threat of one.”
    “It’s a serious threat.”
    “Right,” the detective conceded thoughtfully. “Valentino said he heard the woman talking about him on your show. Do you remember a call like the one he describes?”
    “Not off the top of my head. It must have been fairly recent, though, and it was a call that I played on the air. That narrows it down considerably. But I never would have told a caller to ‘dump’ someone.”
    “He could’ve been lying about that,” Dean said. She and Curtis looked at him for clarification. “The call from the girlfriend could be an invention to justify—even to himself—what he plans to do to her.”
    It was a grim surmise. During their reflective silence, Ms. Lester returned with the original tape and the requested duplication. Dean played it again. “Something really bothers me,” he said when it ended. “He refers to ‘girls,’ not women.”
    “Diminishing a female’s status,” Curtis remarked.
    “In his estimation, it does. That gives us a clue into this guy’s mind-set. His basic dislike and mistrust of women comes through loud and clear. If I had to profile him based on no more than this conversation, I’d categorize him as an anger-retaliator rapist.”
    Apparently Curtis was acquainted with the clinical term. “He’s angry with women in general over real or perceived injustices.”
    “Yes. Possibly a result of sexual abuse, even incest. A dangerous motivation,” Dean said. “Sex is his method of punishment. That usually translates to violent rape. If he wants to make his victim bleed, as he told Paris, then he’ll have no qualms about killing her.” His lips formed a grim line, which expressed the apprehension that all were feeling. “Another thing, the only other Valentino I ever heard of was Rudolph.”
    “The silent-film star,” Paris said.
    “Right. And his best-known film was The Sheik. ”
    “In which he kidnaps and seduces, rather forcibly, a young woman.” She knew the movie. She and Jack had seen it at a classic-film festival. “Do you think that’s why he’s using that