Free Hello, Darkness by Sandra Brown Page B

name?”
    “It could be a coincidence, but I’m not prepared to dismiss it as such.” He thought about it only a second longer. “In fact, Curtis, I’m not prepared to dismiss any of this. My recommendation is that you take him at his word.”
    The detective agreed with a somber nod. “Unfortunately, I agree.”
    “I’d like to work with you on the case.”
    “I welcome your input. We’ll take Valentino’s threat seriously until it proves to be a hoax.”
    “Or proves to be real,” Paris added softly.
    Chapter Seven
    J udge Kemp granted the defense attorney’s request for a thirty-minute recess to consult with his client, hopefully to urge him to accept a plea bargain that would end the trial and free up the judge’s afternoon.
    He used the half hour to retire to chambers and clip hairs from his nostrils with a tiny pair of silver scissors. He used a mirror with a magnifying power of five times actual size. Nevertheless, it was a delicate procedure. The sudden ringing of his cell phone almost cost him a punctured septum.
    A bit irritably, he answered his wife’s call.
    “Janey’s not in her room,” she stated without preamble. “She hasn’t been there all night.”
    “You told me she was in when we got home.”
    “I thought she was because I could hear the radio through her door. It was still on this morning. I thought that was odd, because you know what a late riser she is, but I figured she was sleeping through it.
    “I knocked on her door around ten. I wanted to take her to that new tearoom for lunch. That would be something we could do together. And it’s a lovely little place, really. Bea and I were there last week and they have an exceptional gazpacho.”
    “Marian, I’m in recess.”
    Reigned in, she continued, “She didn’t answer my knock. At quarter to eleven, I decided to go in and wake her. Her room was empty and the bed hadn’t been slept in. Her car isn’t in the garage and none of the help has seen her.”
    “Maybe she got up early, made her bed, and left the house.”
    “And maybe the sky will fall this afternoon.”
    She was right. It was an absurd assumption. Janey had never made a bed in her life. Her refusal to do so was one of the reasons she’d been sent home from summer camp the one and only time they had ignored her protests and insisted she go.
    “When did you last see her?”
    “Yesterday afternoon,” Marian replied. “She’d been lying out by the pool for hours. I persuaded her to come indoors. She’s going to ruin her skin. She refuses to wear sunscreen. I’ve tried to tell her, but of course she won’t listen. She says sunscreen is the stupidest thing she’s ever heard of because it defeats the purpose.
    “And, Baird, I really think you should say something to her about sunbathing topless. I realize it’s her own backyard, but there are always workmen around here doing one project or another, and I refuse to allow them a free peep show. It’s bad enough she wears a thong, which, if you ask me, looks not only distasteful and unladylike, but terribly uncomfortable.”
    This time she stopped herself from going off on a tangent. “Anyway, yesterday I coaxed her to come inside during the hottest part of the day. I reminded her that we were going to the awards dinner and that she was restricted to the house. She flounced upstairs without speaking to me, slammed her door, and locked it. Apparently, she left last night sometime after we did, and she hasn’t been home since.”
    He hadn’t noticed that Janey’s car was missing because he’d left his out front overnight, not parked in the garage. The next time he grounded Janey he would remember to confiscate her car keys. Not that that would stop her from sneaking out of the house and meeting up with those wild friends of hers, whose influence was doubtless the cause of her misbehavior.
    “Did you call her cell phone?”
    “I get her voice mail. I’ve left repeated messages.”
    “Have you checked with