Jason Pinter - The Darkness

“He just threatened you and left?” I said. “Did he hurt you?”

Paulina hesitated for the briefest moment before saying, “No.”

I didn’t want to press. But I knew she was lying.

“Not me,” she said. “He threatened to hurt someone close to me.”

“You have someone close to you?” I smiled at the dig, but she did not. And for whatever reason, I felt somewhat guilty for it. “I’m sorry. Go on.”

“My daughter,” she continued. “He threatened to hurt my daughter.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling an odd combination of guilt for making light of the situation, and surprise that Paulina had a daughter. In our brief time working next to each other, she never had any pictures. Never talked about her.

“That’s okay. I didn’t ask you here to sympathize with me.”

“Good thing for both of us.”

“I asked you here because I want to find the guy who did it.”

I sat there, watching her. “And?” I said.

“And I need your help.”

I laughed. “You need my help? What can I do that you can’t?”

“You have friends,” Paulina said. “Friends that I don’t have.”

“You’re talking about cops,” I said. She nodded. “It doesn’t matter if they like you or not, this is a criminal matter and they’ll investigate…”

“I can’t go to them,” Paulina said. “I can’t go to the cops.”

“Why not?”

“He told me if I did, he would know.”

“You think he has an informant in the department?”

“I have to assume he does.”

“How do you know he was telling the truth?” I said.

“Because if I assume the other side, and I’m wrong, my daughter is dead.”

“Dead… You say he threatened to hurt her, not…”

“I was being kind. Maybe to myself, because I didn’t want to think about it. But yes, he threatened to kill her.”

I sat there in silence. Paulina was staring at me, a curious look on her face.

“What?” I said.

“I bet there’s a part of you that’s a little happy about this. You feel like I had it coming.”

“I’m not like you,” I said. “I don’t take joy in the miseries of others.”

Paulina smiled, a mischievous grin. That was the

Paulina Cole I remembered. The one who pushed your buttons until they bled.

“I’m sorry for what happened to you,” I said. “You and

I, we’ll never be friends, but I wouldn’t wish that kind of thing on anyone. Not even you, whether you want to believe me or not.”

“You know,” she said with an odd smile, “I actually do believe you.”

“Well, that’s peachy. But I still don’t know why I’m the right person for this.”

“My daughter is closer to your age than mine. You have access to the cops, and you know the world she lives in better than me. You could figure out how someone got a photograph of her.”

“What do you mean?”

“My daughter, Abigail. The man showed me a photograph that my daughter said came from a set she posted online. Only this particular photo was never posted, the only one from the set that wasn’t available online. This one was private, yet somebody got it.”

“What’s the photo of?”

Paulina shifted in her seat. She looked uncomfortable.

“It’s a recent photo. Taken within the last year. Abigail wearing a pink bikini, and she’s standing in front of a big hole on the beach. And she’s smiling.”

I took out a notepad and wrote it all down. I tried not to look at Paulina. This couldn’t be easy for her.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Nobody sees this but me.”

Paulina nodded, but it was clear this was as enjoyable for her as an endoscopy.

“Do you know how to use MySpace? Facebook?

Whatever the hell else people do to exploit themselves these days?”

“I have accounts,” I said, “but I really don’t use them.

I had a cyberstalker once and…long story, but let’s just say my girlfriend won’t let me go to Staten Island anymore. Go on.”

“Well, if you know how to log on you’ve got a leg up on me. Between that and your access to the cops, you can get information. There’s bound to be a news story in this. And even though I’m still pissed about the last time you boned me over on a scoop, if you come up with a trail that leads to something printable…it’s yours. And I think you’re the only person I could trust to keep it a secret.”

“I’m not sure if I should be flattered.”

“You need to find out who the man is who got the photo,” she said.

“And who he could have gotten it from.”

“That’s right.”

“And what makes you think there’s a story in this?” I asked. “Beyond what this guy did to you. How do you know he wasn’t some random nutjob?”

“Because he asked me to do a favor for him, too,” she said. “And this favor wasn’t exactly the kind of thing that a nutjob asks of you. It was something planned. It’s part of a much bigger plan.”

“A plan?” I said. “What did he ask you to do?”

“It’s not important,” she said. “Well, it is, but important enough that I’m only going to trust you with so much.”

“Are you going to do it?” I asked.

Paulina met my eyes. “You’ll know in a few days.”

“I assume that means you’re no longer taking any personal time and that your column will be back shortly.”

“Safe assumption, Sherlock.”

“You’re a real charmer, Paulina. You know that, right?”

“Listen, Parker. There’s a story here. Trust me on this.

That’s all I can say. And that’s the trade-off. You find this man, you get to follow the trail to wherever it leads. We both come out ahead. And I promise you, this trail will lead somewhere.”

I nodded, thought about it. If this man who kidnapped

Paulina did have a photo of her daughter and did go so far as to pose as her driver, it meant the crime was planned out well in advance, weeks if not months. Nobody went through that kind of trouble unless the ends justified the means.

“Tell me about this man,” I said. “What did he look like? Please be specific.”

“Tall, about six-one or two,” she said. “Weighed, I’d guess, between one-ninety and two-ten. In good shape, too. Good-looking guy.”

“Black? White?”

“White,” she said. “He had blond hair. Kind of wavy.”

“Any tattoos or identifiable features?”

“Not that I could see. He was wearing a suit. I think his eyes were green, but I’m not sure.”

“Did he walk with a limp? Anything else that could identify him in that way?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “He made some sort of reference to fighting in a war. I don’t know if he was telling the truth or not. He’s not an old guy, so he would have had to fight in the last twenty, twenty-five years. And he talked like he’d lost someone. Someone close to him.

Maybe a family member. Again I don’t know if that was a lie or not.”

“Is there anything else?”

Paulina thought for a moment. “Chester,” she said.

“He said his name was Chester.”

An alarm went off in my head. Chester. Blond hair. It couldn’t be…could it?

“What are you thinking?” Paulina said. “You look like something just made sense.”

“No, nothing,” I lied. “Just thinking how I’m going to approach this.”

She nodded. “You have my cell phone. Don’t call me at work.”

“No problem.” We both stood up. Paulina extended her hand. I looked at it for a moment before shaking it.

“Henry?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“One more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Drugs,” she said. “This guy…he has something to do with drugs. A lot of them.”