Jason Pinter - The Darkness

“What is this?” I said.

“Well,” Jack continued, the pride in his voice unmistakable, “I took the list of all of Abigail Cole’s online friends. I did every kind of search imaginable-Google,

Yahoo, LexisNexis, you name it-and cross-referenced her name along with Web sites that contained photos. I figured if somebody had access to personal photos, they might have had access even earlier than when Paulina was first taken.”

“Why would you assume that?” I said.

“Whoever took Paulina wanted her to write that article to help publicize the Darkness. Which means these plans have been in the works for a lot longer than the little time gone by since her abduction. This blond guy needed to know how to get to Paulina well before he actually did it, meaning he needed to be sure of who had access to her daughter’s photos ahead of time. So when I did all that…I found something.”

“A Web site,” I said.

“A blog,” Jack continued. “Not active anymore, but get this. It was deleted just three days after Paulina was abducted. Coincidence, right?”

“Could be,” I said. “What makes you think it has anything to do with this story?”

“The blog was deleted, but a few cached pages were still available to see. Other Web sites had links to it.

That’s part of the reason I was able to find it.”

“And?”

“And the blog’s creator is a girl named Pamela

Ruffalo,” Jack said. “I know you haven’t had time to read all of these pages I printed out yet, but I’ll save you the detective work. Pam Ruffalo either was, or, more likely, still is Abigail Cole’s girlfriend.”

“You’re kidding me. Her girlfriend posted pictures of her on the blog?”

“No sir, Henry. Take a look for yourself.”

I picked the half a dozen pages up, began to shuffle through them.

There were about fifteen blog entries on the pages.

They were dated starting about three months ago, and continued up until the last few days when the account was deleted.

The posts were fairly specific about their relationship.

According to the second entry, Pamela had met Abigail in college during a job recruitment fair. They’d both been online to hear more about an environmental consulting firm, got to talking, and had dinner at a campus eatery that night.

Their first official date was that weekend. Weekend at

Bernie’s, which Pam had rented on Netflix. She marveled at how they both had an appreciation for bad movies. And since that first date had gone so well, Pam had ordered

Showgirls, Battlefield Earth and Mother Dearest for her new romantic interest.

As the relationship progressed, Pam began to post pictures of the couple on the page. Some of the pictures were innocuous. The couple out at a party. Watching a field hockey game together. Sitting under a tree reading.

Some of the pictures, though, were far more intimate.

The first one that caught my attention was the two girls lying in bed, sheets up to their chins, bare shoulders visible. The photo must have been a self-portrait taken by one of the two girls, as a finger smudge obscured part of the right side of the shot.

In another photo, the girls were dressed up in bustiers and garter belts. It looked like they were about to go to some sort of party.

And in another shot, the two girls were snapped kissing passionately. I’d say one thing, they were kind of cute together.

“These all came off the blog?” I said.

“Every one.”

“Were there any photos of Abigail Cole in a bikini? Or on the beach at all?”

Jack squirmed. “Listen, I know she’s a good-looking girl but I’m not about to…”

“No, that’s not why I’m asking. Paulina said when the guy took her, he showed her a photo of her daughter wearing a bikini on the beach. Paulina told me the photo the guy used was private. She said Abigail never posted it online, and she was clear about that. So where did the photo come from?”

“I think I know,” Jack said. “But I need two things to confirm it.”

“What are they?”

“First off, I need you to find out one thing for me online. I don’t have access to it, but either you do or know someone who does.”

“What do I…”

“And the second thing,” Jack said, looking me dead in the eyes, “is that I need to talk to Paulina Cole.”

I stood in the middle of Rockefeller Center with my hands in my pockets, watching people go about their day.

The sun was bright and there was just a wisp of breeze.

A tour group passed us by, clinking and clanking as the binoculars and cameras jangled about their necks.

There were lots of tour groups always walking about this area, and they would often look at me in my work clothes like I was some sort of alien species. These people didn’t seem to believe that anyone actually lived or worked in

Manhattan, that we all just bused in day after day and wandered about starstruck, wondering when we might run into Derek Jeter or Sarah Jessica Parker on the street.

I think they believed only celebrities and homeless people lived in the city.

I watched the corner of Fifty-first Street, knowing that’s the direction she’d be coming from. Paulina wasn’t too keen on meeting me up by the Gazette, partly because she didn’t like to move for anybody and partly because when she left the paper she was thought of just about as fondly as Mussolini.

“Parker?” Paulina Cole said. She had just rounded the corner and was staring at me like I’d just thrown a pie at her from across a crowded room. She was wearing black leather boots and a knee-length skirt. Her hair was recently done, and I hated to admit it but she looked pretty good. “You’d better have a damn good reason for calling me up to the Hard Rock Cafe.”

I’d heard Paulina refer to Rockefeller Center by that moniker before. And she didn’t mean it as a compliment.

To her, this neighborhood was a tourist mecca, drastically overpriced, and as close to real New York as the Hard

Rock was to being the real Arnold Schwarzenegger. “I expense my cell phone bill and cab rides, and if you keep calling me I’ll have some explaining to do when the finance department reviews it.”

“Nice to talk to you, too, Paulina,” I said. “Thanks for coming.”

“Don’t thank me. I came because you said you had more information about my daughter.”

“Yeah…you might want to sit down.”

“What, you think whatever you have to tell me is going to make me suddenly pass out in your arms or something?

Get over yourself, Henry. Nothing surprises me anymore.”

“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.”