James Grippando - Afraid of the Dark

Again, he heard footsteps. He walked faster, and the clicking of heels behind him seemed to match his pace. He came to an S-curve in the sidewalk and, rather than follow the concrete patch, cut straight across the grass. The sound of the footsteps behind him vanished, as if someone behind him were tracing his own silent path. He returned to the sidewalk at the top of the S-curve. A moment later, he heard the clicking heels behind him do the same.

He definitely felt like he was being followed.

Jack stopped and turned. In the pitch darkness beneath the trees, he saw no one, but he sensed that someone was there.

“Andie, is that you?” It was way too hopeful to think that she was going to surprise him again with a visit, but calling out the name of anyone seemed less paranoid than a nervous “Who’s there?”

No one answered.

Jack reached for his cell phone. Just as he flipped it open, a crushing blow between the shoulder blades sent him, flailing, face-first to the sidewalk. The phone went flying, and the air rushed from his lungs. As he struggled to breathe and rise to one knee, an even harder blow sent him down again. This time, he was too disoriented to break the fall. His chin smashed against the concrete. The salty taste of his own blood filled his mouth.

“Why… are,” he said, trying to speak, but it was impossible to form an entire sentence.

He was flat on his belly when the attacker grabbed him from behind, took a fistful of hair, and yanked his head back.

“One move and I slice you from ear to ear.”

Jack froze. A steel blade was at his throat. The man’s voice sounded foreign, but Jack couldn’t place the accent. More important, the threat sounded real.

“Take it easy,” said Jack.

“Shut up,” the man said. “Did he give you any photographs?”

“Who? Photos of what?”

“Ethan Chang. Did he give you the photographs he told you about?”

“No. I never met him.”

He yanked Jack’s head back harder. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying. I never met him, I swear.”

“Lucky for you. But now consider yourself warned.”

“Warned of what?”

“Forget everything you ever heard about Prague.”

“I don’t-” Jack stopped in midsentence. The blade was pressing harder against his throat.

“The lawyers have been way too subtle. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. And by the way. Remember how Ethan Chang heard you talking to your grandfather’s girlfriend about Pio Nono?”

“Yes.”

“I heard it, too,” he said. “So believe me when I tell you this: Until you have a wife or children, there is nothing more painful than watching your grandfather suffer at a time in his life when he is too old and too confused to understand why anyone would want to hurt him.”

“Leave him out of this.”

“That’s up to you,” the man said as he pulled the blade away from Jack’s throat-and then slammed the butt of the knife against the back of Jack’s skull.

Jack fought to stay conscious, but he saw nothing, heard nothing, as his world slowly turned darker than the night itself.

Vince woke early on Sunday morning.

He was seated on the front step outside his house, the canopy of the porch overhang shielding him from a light, cool rain.

Rain was in some ways Vince’s best friend. The bond had formed on his first rainy day without sight, just moments after he’d stepped out the front door and stood on the top step. His mind was gearing up for the usual mental exercise, the memorized flower beds, shrubbery, and footpaths that defined his morning walk. But the rain changed all that. It was the sound of falling rain that brought the outdoors and all of its shapes, textures, and contours back into his world. Where there was once only blackness, suddenly there was water sloshing down a drainpipe. The patter of raindrops on the broad, thick leaves of the almond tree. The hiss of automobiles on wet streets. Even the grass emitted its own peculiar expression of gratitude as it drank up the morning shower. A sighted person would have heard nothing more than rainfall in its most generic sense, a white noise of sorts. To Vince, it was a symphony, and he reveled in his newly discovered power to appreciate the beautiful nuances of each and every instrument. Nature and his old neighborhood were working together, calling out to him, telling him that everything was still there for his enjoyment. He heard the drumlike beating on his mailbox, the gentle splashing on concrete sidewalks, and even the ping of dripping water on an iron fence that separated his yard from his neighbor’s. Rain, wonderful rain. It made him smile to have such a friend. Friends were not always so loyal and dependable.

Especially the ones named Swyteck.

“Did you finally get to sleep, honey?” asked Alicia. She was standing in the foyer behind him, speaking through the screen door.

“Not really,” he said.

Swyteck’s cross-examination on Friday had been nothing short of torture, and it had left him tossing and turning for the past two nights. Once upon a time, Officer Vincent Paulo had been a criminal defense lawyer’s worst nightmare on the witness stand. He’d anticipate their every move and thwart their clever tactics. His first experience under oath and without sight had left him doubting his ability to do real police work.

“It wasn’t your fault,” said Alicia.

“Tell that to the state attorney. McCue gave me an earful after the hearing.”

“Tell him to go to hell.”

“He had a point,” said Vince. “I blew it when I called my answering machine to record McKenna’s words. Calls to nine-one-one are recorded as a matter of course and are admissible as evidence in court. If I had simply stayed on the line with the nine-one-one operator and let McKenna talk into the phone, we wouldn’t have to worry about this hearsay objection.”

He could hear her sigh. “Vince, you loved McKenna, and she was literally bleeding to death in your arms. How on earth is anyone supposed to be thinking clearly about the legal admissibility of a recording under those circumstances?”

The rain continued to fall. Vince heard a car pass on the wet pavement. The screen door squeaked as it opened; even that sounded different in the rain. Alicia knelt behind him, and her arms slipped around his shoulders, the silk sleeve of her robe caressing his chin. Things had been a little rocky between them after she’d challenged him-albeit gently-as to his whereabouts on that Saturday night. In anger he had phoned Chuck Mays so that he could tell her directly that they were hanging out by his pool until nine o’clock, nowhere near the Lincoln Road Mall. After Friday’s hearing, Alicia did a 180, seeming to appreciate how sickening it was for Vince to have to provide an alibi to his wife while Jamal Wakefield walked free.

“I’ve been thinking about that recording,” said Alicia.

She was still kneeling behind him, her arms around him and the side of her face resting between his shoulder blades.

“What about it?” asked Vince.

“Don’t you think it’s kind of… weird? McKenna’s response, I mean.”

“In what way?”

She hesitated, obviously sensitive to how painful this subject was for Vince. “You said, ‘McKenna, tell me who did this to you.’ And she said, ‘Jamal.’ ”

“What’s weird about that?”

“Nothing. But then you asked, ‘Your boyfriend?’ And the natural response to that would have been a simple ‘yes.’ But she said, ‘My first.’ ”

“So?”

“Why would she say that?”

Vince considered it. “I don’t know. She was confused, dying. Maybe it was part of her shock and disbelief that her first love killed her.”