Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane Read Free Book Online

Kevin—was there anything odd about his voice?”
    “Odd? How?”
    I shook my head. “Think.”
    “It was a deep voice, husky, I guess.”
    “That’s it?”
    She took a sip of wine, then nodded. “Yes.”
    “Then it wasn’t Kevin.”
    “How do you—?”
    “Kevin’s voice is ruined, Doctor Warren. Has been since he was a kid. It sounds like it’s perpetually cracking, like the voice of a teenager going through puberty.”
    “That wasn’t the voice I heard on the phone.”
    “No.”
    Eric rubbed his face. “So, if Kevin didn’t make the call, who did?”
    “And why?” Diandra said.
    I looked at both of them and held out my hands. “Frankly, I have no idea. Either of you have any enemies?”
    Diandra shook her head.
    Eric said, “How do you define enemies?”
    “Enemies,” I said. “As in people who call up to threaten you at four A.M. , or send you pictures of your child without a note of explanation or generally wish you dead. Enemies.”
    He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head.
    “You’re sure?”
    He grimaced. “I have professional competitors, I guess, and detractors, people who disagree with me—”
    “In what sense?”
    He smiled, somewhat ruefully. “Patrick, you took my courses. You know that I don’t agree with a lot of the experts in the field and that people disagree with my disagreements. But I doubt such people wish me physical harm. Besides, wouldn’t my enemies come after me, not Diandra and her son?”
    Diandra flinched, lowered her eyes, and sipped her wine.
    I shrugged. “Possibly. You never know, though.” I looked at Diandra. “You said that in the past you’ve feared patients. Any of them recently released from wards or prisons who might hold a grudge?”
    “I’d have been notified.” She met my eyes and hers were vibrant with confusion and fear, a deep, encompassing fear.
    “Any current patients who might have the motive and resourcefulness to do this?”
    She spent a good minute thinking about it, but eventually shook her head. “No.”
    “I’ll need to speak to your ex-husband.”
    “Stan? Why? I don’t see the point.”
    “I need to rule out any possible connection to him. I’m sorry if it upsets you, but I’d be a fool if I didn’t.”
    “I’m not obtuse, Mr. Kenzie, but I promise you Stan has no connection to my life and hasn’t for almost two decades.”
    “I have to know everything I can about the people in your life, Doctor Warren, particularly anyone with whom you have a relationship that is not picture perfect.”
    “Patrick,” Eric said, “come on. What about privacy?”
    I sighed. “Fuck privacy.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “You heard me, Eric,” I said. “Fuck privacy. Doctor Warren’s, and yours too, I’m afraid. You brought me into this, Eric, and you know how I work.”
    He blinked.
    “I don’t like the way this case feels.” I looked out at the darkness of Diandra’s loft, at the icy sheen on her windows. “I don’t like it and I’m trying to catch up on some details so I can do my job and keep Doctor Warren and her son out of danger. To accomplish that, I need to know everything about your lives. Both of you. And if you refuse me that access”—I looked at Diandra—“I’ll walk away.”
    Diandra watched me calmly.
    Eric said, “You’d leave a woman in distress? Just like that?”
    I kept my eyes on Diandra. “Just like that.”
    Diandra said, “Are you always this blunt?”
    For a quarter second, an image flashed through my brain of a woman cascading down onto hard cement, her body filled with holes, my face and clothes splattered with her blood. Jenna Angeline—dead before she hit the ground on a soft summer morning as I stood an inch away.
    I said, “I had someone die on me once because I was a step too slow. I won’t have that happen again.”
    A small tremble rippled the skin at the base of her throat. She reached up and rubbed it. “So you definitely think I’m in serious danger.”
    I shook