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

my head. “I don’t know. But you were threatened. You did receive that photo. Someone’s going to a lot of trouble to screw with your life. I want to find out who that is and make them stop. That’s why you hired me. Can you call Timpson for me, set up an appointment for tomorrow?”
    She shrugged. “I suppose.”
    “Good. I also need a description of Moira Kenzie, anything you can remember about her, no matter how small.”
    As Diandra closed her eyes for a full minute to conjure up a complete image of Moira Kenzie, I flipped open a notepad, uncapped a pen, and waited.
    “She was wearing jeans, a black river-driver’s shirt under a red flannel shirt.” She opened her eyes. “She was very pretty with long, dirty-blond hair, a bit wispy, and she chain-smoked. She seemed authentically terrified.”
    “Height?”
    “Five five or so.”
    “Weight?”
    “I’m guessing about one ten.”
    “What kind of cigarettes did she smoke?”
    She closed her eyes again. “Long with white filters. The pack was gold. ‘Deluxe’ something or other.”
    “Benson and Hedges Deluxe Ultra Lights?”
    Her eyes snapped open. “Yes.”
    I shrugged. “My partner switches to them every time she tries to quit by cutting back. Eyes?”
    “Green.”
    “Any guesses on ethnic background?”
    She sipped her wine. “Northern European maybe, a few generations back and maybe mixed. She could have been Irish, British, even Slavic. She had very pale skin.”
    “Anything else? Where did she say she was from?”
    “Belmont,” she said with a note of mild surprise.
    “Does that seem incongruous for any reason?”
    “Well…if someone’s from Belmont, usually they go to the finer prep schools, et cetera.”
    “True.”
    “And one of the things they lose, if they ever had it, is a Boston accent. Maybe they have a light one…”
    “But not a ‘If you come to my pahty don’t fahget the beah’ type of accent.”
    “Exactly.”
    “But Moira did?”
    She nodded. “It didn’t register at the time, but now, yes, it does seem a bit odd. It wasn’t a Belmont accent, it was Revere or East Boston or…” She looked at me.
    “Or Dorchester,” I said.
    “Yes.”
    “A neighborhood accent.” I closed my notebook.
    “Yes. What will you do from here, Mr. Kenzie?”
    “I’m going to watch Jason. The threat’s to him. He’s the one who feels ‘stalked,’ it was his picture you received.”
    “Yes.”
    “I want you to limit your activities.”
    “I can’t—”
    “Keep your office hours and appointments,” I said, “but take some time off from Bryce until I have some answers.”
    She nodded.
    “Eric?” I said.
    He looked at me.
    “That gun you’re carrying, you know how to use it?”
    “I practice once a week. I’m a good shot.”
    “It’s a little different shooting at flesh, Eric.”
    “I know that.”
    “I need you to stick as close as you can to Doctor Warren for a few days. You can do that?”
    “Certainly.”
    “If anything happens, don’t waste time trying to get a head shot or put one in some attacker’s heart.”
    “What should I do, then?”
    “Empty the gun into the body, Eric. Six shots should put down anything smaller than a rhino.”
    He looked deflated, as if his time spent at the gun club had just been revealed for the futile exercise it usually was. And maybe he really was a good shot, but I doubted anyone who attacked Diandra would be wearing a bull’s-eye in the center of his forehead.
    “Eric,” I said, “would you walk me out?”
    He nodded and we left the loft, walked down a short hall to the elevator.
    “Our friendship can’t get in the way of how I do my job. You understand that, don’t you?”
    He looked at his shoes, nodded.
    “What’s your relationship with her?”
    He met my eyes and his were hard. “Why?”
    “No privacy, Eric. Remember that. I have to know what your stake is here.”
    He shrugged. “We’re friends.”
    “Sleep-over friends?”
    He shook his head and