Read Parker 05 - The Darkness for Free Online Page B

bedroom, she
    went inside, stripped out of her work clothes and threw
    on a pair of shorts and a tank top. Darcy and her husband,
    Devin, were out at their summer home in Oyster Bay.
    Every weekend they begged Amanda to come with them,
    and every weekend she declined. She hated being the
    third wheel, and having to do it four and a half days of
    every week (they usually left for Long Island early on
    Friday) was enough. And while sitting at the edge of a
    beach, dipping her toes into the luscious water of the
    Long Island Sound seemed like the perfect antidote to the
    stressful Manhattan life, it didn't mean a thing without
    Henry. And he wasn't the "dip your feet in the water and
    laugh like a fool" kind of guy.
    He had two modes: work and play. When the switch
    was on Work, Henry was as driven and ambitious as
    anyone she'd known. When it was on Play, there was
    nobody else in the world but the two of them. Everything
    faded away when he held her in his arms.
    And she loved both sides of him unconditionally.
    The Darkness
    45
    Amanda called Henry's cell. It went right to voice mail.
    "Hey, babe, hope you're having a good day and Jack
    hasn't led you off a cliff or something. Give me a call
    when you get a chance."
    When she hung up, Amanda turned on her laptop and
    put Aimee Mann on high. She was a massive fan, but
    found she couldn't listen to her favorite song, "Wise Up,"
    as often as she used to. The lyrics were about finding what
    you thought you wanted most, only to realize that once
    you had it, it wasn't what you thought it would be. Every
    time she heard it, she thought about their relationship.
    She'd never been a goopy girl, the kind who read her
    horoscopes or gossiped over cosmos while wearing
    outfits that cost more than the GDP of the Congo. She
    wasn't superstitious either, but she didn't want to think
    about losing what she wanted. What she had.
    She figured if Aimee knew what she and Henry had
    been through in their few years knowing each other, she
    wouldn't take offense.
    Kicking her shoes off, Amanda lay back on the hard
    bed, wanting to think about nothing until it was time to
    get up for work the next morning. The one thing she did
    like about Darcy's place was that the girl didn't spare the
    pillows. The guest room had no less than a dozen pillows
    of various shapes and sizes covering the bed. Amanda had
    spent her first week deciding which ones were right, and
    picked the right half-dozen to fall asleep to. When she and
    Henry lived together it always drove him crazy. Mainly
    because he would wake up on one side of the full-size bed
    with one nostril covered and a feather sticking out of the
    corner of his mouth.
    Amanda groaned as she rolled off the bed, blowing a
    hair strand from her eye. Darcy and Devin had a fifty-six-46
    Jason Pinter
    inch flat screen in their bedroom, one of those cool wallmounted units that seemed to hover without wires or a
    bracket. It probably cost more than her education, so
    Amanda figured she'd make use of it.
    The remote control was some digital monstrosity that
    took Amanda ten minutes just to turn on. She was
    always amused by Darcy's taste in television, so she decided to see what her friend had recorded. The DVR
    listed thirty-two episodes of Sex in the City, ten of
    Gossip Girl, three of Desperate Housewives... and this
    morning's newscast. Amanda laughed. One of those
    things didn't quite fit.
    She pressed Resume Playback on the news program,
    and saw swarms of cops roaming around what appeared
    to be a crime scene. A reporter's voice-over spoke of
    some horrendous murder, some young man's body found
    pulverized in the East River. The reporter was using her
    "ultra serious" tone of voice reserved for crimes that were
    not just bad, but truly terrifying. Amanda felt her heart
    beat faster. Why the hell had Darcy taped this?
    "Kenneth Tsang was survived by his mother and father
    and young sister. According to the police there are no
    suspects at this time, but