Hello, Darkness Read Free Page B

of time. No one would be there at this hour.
    After seeing Brad off tonight, she had cleaned up the dinner dishes and given the children their baths. Once they were in bed, she had tried to go into Brad’s den, but discovered that the door to it was locked. To her shame, she’d torn through the house like a woman crazed, looking for a hairpin, a nail file, something with which she could pick the lock.
    She had resorted to a screwdriver, probably damaging the lock irreparably, but not caring. To her chagrin, there had been nothing in the room to validate her frenzy or her suspicion. A newspaper ad for the seminar was lying on his desk. He’d made a notation about the seminar on his personal calendar. Obviously he had been planning to attend.
    But he was also very good at creating plausible smoke screens.
    She had sat down at the desk and stared into his blank computer screen. She even fingered the power button on the tower, tempted to turn it on and engage in some exploration that only thieves, spies, and suspicious wives would engage in.
    She hadn’t touched this computer since he had bought one exclusively for her. When she saw the labeled boxes he’d carried in and placed on the kitchen table, she had exclaimed, “You bought another computer?”
    “It’s time you had your own. Merry Christmas!”
    “This is June.”
    “So I’m early. Or late.” He shrugged in his disarming way.
    “Now that you have your own, when you want to exchange email with your folks, or do some Internet shopping, or whatever, you won’t have to work around me.”
    “I use your computer during the day when you’re at the clinic.”
    “That’s my point. Now you can go online anytime.”
    And so can you.
    Apparently he had read her thought because he’d said, “It’s not what you’re thinking, Toni.” Here he had propped his hands on his hips, looking defensive. “I was browsing in the computer store this morning. I see this bright pink number that’s small, compact, and can do just about everything, and I think, ‘Feminine and efficient. Just like my darling wife.’ So I bought it for you on impulse. I thought you’d be pleased. Obviously I was wrong.”
    “I am pleased,” she said, instantly contrite. “It was a very thoughtful gesture, Brad. Thank you.” She looked askance at the boxes. “Did you say pink? ”
    Then they’d laughed. He’d enfolded her in a bear hug. He’d smelled like sunshine, soap, and wholesomeness. His body had felt comfortable, familiar, and good against hers. Her fears had been assuaged.
    But only temporarily. Recently they had resurfaced.
    She hadn’t booted up his computer tonight. She’d been too afraid of what she might find. If a password had been required for access, her suspicions would have been confirmed, and she hadn’t wanted that. God, no, she hadn’t.
    So she had done her best to restore the busted doorknob, then had gone to bed and eventually to sleep, in the hope that Brad would awaken her soon, brimming with knowledge about financial stratagems for families in their income bracket. It had been a desperate hope.
    “I’ve certainly enjoyed your company tonight,” the sexy voice on the radio was saying. “This is your host for classic love songs, Paris Gibson.”
    No seminar lasted until two o’clock in the morning. No therapy-group meeting lasted until the wee hours either. That had been Brad’s excuse last week when he had stayed out most of the night.
    His explanation had been that one of the men in his group was having a difficult time coping. “After the meeting, he asked me to go get a beer with him, said he needed an understanding shoulder to cry on. This dude has a real problem, Toni. Whew! You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff he told me. I’m talking sick. Anyhow, I knew you would understand. You know what it’s like.”
    She knew all too well. The lying. The denials. The time unaccounted for. Locked doors. She knew what it was like, all right. It was like