The Darkness Gathers Read Online Free Page B

responded, rising and walking around his large desk. “People are made to disappear. Or families lack the resources or the inclination to find the missing. But that is not the case here. Is it, Mr. Parker?”
    “No, sir,” the private detective answered, feeling dwarfed by the other man’s sheer size. His hands looked like bear claws, large, menacing, effortlessly deadly.
    “So, then, what is it, Mr. Parker? May I call you Steve? What is it, then, Steve? When a girl of Tatiana’s considerable beauty—I mean truly stunning, remarkable beauty—walks the street, people notice. It is hard for me to understand how you, with your considerable investigative skills, could not have found one of those people.”
    “Sir, my associates and I have scoured Miami. Ridden the same Greyhound bus she supposedly took to New York. I have spent days in Port Authority talking to Greyhound employees, the homeless, and commuters. No one has ever seen her or heard of the bus driver who supposedly spotted her. I have been to places in that city that you don’t even want to know exist. And no one, not one person, showed even a glimmer of recognition. Tatiana is gone, Mr. Quinn. You are only going to find her when she wants to be found. I’m sorry.”
    “You’re sorry,” Nathan Quinn repeated tonelessly. He turned his back on Stephen Parker and returned to the high-backed leather chair behind his large desk. He picked up a picture of Tatiana that he kept on his desk in a Waterford crystal frame. The sight of her face filled him with rage. If the lush office with its redwood desk, leather chairs, plush sofas, and recessed lighting hadn’t been so dimly lighted, Stephen Parker might not have mistaken the look on Nathan Quinn’s face for profound grief.
    “Yes, sir, I’m sorry.”
    The door behind Parker opened and two men, even larger than Nathan Quinn, men who apparently had some steroids with their orange juice in the morning, entered quietly and closed the door behind them. Both of them were bald and wore black suits and collarless white shirts. They stood on either side of the door like a set of threatening bookends. Parker wondered how they had been summoned, then realized with dismay that he had checked his weapon in the secured atrium through which he had had to pass to enter Quinn’s office. Fuck , he thought.
    “Would you like a drink, Steve?”
    “Um, no thanks, Mr. Quinn. I should be going. I just want you to know that I’m not going to charge you for my work. I didn’t help you. So, if you’ll just cover my expenses, we’ll call it even.”
    Parker tried to quell the rising tide of panic he felt inside. After all, there was no reason to fear Nathan Quinn—he was just a man looking for his daughter. Parker had done his best but hadn’t been able to help him. It wasn’t as though Quinn was some thug, some mobster who was going to do him in just because he’d stumbled on some delicate information. Nathan Quinn was a respected businessman. He told himself all of these things, but it didn’t stop his heart from beating like timpani or alleviate the dryness in his mouth. Logic told him one thing, but his instincts were saying quite another.
    “No, Steve,” he said quietly. “That wouldn’t be right. I’m sure you did everything you could. If you stop and see my secretary at the office tomorrow, she’ll have a check for you in the amount we initially discussed. Minus the bonus, of course, which I promised only if she was returned to me safe and sound.”
    “Of course,” Parker said with alacrity. He felt a wash of relief that Nathan Quinn had acknowledged that there would be a tomorrow after all. But he wasn’t going to feel 100 percent better until the meeting was over and he was still in one piece. “As for the other information that surfaced during my investigation,” Parker added, just to be sure they understood each other, “well, that will be our little secret.”
    There was a moment where Nathan Quinn