Color Blind (31 page)

Irv cackled. “Zane? That her real name?”

“Far as I know.”

“Coming up. By the way, I found your boy in Land of Valor. Sebastian Waters was using his mom’s credit card, turns out. Since I’ve been known to play MMORPGs on occasion, I’ll refrain from the sarcastic comments.”

“Really, Irv?
You?
”

“I know. See any pigs in the sky above the Thai?”

Jenna looked up on reflex. “Pork free. So now that you’ve found his character, can we find more on Keaton?”

“Maybe. I’mma do some fancy footwork and talk to some of these jokers in this clan and see.”

“Sounds good. Keaton would’ve isolated Sebastian as much as he could from others, not wanted him to play with anyone else.”

“Kinky,” Irv said.

“Something like that.”

“Zane Krupke, 56 Thurmond Place, apartment 4. The projects. Sounds like a fun evening you have in store there.”

“Wish us luck,” Jenna said.

“Happy Tasers,” Irv replied. The phone clicked.

“Got an address. Get Richards and Saleda off Les Quaney’s home and onto notifying other people on the support group list to be on the lookout for Waters. Let’s go see Zane.”

J
enna climbed out of the SUV at Zane Krupke’s apartment complex.
Note to self: Never come on a case like this again unless they issue a handheld.

“This looks like a nice place to
become
a victim of a violent crime,” Yancy muttered.

The joke might’ve been funnier if it was farther from the truth. The derelict buildings boasted more graffiti than clean wall, and bars graced some of the apartment windows.

Jenna, Yancy, and Hank climbed a flight of rickety stairs, complete with no lighting, up to where number 4 nestled in the left corner. The landing smelled of cigarettes and urine, and a broken Bud bottle lay in place of a welcome mat.

“Here goes nothing,” Hank said. Then he knocked.

A door opened the length the security chain would allow, and a man’s eye stared back at them through the crevice.

Hank held his identification close to the crack with his left hand, his right on his holstered weapon. “Sir, we’re with the FBI. We’re here to speak to Zane Krupke.”

The door slammed.
Great.

Hank beat hard on the door with the side of his fist again. “Sir? Sir, open up.”

Crashing and banging came from behind the door, whispered voices. Always a good sign.

“None of the drills can prepare one for the
actual
hiding of the stash,” Yancy quipped.

Hank rolled his eyes. “You’d know, wouldn’t you?”

A minute later, the chain unbolted, and the door opened.

“Sorry. Had to get a shirt on,” the man said.

Now that was a euphemism Jenna had never heard. The salt-and-pepper-haired man had been wearing a shirt—and pants, for that matter—when he’d cracked the door earlier. Times like these made Jenna wish they had time to search the place, just for fun.

She stepped into the apartment behind Hank. Two guys lounged on a beige sofa to the right. One leaned back, dozing, clearly too stoned to be worried about the Feds showing up. The other perched on the edge of the couch pretending to be intent on the game show on the forty-two-inch LCD.

“You said you want Zane?” the man asked.

His right eye was fixed permanently in toward his nose, but his left stared straight at Jenna, not Hank, who’d originally spoken to him. God, she needed a shower.

“Yes,” Jenna answered. Wasn’t going to be hard to find Zane, apparently. Guy seemed about as ready to sell her out as he was to “put on his shirt.”

He jerked his head toward a small hallway to the back of the apartment. “First door on the right.”

Jenna said nothing else, but wandered that way. She felt Yancy on her heels. Hank stayed behind to cover them from the rear.

“Gee, the butler service must be nice. He announces visitors like she’s a queen,” Yancy whispered.

“You find something funny about poverty?” Hank asked.

“Cut it out, you two,” Jenna said.

Yancy had a point. The guy pointed them right to Zane’s room without so much as a warning to her. Made Jenna wonder who Zane was and why she was living with this guy.

The door to the bedroom was closed. Protocol for entering a bedroom: not in the manual.

Jenna tapped the door. “Zane? Zane Krupke?”

Shuffling sounds. The click of a lock twisting.

The door opened to reveal a pencil of a girl so pale she glowed in the light of the orb under the ceiling fan. After Jenna’s eyes adjusted to the light change, the girl’s pallid color wasn’t even her most striking feature. Half of her face appeared melted, like a candle left burning too long.

“Who’re you?” the girl asked.

No accusation. Curiosity.

“I’m Dr. Jenna Ramey. This is Yancy Vogul, and Special Agent Hank Ellis. We’re working on an FBI case, Zane.”

Zane blinked, and her eyes widened. “About the school?”

How had Jenna not figured out by now that when approaching these violent crime victims, when you said you were with the FBI, you should specify you weren’t visiting about their own case? This was the second time this week she’d made the mistake not only of not clarifying up front, but also of not researching the particulars of the case of the person she was visiting.

“Um, not exactly,” Jenna said. “May we come in?”

What a weird thing to ask about someone’s bedroom.

Zane shook her head but said, “Sure.”

The girl moved fast as they entered the room, scooping up books and clothes off her bed. Her frenzy was different from the one they’d just heard prior to entering the living room. This was more housecleaning, welcoming guests.

“Your roommates?” Jenna asked, quirking her head toward the den.

Zane shoved colored pencils at the wrong angles into a box, and the cardboard bulged. She closed a doodle-filled notebook, plopped it onto the desk.

“Oh, no. That’s my dad,” Zane whispered, her cheeks tinging pink.

Zane hadn’t mentioned the other men in the living room, but either way, the news took Jenna aback. The short, graying man in the other room looked nothing like Zane and seemed old enough to be the girl’s grandfather.

Hank and Yancy crowded into the room behind her, and Jenna took a seat on the bed where Zane had cleared a space. Courtesy was important. “That your mom?”

The picture on the desk next to a cup of pastel-colored flair pens, a Koosh ball, and a stack of loose-leaf paper was the only one in the room. The jet-black hair of the woman in the photo matched the color of Zane’s. Framed in ornate gold, the photo looked out of place with the hodgepodge of yard-sale items in the room.

“Yeah. Mom doesn’t live with us anymore.”

So Mom wasn’t dead.

“Mom left a long time ago. I don’t remember a lot about her. She wasn’t around for all this,” Zane continued, and she gestured to her face. She shrugged.

Long time ago. Healing.

“I see,” Jenna replied. This visit wasn’t even about Zane, but somehow, the girl’s smile made Jenna crave knowing more of her story. She saw light pink, the pure version of the color usually associated with babies. The color reminded Jenna of childlike innocence. Zane could be trusted.

Hank jumped in. “Zane, we’re here to ask you some questions about someone you may have had contact with recently. I don’t mean to alarm you, but this person may be involved with some pretty serious crimes.”

“What? What crimes?”

“The Gemini killings. Have you come into contact with a man named Sebastian Waters in the past few days?” Hank asked.

Zane’s cheeks flushed, and her face splotched maroon. Could she
know
about Sebastian’s connection?

“Yes. I . . . he and I met at group. He was one of the people shot.”

“That’s right, Zane, but we believe Sebastian Waters may be responsible for some of the shootings,” Hank explained.

Zane shook her head feverishly, and her color slipped from maroon to ashen. “No. That’s impossible. Sebastian is a really sweet guy. He’s not . . .”

Jenna’s hand drifted to Zane’s. Damn it. The girl had befriended him, hadn’t she?

“Zane, he’s one of the Gemini shooters. I know this is hard to hear, but we have to find him,” Jenna answered.

Zane continued to sway her head side to side, though the movement slowed. Terror washed the side of her face that wasn’t already frozen.

“But he can’t be . . .”

“Zane, do you have any idea where we can find him?” Jenna asked. She squeezed Zane’s hand. This was beyond awful.

“I . . . no. He . . . he’s coming to volunteer with us at the event tomorrow. It’s the only place I can think . . . I don’t know other than that.”

“What event?” Hank pressed.

The girl stared at the floor. Her forehead crinkled as she spoke, and the words sounded like she was talking to herself, not to them.

“He asked if I needed volunteers for the rally. He . . . he
knew
about the rally already. I didn’t notice it before, but looking back, he had to have. He asked me about it like he didn’t know, but he
knew!
He had to have!”

“Knew about
what
rally, Zane?” Jenna coaxed.

Zane blinked up at her. “It’s an anti–death penalty rally. They’re executing Fordham Beach day after tomorrow. We’re doing a rally-slash-vigil thing.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Hank asked.

But Jenna didn’t care who “we” involved or how strange some might think it was that this victim of a violent crime was attending a death vigil for a convicted rapist and murderer. The same jungle green she’d seen at Coppage’s house, the green her mind connected to brilliantly laid plots, shone in her mind. Suddenly, every little thing Isaac Keaton had said to this point, all his intimate knowledge of her family, his thorough planning, the fact that he’d orchestrated a way for Sebastian Waters to walk away from the theme park, all made sense.

Isaac hadn’t shot Sebastian to tie up a loose end. He’d shot him so Sebastian could execute another plan.

S
ebastian lugged the black-painted rubber hose into the closed block where the vigil for Fordham Beach, convicted of raping and murdering a thirty-one-year-old mother of two, would be held in only hours. It was just like Isaac had pointed out to him for so long—people were sick. These pathetic losers would light candles and pray for this man who’d done so many things wrong, and yet most didn’t even know Sebastian’s name. Stupid conscience had kept him from setting off those chemical bombs at the school years ago, from blowing so many people away with the guns he’d brought. Maybe if he had, they’d have taken notice of him
then
. None of this had to happen.

And yet he might’ve created a Zane.

The thought whipped chills into his nerve endings, prodded him to the core. Sebastian didn’t need Zane to be there tomorrow. She wasn’t part of this.

The crew putting up the stage at the north end of the block near the prison was already working in the wee hours, and to them, Sebastian looked like any other cargo-pants-clad workman, paid to get in, get done, and leave. This would be fast and painless. Just like the end.

Then the world would know and remember him. After it was over, he’d never have to wonder about his fate like Isaac. Then again, Isaac
wanted
a chance to have this vigil, people fighting for him to win. Sebastian never had.

Before Sebastian set out, he followed Isaac’s instructions with precision. Black hose, packed with filter treatment from the pool supply store, fuses every ten feet. The end capped tight, duct tape to place it. He’d been nervous, buying the stuff, but Isaac told him to go to three different stores, gave him details on what to say at each. Sebastian had wanted to use matchsticks, since he could’ve bought an unlimited supply without raising a brow, but crushing matchsticks was too volatile, Isaac said. He was right, too. Sebastian knew a guy who’d lost a hand that way.

Then the only task left was to go to the toy section of a few chain stores, buy a handful of the normally harmless toys Isaac had mentioned. The metal shavings that made the things work would be a nice fuel to combine with the other chemicals. Stuffed the hose with thumbtacks, BBs. Shrapnel as a secondary weapon might be as good as the actual bomb.