Gingerbread Man (41 page)

Solid gold bullshit, though. Which was, after
all, why I kept writing it.

“Look, I’m going to need to talk to someone
else,” I said to the queen bee behind the tall counter. My
fingertips rested on the front edge, which was up to my chest.
Smooth wood, with that slightly tacky feel from being none too
clean. I took my fingers away, but the sticky residue remained.
Ick
.

“And just who else would you like to talk
to?” the queen bee asked.

“Are you getting sarcastic with me now?” I
leaned nearer. “How about I talk to your boss, then?”

“Ma’am, that attitude of yours is not going
to help. I told you, your case is getting the same attention any
other missing persons case would get from this office.”

“The same attention as any other missing
homeless heroin-addict case, you mean?”

“We do not discriminate here.”

“Not on the basis of intelligence,
anyway.”

When her voice came again, it came from way
closer. She was, I surmised, leaning over her tall counter. I could
smell her chewing gum. Dentyne Ice. “Never thought I’d be so
tempted to smack a blind woman upside her head,” she muttered. It
was probably supposed to be under her breath, but I had hearing
like a freakin’ bat. I heard
everything
. Every nuance. So I
knew she meant it.

“Want to try it now?” I asked. “Because I
promise you, I will—”

“Miss de Luca? Is it
really you
?”

That
woman’s voice wasn’t angry. It
was adoring, and coming from about seven o’clock. That was how I
found things. A clock inside my head where I was always the center.
You know, the pin that held the hands in place so they could spin
all around me while I stood still. It was an accurate illustration
in more ways than one.

I closed my eyes behind my sunglasses, shut
my mouth, pasted a fake smile on my face and turned. Sometimes not
being able to look in the mirror and see how far I missed the mark
from the expression I
thought
I was making was a blessing,
and I suspected this was one of those times.

“Rachel de Luca? The author, right?” The
woman was moving toward me as she spoke. I waited until she got
just two and a half steps from me before extending my hand. Any
further, you looked like an idiot. Any closer… Any closer was too
damn close. I liked three feet of space around me at all times. It
was one of a whole collection of quirks I held dearly.

“Last time I checked,” I said, pouring sugar
into the words, using my “famous author” voice. “And you are?”

“Oh, gosh, this is such a thrill!” She
gripped my hand. Cool and small. She smelled like sunblock, sweat
and sneakers. Tinny, nearly inaudible music wafted from somewhere
near her neck, and I could hear her pulse beat behind her words.
No, seriously, I could. I told you, I hear everything. My brain
snapped an immediate mental photo. She was too thin, an exercise
nut, five one or so, probably blonde. Her earbuds were dangling,
iPod still playing, heart still hammering from a recent run. She
probably didn’t even hear it. Hearing loss due to cramming
speakers
into one’s earholes and cranking the volume.
Joggers were the worst offenders. Sighted people didn’t appreciate
how valuable their hearing was.

Also, she had a beaky little nose and bad
teeth.

Don’t ask. I have no freaking idea how I get
my mental snapshots of people. I just do. I don’t know if they’re
anywhere near accurate, either. Never bothered to ask anyone or
feel any faces. (Give me a break, people, it’s just
disgusting
to go around pawing strangers like that.)

And she’d been talking while I’d been
sketching her on my brain easel. Sally something. Big fan. Read all
my books. Changed her life. The usual.

“Glad to hear my methods are working for
you,” I said. “And it’s great to meet you, but I have—”

“I’m so glad I came in to check on my missing
poodle,” she said. I think she was dog-napped. But I’m staying
positive. You know, I used to lose my temper all the time,” she
went on. “I’d fight with my husband, my teenage daughter—and don’t
even get me started on my mother-in-law. But then I started writing
your words on index cards and Scotch-taping them all over my
house.”

“That’s really—”
fucking pathetic
“—nice to hear. But like I said, I—”

“‘If you get up in the morning and stub your
toe, go back to bed and start over,’” she quoted. “I
love
that one. Such a metaphor for everything in life, really. Oh, oh,
and ‘When you’re spitting venom onto others, you’re only poisoning
yourself.’ That’s one of my favorites.”

The woman behind the counter snorted
derisively and muttered, “Oughtta be droppin’ dead any minute now,
then,” just loud enough for me to hear. If I had been the
metaphorical cobra in my metaphorical affirmation, I would have
spun around and spat a healthy dose of venom into her eye to keep
her from costing me a reader.

“Sally,” I said, struggling for patience. No,
that’s not true at all. My patience was long gone. I was struggling
to hang onto the illusion of it, though. “Like I said—”
twice
now
“—it’s nice to meet you, but I actually have something
important I need to do here.”
This is a police station after
all. I mean, do you really think I’m here for shits and giggles,
lady?

“Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry.” She put her hand on
my shoulder. Familiar. Like we were friends now.

I
almost
cringed. People think they
can touch you when you’re blind. I have no idea why. I hear
pregnant women complain about the same thing, but of course I’ve
never seen it.

“I hope everything’s all right. Not that I’m
asking, of course.”

Yes she was
.

“I’ll go.” Two steps, but then the parting
shot. I was ready for it, even guessing which one it would be.
“Remember, Rachel,” she called back, her overly happy tone making
me restrain a gag. “‘What you be is what you see’!”

She left as I tried to remember which of my
books had contained
that
particular piece of crapola. Her
sneakers squeaked as she trotted away, until the sound got lost
amid the buzz of the drones.

I turned back to the woman at the counter.
Her image in my mind was short, hefty, with melon-sized boobs and
long shiny ringlets.

“Where were we?”

“I believe you were about to threaten to kick
my ass,” she said. “Or maybe you were gettin’ ready to dole out one
of those Susie-sunshine lines you’re apparently known for.” She
paused, leaned back in her chair—I heard the movement—and slurped
coffee that smelled stale. “So are you famous or something? `cause
I
never heard of you.”

I placed my hands flat on the tacky
countertop and leaned forward. “My brother is missing. I reported
it three days ago, and I haven’t heard one word from you people
since.”

“‘You people’?”

“You
cop
people. I want action. I want
my brother found. I at least want some indication that you’re
looking for him. Can you give me that?”

“I already
gave
you that. I
told
you, we’re doing everything we can. I’ll have an
officer call you later in the day. I already
have
your
number.”

Oh, brilliant double entendre there.
Apparently I was dealing with a genius.

“Thanks a million.”

I turned and waved my cane back and forth,
half hoping I’d whack someone in the shins on my way out. But no.
Apparently the bees were parting like the Red Sea. I was not amused
that my identity had been revealed in the cop shop. My agent would
lop off my head for being a bitch in public at all, much less being
recognized while I was at it.

What the hell did I care? I’d deny it. My
legions of followers would believe me. I mean, as long as it didn’t
happen too often or in front of someone’s cell-cam and wind up on
YouTube, I was golden. And even if it did, they’d forgive me for
losing it if I let them know why.

My brother was missing, for God’s sake. A
saint
would be on her last nerve.

I tapped across the room and out the door,
feeling the space around me widen as I moved through it. I turned
left down the hall to the main entrance. Lots of doors there. I
picked the quietest one and went through it and then down the broad
stone steps to the sidewalk. I intended to cross the street to the
coffee shop, grab a Mucho-Mocha with extra caffeine, and phone my
assistant to come and pick my ass up. My mind wasn’t on what I was
doing, though. I was flashing back to the last time I’d seen
anything.

It had been Tommy’s face.

I was twelve and knew I was going blind. I
had a corneal dystrophy, a rare one. At that point I could still
see, but it was pretty bad. Blurry, dull. Worse and worse. I’d been
having a nightmare, dreamed of being completely blind, and woke up
screaming.

It was Tommy who came to my bedroom, sat on
the edge of my mattress, hugged me close, told me it was all gonna
be okay. That he’d be with me, no matter what. And he was, before
the addictions took him away. He went from coke to crack, from the
oxy-twins—contin and codone—to heroin, his standards lowering with
his resources, until he was broke and homeless and taking anything
he could find that was stronger than aspirin. Anyway, before all
that, when he was a freshly showered fourteen-year-old kid with a
future, he hugged me, conceded to my demand that he leave the light
on, and told me stories until I fell back asleep.

When I woke up, I thought he’d lied to me. I
thought he’d turned the light off after swearing he wouldn’t. But
he hadn’t. Turned out my nightmare was a premonition. I was totally
blind.

I shook off the memory about the same time I
heard squealing tires and a blasting horn, and realized about a
second too late that I’d stepped off the curb and into the street
without checking first. Sure as shit, the car hit me. I couldn’t
even believe it. One step, a loud horn, and
bam
. I flew fast
and landed hard, hipbone, then shoulder, then head, in that order.
And then I just lay perfectly still while pain blasted through
every part of me.

Damn. I’d thought this day couldn’t
get
any worse.

* * *

DETECTIVE MASON BROWN had a series of
rapid-fire impressions;
Leggy brunette. Dark sunglasses. White
cane. Blind? OhfuckI’mgonnahither!
He jerked the wheel and
slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. The thump made his
stomach heave. The car slid sideways, but only a few feet—hell, it
was city traffic, he hadn’t been moving very fast to begin with—and
came to a stop. He opened the door and lunged out before he’d even
finished processing what had happened. And then he was bending over
the felled female in the middle of the street outside the station,
hoping to hell she wasn’t seriously hurt. Hands on her shoulders.
That was autopilot. Then the brain kicked in.
Don’t move her.
Spinal cord and all that. Hell, her eyes are closed.

And then they opened and looked slightly past
his left shoulder. They were sky blue eyes, and they were
completely blank.

“I’m okay, I’m okay.” She was trying to sit
up while she talked.

“Hang on. Hold still a second, just in
case.”

She was lying on her side, propped up by one
bent elbow on the pavement. Short skirt. A brand-new run in her
stockings. Long brown hair, kind of wavy. She patted the blacktop
with her free hand. “Am I in the road? Get me the hell out of the
road.” Her questing hand found her big sunglasses and she quickly
jammed them onto her face. They were crooked, but he didn’t think
she knew. “Do you see my bag?”

Since she was apparently getting up with him
or without him, he helped onto her feet, then kept hold of one
upper arm. “It’s over by the curb. Can you walk?”

“Yeah.” To prove it, she started limping back
the way she’d come. It was closer, though how she knew which
direction to go, he couldn’t figure. A couple of his colleagues had
jumped into action by then, blocking traffic, directing it around
his still sideways unmarked car. His partner, Roosevelt Jones, was
standing by the hood, shaking his shaved head and smiling so hard
his face actually had wrinkles. He was a hundred and six—okay,
fifty-seven—and still only had wrinkles when he smiled.

“Quit your damn grinning and move the car,
Rosie.”

“Nossir. We’re gonna need photos and
whatnot.” He scooped up the handbag and cane just as Mason got her
back on the sidewalk. Rosie held her things out to her. “Here’s
your stuff, miss. You sure you’re all right?”

She turned her head toward him and, with a
precision that surprised Mason, reached out and took her handbag,
then her cane, from Rosie’s outstretched hands. “I think so.”

“Do you hurt anywhere?” Mason asked.

“All over, but—”

“Best let the medics have a look at you in
the E.R.,” Rosie said. “Just to be sure. Damn, Mason, I knew you
were desperate for a woman, but I didn’t think you’d run one down
in the street.” Then he laughed like a seal barking.

The woman’s head snapped toward Mason again.
“
You
were the one who hit me?”

“Damn straight he was,” Rosie said and turned
to Mason. “What’s wrong with you, running down celebrities in the
street?” Rosie smiled at her. “I’m Detective Roosevelt Jones. My
partner—who talked me into letting him drive due to my alleged
aging reflexes—is Mason Brown. And might I just add that it’s a
privilege to meet you, ma’am? My wife quotes you to me on a daily
basis.” He elbowed Mason. “Rachel de Luca. The author.”

He said it, Mason thought, like that ought to
mean something to him. He shrugged at Rosie, but said, “Great to
meet you.” Like he knew who the hell she was. He’d never even heard
of her. “And I’m really sorry.”