The Blind (24 page)

“You controlling, manipulating son of a…”

“And loving, Evie.” He jumped up and grabbed her shoulders. “Don't you dare forget that, because that's where this all comes from.”

Steam and smoke swirled through her head. Two men she trusted, two men she loved—Jack and Parker—betrayed her. Big, important men playing with her little, pathetic life.

She swept her arms up and out, breaking Jack's grip. Her right hand landed on something smooth and glossy. A vase, most likely old and worth twice her annual salary. Her fingers curled around the glass. It would be so easy to throw the vase across the room, to create chaos and destruction with the beauty Jack collected.

Her hand shook. Sweat slicked her palm. Blood throbbed in her fingertips.

But that would make her no better than the sick man calling himself Carter Vandemere. He was a bomber. A serial killer with holes in his cup. A destroyer of beauty.

She set the vase on the table and left Jack Elliott's cold, beautiful kingdom.

Friday, November 6
8:01 a.m.

S
hut. It. Up!”

Sabrina held the infant to her naked breast, but Angela turned her head and screamed louder. “I…I'm trying,” Sabrina said on a choked cry.

“Try. Harder.” The man's hand fisted at his side. His hand was skinny, all bone and angry knuckles.

“She's…she's hurting. Her ear, it's hurting.”

The man who'd imprisoned her in a storage room in one of the big, tall buildings downtown—for hours, days, she didn't know—shook, his bones rattling as if he were coming undone. Exploding. Like the bomb. She could see it on the table behind him. She knew who this was and what he was going to do.

“She needs her medicine,” Sabrina said. “It's in my bag. Please get my bag. I'll do anything you want. Just help me help my baby.”

His hand twitched as did his arm and leg. Like something was sparking inside him, something he couldn't control.

Angela cried out, and Sabrina rocked. “The bottle of pink liquid. In my bag. Please. It'll make her feel better. She'll be quiet.”

The man reached for her diaper bag, the one with happy, hopping rabbits, his bony fingers tossing out Angela's diapers and pacifiers and little socks. At last he pulled out the bottle of antibiotic.
Oh, no!
Was this kind supposed to be refrigerated? She couldn't remember. But it didn't matter. It was something. She was doing something for her baby. She held out her hand, and the skeleton man settled it on her palm. “I need the syringe.”

His body twitching, he dug again and pulled out a small plastic tube. Angela screamed, the sound making the man shake harder. Sabrina calmed herself, calmed her hands, and stuck the syringe into the medicine bottle, pulling out the exact amount as indicated on the label. She could do this. She could make her baby well.

She held the syringe to Angela's mouth and squeezed. Her baby girl grimaced and spit.

“Shut. It. Up.”

Sabrina swiped her finger along Angela's chin, shoving in the medicine. “Take it, sweetie, please, please take it.”

Angela spit and screamed louder.

Calm. Be calm. She'd been reading parenting magazines and online baby websites. She was trying to be a good mom. Trying. She set Angela on her legs and squirted in another drop of medicine. Angela opened her mouth to scream, but Sabrina blew on her face. Her baby swallowed. Another squirt. Another blow. Yes! It was working.

He started to shut the door, and she stuck out her foot. She had to get it together. For her baby. “She needs a diaper.” Her baby had been in the same diaper—for hours, days, she didn't know—and it was soiled and dripping wet.

He dipped back into the bag with happy, hopping rabbits.

“And a blanket,” she said, her voice growing louder. “Angela is cold, and she needs a blanket.”

8:37 a.m.

Evie made it down twenty-two flights of stairs before she succumbed to the inevitable. She couldn't outrun the tears.

Her cowboy boots skidding to a stop, she pressed her back against the stairwell wall and slid to the ground. Jack had bluffed. He'd lied about her having vision problems, and Parker had believed him, at least long enough to hop on his private jet and demand an in-person audience.

Tears—the kind her oldest nephew called big, fat, sissy tears—slid down her cheeks. She could no more stop the tears than stop the air rushing through her lungs. Two men she respected, and loved, had betrayed her.

She rested her head against the wall and tried to get her mind wrapped around Jack's words.
You have spent your entire life trying to prove yourself.

That was true. She'd spent her childhood keeping up with, and at times, barreling ahead of, her three older brothers. Same thing in the army and in her training at Quantico. And even on Parker's team, she refused to be the little sister happy to tag along behind the boys.

As for Albuquerque? She jammed her hands into her hair, digging her fingers into her scalp and trying to push back the memories but failing.

Right out of college, she'd applied to the Albuquerque Police Academy, on fire and ready to save the world, like dozens of men and women in her family. Unfortunately, she'd been unable to save the baby. One baby. One second. One moment that changed her life.

During her final round of firearms testing at the academy, she'd been placed in a number of simulations where she had to decide when, where, and how to use her service revolver. During the first four simulations, she nailed it, scoring an academy class–high of ninety-nine percent. One more simulation, one more test, and she'd be golden.

Her recruit class had been warned about this particular simulation, the one called Save the Baby, where a bad guy abducts a baby and police are charged with tracking him down and rescuing the child. The problem was the bad guy was using the baby, a bald doll with flat eyes, as a shield.

Recruits had to use their senses, their training, their gut, and patience. Most times, the recruits didn't fire for fear of shooting the child, and the bad guy got away. On the rare occasion, a sharpshooter recruit managed to pick off the bad guy and save the baby. And in the history of the Albuquerque PD, nine recruits fired and shot the baby. Every single one of their names was written on that baby's arm, including hers.

Evangelina Jimenez. A last name with a storied history with Albuquerque PD. The one black mark.

For almost a decade that doll's face haunted her. She dreamed about those flat eyes and for years saw them in the faces of people she served while on Parker's team.

Her heart slowed. She pictured Sabrina Delgado and little Angela. She pictured the child in the Houston bombing. They had real eyes, eyes full of life and light. Jack was wrong. This had nothing to do with Albuquerque. Just like the bomb disrupt in Houston, this was about saving a real child. She pictured her nephews, Freddy's nieces, and children that someday she would like to have, because—oh, Lord, her mother was going to fall to her knees in praise and thanksgiving—she wanted more than ticking bombs. She wanted children, and if she could ever stand to be in the same room again with him, she wanted Jack's children.

Jack. The man who'd betrayed her to Parker Lord. Her boss. Her mentor. Her savior. But he was also the man who didn't trust her to do the right thing. And dammit, it was time to do the right thing. She took out her phone and texted two words to Parker Lord.
I quit.

Friday, November 6
10:14 a.m.

H
ere you go, Evie.” Freddy handed Evie a stack of business cards. “Do you think twenty will be enough?”

“One will be enough.” Evie tucked a single card into her back pocket.

“I've been thinking about a tag line. You know how I got that catchy phrase, Freddy Ortiz, photographer of the starz? I'm thinking you need one, too. How do you like Bomb-busters or Bomb Babe?” The right side of his mouth inched up.

“Freddy.”

“Yeah, Lady Feeb?”

She reached over and landed a kiss on his cheek. “Thanks.”

“I knew you had the hots for me.” Freddy waggled his eyebrows.

Evie couldn't laugh. She didn't have it in her. Not today. “Are you ready?”

Freddy's face sobered. “Let me get my phone charger.”

Today was the first Friday of November, and sometime today Carter Vandemere would call Freddy Ortiz's tip line and leave the time and location of the switch, which really wasn't going to be a switch, but first Evie needed to get the ruse back on track.

Freddy squeezed himself into Evie's Beetle, and they drove to LAPD, where she found Captain Ricci and a handful of task force members in the case conference room. Evie handed Ricci the business card.

“What's this?” Ricci asked.

“If you're as smart and creative as I think you are, it'll be my ticket back to a live performance featuring the artwork of Carter Vandemere.”

Ricci set the card on the table and laced his fingers. “Parker give you the green light?”

Evie forced down the lump in her throat. “Parker is no longer in the picture. I quit the team. I'm an indie bomb consultant, and I'm offering you my services. We can work out payment later.”

Ricci closed his eyes and rested his chin on his steepled fingers.

Long ago, about the time she was sixteen, Evie had accepted and made peace with a higher being.
Please, God, please.

Ricci nodded. “Let's get ready for an art show.”

10:44 a.m.

Claire slammed an inch-thick report of the Matsumoto deal on Jack's desk.

“What?” Jack asked.

She slammed another folder. This one Seattle. “I didn't say anything.”

“But you're thinking it.”

Claire balled her hands on her hips. “Exactly what am I thinking?”

Jack shifted his gaze to Brady, who sat across from his desk, a line dissecting his forehead. Both of his colleagues had been glowering and stomping around his office all morning. “The same thing Brady is.”

And it all had to do with Evie. Jack pushed back the reports and hopped up from his desk. This morning with a single phone call, he'd convinced Parker Lord to put the wasn't-going-to-happen switch on hold. Jack straightened his cuffs. It had been for Evie's own good.

Claire took her hands from her hips and reached across his desk. She picked up a pen and scribbled on the top of the Matsumoto report.
I quit.
She spun and headed out of his office.

“Wait!” Jack said. “What the hell is this?”

“My resignation.”

“For trying to save the life of the woman I love?” There. He'd put all his cards on the table.

“No.” Claire's normally placid face lit with fire. “For stripping a strong, competent woman of the confidence and power that is rightly hers.” Claire jammed back the sleeves of her suit and aimed a pointed finger at him. “You may be a brilliant businessman, Jack Elliott, but you're a real dumbass when it comes to women.”

Claire stormed out of his office, the door slamming and rattling the Murano glass on a nearby shelf.

He turned to Brady, who tucked the report under his arm and headed for the door. “Don't look at me. I'm afraid of both of them.”

Jack opened the report on the Seattle deal, but he couldn't see the words. He thumbed through the notes on the project with Matsumoto, but it may as well have been written in Japanese. He bolted up from his desk, his chair rolling and crashing into the credenza. He stood in front of the wall of glass. Below him thousands of people walked and talked and went about their business.

Business wasn't on his mind. Evie was. She crowded every inch of his head and heart. Claire had accused him of taking Evie's power. A laugh caught in his throat. Impossible. The only person able to put out the fire in Evie was Evie.

The sharp tap of footsteps sounded behind him. Red cowboy boots? He spun, trying not to frown. Shiny black loafers. “Good morning, Agent MacGregor,” Jack said.

“My apologies for interrupting, but your executive assistant wasn't at her desk,” Agent MacGregor said. “Do you have a moment?”

Jack had all day because he wasn't getting a damn thing done thanks to his thoughts about Evie. “Of course.”

“I have news about Abby.”

Jack braced his hands on his desk. “You got DNA results from the sun tattoo?”

“No.” Agent MacGregor held up a manila envelope and motioned to the small table and a pair of leather bucket chairs near the window. A place to share a cocktail and chat about the Los Angeles Lakers. A place to do business. “I have some photos I need you to take a look at.”

A place for answers. Knowns, Evie would call them. Jack took the seat across from Agent MacGregor. Fifteen years ago, Abby had slipped out of his hands. His fingernails dug into the flesh of his palms.

“I've been following up on some cold homicide cases, Jack, and came across this one.” Agent MacGregor pulled out a thin stack of papers. Five, maybe six pages.

Jack's jaw spasmed. He had deal memos longer than that.

“The victim was a teenage girl discovered fifteen years ago in a park in Orange County.”

Jack stared at those pages. Squiggles on paper. Letters. Words. A story. He motioned for Agent MacGregor to continue.

“Police worked the case for months. No trace evidence. No witnesses. No leads.” Agent MacGregor reached into the envelope again.

“But you have photos.”

“From the coroner's office. We need you to verify if the deceased young woman found in the Orange County park is your sister.”

Jack closed his eyes. He pictured the bits and pieces of flesh left behind from Vandemere's bombs. Had the sick, broken artist tortured Abby? Had she felt pain and terror and the deadly chill of darkness with no hope? His gut tightened. Evie was right. Unknowns were a bitch. He opened his eyes and nodded.

Agent MacGregor placed a single photo on the table, one of a beautiful girl in a flowing white dress lying on the grass, face lifted to the sun, golden hair spread out like a halo. “The homicide detective working the case called her Angel Girl,” MacGregor said.

Jack traced the flawless curve of her cheek, the smooth slope of her arm, the tips of her toes painted with pink nail polish. No, not just a girl. Not a nameless angel. A warm rush of blood rocked his fingertips.

“It's Abby.” Despite the tightness in his throat, the words flowed with ease. Maybe because he'd started this journey seeking only her remains. He slid his finger to the center of her chest where her heart had once beaten with deeply felt sorrows and joys. “How?”

“Asphyxiation.” The single word, drummed from cold, hard facts, was softly delivered. “Bruising on the neck indicates manual means. Lack of trauma to other body parts and no defense wounds lead us to believe she went quickly.”

A matter of seconds? Minutes? Jack pressed his lips together. “The missing skin?”

“From her right shoulder, taken post-mortem.” Agent MacGregor nudged the envelope toward him. “There are additional photos if you need to see them and a detailed report from both the coroner and the investigating officer.” He rested both forearms on the table and leaned toward Jack. “From what I've been able to learn, Douglas Woltz fell in love with your sister, but she didn't return the feelings. Abby was too much in love with the world back then. My guess is she rejected Woltz. She told him no more little gifts, no more paintings, no more stalking. Woltz snapped, choking her in a fit of rage that probably surprised them both. He regretted his actions and placed her body where it would be found and tended to, because he wasn't a killer, not back then. Before he let her go, he took a piece of her, the sun she loved so much.”

Jack stared at his hands, just inches away from the envelope that contained the proof positive he'd been searching for of his sister's death. Page after page of reports. Dozens of photos. But did he want to see it all? Did he
need
to?

“I also found this.” Agent MacGregor reached into his briefcase and took out another envelope, this one fatter. “It's Abby's artwork from her time at The Colony. I tracked down one of her roommates who'd kept them all these years. Her friend said she couldn't get rid of the drawings and paintings because they were too beautiful.” He placed the fat envelope on the table.

Jack stared from one envelope to the other. One of death. One of life. Business was all about choices. Choosing the right people, the right numbers, and the right timing. For the first time in fifteen years, he had Abby within reach, just inches from his fingertips.

With rock-steady hands, he picked up the fat envelope and opened the flap. The contents spilled out, like the sun on a cloudless summer day in L.A.

12:37 p.m.

The Los Angeles Toy District, a couple of squarish blocks between Little Tokyo and the Fashion District, had hundreds of dolls. Pocket-size dolls bundled by the gross. Dolls that took a bottle and peed. Dolls that burped. Dolls that could say
mama
and
bye-bye
.

Evie picked up a doll that could reportedly give hugs. She flicked the switch on the back, and two hard, plastic arms jerked, the metal grinding. Not a good choice. The doll looked more robot than human, and right now, Evie needed a lifelike doll because Carter Vandemere was an artist, a visual guy. She needed a baby with blond curls and soft, fleshy skin, a baby that looked real.

Making her way through a crowd queued up before a vendor selling sizzling hot dogs wrapped in bacon, she crossed the street to another toy wholesaler with stacks of bulk hula hoops and cases of yo-yos. She poked through a table display of leggy dolls with big boobs and tiny waists and a box of baby dolls with plastic hair.

A small Asian woman waved a doll with red pigtails. “Baby for five bucks.”

“Not quite what I need,” Evie said.

“What you need?” The woman curled her finger at Evie, inviting her closer. “Tell me, and I find you something special.”

Evie pictured the doll in Murillo's
Mother and Child
portrait. “I need a beautiful baby with soft skin and hair the color of the sun.”

The Asian woman's face wrinkled, like an apple left too long in the sun. “Don't have that down here. Mostly cheap overseas crap.” She tapped her chin. “But I help.”

Her tiny feet, outfitted in purple satin slippers with gold thread, slipped through the busy sidewalks of the Toy District, Evie at her heels. Even though it was noon on a Friday, bodies thronged the sidewalks. Evie ran to keep pace with the small woman as they threaded their way through the crowd.

“Shu-Shu help,” the woman said as she ducked through a forest of scooters and plastic suitcases into a toy shop.

A small Hispanic man with no teeth grinned and took her to a bin at the back where stacks of baby dolls with clumps of polyester hair and painted pink cheeks were stacked. He dug into a cabinet under the display and pulled out a doll made of soft, flesh-toned fabric. It wore a pair of footed pajamas like her baby nephews wore and had soft, sun-colored wisps of hair and an angelic face.

Like little Angela Delgado's.

Maybe, just maybe, if the light was right and Carter Vandemere wasn't looking too closely, this would work.

“Or maybe this one,” the man next to her said. “The eyes are more lifelike.”

Evie took the doll, which was much lighter but made of hard plastic. The eyes had long lashes, the kind that fluttered up and down depending on the position. She brought the doll upright.

Her blood froze. The doll eyes, glass blue marbles, had been crossed out with a thick black marker.

She spun, searching for the man who'd handed her the doll. Not the one called Shu-Shu, the other one who'd been at her side.

Him. Carter Vandemere. Douglas Woltz.

Evie grabbed the shopkeeper. “The man standing next to me looking at dolls, where did he go?”

Shu-Shu pointed to the front door.

Evie pushed through bins of plastic balls in every color of the rainbow. She shoved aside a woman looking at pails of colored chalk and buckets of beads. She burst onto the street. Shoppers with giant black bags crowded the sidewalk. “Thin man, buzz cut,” she said to the people in front of the toy shop. “Have you seen him?”

They shook their heads.

She grabbed the vendor selling iced fruit. “Man running out of the shop. Which way did he go?”

“Don't know.”

Evie stood in the middle of the street, turning in a slow circle. Carter Vandemere, the Angel Bomber, had been at her side. He'd handed her a baby with hair the color of the sun and eyes marked for death. Now he was gone. She brought the baby, the one with the crossed-out eyes, to her chest and hugged it.