Color Blind (37 page)

J
enna reached the front of the crowd just in time to see hands release a body into the inferno that was the stage. For a moment, the person in the fire almost seemed unreal, like a ghost. Then he felt the flames and began to flail.

Another shadow stood still in front of the fire, not running or yelling or panicking in the horror. No. The stocky figure watched, entranced.

Thadius Grogan.

“Stop right there!”

The words were out before Jenna considered she had little way to enforce them. A gun would have to be good enough. Handcuffs were for amateurs, right?

Her feet surged toward Grogan, who had turned to see where the yelling had come from. In his second of hesitation, she gained on him. Now the only thing that stood between them was the giant power supply box.

Jenna took aim at Thadius through the flames. “Don’t move!”

It would be
really
helpful if she could tell him he was under arrest.

Thadius Grogan backed toward the barricade on the left side as Sebastian Waters’s screams died with him.

“You don’t have to do this, Thadius! I know why you did it. I can’t say I blame you. But you can choose how it ends. Come in with me. Quietly. It’ll go better that way.”

The lies were quick and smooth, but even as Jenna said them, she knew they were a mistake. Her brain wasn’t working right. Charley, somewhere in the fray. Yancy.

Focus.

Thadius laughed. “Nothing is going to go well for me! You don’t have a clue!”

Claudia flashed into Jenna’s mind. “Yes, I do. You have to believe me.”

“Ha! You don’t
know.
You couldn’t possibly
know
what it is to know
that
man killed your daughter!” He gestured toward the fire.

Charley.

“But he didn’t!” Jenna screamed.

Thadius stopped moving. “What did you say?”

Mistake number two.

“I . . . he didn’t do it, Thadius. Sebastian Waters didn’t kill your daughter,” she said. Too late now. Better try to salvage this as best she could.

“Of course he did. I hired the private investigator. I know
everything!
”

“No. He didn’t. Everything you know is a lie, Thadius. The PI was a fraud, a sociopath that lies with every breath. You were taken in, Thadius. I’m sorry,” Jenna added.
I’m so sorry.

Thadius gripped the sides of his head like his brains were leaking out, wrestled with his own face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You couldn’t . . . he couldn’t . . . no way it wasn’t right—”

“Sebastian Waters didn’t know Emily. They never met. But that’s not why you should believe me. He couldn’t have killed her because of who he
was
, Thadius, any more than you could kill Woody Fine at his fireworks store. It’s not in you to kill innocent people, and for Sebastian, it wasn’t possible to kill someone up close and personal. It takes guts to do that, and you know it.”

“But the gun . . .”

“All a setup, Thadius. I’m trying to tell you. This sociopath knew you’d go after Sebastian. He
wanted
you to go after him. He knew about Sebastian’s past, what you’d find when you went looking for him. He knew it’d be all too easy for you to hear about Sebastian’s history, see the evidence connecting him to various places linked to your daughter’s death, and render judgment. Because Sebastian
was
a likely suspect, and he
had
been everywhere the killer showed him to be. The only problem was, the
real
killer knew about Sebastian and where he’d been, too. Think! Everything the PI fed you was meant to lead you to this moment. Come in quietly, and we’ll try to make this less painful. I promise I will try to make it move
fast.
”

It was all Thadius really wanted, she knew. For it to be over. That was who
he
was.

Thadius glanced toward the fire. His chest began to heave. Hands pressed to his knees, he threw his head down and screamed.

Jenna inched closer. Thadius had a good hundred pounds on her, but if he turned himself in . . .

“How could they do this to me?” he yelled.

“Who? Who is ‘they,’ Thadius?”
Keep saying his name.

He looked back up at her, the anguish translating through the steam. “I have to . . . Oh, God. I can’t. I need to . . .”

Thadius took off running.

“G
o, go, go!” Hank yelled from behind Jenna, and three agents bolted after Thadius.

They didn’t have a chance. Thadius climbed in the police cruiser at the barricade and was already moving before he slammed the door. The car’s lights whirled to life and he careened through the lingering crowd still trying to gimp away from the fire.

One agent fired at the car.

“No!” Jenna screamed. Even though the shot had no chance of hitting Thadius, the reflex took over. She had to catch up with him. If Isaac Keaton orchestrated this entire thing not only to have Thadius tie up his loose end, but because Charley was there, Jenna had to find out what Thadius knew. Keaton had made it personal for
both
of them. But why?

Charley
.

The others could take over. Jenna could worry over Thadius later. She shuffled through the area around the stage and checked the couple of still bodies on the ground. No Charley.

“Charley! Charley Padgett!”

The cry didn’t sound like it came from her own throat. High. Desperate.

Please, not again.

A whistle. “Here. Over here!”

Jenna followed the whistles toward the other side of the stage, calling out from time to time. “Where?”

“Here! Beside the gray van!”

Jenna scanned the immediate area, spotted the van. She trotted toward it. Yancy.

Beside him, Charley lay, a huge spike jutting through his right arm.

“Medic!” Jenna shouted in futility. Everyone within the block was already working this way. She jammed buttons on her cell phone. “Get someone behind the stage
now!
”

Charley used his good arm to push himself to a sitting position. “Nothing a little duct tape won’t fix, Rain Man. I’m okay.”

Easy for him to say. Charley didn’t know he was the target of this whole thing yet. Or did he?

Jenna glanced to Yancy. He’d gotten to her brother. Must’ve realized it.

His hazel eyes met hers, and he nodded. A veteran of stuff like this, he’d already tied off the blood supply to the shrapnel, had Charley hold the arm over his head.

“You okay?” Jenna asked Yancy. He didn’t seem to have a scratch, but then again, she hadn’t really looked yet.

“Best I’ve come out during one of these,” he joked. “Where is he?”

Yancy meant Sebastian, of course, but the first to come to Jenna’s mind was Thadius Grogan. “Dead. Thadius Grogan killed him.”

Yancy drew his head back, disbelieving. “And where is Thadius
?
”

“He . . .” Jenna’s voice trailed. So much to catch him up on. “I don’t know. He’s . . . Sebastian didn’t kill Thadius’s daughter. I found out just before we lost Zane. I . . . I made a mistake and told him. He’s . . .”

Probably going after the private investigator who gave him the wrong information. That’d steer him right.

“Thadius never met the PI,” Jenna mumbled to herself.

“So who did?” Yancy asked.

“No idea,” she answered, distracted by the paramedic arriving to attend to Charley. Jenna and Yancy waited while the medic started an IV, loaded Charley into the ambulance.

“We’ll follow you,” she promised Charley.

The paramedics shut the doors, and Jenna’s little brother was whisked away from her. Yancy’s hand found hers, squeezed hard.

“Not too different from a long time ago?” Yancy asked.

Jenna pictured Charley’s younger face, much less conscious then than he was just now. She should’ve been an accountant.

“A little more fire,” she answered.

“Heh.” Then, “Zane?”

“I don’t know that, either. The team is on it. You coming with? I need to find a car.” For once, the wrap-up had to be somebody else’s problem.

Yancy glanced around as if he expected to see Zane in the immediate vicinity. When he didn’t, he shrugged. “You should steal an FBI SUV. That’s gone well in the past.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Hank stepped over the smoldering cords near them. “They got the hose put out. The stage is next. We couldn’t get through the crowd to follow Grogan. Too much debris between him and the next cruiser.”

“Unfortunate,” Jenna replied.

“What next?” Hank asked.

“I’m making sure Charley’s all right.”

“Then?”

Then I figure out why Isaac Keaton is gunning for my family. I track down how Isaac Keaton found Thadius Grogan in the first place. I determine how all of this shit is connected.

“I find out who the hell Isaac Keaton is.”

T
hadius knocked on the door of the suburban home. He would have answers, and he’d have them
now.
Christ alive. What had he done?

“Thadius! What the—”

Thadius pushed his way into the man, gun first. “Back up. Where is she?”

“Whoa, whoa, man! Put it away! You don’t need that here. We don’t judge. We—”

“One more time. Where. Is. She.”

The guy put his hands up like it was a bank robbery. “Who?”

“Your
wife.
”

The man’s eyes betrayed him. He glanced toward the living room.

Thadius cocked the gun that way. “Walk.”

When they entered the room, the woman shrieked. She jumped up, scrambled toward the phone, but Thadius cocked the pistol and leveled it with her husband’s head.

“I’ll put a bullet in his head. I swear I will.”

She stopped, whimpered. Then she backed up and collapsed back into her chair.

“You set me up. I know it. You gave me her name
because
she had the PI contact. I know you knew. You never
used
the PI. Couldn’t have. He wasn’t real.”

The husband trembled. “What are you talking about?”

Thadius looked at the woman, however. “She knows. I want to know
why
.”

“Thadius, I didn’t mean for any of this to—”

Now Thadius reared back and smacked the husband aside, aimed between the woman’s eyes. “I don’t want to hear it! Tell me
why
. Your recommendation is the
only
reason I sought her out. Who
is
she?”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”

“I’m
only
going to ask you one more time. Who
is
she?”

The woman stared at her feet, then looked at her husband. Her feet again. “I met her at another support group meeting I went to.
She
found
me!
She knew about Leah! Said if I helped her, she’d . . . she promised she’d give me
my
answers!”

“What is going
on?
” the husband asked, exasperated.

“So you sold me out,” Thadius replied. Everything he’d wanted, she’d done for the same reason. Only she was willing to throw him under the bus to get it.

“I didn’t mean it, Thadius! I swear, I—”

“Save it.”

Thadius stepped toward the woman and leveled the gun at her forehead.

“Please, Thadius! Please don’t do this!” her husband cried.

“No,” she whispered.

“Didn’t think of how it would be, did you? How it would be if I ever found out? Maybe you think I’m some pathetic loser who stayed still for so long after what happened to Emily that I wouldn’t react no matter what happened, huh?”

“No,” she repeated.

Emily and Narelle. Narelle and Emily
.
So long since he’d seen them. God, he’d thought he’d give anything for them back. Even so, he wouldn’t have given
them
.

“How could you do it?”

Don’t answer me.

The woman squeaked as the SIG pressed harder against her face. “What would you have done? Seriously, Thadius! You’re telling me you wouldn’t have done the exact same thing?”