Color Blind (38 page)

“No,” Thadius said. “I wouldn’t have.”

I
saac dreaded the next part, but he couldn’t put it off much longer. Even though he couldn’t see the news and didn’t have any way of knowing, the clock told him that by now, everything was complete chaos in one way or another.

He stared at the ceiling from the infirmary cot, imagining the dirty cement was a giant television screen, playing out the events of his own masterpiece before his eyes. Too bad he had no popcorn, because he had a damned good imagination.

On the big screen in his mind, he pictured it different ways: Grogan pummeling Sebastian’s head into a brick building. The cops nabbing Sebastian as he attempted to set off the makeshift bomb. Sebastian cleverly tricking Grogan into standing too close while he lit the fuse.

And despite his initial contempt for the sniveling little wretch that was Sebastian, he chuckled as he realized that, deep down, he was rooting for him. No matter which way it went down, of course, it was all gravy. But for whatever Isaac had initially meant Sebastian to be, the kid had shown scrap. He’d grown.

“Give ’em a little sunlight, water ’em, cultivate ’em. If it’s a daisy seed, it’ll still end up being a daisy, but if the seed is a rose with thorns, the rose and the thorns will show up,” he muttered.

Maybe that was it. Maybe there was something about the underdog in this scenario. After all, when Sebastian had first shown up on Isaac’s radar, he’d been of no use to him other than someone to conveniently take a fall. He hadn’t wanted Sebastian in his life at all, for anything.

Now the cement ceiling became the backdrop for another image as though it were being projected there in widescreen. The photograph of Emily Grogan that Jenna Ramey had tried to tease him with, get a reaction.

Oh, Dr. Ramey. How can you understand so much and so little at the same time?

For all her profiling and gut feelings and textbook knowledge, the shrink had seemed sure she would recognize the signs of a murderer looking at his victim. She’d been watching him for dilated pupils, sweating. Maybe even a pant or two. That would be what she was used to seeing in a guilty party.

But I’m not like your other monsters, Doc. That’s why everything is working out exactly as I’d hoped.

After all, Jenna Ramey hadn’t considered that if a person strangled someone he wanted but could never have with her own intestine without his pulse ever creeping past sixty, that person might have a wee bit more control over himself than some of the other miserable vermin she’d studied.

Isaac closed his eyes, inhaled. He could still smell the soft lotion Emily wore, the salty hint of perspiration that wafted off the back of her neck into his nostrils the day the campus bus had screeched to a sudden halt, throwing the standing Emily backward into him.

He’d hopped the bus in the afternoon rush, a time the drivers were just so grateful to squeeze all of their charges on that they didn’t bother to swipe passes. What had started as his own laziness to get to where he’d parked his car without having to traipse across the college campus from downtown had turned into a pretty girl in his lap. She’d thanked him for catching her, and he’d accepted her thanks by “allowing” her to take him to lunch.

Early on, it had worked just like any other target he saw and desired. He flattered her, paid her more attention than anyone should ever be paid. In essence, became the exact person she needed him to be to be her perfect companion. But then, his lies about which classes he had when and why he didn’t seem to attend any of the university events started to add up, and unlike so many, she didn’t turn a blind eye. She started asking questions, and his persona unraveled. It would’ve been fine if it hadn’t been for him following her so much. Because when she finally figured out he wasn’t even a university student, suddenly their chance meetings on campus no longer made sense. What were run-ins with a familiar person had become scary encounters with someone whose presence didn’t belong. She’d tried to exit the situation gracefully, but Isaac never
had
been very good at being told he couldn’t have what he wanted, when he wanted it.

That’s why he’d gone to Pembry Pawn that day. He’d browsed the store, trying to win over his anger by telling himself he still had her. It wasn’t too late to put her blinders back on. He just needed a distraction. Emily was a sucker for vintage clothing and jewelry, and this place reeked of heirs who couldn’t wait to hock Grandma’s pearls the day after she died.

Then the little movie nerd had walked in, gone to the counter, and talked to the man about a gun he needed as a prop for some student film he was helping with. Kid also asked about fireworks. The shop owner sold him the gun, gave him directions to another store, and the nerdy kid had left.

Isaac had put down the strand of beads he’d been looking at and headed for the door. He’d watched the pimply-faced kid with the backpack climb into an old, light blue car and crank it.

At the time, he hadn’t known why he memorized that light blue car’s license plates, only that something in his psyche told him it was the thing to do. Another brilliant little stroke of his own brain’s genius, he now knew.

That gun had stayed in his mind, as had the fireworks, for the next twenty-four hours. He’d molded them like clay he was trying to shape over and over again until finally he’d begun to wonder their worth. They’d given him such spectacular ideas. He’d become obsessed with not just them, but with the nerd driving the light blue car.

Some searching the Internet had led him to not only Sebastian Waters’s name, but his past. A past filled with dark things, scary ones. A past that would look very, very bad if ever it came to light, say, close to a murder.

But that had never happened. Why, he wasn’t sure. Sebastian had been lucky, he supposed, though the dipshit would never know it. But a stroke of luck like that wouldn’t mean anything to Sebastian when he found out he’d had a moment of bad luck like the one when Isaac had run across a familiar handle in Land of Valor, one he’d run across during his little jaunt into Sebastian’s past. Sebastian’s name online had also been associated with the Undertaker Gaming guild of elite gamers, and he remembered thinking at the time how intrigued he was by the fact that Sebastian’s favorite pastime was the very one where he himself hung out much of the time. He’d thought then how maybe it was fate that Sebastian hadn’t been caught, how maybe he should’ve looked more into all they had in common . . .

Now he glanced at the clock. No time to get lost reveling in times gone by. Those events had been important, but there was still so much left. He pushed to his rear end so he sat on the edge of the cot, legs hanging over the side.

Showtime.

Isaac Keaton charged the infirmary wall head first. His temple exploded with pain, the room twirled. Lovely.

Again.

He screamed the high-pitched squeal of a five-year-old and launched himself again, this time arms stretched forward as though he were pushing someone invisible.

“Noooooo!”

His right hand jammed into the cement hard, and his vision blurred. This would get ugly
really
fast.

“Not my stuff! You won’t take it!”

All just words. No clue what he was saying. Didn’t matter.

Ruckus outside. “Get someone down here! He’s going batshit in there!”

“You won’t, you won’t!” Isaac shrieked. Wow. Until now, he had no clue his voice could sound like this.

Isaac rushed the wall again and kicked it. Over and over, he slammed his feet into the wall as though it were assaulting him. One toe went down for sure. Maybe more. Losing feeling and in the zone. A good thing.

Guards hollered outside the infirmary, none with a damned clue what to do. They stood yelling, watching, calling people. None brave enough to stop him. Imagine that. Stupid pigs.

He bitch-slapped the wall.

This time, his hand had to be broken. Flames shot through it, and it swelled almost immediately. He backhanded the wall again, and blood spattered from his knuckles.

“Get away, get away, get away!”

“He’s gonna kill himself in there! We have to move!”

The door locks clicked as they unlatched. Isaac didn’t look, didn’t flinch. He beat the wall harder, damaging the hand more and more. Hell, it was already gone. Might as well do the thing right.

Then every muscle in Isaac’s body flexed at once. Daggers of ice shot through him, and his control went rigid. Pulsed. The walls fell away.

When his muscles came back, he was on the floor. Officers on either side grabbed his arms, pinned him.

Struggle.

“You can’t have it! I won’t do it, assholes! You can’t have
her
!”

He forced his arms to flail as much as he could, but his body stung. Stupid sons of bitches had
Tasered
him!

“Over here!” one guard said.

The infirmary nurse hovered above him, and a band squeezed his arm. A prick, then a needle stung his arm, chilled him. Sedatives.

His vision swam, and his muscles relaxed against his will. This could be bad.

Isaac fought the drug as much as he could. He’d always known it was coming. This was the dangerous part.

“Omelet’s in the kitchen. Ready for Bunny. Okay?” he said, his rehearsed script.

It was the good thing about following a template that worked, though. He’d been able to prepare for what was coming, and as long as he stayed the course, he could trust the result. If he hadn’t practiced so many times, this would’ve been trouble. His words slurred more than he’d expected, and fogginess overtook him.

“What happened?” the nurse asked.

Isaac tried to speak, but it was like someone had stuffed a sock in his mouth. He licked his lips, then took a swipe at the nurse with his limp fist.

She pressed it down gently, a mother cat correcting a weak kitten. “That hand needs to be x-rayed. Ambulance. If we need special detail for a transport, get it.”

“On it,” the guard replied.

Before his eyes closed, Isaac saw them moving into action for what had to be done.

Mission accomplished.

J
enna sat in the hospital lobby while the doctors attended to Charley. He would be fine, she’d heard. The ER team would anesthetize him while they removed the shrapnel from his arm, but as soon as he had some stitches, a tetanus shot, and heaping doses of antibiotics and pain medication, he’d recover nicely. Too bad they couldn’t say the same about everyone at the rally.

“Five people died in the explosion, about a dozen others injured from shrapnel and the fire. Five is better than five hundred, I guess,” Hank had said on the phone.

She’d inquired about Zane, who’d been found standing in a parking lot about three blocks away from the garage. She called the BAU team when she hung up with Sebastian and realized he wasn’t coming. Turns out Sebastian had a conscience, just as Jenna had suspected all along. Guy probably thought he was doing Zane a favor.

Jenna made a mental note to contact Zane, refer her to someone good. She was too close to help her.

Yancy wandered back into the lobby with a Dr Pepper for Jenna, a Coke for himself. “Any word?”

She nodded. “He’s out of surgery and in recovery. We’ll be able to see him in a bit.”

Yancy plopped down beside her and propped his real foot on the chair across from him. “This mean you’re out of the thing now?”

“If only.”

So far, no sign of Thadius Grogan, but Jenna hoped that would change soon. Thadius was part of this case, and this case involved her family. Not exactly something she could ignore.

“I need to know why me,” Jenna said.

“Yeah. I get that. Isaac asked for you from the start, right?”

“Yep.”

“And that wasn’t weird?”

Jenna sipped the soft drink and thought. The easy answer was no, but if you hadn’t lived her life up to now, it might be a hard concept to understand.