The Blind (2 page)

Wednesday, October 28
7:24 p.m.

D
ing.

Ding.

Two voice mails had come in while Evie had been flying from Maine to Los Angeles. She brought up the call log. One from her teammate Hatch Hatcher, the other from—

“Shit,” she said under her breath.

“Everything okay?” Brady asked as he guided the car out of LAX.

“Yes.” Although her answer might be different after she listened to the second voice mail, the one from the president of the United States, but she wasn't going to do that until she talked to Parker. She checked her texts. Still no word from her boss, but that wasn't surprising as he'd been in San Francisco all day working a case.

Evie had spent most of her day on Jack Elliott's private jet. Plush leather recliner seats. Fully stocked minibar. Hi-def movie theater with a state-of-the-art sound system. She'd been most interested in the jet's in-flight Internet service, which she used to run a background check on Jack Elliott. Evie was impressed with what she found. Elliott was the proud owner of a Harvard MBA, ran a legit equity investment business in So Cal, and had money coming out his ass. No record. No ties to extremist groups. Not a hair out of place. So why the hell did he allegedly know so much about the bomb investigation of the decade?

As Brady exited the freeway and aimed the car at L.A.'s downtown financial district, the bomber's fallout was everywhere. Three billboards so far:
Angel Bomber Hotline 1-555-NO-BOMBS
. Handbills with a similar message were taped to light poles and plastered on bus stop benches. On a marquee outside a church off Olympic Boulevard was the message:
Pray for our fallen angels
.

Brady pulled the car into the Elliott Tower parking garage, and the parking attendant slid open the glass window of his booth.

“Evening, Mr. Malloy,” the attendant said. “I'll need your—”

Evie reached across the car and flashed her badge. The parking attendant took down the number.

Inside the Elliott Tower, a thirty-six-story high-rise, she jerked to a stop before a display window in a fussy boutique on the bottom floor. A mannequin in a slinky gold gown rubbed noses with a fake Chihuahua wearing a gold-and-diamond collar. Another mannequin in a red sweater-y thing cradled a fake poodle dressed in an elf outfit.

“Really?” Evie asked.

Brady Malloy grinned. “Welcome to L.A.”

“More like welcome to another planet.” Despite the late hour and heavy cloud cover, the city wasn't completely dark. A warm, soft light hung over downtown L.A. like a golden halo.

They made their way through the marbled entryway to a guard station where Brady signed her in. Once again a security guard took her badge number, adding in the margin “red boots.” He also snapped a photo for a visitor's pass.

“Would you like a pint of blood with that?” Evie asked the guard, who took a plastic card rolling out from a printer and attached a clip to the top.

“We're very serious about security,” the guard explained as he handed her the ID badge, her mug shot emblazoned on one side along with a bar code.

“Even more so since the bombings started,” Brady added. “All businesses downtown have stepped up security, and police have increased patrols.” Because the bomber would most likely strike in a matter of days.

Near the elevator, Brady motioned to a ladies' room door. “Do you need to use the restroom or anything?”

“I'm good.”

Frosted doors of an elevator etched with the giant letters EE slid open. A face with one eye where an ear should be stared at her. The face had no nose. She read the brass plaque on the bottom of the painting.
Picasso
. She knew little about art, but even she recognized that name. What kind of man put Picassos in his elevator? She flipped over her visitor's pass. The same kind of guy who put flowery reprints of Vincent van Gogh on ID badges.

Brady escorted her to the thirty-sixth floor, where she strolled through a lobby lined with artwork from Bellini and Vermeer, and she'd bet the college funds she'd started for each of her seven nephews that these were the real deals.

“Your boss likes fancy paintings?” Evie asked.

“My boss likes,” Brady quirked his mouth, “collecting.”

She pictured the artwork on her refrigerator door back in her rarely used condo in Albuquerque, all originals by her nephews, but unlike the art in her home—finger-painted landscapes and portraits made with crayons—these paintings did nothing to warm the offices. The top floor of the Elliott Tower was cool, almost cold.

A woman in a beige suit, beige lipstick, and beige hair greeted her with a short nod. “Good evening, Agent Jimenez. Mr. Elliott is wrapping up an overseas call. Can I get you a cup of coffee, tea, or mineral water?”

“I'm good.”

“Or perhaps some heated towels to, uh, freshen up?”

“I'm good.”

“Are you sure?” Her nose wrinkled.

“Yes.” Evie wasn't one to check in with mirrors throughout the day, but her newly minted ID card showed a serious case of helmet head, sweat stains on her tank, and alley grit on her denim jacket.

“Please have a seat. Mr. Elliott will be with you shortly.”

Evie had been sitting way too much today. With the door to Elliott's office closed, she paced the length of the room. She checked her phone again. Another message from the president's office and a media alert on the Angel Bomber investigation. Ignoring the president, she clicked on the link to a breaking news report from a Los Angeles television station.

“In the latest move to track down the Angel Bomber terrorizing downtown Los Angeles,” a news reporter was saying, “authorities announced today that a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward is being offered to anyone providing information leading to the capture of the bomber. According to Captain Vince Ricci of the LAPD, the bomber will most likely strike within the next week and may again target heavily populated areas.”

Evie stopped in front of the secretary's chrome-and-glass desk. “Can you please tell Mr. Elliott I'm here?”

“As soon as he wraps up his call,” the woman said. “He's finishing a very important business deal with associates in Germany.”

The nameplate on the woman's desk read
Claire Turner, Executive Assistant
. Her title should have read,
Guard Dog
. “More important than stopping a serial killer?” Evie asked.

Claire's polite smile didn't crack. “Mr. Elliott will be with you as soon as he finishes the German deal.”

Or not. Evie headed to the door beyond Claire's desk.

“You can't go in there!”

Says who?
Evie side-stepped a beige arm and threw open the door. Elliott's inner sanctum was the size of the ice rink where her oldest nephew played hockey. Centered in front of a wall of glass overlooking the dark skies and bright lights of the downtown L.A. skyline sat a shiny glass desk the size of a small country. Behind it was a man who reminded her of a European prince. Dark-haired and angular, he wore a snow-white dress shirt with a dark, pin-striped vest, monogrammed cuff links, and an air of privilege. She'd personally drop to her knees and kiss his royal ring if he could help her nail a killer. And if he was the bomber, she'd do her damnedest to make sure he got himself fancy new duds, the kind with black and white stripes.

“Good evening, sir.” She squared up in front of him, her back and resolve ramrod stiff. “I'm Special Agent Evie Jimenez. I'm here about the Angel Bombings.”

Keeping his gaze on a computer screen, he showed her his palm.

She clasped her hands behind her back and shifted from one boot to the other. She made it fifty-seven seconds before she cleared her throat. “Mr. Elliott, I'm sorry to interrupt your business, but if you have information on a killer, I need to know as soon as possible. There's just three more days until the first of November, which means he could right now be scouting out or abducting his next victim.”

Without looking up from his computer screen, Elliott extended a single index finger and jabbed it at her and then the door.

Claire's lips thinned. “If you'll come this way, please.”

“No, I don't
please
. Mr. Elliott and I have business to discuss.” She dropped her bag on the floor, hiked her jeans, and climbed across Elliott's desk. Raising her index finger, she pushed, End Call.

Claire gasped. Brady, who'd followed them into the office, groaned.

Evie shimmied back across the desk, her boots thudding to the marble floor. “Now we can talk.”

Jack Elliott's gaze finally snapped to her. She'd expected slate gray or obsidian or even sharp green. Instead he had faded blue eyes, the color of worn denim.

“Who are you?” His words, on the other hand, came out hard and sharp.

Amazing. He'd been so intently focused on his phone call that he hadn't heard a word she'd said. He would make a great bomb tech. She took out her business card. “Special Agent Evangelina Jimenez. I'm here about the Angel Bombings.”

He took the card, his fingers curving around the paper as he brought a fist to his chest for a heartbeat before slipping it into a pocket on the inside of his vest. “Thank you for coming, Agent Jimenez.” His voice was strangely calm.

If she were him, she would have yelled, that is, after body-slamming anyone who crawled across her desk. Disconnecting his phone call had been bold and borderline rude, but it had snagged his attention. Score one for Team Stop-the-Serial-Killer.

He slipped off his Bluetooth and shut down his computer. “Claire, get Germany back on the line and ask Heinrich to send our contracts division the new addendum. Then forward all docs to legal and accounting. Brady, call Roy at the Lakers office and get a pair of courtside tickets for a game this weekend and send them to Heinrich's liaison in New York.”

“The waterfront deal went through?” Brady asked with a catch in his voice.

“We're scheduled to close tomorrow.” The cool denim of Elliott's eyes warmed. “Heinrich sweetened the deal with a hundred-thousand-dollar donation to the Abby Foundation.”

Brady whistled. “Congrats, boss, on the biggest deal of your career.” Brady saluted the man behind the desk.

Elliott clicked a button on his phone. “Darryl, please bring my car around.” He pushed a button under his desk, and a wooden panel in the wall slid open and revealed another shiny glass-and-chrome elevator. “My apologies for the delay, Agent Jimenez. This way, please.”

She kept her boots firmly rooted on the front side of the desk. This was a man who gave orders and expected full compliance. Too bad. “Exactly where do you want to take me?”

“To an art exhibit. It's just a few blocks from here in the warehouse district.” Facing the mirrored elevator door, he adjusted his shiny platinum tie tack so the oval was vertical, then pushed the elevator's Down button. The silvery doors parted with a muted
ding
.

“What does an art exhibit have to do with the Angel Bomber?”

“Everything.” He delivered the single word as if it were an undisputable fact. “It will make sense when you see the exhibit.”

She had infinite patience with bombs but not with people. “It will make sense if you tell me exactly what you know about these bombings.”

Jack Elliott blinked, as if genuinely surprised she wasn't jumping to attention. He slipped a hand in his pocket, a soft jangle sounding. “The bomber's first three bombings have been re-creations of the first three paintings in the exhibit.”

Evie's fingers twitched. Investigators had nothing on the bomber. If Elliott was onto something…She wiped her palms along the thighs of her jeans.

Approach with caution
.

“I've been studying this case for months and never heard any mention of paintings or art exhibits.”

“The connection wasn't obvious in the first two bombings because the post-explosion damage had been so extensive, but the tabloid photographer's shots in the third bombing clearly show a connection.”

A money-grubbing tabloid photographer had been on-scene at the third bombing and snapped photos of the terrified victim before, during, and after the IED detonated. Then the slug held a bidding war and sold the gruesome images to a gossipy online news rag in the U.K. Evie didn't admire his motive, but she knew the value of those images.

Clear debris
.

“Those photos were released three weeks ago, hours after the explosion,” she said. “Are you telling me you just now made the connection?”

“I was single-mindedly focused on the German deal.”

She could believe that. She'd had to disconnect his phone to get his attention. Jack Elliott was a guy buried in and married to his work. No ring on his left hand. No family pics on his credenza. No office supplies made from recycled juice cans on his desk.

Set charge
.

“And no one else has seen these disturbing similarities?”

“It's a private collection.” The jangling stopped, and she pictured that hidden hand tightening into a rock-hard fist. Something flashed in his eyes, but it was so fast and fleeting that she couldn't make it out. “And I'm the owner.”

Detonate
.

“Show me the artwork.”

Wednesday, October 28
8:22 p.m.

H
er Glock still at her side, Evie slipped out of Jack Elliott's sleek black Audi and followed him down a buckled sidewalk to a narrow, red-bricked, three-story building in the heart of L.A.'s old warehouse district. A sign on the oversized green door with shiny brass handles read,
Abby Foundation
.

The old warehouse had been converted into a hip gallery with a few stylized benches, edgy paintings, and funky sculptures. Madison Avenue Jack looked sorely out of place.

His face a polite mask, Elliott opened a door leading to a staircase. “This way, please.”

“After you,
please
.” She and her Glock were so much more comfortable bringing up the rear. Again she wondered if he could be the bomber.

She frowned. At heart, serial bombers, like long-range assassins, were cowards, and there was nothing cowardly about Jack Elliott. When he spoke, people jumped. Nor did he have poor impulse control. To the contrary, Elliott was a man in charge and in control.

When they reached the third floor, her nose twitched. A tinny, oily odor hung on the air along with something base and loamy. Chemicals. Her fingers tightened around her Glock.

Elliott flicked a switch, and soft light poured from half globes hanging from poles extending from exposed rafters of the high ceiling. The loft had been divided into work areas, the nearest one filled not with wiring, timers, or propane cylinders, but blocks of marble.

“Artist's studios?” Evie asked.

“The Abby Foundation hosts artists-in-residence programs.” At the far end of the hall, he swiped his ID badge along a magnetic strip reader and punched a series of numbers and letters into a keypad.

She held her breath as he opened the door. Was the key to stopping the most wanted bomber in America within her reach? He switched on a light. She made a small
o
with her lips, the air rushing from her lungs. She knew squat about art, but she knew the paintings on the walls before her were very fine and very old, and were most likely very, very expensive. More than that, they tugged at her, calling her closer. “They're beautiful.”

The corners of Elliott's lips shifted. If she were generous, she'd call it a smile. “I call it
Beauty Through the Ages
. It's a collection dating from the fourteenth century to today.”

She drew up in front of a portrait of a smiling dark-haired woman with generous curves bathing in a lake set aglow with silvery moonlight. “You think these are tied to the Angel Bombings?”

He pointed to the third painting. “In the Titian, the woman is stretched out on a white blanket beneath a tree, similar to the third victim, who'd been lying on a white robe at the park outside the library.”

A wave of gooseflesh inched across her arms. The similarities were chilling.

“Now look at these images from the second bombing.” With his phone, he showed her a photo of a dark-haired woman, a gold-and-pearl choker embedded in the mangled column of flesh that had once been her throat, the choker similar to the second painting. “And here's a photo from the first bombing.” The next photo showed a twisted piece of metal, which in its pre-explosion state would be a dead ringer for the cross the woman in the fourteenth-century painting held. “What do you think?” For the first time since she'd met him, Elliott did not ooze calm and confidence.

The blood racing through her limbs heated. “How long have you had the collection?”

“I purchased the first piece a year ago. Three months ago I secured the final portrait.”

“Did you personally buy every piece?”

“Yes. I paid fair market value and then some for these specific pieces.”

Jack Elliott was starched shirts and pin-striped suits. He did his wheeling and dealing from a throne of icy glass in a corporate castle that sliced the sky like a blade. His life seemed cold and calculated. Except for his paintings. “Why these pieces?”

“They're beautiful.”

She tore her gaze from the art. “They're beautiful?”

The lines around his mouth softened. “Since the beginning of time, there's been a good deal of ugliness in this world: war, famine, natural disasters, hatred. But through it all, pockets of beauty survived. The collection celebrates the enduring power of beauty.”

This guy was all about power. A jolt of electricity rocked her chest. And he was right. “You'll need to step out of the gallery, Mr. Elliott. I'm officially declaring this a crime scene.” Because some sick SOB was using these portraits to create powerful messages.

Elliott let out a long breath but in no way appeared deflated. If anything, the intense look, the one he'd been wearing when he was on the phone with Germany, was back. “I'll call Captain Ricci and have him meet us at the downtown station.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?” Affront stiffened Jack Elliott's already starched suit.

“Chasing after serial bombers is best left to those who do not have Harvard MBAs. I will contact Ricci and brief the task force.”

Elliott jabbed a hand at the wall of beauties. “I'm clearly involved. You need me.”

“Agreed, and I'm sure we're destined to have some nice, heart-to-heart chats.” Right now Elliott was key, but he was also an unknown.

“We need to get moving on this.” Urgency edged his words.

“That's the plan.” Elliott opened his mouth, but she held up a hand. This guy may be king of his universe, but not hers. “Mr. Elliott, exactly why did you send Brady and your jet across the country to pick me up?”

“You're the best.” Another cold, hard fact neither of them could dispute.

“Exactly, Mr. Elliott. Now please let me do what I do best.” She flexed her fingers, placed her fingertips on the broad plain of his chest, and nudged. The element of surprise—because she got the feeling no one shoved Jack Elliott around—must have worked for he backpedaled out of the gallery.

Then she reached for her phone. She had to contact Vince Ricci at LAPD, dig up background information on Elliott and these portraits, and get details on who had access to this collection, but first she needed to take care of a not-so-minor detail.

She punched in Parker Lord's number to tell him she had just defied presidential orders and inserted herself into the Angel Bomber investigation.

9:42 p.m.

Jack stood on the balcony of his penthouse just down the street from the Elliott Tower and held a glass of bourbon up to the moon, hidden tonight by streaks of clouds. The liquid was too dark. He waited until the clouds shifted, leaving the moon to set the night aglow. The whiskey warmed and brightened. There,
that
was the color of her eyes. He turned the glass, the ice clinking. The color was right, but the ice was all wrong. There was nothing cold about Special Agent Evie Jimenez.

This morning when he'd seen the tabloid photographer's gruesome images and made the connection to his
Beauty Through the Ages
collection, he'd immediately called an associate who worked for the FBI and asked for the best bomb investigator on the planet.

He took a sip and set the glass on the ledge, the ice bobbing and sending fractured bits of caramel light across the balcony. He dipped a hand into his pocket and took out his phone.

“Jack,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “Good to hear from you. How did things go this evening?”

Jack checked a laugh. Like Parker Lord didn't know. “Your Agent Jimenez is quite impressive.”

In his office, she'd stood before him, her flushed cheeks as red as the cowboy boots on her feet. A pile of wild, dark brown curls hung askew from her head, and fire shot from her eyes. For a moment Jack wished he were a painter of great art instead of a mere collector, but even with the skill of one of the masters, he would not be able to capture on canvas the fire inside Agent Jimenez.

Jack had seen the all-consuming passion, felt it rolling across his office. “I showed her the paintings and the crime scene photos your man got for me. She agreed that there's a connection. I'm surprised she hasn't called you.”

“Oh, she has.” Parker did not check a laugh. “Four messages within the past hour, each louder than its predecessor.”

“And you haven't returned her calls?”

“I'm waiting on word from the president.”

“Not sure if that's healthy for the state of California. If she blows, she'll go hard.”

“That's my Evie.” Parker's fatherly tone was not lost on Jack, but it surprised him.

Except for her size, there was nothing diminutive or childlike about Agent Jimenez. With those red boots, tight jeans, and wild hair, she could pass for a teenaged street walker, but she had plenty of impressive miles on those boots. The background check he'd run on her showed a woman with an exceptional and decorated service in the U.S. military and a storied career with Parker's FBI team. Nothing about her past gave him pause until the bombing two months ago in Houston. She'd been the lead officer overseeing the disposal of a bomb at a Houston medical clinic when the bomb exploded, injuring a toddler, Agent Jimenez, and another officer. “The fallout from Houston didn't in any way compromise her ability to do her job, physically or psychologically?”

“Absolutely not,” Parker said. “She took a hit from some shattered glass, but she's been released by medical. Like I told you, Jack, she's the best. She lives for her work and, despite what the president says, doesn't make mistakes. If it were me or anyone I cared about strapped to one of those bombs, I'd want Evie working the scene.”

Which is why he personally brought Evie on board. Jack always worked with the best. He took another long sip of bourbon, the ice clinking at the barely there tremble in his hand. On this one he needed the best.

After he finished the call with Parker, he dialed up the investigator he'd hired this morning, a former Navy SEAL who'd been running a private investigation firm in Los Angeles for more than thirty years.

“Any news?” Jack asked.

“We found a possible match at the third bomb scene, but nothing definitive at this point.”

“Keep me posted.” But Jack wasn't about to sit back and let others do the work, even good ones like Agent Jimenez and his PI. He took his computer from the patio table, set it on his lap, and called up the photos of the third crime scene. With the moon shining overhead, Jack began to search for the sun.