The Blind (5 page)

Thursday, October 29
7:29 p.m.

B
y the time they fought traffic back to downtown L.A., darkness had set in. Evie had spent most of the drive researching the victims who'd been strapped to the first three bombs. One was a student, another an exotic dancer, and the last a waitress. While she tried to find links between the victims, Jack had spent much of the drive sneaking peeks at her laptop.

“Don't you have work to do?” Evie had asked him.

“I signed off on the German deal today, and right now, I'm focusing my energies on these bombings.”

Evie no longer bothered arguing with him. It was like arguing with a brick. Or herself, she realized with a smile.

Jack drove toward the library where her car was parked, but the police had blocked off the street. Hundreds of men, women, and children holding tiny flickering candles marched down the street in front of the L.A. Public Library where the third bombing had occurred, singing a song about hearts holding on until the end of their troubles.

She breathed in the song, let it seep through her body. That's why she was here, to end the troubles. When they reached a roadblock, Jack turned into an alley.

“You can drop me off here,” Evie said. “I'll walk the rest of the way.”

“You can't just take off in the dark in the middle of downtown Los Angeles.”

“Jack, what part of
federal agent
do you not understand?” She unlocked the door. “Anyone who looks crossways at me should be worried.”

“True.” He pulled into a loading dock, which was empty at this time of night. “I'll walk you to your car.”

She hopped out. “You really are a control freak.”

“Also true.” He spoke with an unabashed authority that grated against her spine.

“Do you ever lose an argument?” she asked with a snap.

“Only when I choose to,” he said with a flash of white teeth.

She raised her hands but fought back the urge to strangle him. Jack Elliott was cut from the same cloth as her boss, Parker Lord. He was the self-proclaimed master of his universe, which right now intersected with hers, and she was grateful. Not only had he made the art connection, he offered a sizable reward and expedited her meet and greet with Brother North.

The night was cool, and she wrapped her denim jacket tighter about her as they wove through the concrete maze of the downtown financial district, a graveyard at this time of night. No business suits or messengers on bikes. No hot dog vendors offering a quick lunch. No—

Crack
! Something hot whizzed past her right shoulder. A chunk of the squat office building behind her shivered and exploded. She ducked and lunged at Jack just as he threw himself at her, curving his body around hers.

They slammed into the pavement. Her cheek ground into dirt and rock. Slivers of concrete and wood rained down on them. Jack's chest pressed against her back, his heart booming as fast and hard as hers.

When the dust cleared, she pushed herself to her elbows, simultaneously pushing him off.

“What was that?” Jack asked.

“A bullet.” She scrambled to her feet and hauled out her Glock.

Jack bolted to her side. “What are you doing?”

“Going after the guy holding the gun.”

He grabbed her arm. “You're running after someone who shot at us?”

“Yes, Jack. That's what I do. Chase bad guys.” She pried his fingers from her arm and took off down the alley, calling over her shoulder, “Call Ricci. Tell him what happened and get me some backup.”

She sprinted down the alley and onto the street and swiveled her head. Key was finding someone moving fast. There. Big man. Brown bomber jacket.

“You're mine, buddy.”

Evie sprinted down Olympic, her cowboy boots pounding. Bomber Jacket took off at a dead run. He hopped over a concrete bench and ducked into a small side street. She followed. The pavement grew uneven; the skyscrapers gave way to gray block buildings and deserted storefronts.

Footsteps clacked behind her. Her backup? The gunman's buddy? She shot a glance over her shoulder and cursed. “I told you to call Ricci.”

Jack slipped his cell in his pocket. “Done.”

“Dammit, Jack, I don't have time to look out for you.”

“Then don't.”

She bit her bottom lip to keep from unleashing on him. Nothing could hurt this guy because he was padded with too much ego. She hopped the concrete wall and took off around the corner. A man selling
mariscos
wheeled in front of her. She leaped, diving through swirls of shrimp-flavored steam.

The shooter wove in and out of thick bolts of fur and fabric. He jammed his shoulder into a box of bolts, which spilled across the sidewalk and into the street.

“Hey!” a shopkeeper yelled.

Evie hurdled over the bolts. She could make out blue jeans and a black baseball cap. And she smelled him. Man did she smell him. Ripe sweat.

She shimmied between cardboard boxes of ribbons and bows. The shooter crouched and disappeared into a sea of mannequins with fancy party dresses. She batted at lace and ruffles and darted through wide stiff skirts with hoops.

A good foot taller than her, Jack swiveled his head left and right. “Across the street.”

A blur of brown disappeared across the street behind a row of poufy bridesmaid dresses on headless mannequins. She pushed her way through a group of teenage boys. The shooter shoved at the mannequins, which fell like a set of human dominoes. He slipped into a crack between buildings.

She clawed her way over the downed plastic bodies. The crack was a narrow alley filled with metal garbage cans. And bad news for him, a wall of chain link topped with barbed wire spanned the far end. This close she could smell not just ripe sweat, but raunchy, ripe sweat. And this sweat ball was hers.

He ran at the fence and grabbed at the barbed wire. “Aargh!”

She grabbed his foot and yanked. The shoe slid off, and she fell on her ass. Silver flashed above her. A bullet zinged past her and into a garbage can. She ducked behind another garbage can as he threw his body over the barbed wire.

On the street, sirens blared and feet shuffled. Two uniformed officers ran into the alley.

“That way,” she told the officers between huffs of breath. “Bomber jacket, blue jeans, black baseball cap.” She held up the sneaker. “One shoe.” She kicked at the trash can. He was in her hands and slipped away.

8:01 p.m.

Evie slammed the shoe on the hood of Captain Ricci's unmarked car, the sound louder than the gunshot still ringing in Jack's ears.

“That's one big shoe,” Captain Ricci said.

“He was one big guy,” Evie said. “Six-foot-one, two hundred fifty pounds.”

“You get a look at his face?”

“No. Nor did I make out hair color, skin tone, or any distinguishing characteristics.
Someone
knocked me to the ground, delaying pursuit.” She turned to Jack. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“About someone putting a bullet in your head.” Jack felt every degree of Evie's heated glare. Pulling her body to the ground had come from a place of pure instinct.

“I'm the one with the gun and shiny badge and more than a decade of training.”

“And you were the one who almost took a bullet.” Jack aimed a finger at her right temple to underscore his point. “If you were a half foot taller, you would have a bullet in your brain.”

“You…this…” She sounded like a sputtering match.

Ricci held up a hand. “You see anything, Jack?”

Unlike Evie, he'd been facing the entrance of the alley and got a good look at the shooter. “Caucasian. Wide face. No facial hair. Close set eyes. Wide nose.”

“If we pulled some guys into a lineup, think you'd be able to ID him?”

“Absolutely.”

Evie's hand fisted at her sides. “If you hadn't gotten involved, there would be no need for a lineup.”

“If I hadn't gotten involved, you may be dead.” His words were as hot and sharp as hers.

Evie searched the sky, as if looking for a bolt of lightning to strike him.

Ricci squatted and peered at the hole blown in the garbage can. “You've taken a few shots before, Evie. Any sense if this was a random shooting, mugging gone awry, a gangbanger?”

“More likely D, none of the above. That guy could have been our bomber.” Evie pushed back a tangled wave of curls. “I've been doing a good deal of poking around today. Maybe I poked too hard and riled a big bear.”

Jack agreed. “The shooter wasn't wearing gang colors, and he didn't look like he spent much time on the streets. Clean-cut and clean clothes.”

“So time for a little bear hunt.” Evie dipped her head to the chain-link fence, then to the uniformed officer. “Have crime scene techs check up there for blood and skin scrapings between the third and fifth poles. Then get a rush put on the slugs from the garbage can and the alley near the road block. I want ballistics ASAP.”

The officer nodded.

She pointed to the other uniformed officer. “Get on the other side of this fence and check for a blood trail. He's shoeless and probably cut the hell out of the bottom of his foot on those rocks.”

She left the alley but spun on her boot heel. “And Ricci, get some guys door to door. If he did hurt his foot, he might have been forced to hide nearby.”

“Anything else, Agent Jimenez?” Ricci asked.

“Probably. It'll come to me at one or two in the morning.”

“At which time you'll call me,” Ricci said with a tired smile.

“Of course.”

As she made her way over to a squad car that just drove up, Jack asked Ricci, “Is she always like that?”

“Like what?” Ricci said.

“Like a performance engine firing on all cylinders.”

Evie yanked open the door and dove in, her phone already to her ear.

“Yeah,” Ricci said. “I don't think she knows any other speed.”

Fast and furious and fiery. That was Evie. And Jack wasn't sure if he found her infuriating or fascinating.

Friday, October 30
6:58 a.m.

C
innamon? Evie pulled her head out of the five-gallon bucket. She swatted at the air, pushing away the odor of charred metal and melted plastic, and sniffed again. Definitely cinnamon.

Without turning, she waggled her fingers at the door behind her. “Morning, Hayden.”

Footsteps from polished, expensive Italian shoes sounded behind her. “Morning, Evie,” Hayden Reed said. Hayden was the SCIU's head guy, their criminal profiler, and he had a thing for cinnamon candy.

She dug into the bucket and pulled out the remains of a metal rod. She'd arrived at LAPD at the crack of dawn and planned to spend most of the morning going through debris. She was hoping to get a lead on where the bomber's materials came from. “You can report back to Parker that the shooter was a crappy shot. Tell him I didn't break a fingernail.”

“What makes you think I'm here to check up on you?” Hayden asked.

“Aren't you?” Sometimes she got tired of being the little sister. She placed the mangled rod on the tarp and dug out a melted pipe. Her teammates and Parker respected her, but there were times when they pulled the big brother cards. Like now. Someone had taken a few pops at her last night, and Parker had sent Hayden to make sure she was all right.

“That's the excuse I gave Smokey Joe,” Hayden said.

Evie's head snapped up. “Smokey's here?” She hadn't seen the old man since this summer when he'd helped the team track down a serial killer known as the Broadcaster Butcher.

“He stopped at the vending machine to get a coffee.”

Evie wiped her hands on her jeans. The right side of her teammate's hair was unusually ruffled, and he looked like he could use a coffee. “What's up?”

Before he could answer, a door slammed somewhere down the hall. “Dammit to hell! I may be blind, but my feet still work.”

Hayden closed his eyes and sank into the chair behind her computer.

A man with sprigs of gray hair, a white cane, and a cagey smile stepped into the doorway.

“Smokey!” Evie hopped up from the floor and wrapped her arms about the old man. He was definitely thinner than the last time she saw him. Shorter, too, as if his bent old body was curving into itself
.
She tightened her hug.

Smokey Joe landed a kiss on her cheek. “How's the most brilliant bomb tech in the world?”

“Sniffing out bombs and the assholes who plant them.”

He patted her cheek. “That's my girl.”

She stepped back, eyeing the bandage on his forehead. “What's up with the head wound? You didn't go after another serial killer again, did you?”

“Little accident.”

Hayden crossed his arms over his chest. “Concussion, lacerated forehead, three broken ribs, and a collapsed lung.”

“A
little
accident?” Evie asked.

Smokey Joe shuffled his feet. “Fender bender.”

“He drove his car off a cliff,” Hayden said.

“Correct me if I'm wrong, Smokey, but aren't you legally blind?”

Smokey grumbled something that sounded like,
Last time I checked.

“Chair's three steps forward, two steps to the right,” Hayden said.

Smokey Joe didn't move. “Tell G-man here I don't need no babysitter.”

Evie sat back down on the floor next to her bucket of bomb debris. “Hayden, Smokey doesn't need a babysitter.”

“And tell him I'm not stupid, that my brain still works.”

“Clearly functioning brain, Hayden.”

“And tell him to make Katy-lady back off.” Smokey was so mad Evie could see the steam coming out his ears. Strange, as the battle-hardened old soldier had a soft spot for Kate Johnson, Hayden's fiancée, who was the Broadcaster Butcher's ultimate target.

Hayden's eyes plunked closed, and he rested his head against the back of the chair. She could imagine how tired he was of being caught between two personalities as strong as Kate and Smokey Joe. Poor guy.

“Mr. Bernard.” A uniformed officer popped her head through the doorway of Evie's office. “The coffee machine's been fixed. Do you want me to get you a regular or decaf?”

“No, thanks.” Smokey spun and, leading with the cane, tapped his way out of the office. “I can git it myself.”

Evie leaned against the wall and crossed her ankles. “Sounds like you have some bombs going off in your corner of the world.”

Hayden opened his eyes and shook his head at the ceiling. “In the past five months Smokey's run off three aides, and Kate's ready to lock him up in a home for cantankerous old men. Last week she told him she would do just that if he fired another aide, which was about the time he hopped in his car and drove off the side of the mountain.”

“Are you serious? He was driving a car?”

“Down the road to the mailbox. Apparently he's done it before with great success. He listens to the sound of the tires on the gravel, cattle guard, and rough grade, but during his last attempt he had a head cold and wasn't hearing too well.”

Evie's gut tightened. She knew the Colorado mountains where Smokey Joe lived, and he was lucky to be alive. “What's Kate going to do?”

“Not sure yet. Smokey can't find an aide he likes, and he refuses to move in with us. Right now she's trying to track down his closest living relative, some cousin in Florida, because it looks like for his own safety, he may need to go into an assisted living facility.”

Evie winced. “Tell Kate I have a bomb suit if she needs it. Size x-small.”

Hayden gave her a wry smile. “To give both warring parties a break, I invited Smokey Joe to join me for a few days. He left his mountain only when I told him about the bomber and you getting shot at last night. He agreed that we needed to check on you, make sure you're okay.”

“You really are one of the most brilliant human beings I know.”

Hayden gave his cuffs a tug and motioned to the bits and pieces that had once been a bomb. “So what are your bombs telling you?”

She picked up a half-inch-wide piece of rebar twisted into a question mark. “Clearly constructed by the same individual. He's unsettled but not completely snapped. Things are too meticulous and well-planned. He's not an amateur or experimenter. High level of skill and complexity.” She handed the rebar to Hayden, like one of those talking sticks her nephews used in Cub Scouts. “What do you see?”

Hayden weighed the chunk of metal on his palm, then swiveled the chair so he faced her growing office art collection, which now included photocopies of the
Beauty Through the Ages
exhibit, diagrams of the bombs, and a giant map of downtown Los Angeles, the bomb sites and last-known whereabouts of the abducted victims marked with red and yellow dots. “All three bombings occurred within a ten-mile radius, and all featured victims from the same area,” Hayden said. “The bomber works close to home. He doesn't have the confidence, sophistication, or means to go too far. I'm aging him down. He's between twenty and thirty-five years old.”

Then he turned his chair to the copies of the
Beauty Through the Ages
portraits. Still holding the twisted rebar, he walked to the far corner of her office, never taking his gaze from the beautiful images. He moved to another corner and then to the doorway. As a profiler, Hayden looked at the evidence, crime scenes, and victims from hundreds of different angles. “This guy's also not making a statement,” he finally said.

“Come on, Hayden. You know these guys. Bombers are always making a statement, even if it's, ‘I'm bored' or ‘I have mother issues.'”

Hayden shook his head. “He's not a typical bomber. These bombings are not about the message but the medium. We're not looking for a bomber making a statement but an artist making art.”

9:37 a.m.

The server at the swank coffee cart on the bottom floor of the Elliott Tower handed Evie the small box and two dollars and forty-one cents in change. “Would you like a cup of coffee to go with that?” he asked.

“It's not for me but a little gift for a, uh, friend,” Evie said.

“In that case”—the server took the pen from his pocket and drew a bow with twisting ribbons on the top—“here's a little gift wrap.”

She plopped a two-dollar tip in the jar and hurried to the elevator with the frosted
EE
s.

“Excuse me, ma'am, but you'll need to check in.” The security guard, the same skinny young man she'd met two days ago, waved her over.

She showed him her visitor's badge. “I'm here to speak with Mr. Elliott.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

She didn't blink. “Yes.”

The guard scanned a clipboard. “I'm sorry, but I don't see your name on the list.” She snatched the pen from his desk and wrote her name on the paper. The security guard seemed stunned at first, and then he smiled. He tipped his chin at the box under her arm. “What's in the box?”

“Cake.” Technically it was a peace offering, similar to the check Jack had handed to Brother North, something to keep the lines of communication open. She'd been livid with Jack last night after he'd tried to
protect
her, but her reality was this guy was integral to this case, and she needed him on her side, especially right now. After learning from Hayden that the bomber was an artist, Evie went straight to the Abby Foundation to talk to Brandon Brice, the artist in residence who visited the collection weekly, but Adam Wainwright, the foundation director, wouldn't let her through the door. She flipped open the box, and the guard nodded.

She headed for the elevator.

“Agent Jimenez,” the guard called out. “You'll find Mr. Elliott in the north stairwell. He'll probably be there awhile.”

Evie heaved open the heavy utility door to the stairs, wondering what kind of businessman hung out in a stairwell. Footsteps pounded above her along with a deep, rich voice echoing through the vertical corridor. “I want a list of every employee with every company that was involved with the transport of any of the
Beauty Through the Ages
paintings.” She craned her neck. Two flights above her Jack powered up the stairs in black jogging shorts, T-shirt, and a pair of white running shoes. “Send a copy to me along with Agent Jimenez and Captain Ricci.”

At least Elliott was being consistent. The guy never stopped working. And for better or worse, he was working on her case. She slung her bag over her denim jacket and pounded up the stairs.

When she caught up to Jack on the fourth floor, he was still talking. “Clear my schedule for the rest of the week. Tell Brady to call Matsumoto's bluff and walk. When Mats comes back begging for the six-point-five-percent interest rate, have Brady tell him it's now six point seven-five. As for the Seattle project, send it to the city's zoning commission. That should put everything on hold for a while.”

She waggled her fingers at him and matched her pace to his. He frowned but didn't slow. Even without the suit, he looked like a million bucks, with interest. A monogrammed towel hung around his neck, and not a single bead of sweat marred his brow.

“Do you always do business in stairwells?” Evie asked when he finished the call.

“It's an efficient use of my time.” And Jack liked efficiency.

So did she. “I need to talk with your artist in residence, but your pit bull at the gate is baring his teeth. Your Abby Foundation director wouldn't let me in the door.”

“Adam's very protective of the program and the artists. I'll give him a call. You can expect his full cooperation.”

Jack talked. People jumped. She stood there shaking her head. Incredible.

“Is there anything else, Agent Jimenez?”

She was about to take off when she remembered the box. “Here.”

“What is it?” Jack asked.

“German chocolate cake.” She whipped open the lid, and a wonderful puff of chocolate, toasted nuts, and coconut filled the stairwell.

He frowned. “You brought me a cake?”

“To celebrate the biggest deal of your career, the one with Germany.”

His fingers dug into the ends of the towel at his neck. His frown deepened.

“It's a cake, Jack, a freakin' cake.”

His eyebrows narrowed and lips scrunched, like her second-oldest nephew when he was trying to work long-division problems. “A clock is ticking, a serial bomber is on the loose, and you brought me cake?”

“That's the ideal time to eat cake. We need beauty when there's so much ugly, right?”

For the longest time Jack stared at her with his long-division face. At last he took the box. “Thank you, Evie.” His voice tapered off, as if searching for words but not sure where to find them. He cleared his throat. “This is thoughtful.”

“No, Jack, this is
necessary
. According to my nephews, no celebration is complete without cake.” And something told her Jack Elliott was the type of man who needed more cake.

10:34 a.m.

“Let's make this quick.” Adam Wainwright, the executive director of the Abby Foundation, slipped from behind his desk and headed for the stairs. He smelled like one of those cucumber and melon candles her sister-in-law liked to burn after her four boys went to bed. He wore an argyle cardigan, slim hipster jeans, and the scowl of a junkyard dog.

As they walked up the stairs, Evie noticed a smudge of red on the fleshy side of Wainwright's right hand. Her teammate Hayden was sure they were looking for an artist. “Do you paint, Mr. Wainwright?”

“Excuse me?”

She pointed to his hand. “Are you a painter?”

He twisted his wrist and studied the red mark, his mouth arcing in a grimace. “This is from a few hours of accounting work this morning, which is clearly not my strong suit.”