Blindsight [Now You See Me] (Romantic Suspense) Page 4

  A computer tone voice said, “Three-fifteen.”

  He glanced at Olivia, who was facing them with her arms crossed in front of her. Ah, so pressing that button wasn’t an accident. She was making a point. She wanted them out. Whether it was because she didn’t want them to find anything or because she wanted them out looking for Phaedra, he didn’t know. What he did know was the minutes were ticking away, every one leading to a less hopeful conclusion.

  A wall separated the living room from the bedrooms, creating a long hallway. The first door led to the master bedroom. It was as neat as the rest of the house, done in rich colors that invited a man to come in and get comfortable. She had a king-sized bed that sat up high and was covered in pillows. The muted floral bedspread touched the floor on one side and showed the mattress on the other side. Another door off the hallway led to a second bedroom with a treadmill and exercise bike in the corner and a flowered futon tucked beneath the window. At the end of the hallway was another small bathroom. No sign of a child having been there or anyone else for that matter.

  “Three-seventeen.”

  She had followed him down the hallway.

  “Live here alone?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He abruptly turned around to face her. “How’d you know the bookstore employee’s name?”

  She was taken off guard either by his movement or the question. “What?”

  “You called the employee who helped you by his name. He never told you.”

  “Sometimes I just know things. I can’t explain it.”

  Sam’s sniff of disbelief sounded more like a snort. “I’ve got a dead grandmother; find out where she hid her millions, would you?”

  She lifted her chin in his direction. “In years past, those gifted with psychic abilities were murdered because others were afraid of them. Don’t be afraid or threatened by something you can’t understand.”

  Sam winced at her patronizing tone. “I’m not afraid or threatened. I’m suspicious. I’ve never met a psychic who wasn’t a crook. If psychics were real, there’d be people consistently winning the lottery or solving crimes. We could prevent political assassinations and clear out villages before the volcano erupts.”

  “I don’t care if you believe me or not. As long as you’re willing to explore what I might be able to tell you.” She surprised Max by grabbing his arm, finding it unerringly. “If those guards had checked out the storage room, they could have stopped him from taking her. Promise me you’ll at least check out what I tell you.” Her pleading voice tightened his insides, making it impossible to reply.

  Sam obliged by saying, “Oh, sure, because psychics have been so helpful in the past. I don’t think a psychic has solved one crime. And I’m not talking those vague clues that could be interpreted to be correct after the fact. I’m talking concrete evidence. There was an old woman who used to come into the station whenever we had a high profile case. She dropped those mystical nuggets—’The girl is near a building. A square building with white on it. And there’s a tree or maybe a bush or a blade of grass nearby.’ Then she bragged to the press how she solved the case.”

  Olivia crossed her arms over her chest. “I knew the girl was missing.”

  “Proves you knew something about the crime. Doesn’t prove how you knew it.”

  Max said, “Here’s my card. If you think of anything else, give me a call.” He pressed his card into her hand and folded her fingers around it. She took a surprised breath, and he forced himself to let go. Her hand clenched around the card, crunching it.

  “Wait.” She walked over to the desk near the kitchen and pulled out what looked like a large remote control device without the numbers on it. “Give me your number, Detective Callahan.”

  As he gave her the numbers, she pressed the pads. She heard a male synthesized voice repeat each piece of information she inputted. “Max. Callahan.” And his number.

  Sam walked closer to her. He wore his skepticism like a mask. Very slowly, he moved his hand toward her face—and she flinched.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Watching what you were doing,” he offered casually. “What is that thing?”

  “This is Louis. Well, that’s what I call him. It’s a Braille computer and organizer. I named it after Louis Braille.”

  Max eyed it, wondering what secrets it held. Wondering if he could get a warrant for a full search and quickly figuring he couldn’t. “Thank you, Miss Howe,” Max said as they headed toward the door.

  Just before he closed the door, she said, “Remember your promise.” She was looking at him or at least it appeared she was. “At least listen to what I have to tell you. It…” Her face shadowed. “It might help.” She didn’t sound as sure that time.

  They said nothing until they exited the building into the cool, afternoon sun. “What a friggin’ phony,” Sam said. “We ought to haul her in for doing those creepy eyeball paintings alone.”

  Max got into the car. “We don’t have enough evidence. Besides, if she’s working with someone, and she knows we’re onto her, she’ll be more careful. Which is why we were supposed to be cool, as you’ll recall.”

  Sam got in on the passenger side before saying, “Sorry, but I couldn’t stand there and pretend to believe that crap. You’re obviously better at that kind of thing. All those psychics, tarot card and crystal ball readers, they’re a bunch of crooks. But in this case, she’s lying to cover someone’s ass along with her own. Pretending to be blind so as not to be a viable suspect, distracting security so her lover or whomever can get the girl out of the store, and then claiming to be psychic. We ought to put a tail on her.”

  “It’s all circumstantial. Hearsay, actions that could be interpreted in different ways—”

  “She knew about the gray cap.”

  “We don’t know for sure that the suspect was wearing gray, or that he even exists.”

  “She saw my hand!”

  “She could have felt the air.” When Max saw Sam’s surprised expression, he shrugged. “I’m playing devil’s advocate.”

  At the red light, Sam repeated the motion. “Any air?”

  Max had to admit, “No. But that’s not going to get us a warrant. After the last faulty warrant Judge Garrett granted, and all the bad press we got out of it, we’re going to need a smoking gun. For what it’s worth, I think she really is blind. Maybe she knew about the abduction and a guilty conscious propelled her to try to stop it.”

  Sam sat back in his seat, a smug look on his face. “She’s guilty. And I, for one, am going to enjoy nailing her. Nothing worse than a deceptive woman.”

  Max had a feeling it wasn’t going to be that simple. She knew something, that was for certain. And he was damn well going to find out what it was.

  CHAPTER 4

  Max and Sam met Detective Nick Mathers at the Burns’s house, a large Spanish-style structure on the water. Mathers was helping on the case while he could. He was the oldest of their poker group, in his early fifties Max guessed. He had the start of a gut, probably due to his exotic beer collection. He kept one for the collection and drank the rest of the pack. He was married to a homely, quiet woman who served up cold beer and chips on poker nights with all the cheer of an underpaid waitress.

  Cop cars, both marked and unmarked, littered the driveway and street. Barricades kept the usual clusters of neighbors and reporters at bay.

  Mathers asked, “What’d you find out?”

  Sam said, “Olivia Howe is a phony blind woman and a phony psychic, and I don’t have a doubt that she’s involved. If we can catch her on the blindness angle, we can crack her on the rest of it.”

  “She claims she’s psychic,” Max clarified. “That’s how she knew about the girl being taken.”

  Sam snorted. “We need to find out who she’s working with. We know she didn’t take the girl; her role was to distract while the guy grabbed the girl.”

  Max said, “Why distract the people in the front of the store when
the suspect was way in the back? To be effective, she should have had her fit just outside the remote control room. And why direct security to where the suspect made his getaway?”

  Sam’s expression shuttered. “Max likes playing devil’s advocate.”

  Max asked, “What do you have here?”

  Mathers nodded a head of enviously neat, silver hair toward the house. “The mother’s hysterical, the father’s distraught.” That didn’t mean much, not when family members who acted hysterical and distraught committed the majority of child abductions. “My gut feeling is that they’re not involved. Flora didn’t kidnap the kid herself, of course, and Pat was in his office. I’ve got a squirrelly feeling about Pat’s brother, Mike, though. He’s a mechanic at the Ford dealership. We’re trying to verify whether he was working this morning. He’s got a prior. An ex-girlfriend claimed he exposed himself to her daughter, but she backed out of her story. Could be she was trying to burn him, or could be he intimidated her. For what it’s worth, the Burnses don’t believe he had anything to do with that incident or their daughter’s abduction. Something else to throw into the pot: Phaedra was adopted. It was an open adoption when Phaedra was an infant. The Burnses apparently waited to have children until later in life and ended up adopting. The birth mother hasn’t had any contact with the girl since.”

  Max could believe that Olivia was helping a distraught mother try to kidnap her child before believing she was helping some sicko. Yet, he wasn’t hopeful on that score. “It would seem odd that she waited all these years before having second thoughts, but it happens. It’s something to check out.”

  “No ransom demands?” Sam asked.

  “Not a one, but we’re wired and ready if we get a call.”

  “Good job. We’ll take it from here.”

  Mathers’s phone chirped, and he answered it. “Yeah, thanks for checking on that. He wasn’t. How long? Okay, thanks. Detectives Callahan and O’Reilly will be by to pick up those time cards.” He disconnected. “Mike Burns went out this morning, supposedly because it was slow. The timing’s tight, him getting to the toy store, getting the girl, and then getting out. He clocked out fifteen minutes before it happened, and it’s about ten minutes from the toy store to the dealership. He never returned to work; he came right here.”

  Sam clapped his hands. “I believe we’ve got Howe’s partner.”

  Max felt that first hit of adrenaline. Just like last time, when the leads started jibing. The Brad Stevens kidnapping. He swallowed hard. His last big case. That time Saul Berney, the kidnapper, had called with a ransom demand: five hundred thousand dollars. The parents were willing to pay it, but Max didn’t want the bastard to get a penny of it. The thought of anyone abducting a child made him crazy, and his own demons had driven him too far. He’d wanted to grind Berney up. He wanted all the other Berneys out there to get the message. He’d nabbed the kid and taunted Berney into taking the money. Then they’d nabbed Berney.

  Max had been a real hero for the second time in his life. That time, though, he’d gotten to revel in it. It hadn’t been tainted with shame and shoved under the carpet. The city of Palomera had honored him with a ceremony and everything. He’d hoped it would ease his drive to be the big hero—and finally erase the reason for that drive. He’d enjoyed knowing he’d saved that boy, and yeah, he’d enjoyed the accolades. At least until Berney got his revenge on Max.

  “We’ll time the drive,” Sam said, tearing Max from his grim thoughts. “Where is Mike Burns now?”

  Mathers nodded toward the Burns’s house.

  Sam said, “We’ll need a picture of him to show the toy store employees and to check against the security tapes. If we can place him there, that’ll make things easy. We’ll take him in for questioning, see if we can shake him up a bit.”

  When they started walking toward the house, Mathers held Max back. “You all right being on this case?”

  “Have to be.”

  “What was Huntington thinking?” He shook his head in answer. “Be careful, Max.”

  Max nodded, a lump forming in his throat at his comrade’s concern. He headed toward the house where Sam was waiting for him. “Nice place.”

  The house had enormous ceilings adorned with fancy architectural touches like arched doorways, rounded corner beading, and crown molding. Sculptures and oil paintings depicted different aspects of Florida: seashells, sunsets, pelicans. In contrast, tinsel, snowmen, and Santas adorned every visible surface of the home. In reverence to the real reason for the season, an elaborate manger was set up on a table. The festivity mocked the fear, grief and frustration that permeated the house. Several officers were inside as well as friends of the family.

  Flora Burns rushed into the living room, followed by her husband, Pat. “Is there any news?” Hope burned in their eyes. They thought he and Sam had come with new information. Max shook his head, unable to look away from their disappointment.

  Pat’s expression stiffened. “Don’t tell me you’re here to question us, too.”

  Mike Burns was sitting on the couch. He was in his late thirties, Max figured, with thick, dark hair parted on the side. His eyes kept shifting to the left, listening to them while pretending to study a map he’d unfolded on the coffee table.

  In his low, calming voice, Max said, “We have to look at all the angles. Unfortunately, a family member is often involved in these types of cases.” He glanced at Mike to get a reaction. Not even a flinch.

  Pat said, “No one in this house would hurt Phaedra.”

  Sam straightened a crooked wreath on the wall. “What about Phaedra’s birth parents?”

  Flora’s mouth tightened as she shook her head and looked at Pat, who said, “We already told that other officer, I’m not dragging the mother into this. She moved to Arizona after Phaedra’s birth, and we haven’t heard from her since. She never told anybody who the father was, but it was clear she had no intention of letting him know he even had a child.”

  “We still need to look into it. It’s always possible she had second thoughts, even after all this time.”

  After a hesitation, Pat nodded. “Fine, we’ll give you her information. For all we know, she doesn’t even live at the address we have anymore.” Pat went to a computer in a nearby office. He returned and handed Sam the piece of paper he’d printed out.

  Flora said, “I don’t want her to know about…about what’s happened.” There was a different fear in her eyes now. “If she thinks we’re bad parents, that we let someone take her daughter…”

  “Our daughter.” Pat held her close. “She couldn’t take Phaedra from us now.” He looked at Max and Sam, who said, “We’ll do it quietly.”

  “Stop wasting time investigating us,” Flora cried out, gripping her husband’s arm with white fingers. “And start looking for the maniac who has our daughter!”

  The Stevenses had also been upset at the investigation into their life when their boy went missing.

  “We’re doing everything we can to find her,” Max said. “We’re making fliers to be distributed within the tri-county area. Between those and the news reports, everyone in this whole area will have seen Phaedra’s face. A grid search is underway—”

  “Grid search?” Pat asked.

  “Yeah, it’s where we break up the town into grid sections. Teams of officers take each section and question people, looking for witnesses or suspicious behavior. Any vacant spaces are investigated. They’re particularly focused on the area around the toy store, looking for anyone who might have seen a vehicle parked out back.” Officers were beginning to track down previously convicted child molesters, too, but he wasn’t going to mention that.

  “And you’re looking into us,” Pat said, straining to keep his voice level.

  Max didn’t answer, since it hadn’t been posed as a question.

  “We can help, too.” Pat turned to his wife. “We’ll hire Joanna. She’s done a great job getting the word out about the restaurants. A publicist has all the right con
nections.”

  “We’ll need to clear whatever you release to the public. There are some details we don’t want leaked.”

  “But why?” Flora asked. “The more information that’s out there, the better the chance of someone remembering something.”

  Max said, “Some details, like the gold shamrock necklace Phaedra was wearing and her pink socks, are important to keep under wraps. It’s our way of weeding out the crazies who call claiming they have the girl when they don’t.”

  Flora grabbed his arm. “Why would anyone do that? Why?”

  He awkwardly placed his hand over hers, as though that would somehow comfort her. “I wish I knew.”

  She narrowed eyes smudged in black and tightened her grip on his arm. “You found that boy. You’re the one, aren’t you?”

  He didn’t want to talk about the Stevens case, but he nodded. Maybe it would put them at ease. He’d been capable once.

  “But this isn’t the same man, is it?” Pat asked. “He’s still in jail.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  Two uniforms were escorting Mike Burns out of the house. He went willingly, but grudgingly. Flora started crying. “Don’t worry,” Mike said to her. “Nicholson will get this all straightened out, and I’ll be back to help find her.”

  Max uttered a few words meant to reassure the Burnses and headed to the front door. Sam paused and watched Mike get into the car. “He’s one cool customer. Too cool.”

  When one of the officers called Sam over, Max glanced back into the house one last time. He hated thinking of that little girl, cold, alone, and scared. Every hour that passed diminished the chance that she would survive. And while she was alive, she could be suffering unmentionable atrocities. Another girl flashed into his mind, scared and crying. His fists clenched. No child should be touched by violence.