Blindsight [Now You See Me] (Romantic Suspense) Page 5

  As he turned back to the door, a painting in the formal dining room caught his eye. A blood-red sun dipped into a black ocean. No, not just any painting. The sun looked like an eyeball. He walked into the formal dining room, flipped on a light switch, and tried to read the signature.

  “Who painted this?” he asked the Burnses, who were watching him.

  Flora said, “A local artist. I don’t remember her name. I got it at the LaForge Gallery over at the Waterfront. I like to support local artists.”

  “Do you have any more of her paintings?”

  “No, that’s the only one. Why?”

  “Does anyone else in your family own her artwork?”

  She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

  “What does this have to do with our daughter?” Pat asked, pulling his wife closer.

  Max glanced once more at the painting. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” He met Sam at the front door.

  Sam said, “We have to find a connection between them.”

  “I may have found it.” He nodded toward the painting. “Flora Burns said she supports local artists, but acted like she didn’t know Olivia personally. It’s just a loose connection. Could mean nothing.”

  Sam’s eyes glittered. “Or it could be the start of a beautiful conviction.”

  “You work on Mike Burns, I’ll work on Olivia.”

  “Why do you get Olivia?”

  “I don’t think your bonehead techniques are going to get us anywhere with her.” Before Sam could refute that, Max said, “Let’s get Mike’s photo from the DMV and show it to Toyland’s employees, see if anyone recognizes him. I’ll call the manager.”

  Olivia was washing dishes when the phone rang. Without thinking about it, she grabbed up the receiver.

  “It’s Terry. Don’t hang up on me. I’m calling about the girl, the one who was taken from the toy store today.”

  Her fingers tightened on the handset. “What about her?”

  “You told me about that connection you have with kidnapped kids.”

  She had told him about that, hadn’t she? When he’d swept her away, or maybe when he’d simply swept away her good sense. She’d been too honest about some things; not honest enough about others.

  He said, “You’re connected to her, aren’t you? I can feel your anxiety. That’s how close we are. That’s how connected I am to you, the same way you’re connected to these kids. Olivia, I’m coming over. I don’t want you alone through this.”

  “Terry, no, you can’t do that. Don’t make me call the police.”

  “Olivia, dammit, you need me! How can I prove that to you?”

  She hung up and returned to the sink to finish rinsing the dishes, trying to ignore her shaking hands and the ringing of the phone. Would he ever give up? And now, using that poor girl as an excuse to call her…

  She stopped her movements. Using that girl. “No. That’s crazy. He wouldn’t…”

  She couldn’t even finish the sentence. For a month Terry had continued to pursue her. He’d used singing telegrams, false emergencies, lies about leaving town and wanting to see her one last time for closure, any excuse to contact her. She had gone from wondering when he’d give up to wondering how far he’d go to get her attention.

  How far would he go?

  The panic struck her again. The bowl dropped into the sink and shattered against the porcelain. She clutched the counter, but her legs wouldn’t hold her up. She sank to the floor as Phaedra’s fear rocked her.

  The images came like gunshots.

  Fear!

  Panic!

  Near-darkness.

  Where am I?

  I want my mommy!

  Stasia nuzzled her, and Olivia opened her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. When she caught her breath, she used the counter to push herself to her feet. Her head was pounding. She laid her cheek on the cool surface of the counter and tried to recall what she’d seen. She replayed the barrage of images, but her mind stopped on one in particular.

  “She’s in a cage. Oh, God, a cage.”

  She’d seen bars like that before.

  “No, no, don’t think about that.”

  This was about Phaedra’s kidnapping, not hers. Two totally different events, sixteen years apart.

  Then why were they melding in her mind?

  Because she’d been abducted on December twentieth from a toy store in Palomera. That coincidence was why the connection was so strong this time, had to be.

  She’d been eight years old. A fun day of shopping had been spoiled by her mother’s announcement: she’d entered Olivia in a New York City beauty pageant to be held in January. She’d promised—promised!—that Olivia wouldn’t have to endure another beauty pageant until the following spring. When her mother had run into another pageant regular, Olivia decided to punish her mother by hiding.

  The man had lured her out a side door, shoved a chloroform cloth over her mouth, and the world had gone dark. She’d come to in the trailer of a semi truck. At the sight of the cage, panic gave her courage to fight him. In their struggle, she was knocked out. When she woke, she was blind. Though he’d never sexually molested her, he’d done other, terrible things to her. Her hand automatically went to her collarbone. Four days later she’d been rescued, and her abductor had killed himself.

  She didn’t know what the man had done to her eyes; no one could figure that out. Nor could they figure out exactly why he kidnapped her. Something else happened, triggered by the trauma of the kidnapping: she lost her eyesight, but gained another type of sight. The psychic tendency she inherited from her grandmother had been intensified. Because heightened emotions wrought the change, they also triggered the strange connection to abducted children. She connected to the child not only emotionally, but psychically. Once she realized the gift—and the curse—that it was, she used it to help find missing children.

  She found her cell phone. She must call Detective Callahan, the one who wasn’t so suspicious. The one who had filled her senses with his low, patient voice, the smell of his woodsy cologne, and the feel of the muscles in his arm. Somehow she knew she could trust him. She had to tell him what she knew. The panic in her stomach migrated through her body as she called up his information on Louis and had the computer dial the number. This wouldn’t be like the last time she’d tried to help.

  Her throat tightened with every ring. When he answered, she said, “Detective Callahan, it’s Olivia Howe. Phaedra woke up. He’s got her in a dark place. And…she’s in a cage.”

  Max hung up with Olivia just as he walked to his desk at the station. A cage. The thought shivered through him. Why a cage? Anything but a cage.

  If Olivia was involved, she was playing with them, leading them on. If she wasn’t involved? an inner voice asked. Could she be for real?

  No, that was crazy thinking.

  On the way back to the station, he and Sam had timed the route from the car dealership to the toy store. They arrived at the interrogation room at the same time as Mike Burns’s lawyer. They’d known that Burns would be a fool to give anything away with his lawyer hotfooting it over. Mike Burns didn’t look like a fool. He in fact looked like a clean-cut guy, except for the dark grease in the creases of his trimmed nails. The scent of cologne filled the air around him.

  Paul Nicholson set his briefcase on the table and greeted Burns with a nod. Then he faced off with the detectives. The man would have towered threateningly if he’d had any meat on his 6’2” frame. “Are you charging my client with a crime?”

  Sam said, “No, we’re just trying to get some information out of him. If he’d answer, he could save himself a lot of trouble.”

  “Information about what?” Nicholson asked.

  “Burns’s niece was abducted from a toy store this morning. At roughly the same time, Burns here took off from his job. He won’t account for his whereabouts. His prior exposure arrest slots him into the offender category.”

  Burns pounded his fist on
the table. “That was a set up! She was pissed because I owed her some money and couldn’t pay it back when she demanded it.”

  The lawyer put his hand on Burns’s shoulder. “Those charges were dropped. It has no bearing on this case whatsoever.”

  “We just want to know where he went,” Sam said.

  Burns flattened his hands on the table. “I told you, I was driving around Last I knew there wasn’t a law against that.”

  “Can anyone verify your little tour?” Sam asked.

  “I’m sure someone saw me, but no one I could point out to you. I mean, I was right out in the open, driving around.”

  Paul Nicholson said, “What can we do to allay your suspicions?”

  “Let us take a look at his place, inside and out.”

  Burns bristled, but before he could respond, Nicholson whispered to him. Burns leaned back, crossing his arms in front of him. “It’s the principal…” He waved his hand. “Fine, take a look.”

  “You can search his house and premises,” Nicholson said.

  “And vehicle?”

  Another whispered discussion. “And his vehicle. He’s got nothing to hide.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.” Burns pushed up from the table. “I’ll take you. I don’t want my place trashed.”

  It was small consolation. If Burns was willing to let them look, he was either innocent or knew the place was clean. There was always a chance he’d forgotten something, though. A small chance, but one worth taking.

  “One more question,” Sam asked as though it were an afterthought. “Does the name Olivia Howe ring a bell?”

  Mike gave away no sign of recognition. “Nope.”

  “Your sister-in-law has one of her paintings on the dining room wall.”

  “She’s got lots of paintings around the house.”

  “Have you ever been to a showing or a gallery and met any of the artists?”

  “Nope.”

  Sam shrugged. “Just wondered. Shall we go?”

  After checking out Burns’s house, Max and Sam returned to the car. They watched Mike and his lawyer exchange a few words at the front door. Burns shot them a smug look before getting into his truck and leaving. All they’d discovered was that Burns had a heavy affection for porn movies. Dog-eared catalogues were scattered everywhere, and Burns had obviously ordered many movies from those catalogues. Every movie in his collection sported a yellow Post-It scribbled with a critique. None of them included children and none were hard-core.

  Sam leaned back in the seat. “I want to nail that bastard.”

  “If it’s him. The timing’s pretty tight.”

  “But doable. It’s him. He’s got slime bag written all over him. And that woman at the store—Olivia Howe—she’s involved in this, too. All that panic was a distraction so Burns could get away.”

  Max’s gut rebelled at the thought of Olivia being involved, and he tried to figure out why. His phone rang, and he spoke with someone at the Flagstaff station where Phaedra’s birth mother lived. “Okay, great. Thanks.” He disconnected and said, “Birth mother is still in town and has been since she left Florida. She’s a secretary at a hotel there and hasn’t missed work in the last five days. She’s been married for five years and has three kids. They’re going to keep an eye on the house just in case, but it doesn’t look like she had anything to do with the abduction.”

  He looked at his watch. They were closing in on six hours. No ransom call meant that whoever took Phaedra probably had other plans for her. He didn’t want to think what those other plans would be.

  He pushed away the memory before it had a chance to edge into his mind.

  “Hey, Max, you okay?”

  He blinked, realizing he’d zoned out. “Just thinking.” He called the station and talked to one of the officers going over the surveillance tapes. “What do you have for us?”

  The woman let out an exasperated sound. “Do you realize how many people went in and out of that store that morning? It’s a mess. Some people walked in with one group and walked out with a different crowd. We assume they weren’t with either group, but it’s still making it hard to single people out. So far, nobody stands out, but we’ll find our suspect.”

  “Thanks.” He hung up and let out his own sound of exasperation. “Nothing from the tapes yet. The manager claims that no one is able to use the entrance the girl was taken out of, even the employees. It’s strictly for emergencies. That left the loading dock as a potential place for the suspect to have come in, but they’ve already looked over that tape. No way did the suspect come in that way.”

  “Then he or she will have to be on the tapes at the front entrance.”

  As soon as they returned, he started the ball in motion to obtain the DMV picture and assemble the employees. He looked at Phaedra’s picture on his desk. Every police station in the state had been given one. Everyone wanted to find this girl. Max could feel the hunger to be that person rising inside him, just like when finding the Stevens boy had taken over his life. The drive to be a hero came from a dark, deep place inside him.

  As a boy, Max had not only looked up to Superman, Spiderman, and Batman, he’d become them. He could see himself with his brown mop of cowlick-ridden hair and fringe of eyelashes the girls teased him about, wearing a cape made from an old red sheet and scouting the neighborhood in search of someone to rescue and dragons to slay. He was the one who found lost dogs posted on street signs and saved the skinny kid from the bullies.

  His fierce need to slay dragons and drive villains into the ground started as a defense mechanism for a boy who was bullied and taunted by a villain he could never defeat. The greatest evil he would ever face—his father.

  CHAPTER 5

  Thursday, December 21

  A jolt of fear woke Olivia. She bolted upright in bed with a sharp intake of breath.

  “Good morning,” a male voice said.

  The murky silhouette of a man’s face.

  The cage door opening.

  A McDonald’s bag tossed inside. The scent of sausage and hash browns.

  The alarm clock went off and Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah song broke the connection. She slapped her hand down on the snooze button to silence it, then laid her head back on the pillow and massaged the spear of pain in her temples. Her heart was slamming inside her chest, and she took deep breaths to bring it back to normal. Her skin was drenched. She wasn’t sure which side effect was worse, the headache or the wash of sweat.

  He was there with Phaedra now, bringing her breakfast. At least he showed her that kindness. If only Olivia could hold onto the connection and find a useful clue she could pass onto the detective. She’d never been able to call up the visions or return to them once the connection had been severed.

  Stasia always slept at the foot of her bed; now she was pressed against Olivia’s thigh, her nose buried beneath her leg.

  “It’s okay, sweetie. It’s been a while since you’ve had to go through this with me. You’re not used to it anymore.” As hard as it was, Olivia had had to bury her head in the sand for a while. Normally she had to get emotionally involved in the kidnapping story before the connection would start. That’s what was so strange about this one. It had sucked her right in.

  At her touch and soothing words, Stasia lifted her head and positioned it in Olivia’s hands. “But we have to help her, you know that. I can’t turn away, even if…”

  She’d come so close to going over the edge last time.

  When the alarm went off again, the radio deejay was talking about the kidnapping. She listened, hoping to hear good news, but knowing there would be none yet. The police were working on some leads, but no suspects could be named, he said.

  She used to listen to national radio all the time, waiting to hear about a missing child, hoping to connect and see something that might help. For a long time, she phoned in the clues anonymously so she wouldn’t have to face the kind of skepticism and rudeness Detective O’Reilly had displayed. Sometime
s the child was found and the police would say that a hunch had played out to help solve the case. Other times…well, sometime the child wasn’t found in time.

  She pushed herself out of bed. “Time to get up and going.”

  She fed Stasia, showered, and got dressed. Although what she really wanted was a candy bar, she chose a more sensible Pop Tart and cup of coffee. “We’re visiting your grandpa today,” she said as she grabbed the harness.

  Visiting her father was bittersweet. Besides her grandmother, her father was the one person who had accepted and understood her, psychic quirks and all. Back then, though, he’d worked all the time.

  After letting Stasia run in the park, they walked the remaining ten minutes to her father’s assisted living facility. Across the street she could hear the rush of water from the water treatment facility. She used to imagine it was a waterfall until she’d heard a recent news story about some kids breaking in. One of them drowned, and his family was demanding better security.

  Her father had chosen the Livingston when he’d finally accepted his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. It fit the Howe criteria: overpriced, ostentatious and luxurious. When the fifth doctor confirmed the diagnosis, he took the news with dignity. He liquidated all his assets and went on Medicare to spare his family the financial burden. He set up Olivia with a trust and put himself on the Livingston’s waiting list. A year ago, when he’d been accepted as a resident, she had decided to move back to Palomera with him. She wished she could take care of him properly, but at least he lived within walking distance.

  Her soft-soled shoes squeaked on the marble floor of the lobby. The place always reeked of disinfectant, making her wonder what odors they were trying to cover. This time of the year, the cinnamon, holly, and fir smells overpowered even the strong pine scent.

  “Good morning, Miss Howe,” one of the nurses said. “He’s in his room.”