Blindsight [Now You See Me] (Romantic Suspense) Read online

  “Thank you.”

  The door to her father’s room was usually open during the day. She touched the frame of the doorway and paused. “Daddy?”

  She wanted to run into his arms and lose herself, to smell him and remember the times he’d held her after a nightmare. She hated even admitting she still wanted someone to hold her for that or any reason. It seemed like, in any important relationship, it was all or nothing—she was either over-protected or alone. Being alone was preferable.

  “Hello?” His once authoritative voice was now soft and uncertain. “Who are you?”

  She hoped she masked her disappointment. “It’s your daughter, Olivia.” She walked closer. “And this is Stasia.”

  “They said I had a daughter.” A bad day. The doctor had started him on a new medication, but she’d warned it could take weeks to see any improvement.

  She perched on the side of the bed. “Yes, you do.”

  She remembered him in his elegant three-piece suits. He was the tallest, strongest, most handsome man she’d ever seen. That’s how she pictured him now, with his chin held high and his thick graying hair slightly mussed from a long day wrangling the stock market.

  “You’re very pretty,” he said, making her wonder if he meant her or the dog. Once a man had complimented her looks and she’d thanked him. To her utter embarrassment, he’d meant Stasia. “You must take after your mother,” he added with a soft laugh, clarifying the compliment.

  “I take after you. Mom had blond hair and a round face. She was very petite. Do you remember her at all?”

  “I remember…a woman…” After a pause, he said, “No, I don’t.”

  “There are pictures on your dresser.” He’d told her about them. Now she heard him pick up one of the frames.

  “What was she like?” he asked.

  For years, he’d worked with her on remembering what things looked like. Now she helped him to remember. “Mom was very refined. She knew all the right things to do, what not to do.” Even now, she sometimes heard her voice: Knees together. Sit up straight. Lower your voice; young ladies don’t shout.

  Even now, she sometimes did the opposite out of spite.

  Every time he asked about Elaine, she chose her words carefully. Their marriage hadn’t been bad, but only because they hardly saw each other. Olivia wondered if Elaine had grown bored with being a corporate wife and that’s why she’d decided to have a baby so late in life. Olivia had felt like her special project.

  “Where is she? She doesn’t come to visit.”

  “She passed away two years ago.” To change to a cheerier subject, she said, “You and her mom, Lily, got on grandly. She’d give you stock tips and tell you what colors would bring you luck. I think you even believed her. She was psychic.” She had died in her sleep ten years earlier. Olivia missed her more than her own mother.

  “Here’s a picture of a little girl wearing a crown. She looks like a princess.”

  Those awful beauty pageant days. “That’s me.” From before Olivia could remember, Elaine prettied her up and entered her in one pageant after another, just for the glory of it. After the tedious makeup process, she didn’t even recognize herself. That other girl had to sing and dance while everyone judged her. Her competitors whispered about her, trying to distract her and crumble her confidence. When she was that other Olivia, that’s when Elaine warmed to her the most. Livvy, you’re so beautiful. You did so well today, you made your mother proud. That’s when Olivia learned she had to be someone else to be loved by her mother. Later, she learned that men were the same way.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he asked.

  “Well, let’s see.” Every time he asked, she picked different aspects of her life to talk about. “I love all kinds of music, though I have a particular affinity for rock and roll. You and mother wanted me to be cultured, and it helped me to appreciate all the art forms. I’m an artist now. I paint pictures for a living.” Sometimes she didn’t tell him she was blind. If he asked about Stasia’s special harness, she’d tell him. She always lied, though, about how she’d become blind. No point in dredging up those memories. If only she could forget.

  “Was I a good father?” James asked.

  “You were the best, daddy.” She leaned forward and hugged him harder than she’d intended to. “It’s okay if you don’t remember me.” Emotion clogged her voice. “Because I remember you. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” After a moment, he asked, “What did you say your name was again?”

  Hold in the tears. “Olivia. I’m Olivia.”

  Olivia was still fighting tears as she made her way on the sidewalk. She steered her thoughts to her surroundings. She couldn’t afford to get lost in her thoughts. Even with Stasia guiding her, Olivia had to be in tune with everything going on around her.

  The grocery store was straight ahead. Usually she called ahead to arrange for someone to help her shop, but she only needed a couple of items. She heard snippets of conversations all around her. Someone to her right brushed her arm, and she moved away from the contact. Traffic rushed past on her left.

  A few moments later, she was sure, absolutely sure, that someone had touched her hair. Her muscles contracted. Terry? She didn’t dare call out his name. If he were there, he’d take that as an invitation to respond. She didn’t detect his Polo, though, only an overdose of a drug store brand of cologne. With her lips pressed together, she forged onward. She suspected that Terry sprayed Polo outside her apartment door sometimes in a pitiful attempt to remind her of him. She’d think Terry himself pitiful if she didn’t know how strong and determined he was.

  As she walked, the sound and wind from the cars driving past grew louder. When her shoe touched the edge of the sidewalk, she realized the crowd had slowly nudged her to the left, close to the street. Or maybe one person had.

  “Olivia.”

  The word was so faint she couldn’t identify the voice. As she turned in response, she felt a shove at her ankle. Someone bumped into her other side, spinning her around. She wasn’t sure how it happened, but suddenly she was off-balance…pitching forward. Everything was a mental blur. She heard the sound of a large truck approaching as she tumbled to the ground. Where was she? In the road?

  A horn blared to her left, and she realized with horror that it was coming right at her. Brakes howled, tires squealed, gears ground. She was all turned around and too paralyzed with fear to even scream. Stasia’s claws scrabbled against the asphalt next to her.

  Someone grabbed her arm and yanked her backward. She smelled burning rubber and heard the truck come to a hard stop in front of her. Behind it, another car screeched to a halt, and beyond that, a horn blared.

  “Are you all right?” the man who had hauled her backward asked. She thought he was the one wearing the heavy cologne, but wasn’t sure. Her nostrils were full of the scent now.

  “My dog, where’s my dog?” Stasia immediately put her paws on Olivia’s legs. Olivia knelt down to make sure she wasn’t injured. “Someone pushed me.” She came to her feet, her shaky hands tight on the leash. Her heart was pounding. “Did anyone see what happened?”

  She could hear several people around her. “I didn’t see anyone push you, dear,” an older man said.

  The man who had pulled her back said, “You tripped, that’s all. The sidewalk is buckled over there. You couldn’t see it.”

  “No, I felt someone push me. They said my name and pushed me. I think it was a man.”

  A woman said, “Who would do such a terrible to you?”

  “Why would someone push you?” the man asked. “You got turned around and tripped, that’s all.”

  “You’re all right?” the older man asked.

  “I’m…fine.” She said “Thank you” to those around her and directed Stasia to lead them home. Only when her heartbeat had resumed a somewhat normal pace did she feel the sting of the scrapes on her hands. Her body was still shaking, and her skin was clammy.

  Had someo
ne tried to kill her? It seemed paranoid. Outrageous. But she knew one thing: she hadn’t just lost her balance.

  More than twenty-four hours after Phaedra’s abduction, Max wasn’t a bit closer to solving the case. Or making any sense out of it. He sat back in his chair and massaged his forehead. There was no ransom demand, and not one person at the toy store could place Mike Burns in the store either prior to or at the time of the abduction. He wasn’t on the tape either. Several previous sex offenders had checked out or moved away. Some couldn’t be found, but there was no reason to think they had recently been in the area. The phones were ringing with the usual false leads and crank calls.

  Despite the lack of hard evidence, Sam was on Burns like a bloodhound. He’d followed Burns from the mansion-turned-headquarters to his house after midnight. If Burns was keeping the kid somewhere, he hadn’t checked on her lately.

  They needed a break, and they needed it now. Max’s gaze kept going to the clock. Every second mocked his failure, and every passing minute tortured him with thoughts of what she was enduring.

  Detective Nick Mathers tried to look casual as he walked over. He set a hand on Max’s shoulder. “How you holding up, Max?”

  “Not too good by the look of his pen,” Detective Tom Graham said from his desk next to Max’s. He gestured with one of his scarred hands to Max’s pen, which he’d chewed flat. “You’re picking up Huntington’s habit.”

  Tom spent all of his free time working on motorcycles. He always had gashes and burns on his hands and arms as a result. His dyed hair looked blue in the overhead lights. “This case must be getting to you.”

  Of course it’s getting to me, you idiot! Max wanted to yell, but that would ignite Tom’s tendency toward hot-headedness. He held his tongue and was rewarded with more bullshit.

  “I look at each case like it’s a game,” Tom continued, as though he were baiting Max. “So far the kidnapper’s winning.”

  Max could understand why Tom’s wife of fourteen years had decided to leave him a few years back. He couldn’t imagine living with someone who viewed life as a game and one not worth playing unless he thought he would win.

  Before Max could respond, one of the other detectives gestured for Max to join him in the break room. “Callahan, you might want to hear this.”

  The television mounted on the wall was tuned to the noon news. Several men were crammed into the room watching an interview with Pat and Flora Burns.

  The reporter asked, “So you don’t think the police are doing all they can to find your daughter?”

  “No,” Mr. Burns said. “I understand procedure is to investigate the family, but they seem to be fixated on us instead of looking at the whole picture. No one in our family would harm our daughter.”

  The reporter asked, “But isn’t Max Callahan working on your case? Surely the fact that he found Brad Stevens must put you at ease?”

  Flora said, “Not until he finds our little girl.” She held up a picture of Phaedra with shaking hands. “Someone must have seen our girl being taken from that store yesterday. The police seem to have no leads, so we’re appealing to you out there.” Her voice was filled with tears. “Please, everyone, look at this picture carefully. Whoever…has her is someone you know. Maybe the guy next door. You can help bring her back to us.”

  The reporter kept her voice neutral, though her expression was sympathetic. “And you’re offering a reward?”

  Mr. Burns wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. “Fifty thousand dollars for the safe return of our daughter.”

  Max ducked out of the room, but as he passed the lieutenant’s office, he heard, “Callahan, in here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Huntington pointed to a seat with a pencil so gnawed, it hardly looked like it could write anymore. His lips were dotted with flecks of yellow paint. His feet were propped on the edge of his desk, and Max noticed that one of his Argyle socks was blue and one was dark red. “Give me an update.”

  “There isn’t much to report right now, sir. O’Reilly and I have split up to cover more ground. The grid search of the area has turned up nothing. The only viable suspect we have so far is the uncle, though we don’t have anything concrete to pin on him.”

  “What about Olivia Howe? Everyone’s been talking about her, saying she’s some kind of psychic nut.”

  “She claims she’s psychically connected to the girl. She supposedly felt—and saw—when the girl was taken. She called me last night to tell me she saw the girl in a cage. We believe Howe may be an accomplice, a decoy to sidetrack us. We’re not even sure if she’s really blind. We’re working on a connection between her and Mike Burns. So far all I’ve got is a painting.” He explained about Olivia’s painting being at the Burns’s house. “It’s loose, but it’s a start.” What bothered him was his inclination to say that she probably wasn’t a perpetrator when he had no evidence to support his feeling.

  Huntington nodded. “Keep working on it.” He went back to his paperwork, humming that lethargic version of “Jingle Bells.”

  “Sir, may I ask why you assigned me to this case?”

  The lieutenant studied him, a perusal that always unnerved Max. “You heard what the family’s been saying?”

  “Have you?” The broadcast had only been minutes ago.

  “They’ve been doing interviews throughout the day. The airtime and exposure is good for the case, but they’re casting doubt on our ability to do our job. Do they have reason to doubt, Callahan?”

  “I give my all to every assignment, sir.”

  “But what about this one?”

  “I’ll do my best to find Ashley.”

  “Ashley?”

  Max’s chest caved as he replayed his words. “Phaedra, I mean.”

  Huntington leaned back in his chair. “You asked why I assigned this case to you. Because I want to either shake you or break you. It was a horrible thing, what happened to your wife and daughter. We all feel for you. But two years later you’re still floating around here like a ghost. Yes, you do your job, but your heart isn’t in it. Your biggest asset was your driving hunger to bring in the bad guy, even though you went over the edge at times. Now you have nothing.”

  Max swallowed hard on those words. “I appreciate your leniency, sir.” Appreciated it? He would have dropped to his knees in gratitude for his not pushing Max—or sticking him in a desk job.

  Huntington’s gaze softened. “I care about you, Callahan. I care about all my men. Part of my job is to keep an eye on your mental welfare. I’ve been a cop for a long time. I know the crap you go through. You went through hell. It’s time to join the living, if that’s possible. I know you’ll do your best on this case. I wouldn’t have put you on it otherwise. And while you’re on it, you’re either going to pull your act together or fall apart. I’d rather have that than have you hovering around here like the undead.”

  Max wanted to live up to his lieutenant’s expectations. “I want a warrant for phone and credit card records for Mike Burns and Olivia Howe. Our first step is to tie them together.”

  “Do you have enough to back it up? I’ve already caught hell for getting warrants when we didn’t have enough evidence. Marco Gencarelli is trying to sue us for the search we did on his businesses.”

  “Our guys thought they had enough on him.”

  “That was the problem. We thought we did; turned out we didn’t.”

  “That’s all I have. Howe and Burns.”

  He considered it. “Give it a try. See if Judge Garrett goes for it.”

  Max headed back to his cluttered desk. Huntington was watching him through the glass window and didn’t even look away when Max caught him. Max turned his attention back to Phaedra’s file. Phaedra, not Ashley.

  Maybe he wasn’t doing all that he could. He’d worked hard not to be the coward his father had called him. When his wife and daughter were killed, he’d lost his drive to be a hero. He lost his drive for just about everything. Could it be time to find another way
to make a living? He liked using his hands. At home he was always working on some kit. He’d started with cars and moved into resin model kits featuring characters from horror movies. Creating Frankenstein and Nosferatu kept his mind occupied. As soon as he finished one project, he shoved it onto an overloaded shelf and dove into another. He would hardly consider himself an artist, though.

  Right now, he had a girl to find. He took a copy of Phaedra’s picture and his notes and went to see Judge Garrett. He outlined the case thus far and held up the picture.

  Garrett shook his head. “It’s not enough. Burns has cooperated.”

  “But he’s hiding something.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “I want to find this girl as badly as you do, but we can’t go off half-cocked. You guys have been doing that too much lately. Give me something more, and I’ll let you have the phone records.”

  “Keep this picture, your honor. I’ll be in touch soon.”

  Olivia washed up, treated the scrapes on her hands, and had just enough energy left to drop down on the couch. The doorbell jarred her from a deep, dreamless sleep some time later.

  “Who is it?” she asked, her voice still slurred.

  “Delivery from Palomera Flowers, ma’am.”

  “Who from?”

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to read the card.”

  She sagged against the door. They had to be from Terry, probably the hundredth bouquet he’d sent her. “I don’t want them. Send them back.”

  The young man’s voice grew whiny. “But ma’am, I have to deliver them. It’s my job. Besides, they’re our most expensive ‘I’m Sorry’ arrangement. Can’t you at least take them? You can throw them away, or burn them, or do the hoochie-koo dance around them for all I care.”

  She opened the door, and the fragrance of roses assailed her senses. “They’re an ‘I’m Sorry’ arrangement?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  “Read the card.”