Innocent Prey

I lifted one eyebrow the way he so often did. I had practiced doing it in the mirror and thought I was pretty good at it. I loved mirrors. Looking into them, trying different expressions out on myself. It’s not vanity. I hadn’t had a clue what I looked like for twenty years, you know? “I’m picking up something now. From you. What do you know that I don’t?”

He sighed. “You’re too good at this game.”

“No such thing. So what haven’t you told me?”

“Chief Sub’s fiftieth wedding anniversary party is Friday night at his place. The judge will be there. We’re invited.”

“And by invited, you mean...?”

“He told me to be there.”

We’d been standing still so long that Myrtle decided to lie down. Head on her paws, she closed her eyes and was snoring with her next breath.

“And by we, you mean...?”

“He said I should bring you along.”

I couldn’t have been more surprised if lobsters had crawled out of his ears. “So now he’s auditioning me? Doesn’t he realize that we’re not...serious?”

He got a little red in the face as he turned away. “I couldn’t exactly blurt out that we were just each other’s most reliable booty call, could I?”

My radar went completely haywire. I didn’t know if he was being sarcastic or serious, if he was a little hurt that I’d said we weren’t serious or making a joke so I’d know he agreed.

Jesus, why didn’t my supercharged intuition come with an instruction manual and a twenty-four-hour tech-support hotline?

I said, “I don’t like that ‘most reliable’ line, pal. You’re my only booty call.”

He looked almost relieved. “Me, too. So then, we’re...exclusive.”

“I guess we are.” It was, I realized, the single largest declaration either of us had made in regard to our relationship, and it was more than enough for one day. For both of us.

“You don’t have to come to the party if you don’t want to,” he said.

“No, I want to.” Shit, it was getting gooey again.

He looked at me. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said, and quickly shifted focus back to business. “I want to see this Judge Howie and try to get a feel for what’s going on. Presuming we haven’t found Stephanie by then.”

“Good. Good.” He looked relieved to be back on topic, too. “Just...don’t call him Judge Howie.”

I smiled at him. “I want you to get the chief’s job, remember? You’re the one dreading the offer.”

“I’m not dreading it. I’m undecided.”

Nodding, I said, “How about we wrap things up here? Myrtle’s getting hungry, and so am I.”

“Myrtle’s entering a coma. But okay. Back on track. You’re the expert on being blind. Tell me this, just in case this turns out not to be her phone. Once she got around this corner, how far do you think Stephanie could have walked in the time it took her coach to run from the park bench to here?”

I mulled on that for a second, then got a brilliant idea. “Let’s find out. I’ll go back to the park bench where they started. You wait at the corner. Then, as soon as I sit on the bench, you close your eyes and start walking. I’ll come running and we’ll see how far you manage to get.”

I could tell he didn’t like the suggestion by his thoughtful scowl. “Why don’t I be the coach, and you be the blind girl?”

“Uh, ’cause I was the blind girl for twenty years and I could walk without my eyes faster than you walk with yours. Stevie was new at this. Like you.” I bent down to pat Myrtle’s head. “Come on, Myrt, we’re back on duty.”

“I hate when you make perfect sense,” Mason said.

Myrt opened her eyes and sighed heavily, then got upright again, stretched and farted at the same time.

I handed Mason Myrtle’s leash and jogged back around the corner, then back down the sidewalk to the bench. I sat down and waved at him, where he stood on the corner with Myrt. “Okay, close your eyes and go!” I called.

So he scrunched his eyes tight and started walking. I got up and jogged to the corner, rounding it just in time to see him bean himself on a telephone pole, take a step back, trip over Myrtle and land on his ass. He’d made it about twenty feet.

“Jeez, don’t kill yourself, for crying out loud.” I made it to him, helped him up and almost choked trying not to laugh at him.

He handed me the leash and rubbed his forehead. “It’s harder than I thought.”

“It’s harder than most people think.”

He nodded, looking at me oddly. Like he was feeling sorry for me. I pointed a forefinger at him. “Don’t do that, Mace. Don’t put on that ‘poor, poor pitiful Rachel’ face. I was fine blind. Got rich and famous blind. Did better than most sighted people do.”

“I know you did.”

“Let’s get a stylus, check that phone to see if it was hers, and if so, who she was talking to right before she vanished.”

“Lunch for you and Myrtle first. Call and invite Amy to join us, okay?”

I lifted my brows. “So you don’t think my feeling that there’s some connection is completely insane, after all?”

“I’ve seen too much to think any of your feelings are insane, Rachel. So what do you say? Food?”

I was not one to argue when food was on the line. Nor was Myrtle, whose bulldog smile appeared the second he said the word.

3 (#ulink_765bb4d0-571e-5fa7-8049-3cb8fb9adf6c)

Stevie had given up the screaming and swearing, crying and pleading, halfway through the first night. She’d given up shaking and tugging at the bars of her cage after what felt like twenty-four hours. Neither of these things had been a choice. She’d stopped screaming because she’d screamed her throat raw and could barely talk anymore, and she’d stopped shaking the bars because she had broken, bleeding blisters on both hands. After that she’d spent her time exploring her cell.

There were three concrete walls around her and prison bars in front, with a locked door. There were bunks attached to the walls on either side with chains. Two high, two low. Four beds total. There were a toilet and sink on the back wall. The water worked. There was a box under the bottom bunk on the right with a few supplies. Someone had used duct tape to drape a vinyl shower curtain in front of the toilet. It smelled new. Everything else about the place had a damp, musty smell to it. It was cool enough to make her grateful she’d been wearing a sweater.

Her captor had thrown her into the cage after a long drive. She’d lost her cell phone. She’d only realized it when he had searched her—thoroughly—while she’d still been tied up. Then he’d finally dragged her to the bars and stuck her hands through, holding them there while he went outside and closed the door with a frightening bang.

From there he’d cut the zip ties from her wrists. As soon as they were free she jerked away from him, yanked the tape from her mouth and started calling him names and demanding to be let go, and screaming and swearing. But a few minutes later she’d realized he was gone.

Her possessions were few. There were a plastic water pitcher and a few plastic glasses. Spoons but no forks. Washcloths. There were a roll of toilet paper, a tangle of brushes and three wrapped bars of soap in addition to the new bar that sat on the sink. There was a single blanket on each of the bunks. And that was it.

Every few hours he brought her something to eat. Protein bars, a bag of chips, a piece of fruit. Never a meal. Just snacks. At first she’d refused to eat, figuring the food might be drugged. Then when the hunger got bad, she decided she had nothing to lose. She was a prisoner. How could being a drugged prisoner be any worse?

She had no sense of time and no real idea how long she’d been there when she heard the door open and jumped off the bunk, lunging toward the sound in desperation, only to bang hard into a person and fall on the hard floor as the door clanged closed again. Scrambling to her feet, she shouted and threw herself at the bars, grabbing and shaking them, and swearing at her captor.