Innocent Prey

And then he turned the car around, and we were off and running. And I thought to myself that it wouldn’t be so bad to help him out with another case. It really wouldn’t. At least I’d get to spend some time with him in the upright and unlocked position.

This could be fun.

Right. Fun. Like, you know, jury duty. Or a smallpox outbreak. Or seeing murders in your sleep. Fun.

2 (#ulink_9d2d0765-db90-5caf-9b92-b55797b71d12)

By 2:00 p.m. Mason and Myrtle and I were walking the sidewalk Stevie Mattheson had walked just before she’d vanished, which, I’d learned, had happened the day before yesterday. Apparently her devoted daddy had waited a day and a half before going to his pal the chief to not report her missing. Guy was a jerk.

I know, snap judgment. That’s how I roll. Tough times turn people’s masks into windows. Believe what they show you. Yeah, it’s one of mine.

“Nice leash, by the way,” Mason said.

Hot pink, with black skulls and crossbones all over it. “And coincidentally it even matches the new goggles you bought her.”

“Except I went with peace signs instead of the Jolly Roger.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” I said.

“Hope she doesn’t get confused about her own identity.”

“What’s to be confused about? She’s a pacifist pirate.”

He laughed. That was what I was going for, eliciting that laugh. I could tell more from Mason’s laugh than from anything he said or any vibe he emitted. He was too much a cop, played things too close to the vest, to let me read him the way I did other people. But I could still read him. It was just tougher. And his laugh was the easiest way I’d found so far.

This one rang forced and tight.

“You’re worried about this.”

He nodded. “Something’s off about the whole thing.”

“Spidey sense tingling?”

“I wish to hell you’d been a fly on the wall at lunch so you could tell me if you sensed it, too.”

“Is there some reason you’re doubting your eerily accurate cop instincts, Mason?”

He looked at me, then at the sidewalk. “Yeah. A couple of them.” He didn’t elaborate, so I didn’t push it, figuring it was either something deep and emotional or something about us, and those topics were things we’d sort of agreed to avoid without really ever saying so out loud. He was no more into gooey emotional gunk than I was, thank goodness.

It was beautiful outside. Warm in that springlike way that would seem chilly a month from now, but sunny and fresh. I’d always loved that about spring, that freshly washed newborn feeling it had to it. But I loved seeing it even more. The trees were taking on a pale green cast as their buds started to become leaves. Birds were flitting around singing like extras in a Disney flick. Tulips and daffodils everywhere you looked. And the apple blossoms were busting out all over. Out in the Point they were barely peeking out of their buds.

Myrtle hurried from one spot to the next, sniffing everything thoroughly, excited by a new place and not even keeping her side pressed to my leg. She really was getting more confident. I loved that.

“So she walked from this bench to that corner,” Mason said. “Bitching all the way, according to her coach.”

“Her blindness coach. The person her father hired to teach her how to be blind.”

“Yeah.” He chose to ignore the sarcasm in my tone.

“But the coach is sighted, right?”

“Uh-huh.” He said it like he knew what was coming next. Hell, he probably did.

“And that makes sense because no one knows what it’s like to be blind better than a sighted person does, right?”

“Of course not.”

“So explain it to me, then, ’cause I’m not getting it.”

He stopped. We’d walked about five steps. (Myrtle, twenty.) “I didn’t say I thought it was a great idea, I’m just telling you how it went down.”

“I know.” I said it like it should’ve been obvious. “I’m just saying.”

“Can we focus here? And stop looking at the damn birds, Rachel, we need to look at the ground.”

I’d been watching a red-winged blackbird in a nearby tree. He was perched on the topmost branch, and he kept chirping this loud, long note and hunching up his shoulders at the same time, so the little red patches were more prominent. Showing off for the ladies, I bet. “You look for clues with your eyes. I look with my other senses, remember?”

“So is that bird giving you anything to go on?”

I shrugged. “It’s spring. Horniness thrives. I say we question the boyfriend. She does have a boyfriend, doesn’t she?”

“Two that her father felt worth mentioning,” he said. “One former, one current.”

“Let’s talk to them both. And the blindness coach.”

He nodded. “Already on my list.”

“I’ll be more helpful when we’re doing that.” I glanced ahead and saw a fat robin skipping along the sidewalk pecking at something too small for me to see. Myrtle sensed it or felt it or something, because she was focused in that direction, too, leaning forward like she was getting ready to lunge at the bird, even though she couldn’t see it. “If we do it indoors,” I added.

He didn’t reply, so I lifted my head again, met his eyes. He was grinning at me, flashing the Dimple of Doom. My doom, at least. I made a face and started walking, scanning the sidewalk as I went, at least when I could take my eyes off my bulldog and her absolute enjoyment of the walk. Myrt really had living in the moment down, that was for sure. Can’t see? Oh well. I smell a squirrel! was her philosophy. Frankly, I thought it was a pretty good one.

I used to have to coax and cajole and tug to get her to walk any distance at all. But today she was rushing me. She was definitely getting more fit. Mason caught me watching her, sent me a look that asked for my focus.

I know, I know, but it was my first sighted springtime since age ten. So shoot me. “Come on, get with the program, Detective,” I said. Best defense is a good offense, right? “Daylight’s burning.”

We completed our inspection of the sidewalk where Stevie had obeyed her coach’s orders, tapping her way from the bench to the corner, and didn’t find anything. Well, we didn’t, but Myrtle did. She’d peed on a clump of weeds, chomped the blossom off a stray daffodil and picked up a discarded Pepsi can, which she was still carrying like a prized treasure.

Whatever had happened to Stephanie had happened after she’d gone around the corner. But we’d already known that. So we turned right, just like she had. And then I really slowed down. Mason walked near the inside edge, where sidewalk met park, so I took the curb, where sidewalk met road.

And there in a drain was a cell phone. It had fallen onto the grate, and wedged itself most of the way through. I’d been hanging around cops—well, one cop—long enough to know not to touch it, so I pointed it out, then crouched low, pulled my long sweater over one hand and picked it up with the sleeve while Myrt dropped her soda can and tried to grab it before I could. “Got’cha!”

I won and turned toward Mason, holding up the phone. And then I flashed back to Thanksgiving, when my personal assistant and best-Goth, Amy, had been snatched off the highway by two jerks in a white pickup truck. We’d found her phone at the scene, too.

Weird.

Mason came over with a plastic bag and I dropped the phone in. “Nice find,” he said.

“Wish I still had that damn stylus in my purse so we could tap this thing without leaving a print. I lost it, need to buy another one.” I’d had one at the scene of Amy’s brief abduction. Ms. Smarty-pants had snapped a photo of the pickup, knowing it was trouble, and left it behind to lead us to her. “Mason, do you think this could be related to what happened to Amy?”