Blind Vigil

by Matt Coyle

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  MIDNIGHT’S GROWL WOKE me from a restless sleep. I bolted upright and quietly shushed him. I grabbed the gun. The room was pitch black. My improving vision still needed light to see anything. I guided myself around the edge of the bed to Midnight in the crate. I brought my index finger to my lips and gave a quiet sshh, then silently opened the crate and let him into the bathroom six steps away with the soundproof comforter on the floor and the bucket full of three days’ worth of water. More than enough if something went wrong.

  I bent over and kissed Midnight on the forehead then left the bathroom and quietly shut the door behind me.

  Midnight was my alarm and would fight to the death to save my life, but I wouldn’t put him in that situation. I’d prepared. I was ready.

  Ten steps to the bedroom door. The house, still a black cave. I squinted down my eyes and listened to the night. Silence.

  Fifteen silent steps to the staircase. Both hands holding the gun in front of me in a perfect shooting platform. I took one hand from the gun and grabbed the railing at the top of the stairs to situate myself. Slowly, I knelt down to the floor, then proned myself out on my stomach, arms out in front. The pain from my stomach wound heightened my senses.

  I waited.

  A blurred narrow beam of light in the kitchen. He’d picked the lock on the back door. The light moved around the kitchen, the living room, and shot over my head to the second floor. I kept the gun pointed at the source of the light. Still too far away to zero in on.

  The light moved across the living room toward the staircase. Each step silent. I had just enough time to bolt back into my bedroom, lock the door, and call 911. The killer would probably flee and I’d be safe. For tonight. But what about tomorrow or the next time I left my house. The home alarm wouldn’t do me any good out in the world.

  The source of the light reached the bottom of the staircase. The beam rose six inches with each silent step. Closer and closer to my face and outstretched arms at the top of the stairs. Step six. Two more and the target light would find me.

  I aimed just below the light and whispered, “Rory.”

  The light shot up. I squeezed the trigger. Yellow light flashed the stairway as three explosions rocked the house.

  Two from my gun, a silenced one from his.

  “Umph.” A thump, then tumble down the staircase. The beam of light bounced down the stairs and came to rest at the bottom. Pointed at the human mass next to it.

  I sprang to my feet and scrambled down the stairs. My gun pointed at the body below me as I counted off each step in my head above the ringing in my ears. I knelt down and picked up the gun the light was attached to and pointed it at the man gasping below me. The gun had a long, thin suppressor screwed into the barrel. The man was dressed in dark hospital scrubs and something was covering his shoes, probably plastic booties. His hands, dark, encased in latex gloves. The uniform and weapon of a professional killer.

  I pointed the light-mounted gun at his head. He was bald now. No more brown hair that the woman who screamed saw the night he stabbed me. But I could smell the Dove deodorant mixed in with his musk even with the metallic stink of smoke and the coppery scent of blood in the air.

  The Invisible Man had already changed his look and, no doubt, his identity. For the final time. In the light I could just make out his face. His mouth was gaping like a fish out of water.

  With my gun still aimed at him, I used my left hand to find his wounds. Two in the upper chest. I put pressure on them as best I could with one hand. The man’s breathing grew more ragged.

  “Did Benson tell you to kill me or is this on your own?”

  “I … I …” A death rattle and he was gone.

  Another square white room. I’d been in too many of them the last fifteen years. This one belonged to the San Diego Police Department. My second time in it in the last three days. Fluorescent lights overhead. Bright enough for me to almost make out the features of Detective Skupin sitting across from me. We had a history. Not as bad as I had with most cops.

  “I’m trying to help you out here, Rick, but you got to meet me halfway.”

  “Whatever you need, Detective.”

  “What I need is an explanation that doesn’t come off as you lying in wait for Doug Breslin and cold-bloodedly shooting him.”

  “Kind of hard to lie in wait in my own home. The guy broke in, shot at me, and I shot him.”

  “I’ll tell you what you did and didn’t do, Rick.” He thrust out a hand. I could barely make out his fingers as he unwound them. “You didn’t call 911 when you heard an intruder in your house. You didn’t arm your home alarm, which was in working order. By the way, I checked with the alarm company and they said you hadn’t had the alarm on for four days. How do you explain that?”

  “I’ve been forgetful since someone stabbed me in the stomach and tried to slit my throat. A lot of painkillers.”

  “The facts of the crime scene don’t correlate with your story. I’ll give you a chance to change it right now. No harm done.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “You could not have been standing up when you shot Breslin. The angle would have been more downward. Plus, the bullet from his gun went into the ceiling right above the staircase, like he’d already been shot and was falling backward when he fired his gun.”

  “I might have gotten where he was standing wrong when he raised his gun to shoot me and who shot first. It all happened pretty fast.”

  “That’s another thing. You’re legally blind. How could you tell he had a gun and not just a flashlight?”

  “A reasonable assumption considering that he did have a gun.”

  “And you were willing to bet his life on an assumption?”

  “No. I wasn’t willing to bet mine.”

  EPILOGUE

  DETECTIVE SKUPIN HAD me down to San Diego PD headquarters two more times. At Elk Fenton’s insistence, I took him with me for both. Skupin didn’t charge me but never completely bought my story, either. That didn’t matter. The press had already anointed me a hero.

  Again.

  I declined all interview requests.

  Four months after Doug Breslin tried to kill me, the second time, Turk requested Moira, Kris, Elk Fenton, and me to meet him at the Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial one night. The memorial sits under a forty-foot-high cross and has a 360-degree view of La Jolla and much of San Diego all the way to Mexico. I’d spent many a solemn evening up there with my dad as a kid and alone as an adult. And it’s where Turk saved my life and took a bullet that changed his own.

  Turk had us gather on a patch of grass below the cross that had a spectacular view of La Jolla. Night or day.

  “Thanks for coming tonight.” Turk held a letter-size piece of paper in front of him with both hands. “I know it was an odd request. This place was special to Shay and me. We used to drive up here about this time of night, look at the view, and talk about our future together.”

  Turk’s voice wavered. Kris rubbed his shoulder and he took a deep breath then continued.

  “Anyway, I’ll get to it.” Another deep breath. “Shay had a safe deposit box at her bank that I didn’t know about. No one knew about it. Anyway, her cousins in South Carolina ended up with the contents, which wasn’t much, but they sent me a letter Shay had written that was in it. I wanted you to hear it, because no one here but Kris knew the kind of person Shay was. In fact, because of me hiring Moira and Rick to spy on her, the three of you probably didn’t think too highly of her. This letter says who she really was.”

  He handed the letter to Kris. She held a flashlight on it and read it out loud.

  Dear Turk,

  I know things have been difficult lately. That’s my fault. I haven’t been truthful with you. I’ve lied about what I’ve been doing after work and I think you can tell. I’m sorry. It hurts me deeply to know I’m hurting you. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to explain what I’ve been doing or even show you this letter, but I
hope I have the courage to soon. I know you put me on a pedestal and I hate that you might think less of me.

  Before I met you, when I lived in Portland, I took an ancestry DNA test for fun. I found out that my cousin, Keenan Powell, lived in San Diego. The man who helped my father fake his own death.

  You see, my father is still alive. He’s changed his name and is now the CEO of a hedge fund. I’m sure he started it with some of the money he stole from my mom. It’s probably some sort of scheme to steal money from more people. He’s an evil man, but I don’t think the police can do anything about what he did to my mom now. I know he cares about his fake reputation, though, and I’m using that against him. I’m not proud of what I’m doing, but it’s the only way to get back some of the money he stole from my mom. From my future. From our baby’s future.

  I know things aren’t great with the restaurant and I want to pay you back for all the money you’ve given me for rent. This money will give our child a chance to have a fair start in life.

  I hope that, if you read this, or find out what I’ve done, you’ll understand why I did it and still want to raise a child with me.

  I came to San Diego to find my cousin who I hoped would lead me to my father. He did.

  But what I didn’t expect was to find, and was blessed to find, was you. You’re the best man I’ve ever known and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

  I love you with all my heart and can’t wait for us to start a family.

  Love,

  Shay

  Kris’ voice caught at the end, but she made it through. Turk had his head down. Moira went over and hugged him, then wiped her eyes. I wiped mine and hugged him, too.

  “She was flawed, like the rest of us.” Turk steadied his voice. “But her heart was in the right place. If only I’d known what she was doing, I …”

  “You can’t do that, Turk.” I put my hands on his shoulders and looked him in the face. “I’ve been down that road and there’s no good end to it. You were the best man she knew and you loved her. You did the best you could. That’s all anyone can ever do.”

  Sixteen months after losing my eyesight, I now only wear sunglasses outside. The prescription matches the glasses I wear indoors. My vision seems to have dead-ended at 20/200, but lenses correct it to 20/20. I can see. Well enough to work cases without having to rely on my nose and my ears, which have regressed to normal with my corrected vision. Tradeoffs.

  Leah is living in Santa Barbara full-time. We take turns spending weekends together there and in San Diego. With Midnight as my traveling companion. Family.

  Turk, Kris, and I sometimes share a drink or two after closing time at Muldoon’s and talk like we used to seven years ago. Friends.

  I finally had plastic surgery to repair the bullet hole in my face. It’s not perfect. There’s still a scar. Fits about right.

  My office is booth four at Muldoon’s again.

  I work cases. I follow my gut. I do the best I can.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  We hope that you have enjoyed Blind Vigil by Matt Coyle. This is the seventh novel in the Rick Cahill series. If you have not read the previous novels, we’d like to give you a brief recap.

  Yesterday’s Echo is the first book in the series. Rick Cahill had been a Santa Barbara cop until he was accused of murdering his wife. Never convicted—but never exonerated, either—he now manages a restaurant in La Jolla. When a beautiful, young TV reporter, arrested for murder, comes to him for help, Rick is pulled into her case. But things go desperately wrong, and he, too becomes a suspect.

  Night Tremors follows when an old nemesis asks Rick for his help to free a man from prison, a man he thinks is wrongly convicted of murder. Scared from the past, chased by nightmares, Rick jumps at the chance to save an innocent man—by uncovering the truth only the real killer knows—what happened one bloody night eight years earlier.

  Dark Fissures is the third Rick Cahill novel. Rick, now a struggling private investigator, is hired by a beautiful country singer to prove her husband’s death was not suicide—but murder. This case pits him against the La Jolla Chief of Police—again. This time Rick is out of time—with no place to go—

  Rick Cahill had long feared the truth about his blood, the blood of his father, coursing through his veins. In Blood Truth, the fourth in the series, Rick faces head-on the truth. After opening a long hidden safe, he embarks upon a quest to redeem or doom his late father’s disgrace. As he uncovers layers of clues, he encounters powerful forces intent on keeping the past buried.

  The fifth novel in the Rick Cahill series is Wrong Light. Rick has been hired to protect a sexy nighttime radio show host, who’s prey to a demented stalker. But can he escape his own past long enough to intercede?

  Lost Tomorrows is the Rick Cahill novel that directly precedes Blind Vigil. While attending the funeral of his former partner in the Santa Barbara Police Department, Rick discovers she may have been murdered. Following clues leading to her murder, he discovers the truth about the tragedy that ruined his life—his wife’s murder. Consumed by revenge, Rick plots his course, leading to the consequences you find in Blind Vigil …