Blind Spot (Blind Justice Book 1)

by Adam Zorzi

  Dr. Spellman hadn't taken a single note. He took a few minutes before speaking in his neutral voice.

  “I'm sorry you've experienced such upheaval in addition to your father's death and a major depressive episode. I'm going to re-evaluate your needs, but there are some gaps of information for which I need explanations.”

  Dan shrugged. Ask away.

  “Were you evasive about your father's death when you spoke to Bella?”

  “She had no right to the details of my father's death. She stressed me when I was consumed with work while I was grieving. She pushed too much.”

  “In what way? You stonewalled her for weeks. You exaggerated your importance at work….”

  “No, I didn't. I was the project manager,” he interrupted.

  “They managed to complete the installation without you. You received a commendation for doing a stellar job and leaving a clear blueprint for your team to follow. As to Bella, you withheld simple information about your father's death that you freely shared with neighbors, co-workers, and possibly passing strangers. We've discussed your poor decision not to notify her of the change of plans for Thanksgiving weekend. Were you deliberately provoking her?”

  “I don't know. I just couldn't talk to her. I wanted to be alone with my family.”

  “Yet you threatened her. Bella knows you well and recognized your habit of digging in your heels even when you're wrong. Arguing with you would be futile so she protected herself. The best way to force you to see reason was to tell your wife the consequences of your temper tantrum.”

  Everyone was so hard on him. Yes, he was wrong to threaten Bella. It was stupid, but he'd been angry. He didn't intend to actually sue her.

  “I don't understand a key point. Bella sounds like a woman who wouldn't bother with a man who wasn't interested in her and would quickly shift her attention to someone who did. If you made it clear you didn't want a relationship, Bella wouldn't pursue it. Why the email?”

  Dan felt like he was the loser in a boxing match that the referee refused to stop. He was going to be pounded into a knock-out. He surrendered. He exhaled and spoke quietly.

  “I described contact as anything from or about her during my rant. The affair started when I ran into Bella at the Omni hotel after she'd made a speech to the Virginia Bar Association. She's an expert securities lawyer who literally wrote the standard textbook on securities law. She's represented by a speaker's bureau. I subscribed to her mailing list. Bella said an unsubscribe request might not be processed before the next update was disseminated. I told her I considered that to be contact and she'd better get me off that list.”

  Spellman looked skeptical. “Even though you, as a computer specialist, know that a client's control of a third party's database is nonexistent.” It was a statement not a question.

  Dan nodded.

  “Bella, being a savvy woman with a reputation to protect, sent the email to Jill in order to keep you in line should you do something rash if the brochure or email or whatever arrived, correct?”

  “Yes.” He sighed deeply. It was all out. Every last bit of it.

  Spellman eyed him carefully. He swiveled to consult something on the computer monitor and back to face Dan.

  “Dan, do you have any support who will be in town over the holidays?”

  “My brother and sister-in-law will be in town. They're not going away until mid-January.”

  “Good.” He closed Dan's file, swiveled away from the computer, and spoke without humor.

  “I have no treatment for stupidity. You're functioning at a level where your judgment shouldn't be clouded by depression. You have a quick temper. What you described isn't depression-related irritability. It's cowardice, selfishness, and anger.

  “My prescription is that you stay in Richmond and take your scheduled vacation from work. That's a bad environment for you right now. Your wife sounds determined to keep her plans with your daughter and her family in Charleston. She's behaving rationally and protecting your daughter from adult subjects. Don't object. Encourage your daughter to enjoy herself.

  “I'm diagnosing you with a serious case of mumps for which you must stay inside, stop running, and lay low for the weekend. There's a three-hour daily anger management program at Richmond Memorial Hospital in which I'll enroll you starting Monday. You don't need a change in medication. You need an attitude adjustment. The anger management facilitator is an expert. Take advantage of that.”

  Dan was screwed.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  March

  Ruh. RRRRRRRRRRuh. Ruh.Ruh. RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRuh.

  Long howls of pure doggie joy from the black Schnauzer mix started before the car stopped. She sensed home. When the car door opened, she jumped out and raced across the grass to the front door of a white brick rambler, leaving her leash and the woman attached to it at the curb.

  The young redhead who opened the front door welcomed the dog with open arms. The dog licked her face while her thumb of a tail ticked back and forth. The woman wrapped her arms around the dog and cried unabashedly.

  The blonde woman who had arrived with the dog reached the front door. “She's happy to be home.”

  “Oh yes,” gushed the redhead. “We didn't think we'd ever see Maggie again, and here she is. I can't thank you enough.” She buried her face in the dog's soft curly black coat. She looked up at the slender woman in front of her. “Forgive me. I'm overcome. Won't you please come inside?”

  “No, thank you,” she said. “It's best to do this quickly. We'd no idea Abbie, that is, Maggie, belonged to someone. My husband got her after she'd been picked up by animal control. She had no identification.”

  The redhead didn't bother to wipe her tears. “We were just sick. Our house sitter had impeccable references, but he let Maggie out rather than walking her on a leash and she got away. Of course, we didn't pay him, but that didn't replace Maggie.” She started to cry again. “My children will be ecstatic. They were three and five when Maggie went missing. They've never wanted to go on vacation again. I can't say I blame them. They didn't want another dog because they expected Maggie to come home. And here she is.” She sniffed. “When you called this morning, I couldn't believe she'd been found. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

  “You happiness says it all.” She nodded and took a step back. “We had an ID chip put in her ear. It's been updated so she'll be returned to you should she ever become lost again.” With her car keys at the ready, she started towards the car. “She's up to date on all her shots,” she called over her shoulder.

  “I can't think you enough.” The woman waved.

  She was almost in the car when the redhead called, “I'm sorry. What was your name again?”

  “Mrs. Ramsay. Jill Ramsay.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Rain. More than a mist. Less than a spray. There hadn't been a grey cloud in the sky when he pulled into the driveway. Home from work.

  Dan pulled his damp hand back inside the bedroom window. The weather was wet, but felt warm enough to run. His daily six miles through the nearby park had kept his sanity for the past three months. He closed the window and turned away.

  Sitting on the heirloom quilt spread over one of the twin beds, Dan tied his old navy running shoes. The ones with thick tread but worn uppers he wore in bad weather. Jill would be pissed. He was supposed to leave his running gear in the mud room and not track it through the house and upstairs into the guest room. He'd forgotten. It wouldn't matter. Everything he did was wrong these days. She was pleasant to him but no more unless Katie was around.

  He exhaled deeply. He ran to forget what was going on in his marriage. Running could be mindless. He went through the motions of warming up. Circled his arms eight repetitions forward, eight reps back. Stretched upward as high as he could reach, at the waist, and touched his toes. He jogged in place.

  Dan grabbed his keys and bounded down the stairs, calling “Abbie, here girl. Time to run.” No response. Usually, the black Schnauzer
-mix sweetheart who loved him no matter what met him before he reached the first floor. He called again. No answer.

  “Damn,” he said. She'd vomited two nights ago, which was unusual for her. He hoped she wasn't sick. She was six. She wasn't old.

  He walked into the den where her plush forest green bed lay empty. He circled the kitchen, dining room, and stood at the door of the living room while his eyes swept the room. He didn't dare step inside wearing these old shoes. Nothing should disturb the house museum. Jill had inherited her grandmother's dark Victorian style furniture bursting with rose velvet, pale green silks, and a fine Ourshak rug. He'd always hated the decor, but the furniture had been important to Jill when they married.

  Dan trotted up the stairs and looked in every room, including the off-limits master bedroom. The rest of the house looked like something out of Country Living magazine. Leather, pastel plaids, and cherry wood. Hooked rugs, rocking chairs, and quilts Jill had either made or inherited. No sign of Abbie. Maybe she was in the back yard or maybe she'd dug her way under the foundation again. He went outside and called. No answer.

  He was sure there was an explanation. Abbie couldn't have gotten out of the fenced back yard. Katie was still at school and Jill at work. They wouldn't have let her out before leaving the house. Maybe Abbie just wasn't up for a run in the drizzle. She didn't have marital problems to escape for an hour.

  He sighed, lifted his shoulders, and jogged down the blossoming crabapple tree-lined street, turned left at the gated entrance of the neighborhood, and ran a half mile along the sidewalk and into the park. He started off slow, then upped his pace until he reached optimum heart rate. He didn't wear a heart monitor. He knew his body. Soon he was in his zone. His head was clear, eyes blind to blooming pink and white azaleas along the path, ears deaf to birdsong. Steady, steady, steady. He ran the three mile path once. Twice. Six miles.

  He stopped, bent his head to his knees, and exhaled deeply three times. He pulled a bottle of water with electrolytes from the pocket of his running shorts and drank. A mix of sweat and rain poured down his face. No one else was around. He noticed the rain was coming down harder. He started the jog/walk cool down towards his house. Surely, Abbie had come out of hiding.

  ***

  “Dad, where's Abbie?” cried Katie as soon as he walked in the door of the mudroom. She must've been watching for him and the dog.

  Dan sat on the bench and pulled off his socks and shoes, careful to put the socks in the hamper and the shoes in the copper boot tray. He smelled teriyaki and guessed Jill was just off the mudroom in the kitchen making salmon for dinner.

  He kissed the top of his daughter's head. She squirmed away.

  “Where's Abbie, Dad? Why didn't she come in with you?”

  Trying to hide his concern, Dan spoke evenly. “She didn't go for a run with me. I think she hid because of the weather.”

  “But her leash is gone,” she insisted. “She had to have gone with you.”

  Dan stood. “No, Katie, she didn't. Let's take a look around the house.”

  “Her name is Kaitlyn. She's not a baby.” Jill shouted from the kitchen.

  Dan took his daughter's hand in his and walked into the kitchen. He felt small and vulnerable in bare feet and damp running clothes around Jill. He almost felt naked.

  Jill was standing in front of the microwave setting the timer for fish. Even though he knew she'd lost weight since Christmas, she still looked great and toned in slim jeans, a red sweater, and her beloved short Ugg boots. He couldn't get used to the short hair. She'd shorn her shoulder-length brown black hair on New Year's Day and looked almost like Demi Moore in GI Jane. It wasn't becoming. She looked like a boy. It made her face look gaunt. Even she knew it was bad because she'd bought a pageboy wig with bangs to wear to work until it grew. At least it had grown enough that she no longer wore the wig.

  “So, where's Abbie?” she asked without turning to look at him.

  “Hiding, I think.”

  “No,” howled Katie. “She wouldn't hide from us now. It's dinner time. She's hungry.”

  Dan squatted to be eye level with Katie.

  “She's hiding somewhere, but she couldn't have gotten out of the back yard because of the fence. Only the three of us know the combination so no one could have let her out.”

  Katie cried harder.

  “Kaitlyn,” Jill turned to her daughter. “We are the only three who know the combination, aren't we? You didn't tell anyone, did you?”

  Katie hugged herself and choked out sobs.

  “Kaitlyn Carter Ramsay, who did you tell? Josie? Sophia? Not Jada, did you?”

  “Jill, don't,” he started and stopped when she gave him a look that said “don't mess with me.” The look he'd never seen before December.

  She took Kaitlyn gently by the shoulders and said, “Who did you tell?”

  Katie looked down at her tennis shoes, laces one untied. “Sophia,” she whispered.

  “Why?”

  “So she could get in and come on the deck if I didn't hear her ring the bell.”

  “We'll have to change the combination,” she exhaled. “After dinner, your father will call Sophia's family and go get Abbie. Go wash your hands. Dinner is in three minutes.”

  “I'm not hungry,” said Katie in a voice barely above a whisper. “I can't eat until Abbie comes home.”

  Dan chose to go upstairs, take a one-minute shower, change, and come back. He couldn't bear to watch Jill and Katie going at it and he dare not step in. Abbie was his dog. He'd chosen her from animal control three years ago probably hours before she would have been put down. He'd always had dogs and missed not having one. He thought Katie, as an only child, should have an animal companion. He wanted to burst into tears himself and didn't want to eat, but this wasn't a battle he could fight right now.

  When he returned and took his place at the table, Katie was sitting with tears running down her cheeks looking at her plate. Jill was serving with a determined look on her face.

  The three of them ate silently. Rather, Katie moved her food around her plate, Dan choked down some food, and Jill seemed content with the quiet. She ate her meal and drank an extra glass of Chablis.

  The missing leash bothered Dan. Sophia would have had to have let herself into the house—at least the mud room—to get it. The house was always locked and alarmed. Surely, Katie hadn't had a key made for Sophia and told her the alarm code. Why Sophia would take Abbie home with her without telling Katie puzzled him, too. Dan excused himself without dessert saying he wanted to call Sophia's family and get Abbie before it got too late. He promised to do the dishes after he returned with Abbie.

  In less than five minutes, he returned to the kitchen where Jill was eating a compote of peaches with almonds and raspberries and Katie was twirling her spoon, her fruit untouched.

  “Can I go with you, Dad?” Katie said when he walked in the room.

  He felt like sobbing.

  “No, Katie. Abbie's not at Sophia's. Today was Sophia's piano lesson so she didn't come this way after school. She went straight to the studio.”

  “You mean Abbie's gone?” cried Katie, her brown eyes wide with hurt and fear.

  Katie ran from the table, up the stairs, and into her room faster than Jill could say, “Now look what you've done.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Wide awake.

  Dan knew sleep wasn't going to come tonight. At least he was lying down. His body would get some rest even if his mind couldn't.

  Rain sluiced down the gutters. Occasionally, a thick gust splashed rain onto the windows above his head. It was a normal spring rain.

  Nothing else in his life was normal. Not for the past fifteen months. Now his dog was gone. He'd cried. Deep, heaving sobs. Tears soaked his pillow, but he'd merely gotten a towel from the hall linen closet and put it under his head.

  He'd held himself together during the evening and tried to soothe Katie. He'd selected two pictures of Abbie and uploaded them, typed in
her description, and printed out a LOST DOG flyer. He printed out twenty and gave ten to Katie to tack up around the neighborhood. He'd post some on his way to work tomorrow, make more copies at the office, and do a long search beyond their gated community. He'd also posted a plea on the community website reserved for lost pets, tag sales, and swapping concert and sports tickets. He'd e-mailed Abbie's veterinarian a poster to print and hang at her clinic. He'd call animal control tomorrow to be on the lookout for Abbie. He couldn't think of anything else to do. She had a chip, so if anyone found her, she'd be identified. Unless. Unless that person wanted to keep her. He couldn't think about that. His mind hummed that there was more he could do. He just couldn't see it.

  He'd left Katie to Jill after printing the flyers. Katie was inconsolable. Part of her blamed him for Abbie's disappearance. She'd asked him if Abbie had gotten off her leash while he was running. That hurt. How could she think he'd not only let his beloved Abbie get away, but that he'd come home and pretend she was lost? He wouldn't lie to her. She must know that.

  “Liar. Cheat,” his father had said.

  “Liar,” Jill had screamed at him when she'd found out about his affair. “Liar. Liar. Lying bastard.”

  He protested he wasn't. He considered himself to be an honest man. He wanted to explain Bella was different. He wasn't really cheating. Bella was the first and only woman to hold his heart. She'd come back. He felt he was cheating Bella by being with Jill. He couldn't say any of that to Jill, but he still didn't think of himself as a liar or a cheater.

  Jill wasn't a curser. She didn't have the foul vocabulary to call him all the terrible things she'd like so she stuck with liar. Alternating with traitor. A traitor to the family. And now, his daughter thought he was so treacherous that he'd lost the family dog and was lying to cover himself. He wanted desperately to be out of this nightmare.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN