See No Evil

by Morgan Hayes

  He was sweeping the floor, brushing shards of glass and porcelain into the dustpan. Finally she heard him take out two other mugs and pour coffee, and in moments she had a warm cup in her hands.

  “How about some breakfast?” he offered.

  “That depends. What can you make?” She grinned.

  “Well, let’s see.” She heard the fridge door open and imagined him surveying the contents. “I make a pretty mean slice of toast and jam.”

  No sooner had she nodded than Allister set about making them breakfast. She listened to him switch on the toaster and take jars of honey and jam from the fridge.

  She should ask him about last night, Stevie thought as she sipped her coffee. She should just come right out and confront him about what he’d said and what those words had meant, what was developing between them and what, if anything, he expected.

  But she wasn’t quick enough.

  “Listen, Stevie—” Allister took out two plates and set them on the kitchen bar “—how much do you remember about the day you were shooting at the warehouse?”

  “You mean the day Gary was killed?”

  Allister hesitated. “Yeah.” It was still too painful for him to even say it, Stevie thought.

  “Well, the actual afternoon is pretty clear. It’s what happened later that’s still a bit cloudy. Why?”

  “I’m just thinking there might be something we’re overlooking.”

  “I told you before, Allister, Gary didn’t give me anything.”

  “But maybe he said something, Stevie. I don’t know. I’m just trying to figure out if he dropped any clues at all about these damned coins. He knew Bainbridge would be after them, and he probably wanted to get them out of the warehouse. There has to be something he said or did that might lead us to them.”

  Stevie took a sip of coffee. She’d done her best to forget every last detail of that fateful night and the afternoon leading up to it. And now Allister wanted her to remember it all again.

  “We got to the warehouse probably around four,” she began, “but since it was Friday, the staff had all gone home already.”

  As Allister made toast, Stevie told him how they had set up in the main area of the warehouse, how Gary had waved at her from the catwalk before turning back to his office. She told him about seeing Fenton and about her camera jamming. Then how, twenty minutes later, Gary had left for a short time.

  “Left? For where?” Allister asked as he slid her plate of toast across the kitchen bar and pulled up a stool.

  “I don’t know where he was going. He didn’t say. He just asked me how much longer we’d be, and when I told him another hour or so, he said he’d see me in a while. He was running an errand, he said, and he’d be right back.”

  “He didn’t say anything else? If he was expecting anyone?”

  “No, just that he’d be back. He seemed a bit nervous, though. I wanted to go after him then and ask if he was all right, but we were in the middle of the shoot. He kept looking over his shoulder on his way to the side door, and I remember thinking he was going to crush the shipping box he was carrying because he was hanging on to it so tightly.”

  “A box?”

  “Yeah, one of those with the Palmer logo.”

  “He was carrying a shipping box?”

  Stevie nodded.

  “Why didn’t you say something about that before?”

  “About Gary holding a shipping box? Allister, Gary always had some sort of package or envelope in his hand. I didn’t think anything of it. I figured he was just making a personal delivery. What, you think maybe that was the coins?”

  “Could be. If you saw Fenton on the catwalk just before that, it could be that Fenton was leaving. He could have been at the warehouse to get the coins. But maybe Gary wouldn’t give them up. If Fenton made a few threats, maybe it was then that Gary figured he’d better get the coins out of the warehouse.”

  “As if he’d known Fenton would be back,” Stevie said slowly.

  “Exactly. So did you talk to Gary when he returned?”

  “Briefly. We finished the shoot sometime around seven-I don’t remember the exact time. Paige and the rest of the crew packed up the equipment while I stayed to thank Gary for letting us use the warehouse.”

  “And did he say anything out of the ordinary then? Anything that seemed odd?”

  Stevie shook her head. “We just chatted, Allister. I suggested he and Barb take a holiday. He looked burned out. But he said he couldn’t get away. And that was about it. He’d obviously had things he wanted to take care of—he seemed awfully distracted—so I left him.”

  “But you went back?”

  Stevie rubbed the handle of her mug. She didn’t want to remember that part. She didn’t want to have to conjure up the images of that horrifying night again. It was over. She wanted to put it behind her.

  But Allister’s silence was demanding.

  “I went to the warehouse again around ten that night. I’d forgotten one of the cameras—the jammed one with the shot of Fenton. Gary had given me a key, so I let myself in. When I got my bag, I noticed that Gary’s office lights were still on, so I went up to talk to him.”

  The memories came back in a flood now, exactly what she’d wanted to avoid—the disarray of the office, Gary’s body by the desk and, finally, the man who had attacked her.

  “He’d been standing just inside the doorway,” she went on, describing for Allister every detail she could recall. “It was the red of the fire extinguisher that caught my eye. As soon as I stepped through the door, he was going to swing it at me.”

  Allister wanted to stop Stevie now. This part she didn’t need to remember for him. He could see it was a strain for her, as well. Her expression had become drawn, and her grip on her coffee mug had tightened so fiercely he wondered if the ceramic could withstand the pressure.

  “I didn’t get a good look at the man then. But he was tall, with dark hair and almost black eyes. That’s about all I saw before I ducked and ran. Allister, what does Fenton look like?”

  Up until now, Allister hadn’t even considered the comparison. It hadn’t crossed his mind that Stevie might want to match the image in her memory to the man only Allister had seen. And in that second, Allister was grateful for both the brevity of Stevie’s memory and for the fleeting resemblance between Fenton and himself. He couldn’t have handed Stevie yet another lie.

  “From what I saw of Fenton in the car,” Allister told her, “and then in your proofs, I’d say he’s probably around six foot. And he’s got dark hair. But listen, Stevie—”

  “He came after me, Allister,” she went on, in spite of Allister’s efforts to stop her. “Gary’s killer. He ran after me along the catwalk. I could feel it vibrating under my feet, and I knew he was chasing me. I remember thinking that if I could beat him outside and get into my car, I’d be safe. But then he was right behind me.”

  Stevie took another sip of coffee and when she did, Allister saw the cup shake in her hand.

  “I was going to swing at him with my keys, but he grabbed me. I don’t…I don’t know if he hit me then or if I struck my head on the railing or something. But I remember falling.”

  “Stevie, you don’t have to—”

  “Allister!” She slammed down her cup so forcefully that the black coffee splashed over the rim. “Allister, wait! I remember. When I fell, just before I blacked out, I saw him again. He was leaning over me. It was dark, and his face was in shadow. But I remember him coming closer, and then I saw this scar.”

  “A scar?” Allister couldn’t breathe. He leaned back on his stool, away from Stevie, needing space. This couldn’t be happening. A kind of excitement lit her expression now-excitement at her newfound memory.

  “On the man’s face.” She drew a finger along her left temple to show Allister exactly where she’d seen the scar, and as he watched her, it felt as though an invisible icy finger touched his own temple where the ragged scar indelibly marked him.

  H
e slid off the stool and began to pace the small kitchen. He felt like a caged animal, caught in a trap of lies and illfated circumstances. But then why should he have expected any different? For the past six years, that was all his life had consisted of.

  “I mustn’t have remembered it before,” Stevie was saying, “because I only saw the scar that once, when he was leaning over me just before I blacked out. Dr. Sterling calls it selective amnesia.”

  Allister kept pacing. It was all he could do now. Stevie remembered: she remembered his face, she remembered his scar. All along he’d held on to the thin hope that maybe, in her panic, she hadn’t seen him very clearly that night, that when her sight returned she wouldn’t be able to identify him. But he’d been fooling himself. If Stevie had seen his scar, then for sure she’d gotten a good look at him, and for sure she’d be able to identify him when her sight returned.

  “Allister?”

  “Hmm?”

  “We could take this to the police now. I mean, I know you don’t trust Devane, but we could go to someone else, someone higher up. If this Fenton guy has a scar, if I can prove he was the man who attacked me, who killed Gary, well, someone on the force must be able to help us.”

  “It’s not just Devane I’m suspicious of, Stevie. And besides, unless we’ve got direct evidence against Bainbridge. He can hire other men. No, we’ve got to get something on Bainbridge himself. Without that, we’re still not safe.”

  She seemed to mull this last point over, and Allister couldn’t help thinking that his logic sounded convincing, especially since there was a very real truth to it—with or without Fenton, Bainbridge wasn’t likely to stop until he had his coins.

  Allister studied Stevie’s blank gaze. Maybe it would have been easier just to tell her the truth, tell her that he was the man she’d seen that night in Gary’s office, that he was the person responsible for her blindness.

  But would Stevie honestly believe he’d had nothing to do with Gary’s murder? After all, other than their connection through Gary, they really didn’t know each other very well. And how could he expect Stevie to trust a man she’d never even seen?

  What made Stevie any different from Michelle? he wondered as the bitterness of those memories rose again. He thought he’d known Michelle. They’d been together for three years. They’d been engaged. As close as Allister felt to Stevie, as much as he thought he loved her, how well did he really know her? And could he honestly expect her to trust or believe him after all the lies?

  “Well, it doesn’t seem like we’ve got many avenues open to us,” Stevie said. She pushed her stool back and crossed the kitchen to the counter. “I mean, if we can’t go to the police, and if there’s nothing Gary said or did that can lead us to the coins, what’s left?”

  But the question was only a rhetorical one, Allister realized as he watched her grope for the coffeepot. She didn’t expect him to have the answers.

  Allister admired the skill with which she poured her coffee, no doubt using sound to judge the level of the liquid. And when she turned back to the kitchen bar and drew up her stool again, she did so with such finesse that Allister found himself yet again in awe of Stevie’s willpower and courage. There was more to it than her saving him from the river in spite of her blindness. It was the fact that Stevie hadn’t let her loss stop her.

  But Paige had been right last night about Stevie’s being secretly terrified. Behind that dark unfocused gaze, he recognized her fear—fear of an unknown future, a fear Allister knew all too well.

  Suddenly Stevie was on her feet again. Her stool scraped across the kitchen floor and she was halfway to the stairs before Allister had even stood up.

  “Stevie, what is it?”

  “I’ve got it,” she called back to him, and started down the stairs.

  “Got what?” But he was sure she hadn’t heard him. And by the time Allister reached the first floor himself, he could hear Stevie already rummaging in the darkroom.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked, reaching for the light switch. As the overhead fluorescents flickered on, he saw Stevie squatting in front of the storage cabinets, groping in each systematically.

  “Stevie, tell me what you’re looking for so I can help.”

  “My bag, Allister. The one I left at the warehouse that night.” She opened another cabinet.

  “A camera bag?”

  “No. It’s a black duffel bag. My gym bag actually. It was the closest thing around when the camera jammed, so I put the camera in it with my gym stuff.”

  Allister started to rummage now, too.

  “It’s got to be in here,” Stevie was saying. “Paige had it the other day when she gave me the Nikon to salvage the film. And unless she’s taken to washing my gym clothes—”

  “Bingo.” Allister pulled the black bag out from between one of the worktables and the wall. It was the bag Stevie had had with her that night, the bag he’d slung over his shoulder when he’d carried her into the emergency room. The memory was vivid, yet it seemed like a lifetime ago.

  He brought the bag to Stevie, and she immediately sat next to it on the floor. “When I went back to Gary’s that night, my bag wasn’t where I’d left it,” she told him as she pulled out gym clothes and shoes. “I figured maybe my crew had moved it, but then if they had, they would have packed it along with the rest of the equipment. So, what if—” she turned her search to the side pockets now, having found nothing in the main section “—what if Gary moved the bag? What if he figured I’d come back for it and—” She stopped abruptly.

  “Stevie, did you find something?”

  From the side pocket she pulled out a large flat key and held it up toward Allister.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “You tell me.”

  “This isn’t yours?” Stevie shook her head as he took the key and turned it over in his hands.

  “Looks like it could be for a safe-deposit box or something. You think Gary put this in here?”

  “That’s my guess. I mean, this bag was in the warehouse after my shoot and before Gary was killed. And if the coins aren’t in the warehouse somewhere, maybe they’re in a safe-deposit box—one that key opens.”

  The kiss Allister planted on Stevie’s lips took her by surprise. He enjoyed hearing her small gasp, followed quickly by her eager response.

  And when he pulled back to look at her, her genuine smile touched his heart.

  “So, what was that you were saying last night about us not being detectives?” he asked.

  ALLISTER MUST HAVE checked his rearview mirror a dozen times in the past thirty seconds alone, and still he hadn’t seen any sign of Vince Fenton’s brown sedan. Either Bainbridge’s thug had decided to adopt a more discreet tactic, or more likely, he’d guessed who’d broken into his apartment last night and was now maintaining a safe distance.

  It couldn’t have been difficult for Fenton to figure out the identity of last night’s intruder. After Allister had practically run him off the road the day before, Fenton must have known that Allister had gotten a look at his plates. Then, when nothing had been stolen from Fenton’s apartment, it should have been obvious that whoever had broken in had been looking for something specific.

  Whatever, Fenton was nowhere to be seen today.

  Allister glanced over at Stevie in the Volvo’s passenger seat. She was holding the key and rubbing it with her thumb. She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes.

  “Are you tired?” he asked.

  She nodded but her eyes remained shut. “Just a bit.”

  “We’ll be at the bank soon. We’ll check the box and then I’ll get you home.”

  It had been a long morning. After finding the key, Allister had tried to reach Barb in Baltimore to find out if she knew anything about a safe-deposit box. But she was out. He’d spoken to her mother, instead, who’d promised him Barb was doing fine and would call him soon.

  They’d driven to the warehouse then, and after being cornered to sign forms a
nd return a number of phone calls, Allister had searched Gary’s files. Almost two hours later he’d found the document from the bank, indicating the bank’s address and a box number that matched the one stamped on the key.

  Through all of it, Stevie had been by Allister’s side. In fact, she’d been every bit as anxious as he was, and when he’d found the document at last, it was Stevie who’d given him a celebratory kiss.

  “There’s one thing I don’t get, Allister,” Stevie said now, and Allister pulled his gaze from the rearview mirror to glance at her again.

  “What’s that?”

  “Gary’s putting the key in my bag. Why would he do that? I mean, it’s a key. Why wouldn’t he have hidden it at the warehouse someplace? Or in his car even?”

  “I’m not sure,” he answered. “It could be that Gary knew he was being followed and wanted to be sure there was a key he could get at that was outside his usual route from the warehouse to his home. Or maybe he figured that if he got in trouble, with the key in someone else’s possession, it would have taken him only a phone call to get the coins.”

  “You mean, he would have had me drive to the bank and get them? That doesn’t sound like Gary. I don’t believe he would have intentionally dragged me into this.”

  “I can’t tell you that, Stevie. I don’t know what Gary was thinking when he put the key in your bag. I don’t know what he was thinking when he got involved with Bainbridge in the first place.”

  Allister steered the Volvo into the plaza parking lot and parked in a space just outside the bank. He took the key from the ignition and turned to Stevie.

  “Are you ready?”

  She nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  Allister was sure Stevie had the same feeling he did—that they were being followed, that as soon as they had their hands on the coins, someone would jump them. If indeed they were actually going to find the coins in Gary’s safe-deposit box.

  Helping Stevie from the car, Allister slid his arm around her waist and guided her across the parking lot. He scanned the area. Still no sign of the brown sedan.

  The bank was bustling, and from all appearances, shortstaffed. Allister waited with Stevie near the last wicket, as a teller promised for the third time that the assistant manager would be right with them.