For Your Eyes Only

by Rebecca York

  He saw she was on the verge of tears. “Jenny,” he said softly, moving toward her. “It’s not your fault. The last thing you need is for me to give you a hard time.”

  At that moment the nurse, whose name tag identified her as Sally Watson, came back. “We’re ready to take Miss Larkin to a room in the medical wing.”

  “Isn’t she all right?’ Ben clipped out.

  “We’re keeping her for observation. I’m sure she’d like some help washing the reservoir water out of her hair.”

  His gaze shot to Jenny.

  “I’m capable of taking a shower by myself,” she said in a strained voice.

  “Of course you are, dear,” Ms. Watson said before addressing Ben again. “We’ll let you know when she’s nice and clean and ready to see you again.”

  Jenny’s face was rigid. Ben wanted to yank Ms. Watson into the hall and point out that if Jenny had been able to extricate herself from a watery death trap, she could damn well take her own shower. But he supposed the nurse wouldn’t be any more responsive than the waitress who hadn’t believed which one of them had spilled the water. And if he gave her a tongue-lashing, she might take out her feelings on the patient. So he addressed himself to Jenny. “I’ll be waiting for you when you finish.”

  She nodded tightly.

  As soon as Ms. Watson took Jenny off in a wheelchair, Patton reappeared.

  “Terry Richardson is going to be all right,” he said.

  “Good.” Wearily Ben propped his shoulder against the wall. Now that Jenny was out of his sight, he was suddenly exhausted. But he needed to give Patton the big picture, so for the next fifteen minutes he briefed him.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it,” the detective said when he was finished.

  “I’ll send you a copy of the file.”

  Ben looked at his watch, hoping he could see Jenny soon. To his relief, Patton departed, and he was free to head for the medical wing. All he wanted to do was be alone with her. He needed to hold her, to kiss her, to make sure she understood why he’d gotten upset—and that he wasn’t mad at her. And he needed to tell her about Richardson. She would worry until she knew he was okay.

  He was striding toward the nurses’ station when his beeper sounded. Phoning headquarters, he found that Diangelo had some important news. What timing.

  He wanted to be with Jenny, but he knew he couldn’t pass up the opportunity his partner was offering him. He asked Nurse Watson to explain to Jenny why he had to leave, then he sped back to the office. Two minutes after he walked onto the sixth floor of headquarters, he was standing at the one-way mirror outside a dingy interrogation room where Duke Wakefield sat slumped in a hard wooden chair.

  “Thanks for waiting,” he told Diangelo.

  “I figured you’d want to be in on it. Besides, it’s never a bad idea to let a guy like him stew in his own juices.”

  Ben nodded as he studied Marianne Blaisdell’s ex-husband. He was short and chunky, with a ruddy complexion and deep-set brown eyes beneath a high, sloping forehead. He looked scared and nervous as he rubbed his fingers across his week’s growth of beard. Sweat plastered his thinning hair to his head.

  But that didn’t mean he was guilty of killing anyone. An hour alone in an interrogation room could unnerve even an honest, upstanding citizen.

  Ben looked at the arrest report and rap sheet. Wakefield had been stopped for a minor problem with his vehicle in West Baltimore and brought in for questioning about his wife’s murder. There was also an outstanding warrant for nonpayment of alimony. They could use that if they needed it Unfortunately, he’d been collared about the same time Jenny was being kidnapped. So he hadn’t been at her house that afternoon. But maybe they could get something out of him if they pretended he was on the A list for Blaisdell’s murder.

  “Want to do a good-cop, bad-cop routine?” Diangelo asked.

  “Yeah. You act like you want to nail him to the wall. I’ll be his savior.”

  When Diangelo opened the door, Wakefield looked up belligerently. “You don’t have any right to hold me like this—” He stopped abruptly as his eyes shifted between the two detectives. Ben had the instant impression that his presence had unnerved the man—as if they were old enemies—yet as far as Ben knew, they’d never met.

  “You know why you’re here?” Diangelo asked.

  Wakefield slumped down in his seat, his shirt collar riding up around the lower part of his face, and shrugged.

  “We’d like to ask you some questions about your wife’s murder.”

  He kept his head down. “Don’t know nothin’ about that.”

  “You can save us all some time if you make a confession,” Diangelo snapped.

  “You arresting me?” He gave Diangelo a direct look. The effect was spoiled as his eyes shifted away.

  Diangelo shook his head. “No. But we can hold you on the alimony warrant. You kill her so you wouldn’t have to pay?”

  “You got it all wrong, man,” Wakefield whined. “Why don’t you go after the real guy and turn me loose?”

  Ben joined the conversation. “I don’t think you did it. But I need some help here. You understand?”

  Wakefield barely nodded. It wasn’t the response Ben expected. Most guys in his position would have jumped at the offer of aid and comfort.

  “It was just bad luck you got picked up for that equipment violation,” Ben tried.

  The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and he pressed his lips together.

  Ben’s eyes narrowed. What was going on here? He gave Diangelo a nod. “Be right back.”

  The other detective looked momentarily surprised, then tore into Wakefield without missing a beat. Ben closed the door and looked through the window again. There was a definite change in the man’s demeanor now that he was alone with Diangelo. He should be more uptight, because he’d been left to the tender mercies of the bad cop. Instead, he appeared to have relaxed a notch.

  It didn’t make sense, Ben thought, as his eyes flicked between the drama inside the room and the arrest form. Earlier, he’d skimmed over the specifics of the arrest. Now he noted that Wakefield had been stopped for a broken taillight on his pickup.

  He’d seen a pickup truck with a broken taillight. Another scene flashed into his mind. Jenny in the street, a blue truck bearing down on her. A blue pickup.

  He went back to the report. The truck was blue. Presumably Wakefield knew Jenny was a friend of his wife. It wasn’t any kind of conclusive evidence, but he could add another fact to the chain of suppositions. The driver of the truck had seen Ben dash into the street and grab Jenny. If it was Wakefield, he’d have good reason to be nervous about confronting him again, particularly now that he knew he was a cop—and assigned to his wife’s murder case.

  Ben’s brow furrowed. Jenny had said Wakefield hated her for encouraging Marianne to get out of a bad marriage. Was he mad enough to try and run her down? Maybe, under the stress of hearing about his ex-wife’s death. It made more sense than someone out for a random act of violence.

  Laying down the file, Ben strode back into the interrogation room. Again Wakefield tensed, and Ben knew in his gut that his speculations were on the money.

  He leaned close to Wakefield’s face for maximum intimidation. “I’ve been trying to figure out why you looked so familiar, and I’ve put the pieces together. You know I can nail you for an attempted hit-and-run murder.” That wasn’t exactly the truth. It wouldn’t be true unless the man confessed. But there were no rules against bluffing in the interrogation room.

  “You ain’t got nothing on me,” he muttered.

  Ben tapped the arrest form. “I’ve got the license plate of your pickup right here.”

  “So?”

  “The first three letters match the letters on the license of the pickup that tried to run down a woman last Tuesday on Johnson Street.”

  The man behind the table hunched farther down in his seat.

  “But I’m still willing to cut a deal.”

  “
Like what?”

  “Like I won’t go after you for the hit-and-run if you come clean with us on your wife.”

  “I didn’t kill her. I loved her! That’s why I was after that Larkin bitch. She was the one who told Marianne to leave me. She was the one who pushed her into dating other guys. She was the one who got her killed.”

  The tirade stopped abruptly as Wakefield realized what he’d given away.

  “You loved her?” Ben asked into the silence. “You had a pretty funny way of showing it.”

  “Okay. I was freaked when she started going blind. I mean, anybody would be. We needed her income, you know. And how was she going to keep her job? How was she going to take care of the house and all? But I missed her, and I looked out for her. I used to park at the end of her street and watch her house. That’s how I know she spent so much time with that Larkin bitch.”

  “Did you follow her around, too?” Ben prompted.

  “Yeah. Like the night she went to that bar, Three Sheets to the Wind. I hung around outside. She went in by herself and came out with this big blond guy.” Wakefield looked at Ben. “You’re not conning me, right? If I tell you what I know, you’ll take care of that thing on Johnson Street?”

  Ben nodded tightly. “It’s up to the state’s attorney. But I’ll tell them you cooperated. What else do you remember about the guy she met in the bar?”

  Wakefield thought for a moment. “He had long hair. Cowboy shirt, boots, jeans.”

  The same guy the waitress had described, Ben thought. The one who liked to change his appearance.

  “Did you get a look at his face?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you follow them?” Diangelo asked.

  “I wanted to. But you know how the traffic is at Fells Point. By the time I got back to my truck, they were gone.”

  “If we bring in a police artist, can you describe him?” Ben asked.

  “Yeah.” He hesitated. “But you gotta protect me, you know.”

  “Sure.”

  Duke was almost eager to talk now. “Well, I saw him before, when I was worried about all the debts I was piling up after I lost Marianne’s income and the court said I had to pay alimony to boot. I was thinking about, you know, maybe figuring out a way to get some of the stuff I needed. And a friend pointed out a dude who could supply me with a credit card—using some kind of high-powered computer technology, you know. I’m pretty sure it was the same guy.”

  “You’re saying he makes computer-generated bogus credit cards,” Ben clarified.

  “Yeah. Only when I asked about the price, it was too damn much.”

  “You tried to run down a blind woman for breaking up your marriage, but you walked away from Marianne’s killer.” Ben struggled to contain his anger.

  “He’s dangerous,” Duke shot back. “Bad news.”

  Ben turned away in disgust.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ben glanced at the bright morning sunlight oozing through the grimy windows of the sixth-floor squad room—then at his watch. Jenny was being discharged at eleven. He’d have to hustle if he wanted to be on time to pick her up.

  He’d stayed at headquarters until early in the morning— first wringing every shred of information he could out of Duke Wakefield, then waiting while Wakefield and a computer operator made a composite sketch of the man from the bar. Next Ben had logged on to the Baltimore police department system and paged through the fraud case files. After a couple of hours of digging, he’d discovered there was an ongoing investigation of an outfit called Techno Transfer that specialized in supplying counterfeit IDs, credit cards, and ready-made backgrounds. Listed among the long string of fraudulent transactions was an unauthorized use of Marianne Blaisdell’s credit card.

  Ben had slapped his fist into his palm and shouted “Yes!” Then he’d gone home for a couple of hours of badly needed sleep.

  Now he scanned the information on Techno Transfer again. Six months of investigation had determined there were eight experienced computer hackers working for the illicit company. Did one of them like to dress up in a bunch of different outfits and change identities on World Connect?

  The lieutenant in charge of the investigation had agreed to apply for a search warrant of Techno Transfer immediately. While they were looking for evidence of fraud, they might scoop up the killer. Meanwhile, Ben had put in for a couple of days of emergency leave, because until the murderer was safely behind bars, there was no way he was going to leave Jenny alone again.

  He should be bone-weary, he thought, as he got up and stretched. But the prospect of folding Jenny into his arms had a wonderfully rejuvenating effect. Maybe she wouldn’t feel well enough for what they’d planned. But if he could only hold her, that would be enough.

  After briefing Diangelo on the new angle, he made one more call—to Randolph Electronics—and spoke to Cameron Randolph. His angry words about Rich Mazel were met by a quick apology.

  Then Randolph cleared his throat. “As it happens, I was planning to call you. I understand you were having trouble using Marianne’s computer.”

  “Yes, I couldn’t figure out the operating system.”

  “It was more than that,” Randolph informed him. “Someone overwrote most of the directory.” He explained that whoever it was had tried to make it impossible to get at the data on the hard disk. But they had people working on it

  As interesting as Ben found the information, he told Randolph he’d be back in touch. He didn’t want to be late for Jenny.

  Half an hour later when he stepped off the hospital elevator, he was surprised to meet Erin Stone.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Jenny’s getting dressed. She called and asked me to bring her home.” Perhaps it was an unconscious gesture, but she moved so that she was standing between him and the hallway to the patient rooms.

  “I was planning to do that,” he answered with more calm than he felt.

  “You didn’t say anything about it to her.”

  “I—” He stopped, realizing suddenly that she was right. He’d tried to phone her after finding out when she was going to be discharged but the line had been busy. Then he’d never had another chance to call. “I’ve been busy,” he finally said. “Trying to get a lead on the bastard who killed Marianne and dumped Jenny off the bridge.”

  Erin continued to study him. “Jenny had a rough night.”

  “I would have been here if I could.”

  Erin barely nodded.

  He swallowed hard. “Look, I know you’re very protective of Jenny—because you like her and you think she needs special handling. She doesn’t. She’s a fully functioning adult who hates being treated differently because she’s blind.”

  “She called me,” Erin insisted.

  Ben met Erin’s steady gaze. “I care about Jenny as much as you do. You can trust me to do the right thing.”

  “You’re saying I should get out of your way?”

  “Yes. I’ll take Jenny home.”

  After several seconds, Erin nodded. “All right.”

  Ben didn’t wait for her reply. He’d already headed down the hall to Jenny’s room and knocked on the door.

  “COME IN,” she called out.

  The person entering the room wasn’t Erin. It was Ben. She’d know his walk anywhere, and she felt her heart lurch inside her chest. She’d waited for him to call last night. waited to hear from him in the morning. Finally, she’d given up waiting and phoned her friend. But now he was the one who’d arrived.

  After a moment of silence, she cleared her throat. “Ben?” As she tipped her head up, she suspected that her expression was guarded. He’d been angry with her yesterday. She wanted to come right out and ask if he’d changed his mind about the two of them, but she didn’t have the guts.

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “Well, I don’t believe Erin’s gained sixty pounds and lengthened her stride in the past twenty minutes.”

  “Yeah. Well, I
sent her back to the office.” He moved toward her, stopping a few feet away. “You’re looking good. No one would know you went for a surprise swim yesterday afternoon.”

  “I feel fine,” she murmured. Except that her heart was thumping so wildly she could hardly breathe. Last night when reaction to her ordeal had set in, she’d needed him, and he hadn’t been there. Now here he was, walking into her room as if they’d planned this.

  “I should have gotten back to you,” he said in that way he had of reading her mind. “I got wound up in the investigation. I think I’ve narrowed the list of suspects down to a handful. And the department’s ready to move on it”

  She blinked. “You had a breakthrough?”

  “Well, Duke turned out to be a big help. For the record, he’s the lunatic who tried to run you down outside the federation. We brought him in after a routine traffic stop. You were right. He blamed you for helping to break up his marriage. And he was thrown off balance by Marianne’s death.”

  Jenny shuddered. “He would have killed me if you hadn’t been there.”

  He moved closer, laid a hand gently on her shoulder. “Do you want to press charges?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Maybe I did help break up his marriage.”

  “Marianne made her own decisions,” he shot back.

  “But I—”

  “You’ve had a rough time lately,” he said thickly.

  “Yes,” she whispered, leaning into him, finally relaxing a little. It was wonderful to breathe in his familiar scent, wonderful to feel his arm strong and firm around her shoulder.

  His knuckle gently stroked her cheek. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll get your bag.” He picked up the overnight bag Elizabeth Egan had brought the evening before. Elizabeth worked part-time at Birth Data and was also a graduate student at Hopkins.

  Standing, Jenny took Ben’s arm, and sensed him edge protectively toward her. It felt good. She allowed herself a moment to stroke the nubby fabric of his sports jacket. She imagined they made an odd-looking couple—with him dressed for the office and her wearing the yellow running suit Elizabeth had picked out because it was both comfortable and cheerful, she’d said.