For Your Eyes Only

by Rebecca York

  Restlessly, she moved her legs, and her feet tangled with something. When she reached down to move it out of the way, she realized she’d grabbed the front of a shirt. A western-style shirt with metal studs in a pattern across the front. She’d felt a shirt like that not very long ago. In the nightclub when she’d bumped into the man coming out of the bathroom.

  Could that be a coincidence? she wondered with a sickening lurch in her stomach. And why was the shirt on the floor of a police car?

  As her fingers stroked the metal studs, something clicked in her mind. She realized where she’d heard the phrase about secrets being poison for the soul. It was from one of Marianne’s late-night sessions on World Connect. From a man calling himself Oliver who’d been holding forth on the literary bulletin board.

  Chapter Sixteen

  A noise to her left made Jenny jump. Realizing she was still clutching the shirt, she dropped it quickly to the floor. She sat tensely, waiting for the man who said his name was Kane to slide behind the wheel. But who was he—really?

  Her mind raced, trying to make sense of what was happening. She’d been kidnapped and almost murdered—by the man who had killed Marianne. Then Kane had shot him, and she’d thought she was finally safe. But now… Now she could toss every supposition she’d made out the car window.

  Her brain felt as if it would explode. What she was thinking was too insane to put into words. Yet her life depended on making the leap from one set of assumptions to another. With an involuntary mental shift, she felt the pieces of the puzzle slide into a different shape. The new pattern was like a huge electric sign lighting up in her mind. There were two of them. Two different men. Two killers. Maybe they’d been working together and had had a fight. If so, one of them could have come after her, and the other had killed him. But that wasn’t the important part. The important part was that the dead man wasn’t the one who had killed Marianne. That was—Kane. Or the cowboy from the bar. Or Oliver from World Connect. Or whatever he wanted to call himself.

  Kane—the man thumping around outside the car. And if he was the killer, he’d lied about talking to Ben or the police just now.

  Frantically, she tried to dismiss the frightening new hypothesis. She was wildly off balance. Perhaps she’d made a terrible mistake. But the shirt was no mistake. The oddly worded phrase about secrets was no mistake. Neither was the way he’d shot her kidnapper when he could have hit her, too. She’d known that even without being able to see the action. But she hadn’t wanted to believe it—even though she’d been uncomfortable with him from the very beginning.

  The car door opened and every muscle in her body tensed. But he didn’t reach for her; he only slipped behind the wheel. “Sorry, I was checking the left rear tire,” he said.

  “That’s all right.” Steady, she told herself silently. Don’t panic. If you run, he’ll shoot you.

  Still, she had to escape. Because if they drove away from the house together, she was almost certain he was the last person who would see her alive.

  BEN PULLED into the parking garage at police headquarters and cut the engine. He was still thinking about the man who was the master of disguises and what Sheryl Dyson had said about him. When he’d dumped the body, he’d been dressed like a meter reader. Only she’d known he wasn’t the real McCoy because he was wearing running shoes. And they weren’t part of the uniform.

  They weren’t part of a cop’s uniform either, he thought with a sudden sick dread that started in his throat and spread through his body. As he pictured Officer Kane, he realized that the man had not been wearing standard uniform shoes. He’d been wearing running shoes.

  Fighting down the apprehension, he reached for the portable phone and dialed the Howard County police. He’d been so upset, he’d hardly been paying attention to the officer. But now…

  Praying, hoping against hope that he was wrong, he clutched the phone in a death grip.

  “This is Detective Ben Brisco,” he told the officer who answered. “I was guarding a witness in Howard County and was told your department had come in on the case. I was relieved by one of your uniformed officers. Denton Kane. I’d like to verify that.”

  “Just a moment, please.”

  Ben’s pulse pounded in his temples as he waited for the man to check his computer files. Lord, he should have done this before he left Jenny’s house. But she had been so anxious to have him leave and he’d been so upset that he hadn’t been thinking clearly.

  He drummed his fist against the steering wheel. He had no business blaming Jenny for his lapse in judgment. He should damn well have been on the ball. There was no excuse for his leaving her alone with the man.

  An eternity passed before the personnel officer came back on the line.

  “We have no officer named Denton Kane.”

  He cursed sharply. “Then get me an operational unit,” he demanded even as he peeled out of the garage, siren blaring.

  Quickly, he filled in the sergeant who came on the line. “Get as many units as you can over there now. But turn off the sirens when you reach the vicinity. He may kill her if he hears you coming.”

  KANE JINGLED the keys in his hand, and Jenny fought to keep from screaming as the metallic sound rattled in her head.

  “We’ll have you downtown at police headquarters in no time,” he said in his maddening voice, which she now knew was as fake as his name. He was still playing the game he’d selected, still pretending to be the noble police officer who’d just rescued the blind woman in distress. Probably there was a smirk on his face that she couldn’t see.

  He could be taking her anywhere—to a ramshackle cabin in the woods, to an abandoned warehouse, anywhere he wanted. And she wouldn’t know the difference until it was too late. She guessed that was why he hadn’t grabbed her yet. He was having too much fun performing this particular role.

  She made herself sit calmly as she heard him slip the key in the ignition. Before he could start the car, she made a show of running her fingers over the dial of her watch.

  Then she cleared her throat. “Officer Kane.”

  “Yes.”

  “I—I was so upset by—by what just happened that I’ve made a terrible mistake,” she stammered as if she were embarrassed to speak. “But—it—it’s past time for me to take my anti-seizure medication. If I don’t have it, I could go into convulsions.” The last part came out as a breathy whisper.

  “Convulsions?” he said.

  She was pleased by his note of alarm. Maybe she was as good an actress as he was an actor. “Yes,” she quavered. “They come on when I—when I get upset. I have to take my medication every twelve hours and I’m fortyfive minutes late. So it could happen soon. Please, I left the pills upstairs in the bathroom. Inside the medicine cabinet, on the left side. Do you think you could get them for me? And some more water.”

  He let out an exasperated sigh. “Don’t you have any in your purse?”

  “No. I always keep the bottle in the bathroom. I always stick to my routine.”

  “All right.” He heaved himself out of the car.

  Daring to hope she had a chance, she listened to his footsteps cross the gravel and climb the porch steps. Her pulse was pounding as he stopped at the top. There was no way to know if he had turned to look at her, so she sat very still, hands clenched, cold sweat beading her brow until she heard the front door open. After counting to three to allow him to disappear inside, she moved. First she felt along the side of the door until she found the mechanism that locked the car.

  As the locks snapped closed, she breathed out a tremendous sigh. Now Kane or whatever his real name was couldn’t get in.

  And she could drive his car away from here. Hysterical laughter shook her as she considered the insanity of her plan—even as she began to slide into the driver’s seat. A blind woman was going to drive a car. The last time she’d driven, she’d killed somebody and wiped out her vision. No. Ben had set her straight on the homicide part. It wasn’t her fault.

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nbsp; A frisson went through her as she thought of Ben. God, she loved him so much. She’d been such a fool to send him away. And if she didn’t save herself, she suddenly realized, she’d be condemning him to living hell. The same hell that had trapped her since the accident. He’d blame himself for her death—for leaving her with the bogus Officer Kane—just the way she’d blamed herself for driving Craig Coopersmith’s car that night. He’d be as wrong as she had been. And the real tragedy would be that she’d never get a chance to tell him.

  She was still on the edge of terror. Yet, from some reserve of fortitude, she brought herself under better control. Teeth clamped together, she focused her concentration on the task at hand. While she fumbled with the seat belt and clicked it into place, she tried to think through the steps she was about to take. Executing them would take every skill she’d developed, every trick she’d learned over the past twelve years. But she had no choice. It was either escape or die.

  It would be easier if she had more time. But time was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Eventually Kane would stop fumbling through her medicine cabinet looking for nonexistent pills.

  As quickly and efficiently as she could, she slid her hands around the driver’s area, trying to familiarize herself with the car. First she found the lever to move the seat forward until she could reach the gas pedal. When she located the ignition, she turned the key. Then she stepped cautiously on the gas. When the engine caught, she moved the gear lever a notch and gave the car more fuel. It swung in an arc to the right.

  There was no way to be sure she was aiming in the correct direction, but she’d been across the parking area thousands of times and was familiar with its geography. The surface sloped down toward the driveway. There was more gravel on the right side than the left because of the way rain water drained. She’d been meaning to have the problem corrected. Now she was glad that she’d let it go as she listened carefully to the sound of the tires on the gravel and judged the downward tilt of the car as she pointed herself toward escape.

  Gingerly she pressed the accelerator and tried to estimate the distance she was traveling. Gravel gave way to dirt on her left. But her right bumper struck a low stone barrier. The car bounced, and her teeth slammed together. But at least she was pretty sure what she’d hit—one of the concrete posts that marked the road.

  A scraping of metal accompanied her course correction as she swung to the left. Then, with a satisfying dip, the vehicle settled into the twin ruts that ran along the narrow drive. She let herself enjoy a moment of elation. If she followed the ruts downhill, she should be able to make it to the road. Of course, she wasn’t sure what she’d do when she got there. Maybe listen to the traffic, pull out and force someone to stop.

  Concentrating on keeping the tires in the ruts, she gave the car a little more gas. She’d been lucky so far. Maybe she’d be out of sight before Kane came out of the house again.

  But her luck didn’t hold.

  “Hey!” The angry shout from fifty yards behind her was as jarring as the collision with the stone pillar. Reflexively, she stepped harder on the gas, and the vehicle shot forward, the right front fender glancing off what she thought to be the trunk of a tree.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he called out. Then she heard feet pounding behind her, closing the distance between the car and the house.

  Ignoring him, she kept going.

  “Stop, or I’ll shoot,” he screamed.

  No way was she going to stop, Jenny thought as she scrunched down in her seat to make a smaller target. Behind her the gun spat out a bullet, then another.

  Instead of stopping, she pressed harder on the accelerator. Better a quick death than what he’d done to Marianne. For a panicked moment, she lost the tire tracks and yanked the wheel to the left. Then she found them again and lurched forward.

  She was so focused on trying to aim in the right direction that it took several moments before she realized she hadn’t been wounded. Nor had she felt the bullets tear into the car.

  Above the sound of the engine she could hear his pounding footsteps drawing closer.

  “Damn, you! Stop!” he screamed. “You haven’t told me your secret yet.”

  Heart in her throat, she kept driving. When the car bounced, she realized with a sickening start that she was off course again. If she plowed into the woods, she’d had it. First she turned to the right, but the tires didn’t settle into the ruts. Then she bucked left and thought she’d found the track, although now she wasn’t sure.

  A thump at her window made her cry out. He was there—cursing at her and banging on the glass with his fist. Her only option was to step on the gas and try to steer as the tires wove in and out of the depressions. Finally, the thumping stopped, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  The relief lasted for perhaps half a minute longer. Then she heard him again, running behind her. Moments later, he was back at the window—shouting a stream of obscenities that made her cringe.

  Something made a terrible smashing sound against the window, and she jerked bolt upright. The crack came again, and the glass groaned but seemed to ‘hold. With a clogged feeling in her throat, she realized that he was using a rock to batter his way inside.

  Another crash and the glass cracked. She heard his shout of elation.

  Sobbing, she imagined his hands reaching through and pulling her out past jagged shards of glass. Her only hope was to block his path with some obstacle. Recklessly, she jerked the wheel sharply to the left.

  He shouted something that sounded like a warning—or a curse. In the next moment, a bloodcurdling scream split the air, followed by the sound of a body hitting the ground. She’d knocked him off. And she’d hurt him, she thought with a strange mixture of fear and triumph.

  The elation was short-lived. The fear multiplied a thousand times as the car plowed into a series of obstructions that her brain told her must be saplings.

  Pulling sharply on the wheel, she pitched to the right But she was so disoriented and off course that she had no idea where she was heading. Too fast for her to react, the vehicle crossed the line of tire ruts and kept going. Easing up on the accelerator, she tried to find the middle of the road again. But before she could get back onto the track, she slammed into something so solid that the car came to rest with a sickening jolt. For a moment she could only gasp as she slammed forward. Then the seat belt caught and snapped her back against the headrest. She sat there struggling for breath and trying to figure out what to do now. It took several moments before she could act, but when she tried to put the car into reverse, the lever wouldn’t move, and her frantic yanking only produced a grinding noise.

  From somewhere behind her, she heard a strangled growl—a human voice twisted by fury and pain into something almost unrecognizable. He was hurt, and angry beyond all reason. When she realized he was drawing slowly closer, she bit her lip to keep from screaming in terror.

  He was out there, wounded. And he was coming to get her. She wanted to huddle in the car but with the broken window there was no safety.

  It was hard to make herself pull on the door handle. When she did, she found that the door would only open a couple of inches. Scrambling across the seat, she yanked at the handle on the passenger door and gave a little sob as it swung free. Then she was out of the car, standing on shaky legs in the tall grass. Reaching out, she steadied herself against the side of the car.

  “You won’t get away.” Kane’s voice lashed the words toward her.

  He was close…and getting closer. She could hear him, smell him.

  Desperately she knelt and felt along the ground for a rock or stick she could use as a weapon. There was nothing, and she wanted to scream as she crawled farther, bits of gravel digging into her palms and knees.

  He was gaining on her, his wheezing breath making her skin crawl. She could hear one of his feet dragging and knew he must have hurt his leg when she’d smashed him against the tree.

  She was about to scramble up a
nd take her chances running blind when her fingers scraped against a fallen branch. With a strangled exclamation, she wrapped her hand around one end and pushed herself to her feet. Then she began to swing it in front of her like a cane. It was too short, so that she had to bend over. But it was better than nothing, and she started to pick up speed.

  The end of the stick hit against a tangle of vines. Moving farther, she encountered a long mound of vegetation, punctuated with sagging wooden posts. When she realized what it was, she couldn’t believe her good fortune. It was the old fence that marked the path to the quarry.

  The air felt cold and damp on her face, almost like a fine curtain of mist. It was probably fully dark by now, and even foggy. She hoped that gave her an advantage over a man who needed to rely on his eyes.

  The surface under her feet changed, and she knew she’d reached the mouth of the horseshoe-shaped quarry. Rock walls rose steeply on three sides. She remembered playing here as a child with the other kids in the area—although the place had been strictly forbidden to all of them. Now Jenny was thankful that she had strong memories of the place, because they might be her only means of thwarting Kane. Still using the branch as a makeshift cane, she headed for the rock wall on her right. When she reached it, she tossed the stick behind her. It would just be in the way when she started climbing.

  BEN SWUNG HIS CAR into Jenny’s driveway and careened up the track. Rounding a curve, he slammed on the brakes when his headlights bounced off a police cruiser blocking the way.

  Jumping out, he saw a uniformed officer moving toward him. In the darkness, he thought it might be the impostor who’d called himself Kane, and his hand went to his gun. Then the man spoke, and he realized it was somebody else. This time a legitimate member of the Howard County police force.