For Your Eyes Only

by Rebecca York

  His tension level lowered a notch, but he couldn’t shake the growing fear that had dogged him all the way back from the city. “Ben Brisco, Baltimore P. D.,” he called out.

  “Wayne Kopeck, Howard County,” the other man replied. “You called in the report?”

  “Yeah. You the only one they sent?”

  “There’s a breakout at the State Penitentiary. I was the only unit they could spare.”

  Ben nodded tightly.

  Kopeck switched on a flashlight and pointed toward the woods, where the end of another cruiser was sticking out of the trees.

  “What happened?”

  “I found that disabled vehicle. It’s got our insignia, but it’s not one of ours.”

  “How do you know?” Ben asked.

  “The crest is the wrong color. I was just going to have a look inside.”

  “I’ll be with you in a minute.” Ben trotted back to his own car and pulled out a flashlight. With a gun in one hand and a light in the other, he and the officer tramped through the long grass to the edge of the woods, where the car was hung up against the trunk of an oak tree.

  The driver’s door was wedged shut against a boulder, but the passenger door was open. Ben shone his light inside and noticed at once that there was another aberrant detail. “No radio,” he informed Kopeck. On the floor was a crumpled man’s shirt, a shirt with western studs in a pattern across the front. Like the cowboy’s from the bar.

  Perspiration beaded his brow as he looked for some sign of Jenny, hoping against hope that he wasn’t going to find a body. God, where was she?

  He tried to operate with his usual objectivity—as if this was simply a routine case. But there was no use kidding himself. He’d go crazy if he didn’t find her alive and well. When he pulled her purse from under the passenger seat, he made a low sound that was more growl than anything else.

  “Find something?” Kopeck asked.

  He cleared his throat and tried to speak normally. “Jenny Larkin’s pocketbook. He had her in the car, but he must have crashed.”

  “So where did they go?”

  “I’d like to know.” Ben looked around at the silent, misty woods. The darkness under the trees was as thick as an underground vault. He shook his head in anger and frustration. They could be a mile from here by now. Or the bastard could be holding a gun to her head and waiting for them to leave so he could finish what he’d started. He shuddered as he remembered the photos of Marianne Blaisdell after this man had gotten through with her.

  Please, God, he silently prayed, don’t let that happen to Jenny. Please, God, I’ll do anything you want. I’ll give her up if that’s what it takes. Only let her be all right. Let her get away from him.

  Kopeck slid into the car and checked the driver’s side.

  “Odd,” he muttered as the headlights flashed on and then off again.

  “What?” Ben struggled to bring his mind back to the car and the uniformed officer.

  “No wonder he crashed. It looks like he was driving in the dark with the lights off.”

  Ben felt a shiver travel over his skin as he stood there in the blackened woods. The guy could have been driving with the lights off if he didn’t want anyone to see him. Or there could be another explanation. Like someone had been behind the wheel who didn’t need lights. The idea was insane. A blind woman driving away from a serial killer. He would have dismissed it out of hand, but he knew Jenny. If anyone would try a stunt like that, it would be her. “Is the seat too close to the wheel for you?” he asked, waiting tensely for the answer.

  “Yeah. I was just wondering about that Was the guy pretty short?”

  “No, he was tall,” Ben informed him. “Around six foot. With long legs and broad shoulders. So I think we have to assume the blind lady was driving.”

  “What? That’s crazy.”

  Ben put his hand on the hood. It was still warm in the cooling night air. The accident couldn’t have been all that long ago.

  Feeling almost light-headed, he turned and trotted back along the route the car had taken, shining his flashlight alternately on the trees and the ground. When he came to a tree with a ragged piece of blue fabric sticking to the bark, he nodded in satisfaction. She’d been driving, all right. And the bogus officer Kane had been on foot. Jenny had bashed him against a tree hard enough to rip his clothes. He hoped she’d hurt the guy good. Good enough for her to put a lot of distance between the two of them when she had to get out of the car.

  Cupping his hands around his mouth, he called Jenny’s name into the night He waited tensely, but no one answered.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jenny guessed she was six feet up the rock wall when she heard Ben shout her name. It was far away, but she would have known his voice anywhere.

  Her heart lurched inside her chest. Ben was here! He’d come back. She longed to answer him but she knew if she did, she’d give away her location to the man who had dragged himself into the quarry.

  “So your boyfriend came back. Well, I’ll get you before he does,” Kane promised in a voice that was laced with pain, “if it’s the last damn thing I do.”

  For several seconds Jenny was paralyzed. Then, with every ounce of concentration she could muster, she started to climb again. She and her friends had discovered years ago that there was a series of handholds and a sheltered rock ledge halfway up the side of the quarry. It wasn’t really a hard climb. But only the bravest kids had done it— she and a few of the others. She remembered the exhilaration of scrambling onto the ledge and looking out over the countryside. They’d pretended that they were Pueblo Indians living far above the floor of a desert valley, with the cowboys below. The cowboys were the ones who were afraid to make the climb. Now she was playing the game again. Only the cowboy might have a gun, she thought, repressing another hysterical laugh. And she had to climb by feel, because she couldn’t see. But neither could Jesse James, because it was dark. And even if by some chance he’d brought a flashlight, he couldn’t hang on to it and come after her at the same time.

  Buoyed by a sense of hope, she reached up, located another niche, and pulled herself upward. As she moved from handhold to foothold up the side of the cliff, she found the rhythm coming back to her. Then her foot dislodged some loose stones, and she cried out as she scrabbled for purchase. The stones tumbled down the rock face and thumped to the ground.

  Jenny pressed herself against the rock wall, trying to be absolutely silent, but it was too late.

  “Gotcha,” the man below her snarled.

  She couldn’t suppress a low moan as she heard him coming up, his route marked by little falls of stones that told her he wasn’t having an easy time climbing. But she knew from his steady progress that he wasn’t going to turn back.

  BEN HAD ALMOST given up hope of finding anything when the light hit a spot of red on the rocky ground. It was wet and shiny.

  Kneeling, he examined it more closely, then shouted to Kopeck. “Over here.”

  The officer hurried to his side and squatted down. “What have you got?”

  “Blood.” He pointed to the small puddle staining a cluster of pebbles.

  “From the woman?”

  “No. She was in the car. She rammed Kane against a tree and tore his uniform. Let’s see which way he went.”

  They both shone their lights in an arc around the area. Ben was the first to spot the trail of blood leading off to the right. First it zigzagged, then followed an old trail bordered by a vine-covered fence. Had Jenny gone that way— with the injured killer following? He had no way of knowing for sure, but it was the best bet.

  Quickly the two men took the same path, checking the blood spots on the ground as they went.

  JENNY CLIMBED higher, her mind on nothing except scaling the wall. If she thought about the man coming relentlessly after her, she’d fall. Finally, with a sense of triumph, she reached the ledge. Scrambling onto the horizontal surface, she rested, panting from the exertion. She knew she was about sev
enty feet above the floor of the quarry. She’d never been higher than this, and she wasn’t sure if there were more hand and footholds above the ledge. Cautiously, she moved along the narrow space, exploring the area and trying to find another escape route. Without vision, she could discover no exit save the way she’d come—and that way was blocked by Kane.

  Like a robot programmed to kill, he came after her, his advance marked by little showers of rock—and by his heavy breathing. She listened hard. He sounded winded, maybe even in pain, each breath ending in a kind of rattle.

  “So you can’t get any farther,” he jibed. “I’ve got you trapped.”

  Could he see her? Or was he guessing?

  The only thing she knew for sure was that he’d already marked her position, and she wouldn’t give anything away by crying out.

  “Ben!” she shouted. “Ben. I’m in the quarry. Near the top on the right. He’s climbing after me.”

  Her words were greeted by a cascade of obscenities from the man pulling himself toward her.

  “BEN!”

  He heard Jenny’s shout ring out in the darkness. The sound of his name came to him as an almost physical force.

  She was alive.

  He longed to shout back, to tell her that he was on his way, that he would rescue her. But anything he said to Jenny would warn the killer.

  “The quarry,” Kopeck repeated. “I’ve been there. I’ve chased out kids.”

  “Are we on the right path?”

  “I think so. It’s hard to tell in the dark.”

  They kept moving along the fence, following the trail of blood.

  “Jeez. You say she’s blind—and she’s climbing the cliff?” Kopeck asked.

  Ben made a strangled sound in his throat. “If she can drive a car, I guess she can climb a cliff,” he muttered as he quickened his pace.

  JENNY WAITED with her heart pounding, hoping against hope that she’d hear Ben answer. But there was only silence—except for the angry curse from the man below her. She was on her own, with nowhere else to go. But she wasn’t simply going to wait for Kane to grab her.

  A last-ditch idea began to form in her mind. She couldn’t climb any farther, but perhaps there was a way to stop him from getting to the ledge. Cautiously, she began to crawl along the shelf of rock, collecting stones that had fallen from above. They were too small to do much damage but maybe they’d throw him off balance.

  He was getting closer, she knew. She listened to his strained breathing interspersed with angry curses that raised goose bumps on her flesh. He couldn’t be more than a few feet below her. The next handhold might be enough to pull him up.

  God, what would he do when he got to her? Probably hurl her off the side of the cliff. And this time there wouldn’t be any water to break her fall.

  She concentrated on collecting more stones. A few were bigger. Maybe that would make a difference, she told herself as she raised the hem of her knit shirt to make a kind of sack. Holding it up with one hand, she stuffed in as many stones as she could find.

  The killer’s labored breathing was right below her. Before it was too late, she flung one of the stones in his direction and heard it strike rock.

  Damn. Her cry of dismay was muffled by his loud exclamation. Correcting her aim, she flung another stone. This time it must have struck him because he yelped. Encouraged, she threw another missile. And another. The last one missed, because he had moved. He had pulled himself up. He was on the ledge. She could mark his progress as he limped toward her, his footsteps shaky, his breath ragged, but his pace unslacking. From the time it took the rocks to hit him, she judged he was only about five or six feet away.

  She kept moving backward and throwing the stones. Twice she tripped over a boulder that must have fallen from above. Somehow she stayed on her feet—and kept throwing rocks. Some hit Kane. Some bounced off the quarry wall. Maybe they slowed him down. Maybe not. She knew only that she’d come to the end of the narrow shelf.

  She had only two more rocks, and she had to make them count. It was hard to stop throwing and listen. But she did, holding very still, focusing on the hissing of his breath coming in and out of his mouth. Picturing his face, she threw one of her last stones as hard as she could and heard it score a direct hit on soft tissue.

  This time he screamed and stopped advancing. For seconds there was nothing but silence, then he shouted something. It was difficult for her to believe what he was saying.

  “Get that damn light out of my eyes,” he screamed.

  Light? Someone had a light. Was it Ben? Was he here?

  The killer was close enough for her to feel his breath. Or perhaps it only was the misty air.

  Then, to her horror, he began to move toward her again. Cautiously, inching her way, she crept to the very end of the ledge, where it was so narrow that she had to press backward and turn her feet sideways. Finally, there was nowhere else to go without tumbling off into space. All she could do was wait with her heart pounding.

  “I’ll take you with me, bitch,” he growled.

  When he lunged forward, she tried to merge her body with the rock. In the next moment, she heard flesh and bone collide with something solid. The collision was followed by a scrabbling sound.

  Seconds later a scream reverberated off the quarry walls as she heard him go over the side. A sickening thud followed as he hit the ground.

  Then everything was still except for the sound of running feet below her.

  “JENNY? Are you all right, Jenny?” Ben called. In the light from the flash, he could see her at a dizzying height above the floor of the quarry. She was pressed against the cliff wall. There was so little ledge below her that he didn’t know where she’d managed to put her feet.

  “Yes,” she answered, her voice shaking.

  “Slowly—carefully, move to your left,” he called, a silent prayer on his lips. Please God, let her make it. Don’t let her fall after she’s been so brave. After she’s been through so much. Please don’t let her fall now.

  “Kane…” she whispered.

  “He’s dead.”

  He kept the light trained on her, not because it would do her any good, but because he needed to see what was happening. “Jenny, move to your left where the ledge is wider.”

  Her face was pale, but her steps were steady as she began to inch along the sheer rock. He couldn’t stand watching. He wanted to look away, but he kept the light and his anxious gaze glued to her. Finally she reached the wider part of the ledge, and he let out the breath he’d been holding. “Thank the Lord,” he muttered swiping his hand across his damp forehead.

  “You shined a light in his eyes.”

  “I’m sorry. It was all I could do. He was too close to you to take a chance on shooting.”

  “It was enough,” she murmured.

  “There’s a real officer with me,” he informed her, remembering for the first time in minutes that he wasn’t alone. “He’s going to call for help. I’m coming up to get you.”

  “Don’t, Ben.” Her voice rose in alarm. “It’s dark. I don’t want you to fall.”

  “Me? What about you?” he choked out.

  “I don’t need to see to get down. I used to play up here when I was a kid.”

  “Jenny, don’t—”

  “I can’t stay here.” She kept moving, feeling along the wall with her hands. He wanted to scramble up and grab her and stay there until somebody came with ropes to make sure she was safe. But he didn’t have a clue about what route to take. All he could do was stand helplessly on the ground and watch as she reached a spot about halfway along the overhang. Sitting down, she ran her hand along the edge until she seemed to find something that she was looking for.

  “Jenny, for God’s sake—”

  “I’m fine.” She turned and slid over the side. It took every ounce of willpower he had to keep from shouting for her to stop. But he was afraid to startle her.

  So he looked on, with his heart blocking his windpipe, and angled i
nto a position where he could catch her if she fell. Slowly she climbed down, moving from one handhold and foothold to the next with amazing dexterity. Fear choked him as he marked her slow progress down the side of the sheer, dark cliff. Yet he knew she was moving carefully—and confidently. When she was five feet from the ground, he surged forward and reached for her. The moon, which had come out from behind a cloud, glimmered on her hair.

  “I’ve got you, sweetheart. I’ve got you.” He circled her hips, then her waist with his hands. She eased into his grasp, and he lowered her the final few feet. Then he was turning her, crushing her to him, holding on to her for dear life.

  There were so many things bursting to be said, but he cut to the essentials. “I love you, Jenny. Don’t send me away. Please.”

  To his relief and joy, she clasped him tightly. “Sending you away was…was witless.”

  “No,” he answered quickly. “You were hurting.”

  “I was confused,” she said in a low voice. Then more strongly as if making a declaration to the silent quarry, “I’m not confused now. I love you, Ben. I want to marry you. If you still want that.”

  “Don’t ever doubt it.” Bending, he touched his lips to the tears sparkling on her lashes in the moonlight.

  “Oh, God, do I want you,” he managed, gathering her close. He could feel his heart pounding—and hers, and for several moments he couldn’t conquer the storm of emotions sweeping over him. He had her safe in his arms and she wanted him.

  She finally choked out some words, but he brought his mouth down on her, cutting them off. He feasted on her sweetness, angling his head first one way and then the other, unable to get enough of her. It was long moments before the kiss ended. Joy swelled inside him as he came to realize this was real.

  “The area’s going to be swarming with Howard County cops,” he muttered, conceding there was another reality they had to face. “Then Erin and your friends are going to descend—to make sure you’re all right.”