The Blind

by Shelley Coriell

  Thursday, November 5

  10:12 p.m.

  That’s…” Evie scratched the side of her temple. She’d seen that face before.

  “One of the clerks in the coffee kiosk,” Jack said.

  “Yes!” Evie’s pulse spiked. “He’s the one who drew the bow on the slice of German chocolate cake.”

  “Name’s Douglas Woltz.” Brady had finally caught his breath, but a flush still covered his pale, freckled face. “Here’s his file from personnel.” Brady handed Jack a folder, but Evie snatched it from his hand and whipped out a fistful of papers.

  “But what’s his connection to Jack?” Evie asked. “How would a guy who works at a coffee cart know about the Beauty Through the Ages collection?”

  “He’s a friend of Claire’s,” Brady said. “They eat lunch together.”

  The almighty executive assistant. She smacked the folder against her palm with a whoop. “Our boy has a name and even better”—she waved a paper in the air—“an address.” She grabbed her bag and aimed her index finger at the tabloid photographer. “You, Freddy, are amazing.”

  “What? No lip action?” Freddy asked with pouty lips.

  Evie thwacked him with the folder on the butt.

  * * *

  11:07 p.m.

  After getting evicted from Jimmy Ho’s slum warehouse last December, Douglas Woltz moved into a one-room apartment over his mother’s garage in Whittier. According to parking records from Elliott Enterprises, he drove his mom’s Dodge minivan, which was conspicuously missing from the parking spot behind the garage apartment this evening.

  “I haven’t seen Douglas for a few days,” Ruthann Woltz told Evie. She was a big woman with three chins. “But that’s not unusual. He works long days and spends most of his weekends away from the apartment.”

  “Did he ever say where he stayed on weekends?” Evie asked.

  “No. I just assumed he…he…had friends he was staying with.” Her chins trembled. “Young men do that all the time, don’t they? Stay with their girlfriends? And friends?”

  “Have you seen any women coming or going recently?”

  She gnawed on her bottom lip. “No.”

  Evie took a deep breath. “Mrs. Woltz, I want you to think very carefully before you answer my next question because lives are at stake. Do you understand me?”

  Her lips were white. She nodded.

  “Have you seen or heard a baby crying over the past twenty-four hours?”

  “Nothing like that. Absolute silence from up there.”

  Absolute silence. The state of the world right before an IED blows. “We need to go inside.”

  The older woman clutched Evie’s arm. “He’s a good boy, Agent Jimenez. He’s smart and talented and hardworking. He’s a good boy.”

  She held out her hand. Rock steady. “The key.”

  Ricci’s team evacuated Mrs. Woltz and neighbors on either side. They brought in an infrared and heat-seeking machine, then the bomb dog. No wires. No pressure-sensitive devices. And when Evie ran her hand along the door, she found only dust.

  Bang. Bang. Bang!

  “Police!” Ricci called. “Open up.”

  She tried the key. No fit.

  “He must have changed the locks,” Ricci said.

  “No problem.” Evie lifted her boot and kicked. The door splintered.

  Inside was a typical garage grunge apartment. Plaid couch from the seventies, plastic chairs and table, orange tweed curtains. No explosives, electronics, or laboratory apparatuses. But his art was everywhere. Life-size nudes with varying degrees of mutilation crowded a short hallway, and she could almost hear their screams echoing through the narrow space. Pastoral scenes with women far from peaceful were affixed to the ceiling above a small twin bed, the first thing he saw upon waking, the last thing he saw as he drifted off to dreamland. Evie shivered.

  “Hey, Evie, take a look at this,” Ricci said.

  Evie drew up in front of the refrigerator, her blood chilling. Six canvases, made of a smooth, leather-like material, hung from small magnets on the door, each about two-inches square and each featuring a single image: a sun. Five of the six suns were so bright, they almost hurt her eyes. Brilliant yellows, fiery reds, molten golds, and blistering white-blues. The sixth sun was on a lighter, more brittle canvas and featured a simple dark outline with a smiling face and curved rays. A tattoo.

  “It’s Abby.”

  Evie jumped. There were few things that could make her jump, but the sound of Jack’s voice—raw and ragged and just inches from her ear—was a stab to her gut. He’d been in a squad car down the street during the sweep and entry, but Ricci must have given him the green light. She took his hand in hers. Because everything kept coming back to Jack.

  His fingers tightened around hers. The muscles along his throat convulsed. Was he holding back a string of curses? A cry of gut-shredding pain?

  “We don’t know for sure that the tattoo belongs to Abby.” One of them had to hang on to hope. “I’ll get Parker to flex some muscle and get a rush DNA test done. We’ll know in less than twenty-four hours, but until then, Jack, don’t let go.”

  He finally tore his gaze from the squares of human flesh. “Do you think that belongs to Abby?”

  She wanted to hang on to hope, to believe that his beloved sister was alive and living someplace where the sun shone three hundred days a year.

  “No bluffing,” Jack said around an attempt at a smile.

  But she also knew bombers. They selected weak and vulnerable victims. Fueled by rejection, they seethed with rage and resentment. And they always had a message. That tattoo screamed, I finally captured the sun.

  Her own neck convulsed as a single barbed word rose up her throat. “Yes.”

  * * *

  Friday, November 6

  12:31 a.m.

  LAPD had put out an APB on Douglas Woltz and his Dodge minivan, and Jack had made a few phone calls of his own. An employee in his building was the Angel Bomber. Brady and Claire and his head of security were contacting other employees at the coffee kiosk to see if anyone knew where he could be.

  The hunt was on, and Jack was damn well at the front of the pack on this one because they were looking for one of his employees. Who collected two-inch squares of human skin. Abby’s sun.

  He closed his eyes, blotting out that sun. For now.

  Evie crawled out from under Vandemere’s bed, swatting dust from her jacket. “Nada,” she said. Which had been the case with the entire garage apartment. They’d found nothing that hinted at where Vandemere may be hiding.

  They left the apartment and found Hayden sitting on the top step of the front porch and taking a long swig of coffee.

  “Did you get anything?” Evie asked.

  “The mother’s a nervous wreck,” Hayden said. “I’m sure she doesn’t know where her son’s at right now, but I’m having Hatch have a go at her.” He pointed his coffee at the front room of the main house, the windows ablaze with light.

  “If anyone can dig something out of her, it will be Hatch.” Evie sat on the step next to her teammate. “Any other relatives?”

  “No siblings. Dad’s dead. Died in a construction accident ten years ago. Explosion gone wrong at a job site.” He took another swig of coffee. “I’m getting the case reopened.”

  Evie ground her boots into the dried leaves gathered at the base of the steps. “Was Mom able to give us the names of any friends?”

  Hayden shook his head. “Not a one. He’s the quintessential loner with poor social skills.”

  “Did you get any of his story?” Evie asked.

  “You had him pegged,” Hayden said. “Vandemere’s father is ex-military. Ran a construction company in West Covina. The company’s specialty was demo work. They took down old buildings, blew up old stumps, and blasted holes in mountains to make room for roads. He spent his childhood surrounded by guns and explosives.”

  “And a pretty explosive dad,” piped in Agent Hatcher, who’d ju
st stepped out the door and onto the porch.

  “You got Mom to talk?” Evie asked.

  “Got a little more out of her,” Hatch said. “There’s a high level of dysfunction in the family. Unlike his father, little Douglas showed no interest in sports, hunting, guns, or any other violent activities. He preferred much quieter pursuits, most notably drawing.”

  “And Good Ol’ Boy Dad didn’t like it,” Hayden said.

  Hatch nodded. “Called his son Pantywaist and Faggot Boy.”

  “Homosexual?” Evie asked.

  “Definitely not,” Hatch continued. “Woltz has always been interested in the ladies. Even his earliest drawings were of the female form, but according to his mother, few girls were interested in him.”

  Jack pictured the sketch of Woltz in his teens. “He had weight issues.”

  “Morbidly obese from age five on,” Hatch said. “Food soothed him, Mom said, and she was right at his side, handing him the spoon. Which led to socialization issues, playground bullying, low self-esteem. You name it.”

  Hayden swallowed the rest of his coffee and held up the take-out cup. “The easiest way to understand a person like Douglas Woltz is to picture him as this cup. At a young age, he didn’t fit his dad’s ideal of what a son should be.” Hayden ripped a gash down the back of the cup. “Dad forced him to play Little League and Pop Warner and dragged him on dove hunts and to the target range. Douglas, of course, did dismally.” Hayden dug into the inner pocket of his jacket and took out a pen. “Dad was disappointed, which was manifested in anger.” Hayden jabbed the pen into the cup. “His mother couldn’t make peace so she made him brownies and pies.” Jab. “His weight increased. Neighborhood kids laughed and taunted. Classmates shunned him and threw peas at him in the lunchroom.” Jab. Jab. Jab. “Douglas turned increasingly inward and spent hours drawing and painting. Those were very lonely and dark hours. Until something triggered a change in his teens.”

  Hatch nodded. “When Douglas was sixteen, the senior Vandemere took a shotgun and shot up his son’s sketch pads, paints, and easels.”

  Hayden set the mutilated cup on the step. “About that time, some unsettling things began to happen.”

  “Explosions,” Evie said. “Bottle bombs going off in an empty field near his house. CO-two cartridges filled with smokeless gunpowder and lobbed into the school gym.”

  It was amazing, almost frighteningly so, listening to Evie and her teammates paint this picture. They intimately knew this bomber because this was the type of person they dealt with daily.

  Hatch nodded. “Woltz was a boy ravaged and raging. He ran away at age seventeen and lived in downtown L.A., but after a year he came back, pretty shaken.”

  “Daddy Dearest let him back home?” Evie asked.

  “After beating the shit out of him,” Hatch said. “Broke his nose and jaw.”

  “Thus rearranging facial features.” Evie sighed. “People change.”

  Hayden jabbed the empty cup a dozen more times. “This is what he’s become. A shell of a man with holes.”

  “And he’s spent a lifetime trying to fill the emptiness,” Evie said.

  “First with food,” Hayden said. “Then with art with increasing violence. He’s a very wounded individual.”

  “Agreed,” Evie said. “But hundreds of thousands of children suffer abuse, some far worse, and they don’t become serial killers.”

  Jack couldn’t take his eyes off the mutilated cup.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Friday, November 6

  6:19 a.m.

  Evie was in full battle mode. She stood at the bathroom mirror in Jack’s condo fighting with her hair. The hair was winning, but Jack couldn’t laugh. He couldn’t even smile. Today was the first Friday in November, the day a sadistic bomber, a man under his employ and inspired by art Jack handpicked, had every intention of strapping a bomb to a woman and blowing her up in a twisted expression of art.

  Evie untangled her fingers from her hair and caught his gaze in the mirror. “Any chance you know how to braid?”

  They’d fallen into his bed well after midnight, and she’d snatched a few hours of sleep. He had lain awake the whole night, watching the moonlight sifting through her hair and across her skin. Before dawn, he got up and made a single phone call.

  Do you ever stop working, Jack?

  That call had nothing to do with work.

  He slid his hands along the sides of her rib cage and around her waist. He pulled her backside to him and kissed the slope of her neck. He had to try one last time because one way or another, this thing was going to blow today. “Don’t do it.”

  She turned, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling his lips to hers. “Stop worrying.”

  “Impossible.”

  Landing one more kiss on his lips, she tapped his butt and pulled him out of the bathroom. “Gotta go.”

  Today he wouldn’t be allowed to play chauffeur or sit in a parked car down the street. Today he would be in his office doing deals and making money while she planned to meet up with a serial bomber.

  “Have a great day at the office, honey,” she called with a silly wave.

  He waited until the door closed behind her before he said ever-so-softly, “You too.”

  * * *

  7:22 a.m.

  Sunshine and no fog. A great day to catch a killer. One of Parker Lord’s favorite sayings. Evie agreed.

  She poked her head into Ricci’s office. “Any word on the time and location for our little bomber meet and greet?”

  Ricci set the phone in the cradle. “Have a seat.”

  Impossible. There was too much fire racing through her veins today. She paced back and forth before his desk. “Have Brooks and the SWAT team arrived?”

  Ricci stared at his hands.

  “Is the hazardous devices unit ready to go?” The clock had ticked down. Today was the day. She was going to catch a killer.

  “The plan’s off.”

  Evie spun on her boot heels. “Did he strike already?”

  “No.” Ricci flattened both palms on his desk. “The plan is off because you’ve been pulled from the case.”

  Evie jammed her hair behind her ears. “Excuse me?”

  “The plan where we offer to switch you for the girl and pick off Vandemere with a sharpshooter is off because you are no longer on the multi-jurisdiction task force to find the Angel Bomber.”

  Evie’s hands tightened into rocks. “It’s Knox, isn’t it? He squealed about me belting him, and I’ve been suspended.” Damn. Damn. Damn. She pictured Jack, the consummate deal maker, calm and always in control. She could learn a thing or two from him. She slipped her hands behind her back. “I lost my temper. I was wrong. So slap my hand, write up a report, but please, Vince, do it after the day is over.”

  “This isn’t about Knox.”

  She knotted her fingers. “Then why did you pull me from the investigation?”

  “I didn’t pull you.”

  A cloud moved in front of the sun, and the room grew dim, then dark. Or maybe that was just the thunderheads rolling through her head. There were only two people who could pull her off the job, Parker Lord and—

  “The president.” She flung her hands in the air, then landed a finger on her nose. “Who needs me to keep my nose clean on this one.” She aimed that finger at Ricci. “This is bullshit. This is not about his administration or an election but a woman and child living or dying.”

  “Parker pulled you.” Ricci rubbed at the center of his forehead. “And for the record, Evie, I don’t agree.”

  Boom! Both her palms landed on his desk. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “Parker said he was concerned about your safety.”

  “My safety!” The thunderheads rumbled and tumbled, smacking her skull. “Didn’t you tell him it’s a bluff? That I’m not going to get near a bomb?”

  “In writing and verbally. I even told him about every piece of Kevlar and blast plate you’d be wearing under
your dress.”

  Evie pushed her hair behind her ears. “No. No. There’s something wrong here.”

  “Yeah, Evie. There sure as hell is because anytime now Carter Vandemere is going to call and set up a date between him and you, and I’m gonna have to find a way to make it happen without you.”

  “No. No!” Evie bolted out the doorway and ran down the hall to her office where Smokey Joe was drinking his morning coffee and eating a cinnamon roll. “Where’s Hayden?”

  “With Brooks. Your sharpshooter got hold of today’s weather report and wanted to talk to the SWAT guys about wind and visibility. I think they’re in the war room. Man, that Brooks is one intense—”

  Evie took off, running at high speed until she landed in the conference room with all the beautiful women on the walls. “What the hell is going on, Hayden?”

  Hayden and Brooks looked up from a giant map of Los Angeles. “Good morning, Evie,” Hayden said.

  She parked herself six inches from his nose. “Dammit. How could Parker do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “Pull me.”

  “He pulled you from the Angel Bomber case?” Hayden asked, his eyes wide.

  “Now?” Brooks added with equal incredulousness.

  “You don’t know about it?” Evie asked in a voice edged with panic. Bullshit. There was no edge. It was full-on panic.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hayden said. “Parker never said anything to me about pulling you. Are you sure you heard correctly?”

  She nodded. But maybe Ricci’s hearing was going to hell. Maybe the bomb squad captain had been around one too many explosions.

  Evie punched at Parker’s phone number but missed. She forced her fingers to stop shaking. Parker believed in her, trusted her. She finally dialed his number, and the phone rang and rang. “Damn you, Parker, where are you?”

  Every eye in the conference room was on her, including the eyes of Sabrina and Angela Delgado. She took her phone to her office and tried again. This time Parker answered.

  “What the hell is going on?” Evie asked.

  “Evie? I— ” His voice became garbled. “I’m on the jet headed to L.A.”