Double Vision

by Colby Marshall

  “I know, but . . .”

  “But nothing. I want us on the same team again. Bad,” she said. I want you to never go a whole two days without letting me know you’re okay again. Ever.

  “Jenna, I know you think you know what this is about, but . . .”

  Yancy stared down at his Pop-Tart, his fingers working steadily at pulling off the frosting-less edges.

  “I know I can’t possibly understand how you feel. I’m not ever going to insult you enough to think I can.”

  He was quiet, just looking at the pastry. He half smiled again, though his eyes stayed on his plate.

  Body language says shame. But you don’t have to be ashamed of missing me . . . Maybe you think I’m hearing your words and taking them as you being too clingy? Not even close. I’d give anything to cling to you on every step of this case.

  “I want you to understand. I’m just afraid you won’t,” Yancy said, still staring at his food.

  She reached across the table and covered his right hand with her left. “I love you, Yance.”

  He looked up at her, met her eyes. His were watering, his face pained.

  “I love you, too, Jenna. More than you know.” He stared into her face a long minute, then smiled, this time brighter. “Your last few days been okay? How many monsters have you saved the world from since my last update?”

  So, that’s how we’re playing this, huh?

  But if he didn’t want to talk in depth, she couldn’t make him, no matter how convinced she was it would be best. Staying close was the next best thing, and she still hadn’t had a chance to catch him up about Hank’s brother, Victor.

  “Well, now that you mention it, it was weird. You’ll never believe who was here yesterday.”

  • • •

  After Yancy left for work, Jenna tiptoed through the hallway. She eased the knob of the door on the left until it pushed open into the room swimming in fairies and flowers. The morning sun spilled in from the window, leaving a bright, lined pattern across Ayana’s face and white-blond hair. It was no wonder that Hank’s mother wasn’t convinced Ayana was his. The platinum hair, the porcelain skin. She hardly looked mixed.

  Jenna knelt down beside the bed and smoothed her hand over Ayana’s locks. As she gazed at her little girl’s closed eyelids, she smiled. Behind them, Hank’s eyes. If his mother saw those, how could she ever doubt?

  “You’re gonna wake her up, Rain Man. Might not matter to you, but I was kinda looking forward to watching a little MTV before the twelve back-to-back viewings of My Little Pony: The Movie.”

  Jenna turned to see Charley standing in the doorway, crunching a mouthful of cereal, the hand not holding the spoon cradling the bowl. “The My Little Pony movie hasn’t been on the table since the last VHS player died, and you know it. And I’m not going to wake her up.”

  Ayana stirred.

  Shit.

  “He shoots, he scores!” Charley said.

  Her daughter blinked sleepily, yawned. She rolled her eyes at the way Charley was now pretending he was a radio announcer and making a weird hiss come from the back of his throat to mimic a roaring crowd. “Mommy?”

  Jenna smiled and shook her head. “Don’t worry about Uncle Charley. You know how werewolves change into wolves on full moons? Well, this is kind of Charley’s werewolf thing, only it’s less predictable and way less cool.”

  “Hey!” he cut in. “I’m offended by that.”

  “Well, I’m offended that you think I don’t know my own daughter well enough to peek in on her and not disturb her,” Jenna said.

  “But you did disturb her.”

  “And you’re a towel,” Jenna said, turning back to Ayana.

  “Hey, sweet A. Go back to sleep, sweet girl. I just came in to give you a kiss.”

  Ayana blinked more as if trying to get her eyes to focus. “Did you kiss Yancy, too?”

  What the hell?

  “Huh?”

  She didn’t mean for it to come out, but the surprise was so great, she couldn’t control it.

  “Yancy was here, right?”

  How on earth . . .

  “I saw . . .” Ayana yawned again. “Out the window. Then fell ’sleep ’gain.”

  That explains a lot.

  Ayana stared up at her. “You know what Yancy’s like to me?”

  Jenna grinned at her daughter. Whenever Ayana said something like this about a person, something silly that Ayana approved of was sure to follow. I sense the word “marshmallows” or “kittens” coming up. “What’s that, baby girl?”

  Ayana sat straight up in bed and stretched her arms wide, yawning again. She finished and slapped the pink-and-yellow, unicorn-covered comforter with her palms. “Lime beans!”

  “Lime beans? You mean lima beans? I thought you liked Yancy. You can’t stand lima beans.”

  “No, not the veg-able. The color.”

  Behind her, Jenna heard Charley coughing loudly and on purpose. Well, this was a first.

  “We’ve always known it might be genetic,” Charley said smugly.

  Jenna shot him a look. It was true, they’d all wondered if Ayana would be a synesthete like Jenna, since the phenomenon was hereditary and more common in females. But even though she’d known it was a heavy possibility, experiencing actual signs of it felt just plain weird.

  “What’s Unk-a Charley talkin’ ’bout?” Ayana asked, looking confused.

  She patted Ayana’s hand. Even if her daughter was a synesthete, she was too young to be in touch with her color associations anyway. “Oh, he’s just being goofy as usual. You ready for breakfast? How about pancakes?”

  “Mmm!” Ayana said, kicking her feet excitedly.

  “Okay. You hop up and make your bed, and I’ll get ’em started. Sound good?”

  “M’kay!” Ayana said with enthusiasm.

  Jenna closed Ayana’s door behind her as she left, then glared at Charley, who’d adopted an innocent expression. “Charley Padgett, you know better.”

  “I didn’t do anything! She has no clue what I’m talking about, and even if she did, it’s not like it’s a bad thing.” He shrugged. “Unless you don’t enjoy nicknames like ‘Rain Man.’”

  “You know what I mean. I don’t want her to know much about synesthesia—”

  “You’re not going to have her be that girl whose parents don’t tell her what condoms are until she comes home one day as a teenager and tells you about a boy she fooled around with who happened to have a balloon in his pocket, are you?”

  Jenna ignored the comment. “Because if she does have it, I want her to find out for real. Kids can think they have a certain characteristic and ‘try to’ have it—”

  “Little hypochondriacs,” Charley murmured.

  “It’s the same reason we can’t ask leading questions to children in police work. Keep your mouth shut.”

  Charley mimed zipping his lips. “I won’t say another word.”

  “You just did,” Jenna said.

  “But if I was going to say another word, I’d ask what lime bean color means to you.”

  Jenna kept walking into the kitchen and removed a frying pan from the cabinet. “It doesn’t matter. Even if Ayana is a synesthete, she’d probably have different associations from me, anyway.”

  But no matter how true that argument was, Jenna couldn’t help but think how the dull, pale green of lima beans happened to echo the color of moss in her mind. A color she associated with doubt.

  32

  Yancy slid into his seat, his heart heavy. He hated lying to Jenna, even by omission. But he couldn’t involve her in this, especially not now that Hank’s brother had warned her a dispute over whether or not Ayana would get the money Hank left to her in his will was coming. Hank’s mother would have a field day if somehow this thing with CiCi and Denny went badly and Yan
cy was caught for killing a cop. And then the only way news of Ayana’s gold-digging mother’s cop-killing boyfriend could get worse would be if it was discovered that Jenna knew about the whole thing and had helped him cover it up.

  No. It was better—and safer—if Jenna stayed blissfully ignorant.

  Even if it meant the openness and honesty their relationship was built on was now about as transparent as Jenna’s alarm code system. Fuck.

  He inserted his earpieces and hit the button to signal he was ready for calls, though taking other people’s emergencies was the last thing he wanted to do today. God only knew he’d feel better wallowing in his own self-pity at home, with only Oboe’s incessant scratching to keep him company. Sure, worrying wouldn’t do any good, but at least he’d know he was sitting there obsessing properly over this complete screw-up of his, rather than moving on with his everyday life as if he was just some common, conscienceless sociopath. Shit, cool guy. Way to mess up everything.

  Yancy took a call from an elderly woman whose Chihuahua was barking, which had her convinced prowlers were lurking in her backyard. He dispatched a car to check on her, but he had a feeling all they’d find would be a nosy squirrel or stray cat taunting the little dog through the glassed-in door. He sent a cop to investigate a suspicious person loitering outside a female dorm at one of the local colleges, then clicked to answer the next call.

  “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

  “I . . . I’m stuck here.”

  “What is your name, sir?”

  “Armond Hester,” the man said, sounding agitated.

  “Sir, can you tell me your location?”

  “Yeah, I’m . . . I’m at the corner of, uh, Bentley and Cramer.”

  Yancy typed the location into his computer. Now to assess who he needed to send. “And what seems to be the trouble, sir?”

  “I’m stuck! I just told you!”

  “What do you mean by ‘stuck,’ sir?”

  “I can’t get off the street!” the man said again, the frustration in his voice heightening.

  Yancy sucked in a deep breath. Sometimes when people were panicked, they found it hard to elaborate. He needed to ask the right questions. “Why can’t you move from where you are, sir?”

  “There ain’t no taxis on the road!”

  Yancy closed his eyes. One, two, three . . .

  “Sir, not being able to hail a taxi is not an emergency unless you have a medical emergency, in which case I can send an ambulance. But since you didn’t tell me any immediate medical crises when I asked your problem, I suggest you dial information and call a cab company rather than clog this line. That way people with real emergencies can get through. Have a safe day now.”

  He pressed the button to release the call. People were insane.

  His red light came on again. Maybe this time it would be someone who couldn’t find a porta-potty at an outdoor event, or someone at a deli who ordered a sandwich with no lettuce but received a lettuce-loaded nightmare that might or might not contain bread or meat at all underneath the many layers of the green bunny food. They happened every day, but they never got any less strange . . . or stupid.

  “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

  “Yancy! It’s me. I . . . I need help.”

  Yancy’s heart thudded like raindrops on a tin roof. He’d told CiCi they couldn’t ever act like they knew each other, for her own safety, yet here she was, calling him by name on a recorded 911 dispatch call, having recognized him by voice. He couldn’t scold her, of course, lest he give them away even more, but damn, he wanted to chew her out from here to Timbuktu.

  “What seems to be the problem, ma’am?” he asked, trying to sound neutral despite his pulse racing so fast it seemed as if his blood might shoot right out of his veins. He knew the pimp couldn’t be there . . . He was dead! Had the other dirty cops found her?

  “It’s not . . . well,” she hesitated, seeming to think better of what she almost said. “It’s my dad. Yancy, he’s been attacked!”

  “Ma’am, I need you to remain calm,” Yancy said, willing CiCi to listen to his words but also to read between them and follow his lead. To help her, he had to get them out of this current situation, which unfortunately for them was being recorded and could be legally referenced. This call had to be wrapped up in a way that didn’t end with cops at CiCi’s. “You sound panicked,” he said, emphasizing the word and hoping she’d catch on to what he was doing, letting it be a signal to her that while he knew she was upset, she shouldn’t blurt out everything in her mind on this call. “You said your dad was attacked. Why do you believe this?” Yancy asked, each word slow, deliberate.

  “Um . . .” CiCi’s shaky voice stalled, her breath rattling as she tried to compose herself. “I guess he might’ve fallen . . . now that I look closer at everything.”

  “Okay. And is he alert?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he appear to be physically injured?”

  She hesitated. “I . . . don’t think so, no. Actually . . .”

  Relief flooded to every muscle in Yancy’s body as her tone told him she was catching on.

  “I actually think he must’ve just taken a spill. I came in and saw him on the floor and just overreacted. He seems completely fine now. But thank you, and I’ll call back if there’s any change. I’ll hang around and watch him awhile just to make sure.”

  Yancy quickly rattled off the signs of a concussion and encouraged her to call if she suspected her father’s condition changed or became more concerning. Then he shoved back from the table and grabbed his satchel, already heading toward the main office. Yancy told his supervisor he had a family emergency, and he hightailed it out of the dispatch building. He floored the Prius toward CiCi’s home. If her father had been attacked, the police needed to be brought in. But given what had happened two days ago, they needed cops at her home dusting for fingerprints and conducting an investigation about as much as Yancy needed to see a front-page photo of the Ramey house after its location was leaked to the media. Christ, what a disaster.

  He pulled into a parking spot in the little lot down the street reserved for the neighborhood pool, and jogged the rest of the way to CiCi’s. He didn’t want his Prius parked in front of her house any more than it had to be, even if their “we don’t know each other” cover was already blown.

  The door flew open before he could knock, and CiCi threw her arms around him. “Oh, thank God you’re here! I don’t know what to do. Someone broke in . . . hit Dad over the head. He swears he’s fine, but when I got here . . . oh, God, Yancy. I thought he was dead. I came in and scared whoever. They ran out the back, and I was too busy tending to Dad to try to get a look . . . He was laying there, still and everything. Jesus. Who would do something like this?”

  Cops who are seeking retribution for killing one of their own come to mind. “I don’t know, CiCi. Are you sure he doesn’t need to be checked out by a doctor, though? I know we don’t want or need police at this house right now, but we could take him to the ER, tell them he fell or something. I don’t know.”

  She shook her head. “I know, I know. He probably does need to be checked. But . . . police would get involved anyway after him being at that grocery store and everything. They’re already after him for more interviews even though he can hardly remember yesterday from today, and if they hear something happened to him . . . My God! They might think it was related, want to put him in protective custody. Oh, God, Yancy, I can’t let them take him—”

  Yancy’s head spun. “Whoa, whoa. Slow down. What do you mean he was at the grocery store? You’re not talking about the mass shooting at Lowman’s?”

  Rocks seemed to drop into the pit of his stomach even before she nodded. He’d wanted so badly to keep Jenna from being involved, but little did he know, she was already involved. Fate always was a cruel bastard.

 
“What do we do?” CiCi squeaked.

  “You don’t do anything. Stay with your dad a minute. I have to make a phone call.”

  33

  Jenna reached headquarters at about the same time Dodd did. He held the door of the office open for her.

  “You look like you got run over by a lawnmower,” he commented.

  “Thanks. You look pretty zombie-like yourself,” she replied. The truth was, she might’ve slept the night before, but it had been the sort of sleep where somehow her brain had seemed to still be working and worrying even while she wasn’t cognizant of it. Combine that with how obviously upset Yancy had been this morning, and she was in no mood to spar with Dodd. She’d thought seeing Yancy would make everything feel better, but instead, his palpable feelings had only clouded her thoughts. And she couldn’t blame him. She could kick herself for even letting the thought cross her mind when Ayana had said what she had about “lime beans” green. It was just plain silly.

  “I did box a couple rounds with my kangaroo before coming in to work. Gets the blood pumping, ensures the day can only get better from here.”

  “Sounds exhilarating,” Jenna replied, plopping down in one of the chairs in the briefing room.

  “Nah, I jest. I was on the phone with the Chicago crew about the nightmare in the Cobbler case. Looks like this guy is going to get sent to a padded room. I still can’t believe it. The sheer stomach it takes to saw off feet . . . damn. And based on bleeding and bruising, several were still alive when he did it. A lifetime supply of thorazine? It’s too good for him.”

  Jenna sighed. She could empathize for sure. She’d seen one too many cases where a mental institution could never do justice to the pain and terror some bastard had dealt. Hell, knowing Claudia had spent most of her time incarcerated in a cushy institution was enough to cause Jenna’s liver to produce bile at rapid rates and send it up her esophagus just to say hello.