Behind Blue Eyes

by TL Schaefer

  “Smoking is bad for you.”

  Yeah, he was right, but with the lifestyle I’d led, it was a calculated risk.

  “Goodnight, Roney.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Have it your way, but I’m not going away.” He lowered his voice. “There’s something about you, Sara Covington.” Then he hung up.

  I poured a glass of Chardonnay with remarkably steady hands, and it was only when I lit a smoke that my fingers started to tremble.

  Chapter Three

  Before

  “Hi, I’m Wes. Welcome to CASI.” The tall, gawky kid standing by my table held a tray piled high with bacon, eggs and toast. He couldn’t have been more than twelve. Setting the tray down, he pushed his glasses up on his nose.

  “Christie,” I replied, keeping my eyes glued to my plate after that first quick glance. I didn’t want to see what color this guy was, didn’t want to know what he was feeling. It only seemed to happen when I looked at someone for more than a minute or so, and right now I simply couldn’t take it. It was either keep my head down, or look at him and burst into tears.

  The auras that had assaulted me this morning had been overpowering, nauseating. Everyone from the pervy orderly to the lady who’d served me my breakfast had a kaleidoscope of colors rocketing off them. It was so much worse than on the outside, so much more overwhelming. I had no idea why it was different here in my prison, but I got the distinct feeling I was going to find out. Too-familiar dread shivered through me, along with a sense of foreboding.

  I heard my companion settle in across the table from me and dig into his food. With that small, seemingly insignificant act, an unlikely friendship formed.

  Now—Thursday, 5:30 p.m.

  You might ask what I do when I’m not taking pictures of dead people or working out at Rusty’s.

  Most days I get up obscenely late. I’ve always been a night owl, even as a child, and my job fit in with that concept nicely.

  When I’m able to catch some tube time, I’m addicted to shows like Dirty Jobs and Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. If you’ve ever seen them, you’ll understand my fascination. Both men’s offbeat take on life made me smile. Given the life I’ve led, and continue to lead, I’ll take smiles wherever I can get them.

  Because of the funky hours I keep, scheduled classes aren’t something I can attend, so I’ve been getting my Master’s degree online. I’d dabbled in business administration for my Bachelor’s, but aside from giving me the tools to invest my income wisely, it didn’t float my boat. I’d switched to Arts and Humanities this time around, and given my proximity to the arts district here in Dallas, it was an easy fit.

  I’d caged a GED when I was seventeen, a minor miracle considering I’d spent a year on the streets at that point. The “teachers” in my past had actually done me a bit of a favor in that regard, because the classes I’d taken in my formative years had prepared me well for acing the exam and setting myself up for the future I now pursued.

  I enjoyed reading, always had, and literature classes gave me the opportunity to read more than the romance novels I devoured when I wasn’t on school time or taking stills of vics. Yeah, I know, romance novels. But I saw enough death and destruction in my real life, so mysteries and thrillers were out. Romance was a great escape and made me feel ordinary, if only for a little while. Plus, it didn’t hurt that the heroes were hunks and the heroines smart. It gave me a little vicarious living.

  That afternoon, only a day after my close encounter with Roney, I was working on a dissertation of Shakespeare, and enjoying the heck out of it. Toe-tapping Buckwheat Zydeco rocked in the background, the Cajun lilt and drawl in perfect accord with the background of washboards and fiddle. Incongruous with the Bard? Yeah, but it put me in a great mood, and that mood translated to my work. Which made my degree seem that much closer. You’d think I wouldn’t give a hoot about higher education, considering my home life as a child, but you couldn’t be more wrong. It was something to strive for, something to achieve. Yeah, call me a type “A”, and you’d be right, at least on that end.

  Xena was curled up asleep on her bed next to my work desk, chasing rabbits probably bigger than she was. The sun was already low in the sky, and I’d been remarkably productive, given yesterday’s events.

  All in all, it was a pretty good day.

  Until someone knocked on my door. Of course it was Roney. I was gonna get that downstairs lock fixed...and soon.

  I stood in the doorway, not letting him in.

  “Sara.” His voice had become all-too-familiar over the last few days. And more welcome than I should have allowed. He was dressed casually in khakis and a loose, flowing silky shirt. The outfit should have made him look like a dandy, but instead he wore it as confidently as his badge and piece. I have to say it looked better on him than the crappy suits he wore like uniforms when on duty.

  “Detective.” I made my voice as frosty as I possibly could.

  “Aren’t you gonna invite me in?” he asked, trying to appear wounded and failing miserably. It was the grin that did it.

  As much as that sorta-smile made my heart go pitter-patter, I stood my ground. “No. I’m in the middle of a paper. What do you want?”

  “A paper? On what?” He seemed genuinely curious and was using what I could now tell was a standard tactic with him. Diversion.

  “I’m not going to repeat myself.”

  Xena spoiled my moment of indignation by poking her head between my legs and panting, whapping my legs with her wagging tail.

  “What’s her name?”

  Now he wanted to know? “Xena. Go away, Roney.”

  “Nice, I’ve always had a thing for warrior women. Hey, I brought food.” He pulled a bag from behind his back. It smelled suspiciously like Las Casadores...my favorite. I didn’t even want to know how he’d figured that little tidbit out. My stomach growled in response to the smell of chilies and cheese. It appeared Xena and my appetite were going to be my undoing.

  “C’mon, you know you’re hungry,” he cajoled and waved the bag beneath my nose.

  I stood there for a good minute, weighing my options. I could be a bitch, or I could let him in and nosh on some seriously good vittles. Shakespeare could wait. But I didn’t have to be nice about it. Yeah, it was justification again, but I’m human. Sue me.

  I moved aside less than graciously, shoving Xena over with a bare foot.

  Roney made himself at home, heading for the kitchen counter. The sleeve of his shirt brushed my bare arm as he walked past, igniting nerves I hadn’t realized were even in my bicep. Crap.

  “Plates are above the sink,” I hollered as I crossed the loft in long, fast strides and saved my dissertation.

  I felt Roney standing behind me before he spoke, and his presence sent a totally erotic shiver through me. He was quiet...and quick.

  “Hamlet...Shakespeare versus The Implosion of Today’s Political Parties?” His breath was warm against my cheek, and it took every molecule of self-preservation in my body not to lean back into him and feel a zing that would light up the block.

  Instead I stepped to the side and out of his zone.

  “Feed me, Roney, and you can go.” Yeah, I sounded cranky, but my breath had a suspicious little hitch to it I hoped he hadn’t heard.

  I was wrong. He smiled, and it was the same light-up-a-room expression he’d had yesterday. He was supremely aware of exactly what he was doing to me. Had my original impression of him and his “player” status had been off?

  He sauntered back to the kitchen and made a great deal of noise as he dished up the Mexican.

  I took a shaky breath and walked to the fridge. “Are you still on duty, or do you want a Shiner?” I knew the answer, considering his clothes, but figured I should at least ask. With detectives, you could never be sure.

  Shiner Bock is pretty much the state beer of Texas, and any refrigerator without it is considered seriously deficient. As much as I’m a nonconformist about most things, I’ve g
otta agree with my adopted state on this one.

  “That’d be great.” He set two plates on the counter as I popped the tops on the brew. “Dinner is served.”

  He rounded the counter and settled onto one of the two barstools. I sat next to him somewhat gingerly, still wondering what his game was. It wasn’t simply to get into my pants. It couldn’t be, because no one was worth this much effort.

  He lifted his beer and tipped it toward me. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers.” I clinked the neck of my bottle against his, took a long swig, and tackled my dinner.

  Xena begged for scraps, which Roney unabashedly gave her before I poked him with my elbow. “No more, otherwise she’ll barf.”

  “Fair enough,” he agreed easily, seemingly happy now that he’d gained an entre with both me and my dog.

  After we finished I put the dishes in the sink, generally puttering to see if he’d take my original order and leave. Of course he didn’t have any such notion. He parked himself on the sofa, carrying what was left of his beer with him.

  I figured there was only one way to handle this whole situation.

  “What exactly do you want, Detective?”

  “I thought I was pretty clear on that last night.”

  “You were, and I assumed I was as clear with my refusal.” An idea, hideous but probably true, snuck in. “The bet about who’s going to fuck me first is back on at HQ, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it is,” he answered with no hint of self-consciousness. “But that’s not why I’m here. I like you, Sara. You intrigue me. You have since I saw the stills you took on the domestic we caught a few weeks ago. That’s why I brought you into this case, because I thought you might have a different insight into it than we did. And I was right.”

  How was I supposed to take that statement? I’d obviously known about the bet, but not one of the male cops I worked with had admitted to it. It had taken my sorta-friend Lisa Alvarez to clue me in on that little detail. She’d been the only one with the balls to say anything, and had done it with the huge smile only a friend could give. So how much of my involvement in this case had to do with Roney trying to get lucky?

  “Don’t think too hard about it, Sara. I figure we can get to know each other and see where it goes.” His answer was as casual as his pose. Could he really be as confident as he appeared? Why did it even matter? It shouldn’t... It couldn’t.

  “Listen, Roney. I wasn’t telling you I don’t date—or sleep with—cops because I was being a tease or a bitch. It’s a policy of mine, and one I haven’t deviated from in the ten years I’ve been with DPD.” Never mind that there was something there, an impossible flare of energy that arced between us, begging to be explored, and it wasn’t anything as simple as the fact I couldn’t read him. I wasn’t willing to open myself up to the possibility of whatever that something was. I’d learned the hard way about allowing myself to care and found that going it solo was the easiest way. Lonely? Yeah, but infinitely less painful.

  “Well, policies are made to be broken, or at least that’s my motto. But not tonight, and maybe not tomorrow night, or even next month. So, c’mon over here and let’s talk about something else. Like what the profiler had to say.”

  Another one-eighty. I grabbed my Shiner off the counter and plopped myself down in the armchair, not sure how I was supposed to handle this turn of events. This was why I didn’t hang out with people very often. I didn’t know how to deal with them.

  “What did the magic head-shrinker offer up?” It was the best I could come up with. If you hadn’t figured it out by now, psychiatrists aren’t my favorite people in the world.

  “You were right on. White male, probably close to your age, great organizational skills. Picks high-profile victims. The girl was a prominent businessman’s daughter. Turns out she was meeting her boyfriend at a party in one of the old abandoned warehouses. How the perp got both vics alone and naked no one can figure. Same thing with the lack of restraint marks.”

  “Okay.” While I was more than pleased to have my impressions validated, the way he was spewing out facts had me a little discombobulated. “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Because I want you and your feelings on this case. It’s ugly and it’s gonna get uglier. This guy isn’t a traditional thrill killer. You nailed it yesterday. He’s got an agenda, and I have no clue what it is.”

  “Does anyone besides Foudy know about me?” With any kind of luck, Foudy was as close-mouthed as Roney had indicated. One could only hope. Even as I hoped, I had to wonder—again—about Roney’s seeming acceptance of my abilities. As a Null, he should be a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic. It was one more layer to a man I couldn’t quite get a grip on. It was disconcerting.

  “Hell, Sara, everyone knows about you, or at least suspects. You’ve given too many clues over the last ten years. I went back into the archives and looked at your shoots. It’s more than the fact the photographic evidence you provide has resulted in an improbably high conviction rate. Your pictures tell a story, even if you’d never said a word. You go straight to the heart of it, more than other shooters do. You capture nuances that go beyond mere pictures, and it gives the investigators what they need to make not only a collar, but a slam-dunk. That’s a dead giveaway that there’s more to you than you’d let others believe.”

  He shocked me right down to my toes, and it took me a moment to find my voice. “I think you need to leave now.”

  He took it with better grace than I would have. With a long look and a short nod, he walked out of the loft without another word.

  Was I a coward? Damn straight I was.

  Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep that night. I spent most of it obsessing about what Roney had said, how he’d seen right through me. How every time he looked at me with a man’s eye, not a cop’s, I almost melted on the spot. No one had ever hit my buttons in quite that manner, and it made me skittish as a cat.

  How was I supposed to deal with someone who saw through me so clearly? I was used to being the one who saw things about people, but I’d never been on the receiving end before. It bothered me, confused me. And the fact that he was so sure we’d end up together? That blew me away. I certainly wasn’t a supermodel by any means. Nor did I have a personality that lit up a room. In short, I was pretty much a bitch to everyone except Chief Davis and Lisa, and that was because they’d known me since right after I came off the street. If I had to count my friends, I could sum them up in those two, and maybe Luis...and they left me alone most of the time.

  When the sun came up the next morning, my eyes were gritty. The urge to do something, anything, twitched through me. I poured a cup of coffee and leafed through the paper, hoping for divine intervention. When I finally got to the sports page, inspiration struck. The Rangers were in Arlington, playing the hated Yankees. Even though the home team totally sucked this year, I could think of nothing better than losing myself in America’s pastime, indulging in a totally bad-for-me hot dog. It would certainly take my mind off not only the murderer, but Roney, if only for a few hours.

  The ballpark was exactly what I expected...and needed. We lost the game, but being around people who didn’t know me and didn’t look twice at my tinted glasses was the respite I’d craved. It was a few hours of blessed normality, something I’d been seeking my entire life, but only found in bits and pieces. I’d take those moments where I could get them, hold them close and hoard them for when things went to shit. Like they probably would as soon as I left the ballpark.

  I was walking with the crowd to the parking lot when a creeping, familiar loathing skittered up my spine. I turned and met the eyes of the man who considered me his nemesis, when in all actuality, I didn’t care one way or the other whether he lived or died.

  “Hiram.” I made my voice pleasant. I had to work with the crime scene veteran, and my sorta-boss, whether either of us liked it or not. I kept walking, hoping he’d get the message and leave me alone. It didn’t work.

  “C
ovington.” He made no attempt to cover his distaste at seeing me. His expression shifted, going sly as he kept pace with me. “Heard you got called in on the red ball.”

  I kept my face blank, not giving him a thing. What was he up to? “Yeah, it was ugly.” He could look at the stills whenever he wanted. It’s not like I was telling him anything earth shattering.

  “They had another one the same night, identical MO.” He looked smug, like he was imparting a great secret.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, they called me in special to process it.”

  “Uh huh.” Non-committal grunts seemed to be the best way to go on this one since I knew a helluva lot more about the scene than he ever would, unless Foudy briefed him, something I couldn’t see her doing. The real reason they’d probably called Hiram in was because he lived not too far from the second scene. But ego is ego, and I wasn’t going to be the one to call him on his misconception. It wasn’t worth antagonizing him even further than my mere presence seemed to.

  “Personally, I don’t think it’s the same guy. Too much distance between the two scenes for him to have done it.”

  What an idiot. Thank God I was only steps away from the truck now.

  I pulled out my keys. “See ya around, Hiram.” Yeah right. It’d be a cold day in hell before I ever sought out his company.

  “Watch yourself, Covington.” His parting words struck me as more than odd, even coming from Hiram.

  Nowadays, crime scene investigators shoot most everything, but I’d been around for a long time, and Chief Davis trusted me, so the crime scene techs were stuck with me. It pissed them off at first, but after a while they realized having me there gave them more time to tackle the nine million other things that needing doing, and left me alone. All except Hiram Johnson. The twenty-year veteran and Department Chief had hated me on first sight and took every chance to pick apart my work and tear me down. He didn’t have much to work with because—all modesty aside—I shot a fabulous crime scene. Flawless, in fact. I could deal with Hiram; I think I scared him for some reason. That was perfectly all right... There’s always one pinhead in the bunch, and I didn’t let it bother me overmuch.