Behind Blue Eyes

by TL Schaefer

  Except today, with this particular case. Today I was struck with a feeling of impending dread I had no idea how to deal with.

  As I pulled up to the loft, my mind whirled, and I desperately wished I’d never been called to shoot the red ball. That was when my life had begun to spin out of control, when my carefully constructed, non-involved world began to disintegrate.

  I’d worked hard to create another life, to make my own way in the world after being abandoned more than once. And like the rest of that life, the Sight had become my undoing, both then and now. Now I had the conscience of an adult to deal with instead of the survival instinct of a child.

  I took Xena for her afternoon walk to clear my mind.

  Because of the curse of the Sight, I could and would help the police nail this bastard. To do that, I’d have to bury my past well and deep...because none of us could afford the distraction.

  When we returned, I settled in front of the computer and did what Roney had almost certainly already done, but on a more involved scale. I searched the Net for our killer.

  Hours later I was tired and had smoked my way through half a pack of Marlboros, but had nothing to show for my efforts. If this guy had killed before, none of the news agencies had picked it up. Or he’d changed his MO, which would be totally weird. But he was spooky, so why not that, as well?

  I could call Roney and see what the National Crime Information Center database had ferreted out. While it wasn’t any of my business, he’d probably tell me. But I wasn’t quite ready for that. Any gesture, even one so small and work-related might encourage him, and I couldn’t deal with that now. Not after the red ball, the pregnant girl and Hiram this afternoon.

  Instead I went to bed. I thought about releasing Jon from his drawer and working out my frustrations that way, but admitted to myself that I’d be picturing Roney’s face, his body, when I came. Attaching that level of intimacy to him, even in my own mind, would be a very, very bad thing.

  Chapter Four

  Before

  The first thing they had me do was one of those goofy Rorschach tests. I mean, c’mon...how stupid. Then again, it’s not like I was going to spout off and tell the doc giving me the test that I knew all about his affair with the pretty nurse at the front desk. Guilt and lust were written so strongly on both of them they might as well have been wearing a big sign. Saying anything like that, though, would get me locked up for good. Instead I did what I thought any other fourteen-year-old would do. I only met his eyes when he directed me to, and told him I saw butterflies and puppies and flowers in the inkblots.

  “Good, Christie. Very good. Your next appointment is down the hall with Dr. Munger.”

  What kind of crazy farm was this, if they let the patients wander around at will? When I met Dr. Munger, I began to understand. Kind of.

  “Christie, this is a standard IQ test, something to help us gauge where you’re at, both intellectually and with your education.” He was like a kindly old grandfather, colored in serene blues, and the mental pictures I got of him weren’t of him doing something dirty, like with the first doc, but rather of his grandkids, of fishing...that sort of thing.

  So I took the IQ test seriously, did my best, and when he excused me for lunch in the main hall, I was actually feeling reasonably good about myself.

  Now—Saturday, 2:30 a.m.

  The chirping of my cell pulled me out of a fitful sleep. I glared bleary-eyed at the clock as I rolled over to answer the call. Two thirty. Another shoot.

  “Covington.” My voice was raspy from too many cigarettes and not enough sleep.

  “Sara, it’s Brian. I’ll be outside in five minutes. Grab your camera.”

  His statement chased away any lingering sleepiness. “Is it him again?”

  “Maybe, but I want you there to tell me.”

  “I’ll be ready.” I disconnected and rose, pulling on jeans and a tee before toeing into my sneakers. My hair was a wasteland, so I scraped it back into a ponytail and tugged on a DPD ball cap.

  I was waiting on the street when Roney’s Crown Vic cruised to a stop. I slid into the passenger seat. “Where is it?”

  “Sara...”

  From the way he said it, it was going to be bad.

  “Cut to the chase, Roney.”

  “It’s right down the street. It’s bad, maybe worse than the others.”

  How something could be worse than an almost-decapitated pregnant girl was beyond me.

  When we pulled in, I understood what he meant.

  The scene was gore-splattered and messy with another female victim. I tucked my glasses in the vee of my T-shirt and let the scene wash over me before I started shooting. Tonight’s call didn’t overwhelm me for one very important reason. Why there was a difference in how the carnage affected me was something I’d have to consider later.

  It wasn’t the same perp. Besides the gaping wound on the victim’s neck, it wasn’t even a similar crime scene. This one had been personal... The victim had known her killer and felt safe around him; trust was painted on the air. Plus, she was still fully clothed. I took a series of shots, and the scene crystallized in my head. I dropped the camera and took a good, long look. Hell, the perp wasn’t even a man. This had been chick-to-chick conflict, and given the track marks on the victim’s arms, it was most likely drug-related.

  I looked at Roney and shook my head, but could see that he’d already come to the same conclusion. There was a brief commotion at the head of the alley, and Hiram slid under the crime scene tape, talking loudly enough to be overheard by those of us doing the processing, but not the night-owl reporters and lookeeloos who’d begun to gather.

  Roney stepped up to intercept him, his big body shadowing Hiram in the glare of the klieg lights.

  “It’s my scene and she shouldn’t be here.” Pure venom dripped from Hiram’s voice. I barely restrained myself from reading his aura, but slid my glasses on instead. As a rule, I only looked at dead people, or those I wanted to know something about...like Roney and Foudy. Hiram didn’t fall into that category, thank God.

  “I requested her, so suck it up, Johnson. You can do your thing, but she’s shooting it.” Roney’s voice was quiet, but there was no missing the command in it.

  “Not when I, as the senior technician, choose to dismiss her.”

  Roney stepped in close, and even though he kept his tone and his manner non-threatening, I wouldn’t have wanted to be Hiram right at that moment. Roney dwarfed him in everything. Size, personality, integrity. I didn’t have to use the Sight to figure that out.

  “Do you really want me to call Chief Davis at three o’clock in the morning, Johnson? Over a pissing match? Because I will if I have to. I’m thinking he’s gonna side with me.”

  Hiram backed off, but shot me a chilling look of malice before he turned for his gear. Roney swiveled my way, and I wasn’t surprised to find a small, self-satisfied smile on his face.

  I turned my attention to the crime scene. My initial impression had been right, but why hadn’t the dimensional impressions of it sickened me like usual? Was our thrill killer’s signature so overwhelming that it’d actually damped down my sensitivity? Or had I somehow ratcheted the sensations down after having seen something so horrific in his kills?

  Roney stepped around the edge of the scene to stand next to me. “Obviously not the same MO. I’m sorry I dragged you out of bed and into Johnson’s sights.”

  I saw Hiram’s head jerk as he overheard his name. He drifted closer, until he stood only a few feet away. Even though he was pretending to work the scene, his attention was clearly on Roney and me.

  I shrugged in response to Roney’s statement and couldn’t resist a little dig at my “boss”. “No worries. Hiram has it out for me, always has. It sucks for him that Davis likes me.”

  A grin tugged up one corner of the good detective’s mouth and I had to remind myself not to stare. And to be sure to breathe.

  “Any impressions on the scene, even if it’s not t
he same guy?”

  I tugged on the bill of my ball cap, more to center myself than anything else. Roney was hell on my equilibrium, even in the middle of a crime scene. “Yeah, you’re looking for a woman, probably a user. Same height and weight ’cause the blade angle is even. Left-handed.”

  “You missed your calling, Sara. You need to think about doing this full time.”

  All his attention was focused on me, and it was like being caught in a spotlight. A really blue, really hot spotlight. Breathe in, breathe out.

  “No dice, Roney. I like my life the way it is.” Meaning without him. From the slight flare to his nostrils, he got my drift.

  I took the flash card out of my camera and handed it to him. “Here are the pics. Hiram can take the rest. He will anyway, and there’s no reason to pay two of us.”

  “I’ll have a uniform take you home,” he offered, laying a hand on my shoulder, turning me away from the scene and Hiram’s spiteful eyes.

  I shrugged off his hand and resented the fact I couldn’t even use my vibrator anymore because of him. At least my Sight wasn’t arcing off him anymore. If anything, it seemed to calm down when he touched me, as if his Nullness was siphoning something off. It was weird, but not entirely unpleasant. “I’m fine. It’s only a few blocks.”

  “Sara, it’s almost three in the morning. Be smart.” His voice was oh-so-patient, without a touch of condescension.

  Because he meant it, his reply stung a little; he was right.

  “Okay.” I replied with more dignity than I felt and walked away down the alley. As I left, I could feel the weight of his gaze centered squarely on my ass. And even though I willed my feeling of female satisfaction away, it went down kicking and screaming. Every girl’s got an ego, y’know?

  The uniform who took me home was one of those wet-behind-the-ears kids whose wide eyes gave away the fact this was his first murder scene. I wondered how long he would last.

  As I settled into bed again, my mind latched surprisingly, not on Roney, but on Hiram. Something had changed in my relationship with Hiram, and I’d better figure out exactly what that something was.

  I blew off my dissertation the next afternoon and headed for headquarters.

  “Chiquita!” greeted me as I walked in the door.

  “Lisa, what’s shakin’?” Lisa Alvarez, the booking clerk, and I couldn’t really be called friends, but she was probably the closest female I’d been associated with in decades. Small, petite, thirty-one and anything but Hispanic, she’d embraced her husband’s culture as much as her five-two, blonde and blue allowed. She was also one of the yellows in the world. Bright, sunny and without an ounce of harm in their bodies. That she’d selected the police department as her career choice wasn’t something I wanted to delve into. It made about as much sense as her “adoption” of me. And adopt me is exactly what she’d done. No matter how standoffish I’d been in the past, she took it with a genuine smile I couldn’t help but return, and after a few weeks, I’d finally given in completely. Some people you couldn’t be a bitch to.

  Lisa looked around quickly, and as usual, the cops in the bullpen hadn’t even noticed I was there, let alone the fact I was talking to Lisa. Well, except Henderson, who seemed to have a weird sixth sense when I was around. He eyeballed me the way a kid looks at candy. Like he had a chance in hell. As cops went, he was one of the limpest dicks I’d ever come across.

  “Chica, what did you do to Hideous Hiram?” Lisa leaned across the desk, giving me a good dose of Chanel. She loved giving nicknames to people, and because she was scary-good at her job, and a serious piece of eye-candy to boot, it was pretty much ignored. Good thing her husband, Juan—a uniform—carried a piece.

  “I dunno. That’s what I came down to find out.”

  “He was in the chief’s office right after lunch, and the whole crew could hear him in there bitching about you. Heck, he might still be in there.”

  Great. While the chief liked me, he was also a political animal now, and Hiram was loud enough to cause him enough heartache to let me go. Hiram had a forensic science degree and actually wore a shield, for God’s sake. I had an instinct he didn’t possess. Put side-by-side on a desk, it wasn’t an inspiring comparison.

  If Lisa, as the collective gossip manager, didn’t know what had set him off, it was unlikely I’d figure it out unless I asked him directly. Yeah, that was gonna happen. Sure, there’d been the incident last night, but there was no way he could use that... I was responding to a request to shoot a scene.

  Hiram had been semi-harmless—squicky, yes, but harmless—before. Now, I dunno. I was getting a bad feeling about this one.

  “Let me know if you hear anything.”

  “Will do. Hey, great stills you shot on the red ball. That was great work.”

  “Thanks. Let’s hope it keeps me in a job.” I wanted to know how she’d seen them, but the image of her and Juan pushing them back and forth across the dinner table came to mind and quashed my curiosity. There are some things you don’t want to know.

  “Covington, my office, now.” Chief Davis’s cigar-scarred voice sliced through the room, raising heads and eyebrows. Everyone knew the deputy chief had a soft spot for me, but right now he sounded pissed.

  Yeah, Hiram had definitely beaten me to the punch.

  When I walked into the tiny office, I saw Lisa had been right, and then some. My nemesis sat stiffly in one of the hard plastic chairs, not even bothering to look my way.

  “Have a seat, Sara.”

  I didn’t like the tone of Davis’s voice. This wasn’t going to be good. I slid into the other chair with a fatalistic sense of doom.

  “Hiram’s been telling me about your little altercation last night.”

  “I went because I was called,” I said, trying not to sound defensive, but failing miserably. “And I didn’t instigate an altercation. Roney did.”

  “You roll when Dispatch says, not one of the force, even a detective.”

  “But...”

  “No buts. Roney may be new here, but he overstepped, as did you. You don’t determine if it’s the same perp. Detectives do that, with the help of the CSU, of which you’re not a formal member. You know it. I know it. You went too far this time, Sara. Roney is not in your chain of command. From here on out, you only go if Dispatch contacts you.” His voice held a clear “or else” warning, even if I could see he didn’t like it one little bit.

  The combination meant I’d better start looking for another job, because there was no way in hell Hiram was going to allow Dispatch to push work to an indie like me. He could freeze me out under the guise of budget cuts in a few months, and while the chief might grumble, Hiram was the head of the department. I didn’t have to be psychic to see that one coming.

  I slid my glasses down my nose and took a good long look at Hiram, letting him know in no uncertain terms that I was doing it.

  His aura was tinged to orange, and there was only one emotion that conveyed that tint. Satisfaction. He’d finally gotten what he wanted, and that’s what made me open my big fat mouth.

  “But we know that’s not gonna happen, right, Chief? We know once I walk out this door, you’ll never see me again because Hiram will make sure I’m never called.” I turned my attention to the asshole in question. “What exactly did I ever do to you, Hiram?”

  His eyes met mine for a brief, mocking moment. The undisguised hate I saw chilled me to the bone.

  “You’re a loose cannon, unpredictable. What happens when something you shoot isn’t admissible because you didn’t follow the rules? What about when you trample a piece of evidence we need? You’re not a cop, Covington. You weren’t trained as one. You don’t carry a shield or a piece. You’re not one of us. You never have been and never will be.” There was more in his eyes, things he would never say in front of the chief, maybe in front of anyone else... It was a hatred, an animosity so deep it gave me a shiver. And fueling that enmity...jealousy. I was a better shooter than he was, and it galled h
im.

  I tried to squash the lance of pain that speared through me at his words, but missed by a mile. His hatred I could handle. His honesty was a whole ’nother thing. While he was wrong about the way I conducted myself at the scene, he was dead-on about the rest.

  “You’re right, Hiram. Aren’t you always?” I smiled bitterly and pushed to my feet. “You can forward my last check. We all know I won’t be back. Thanks for a few good years, Chief. It was interesting. As for you—” I rounded and faced Hiram squarely, “—I can’t wait to see you fall on your supercilious ass. I’ll be the one sitting on the sideline, eating popcorn and cheering, you bastard.” I spun and stalked into the open bay of the squad room, only then realizing how loud my voice had become and the fact the door was still open.

  The silence in the squad room was thunderous, but more than a few of the occupants were smiling openly at me as I forced myself to stride through the maze of desks with a confidence I didn’t feel. I got a “you go, girl” from Lisa and made it all the way to my truck before the shakes started. Pure rage boiled through me. It had been many years since I lost control like that, and it pissed me off that Hiram, of all people, was the one to push me that far. Unfortunately, that kind of anger is like a forest fire—it feeds on itself until it becomes its own self-fulfilling prophecy. No way was I going to let Hiram have that kind of power over me.

  I forced the rage out, piece by tiny piece, picturing meadows and butterflies, puppies and cool, calm lakes. Yeah, it was stupid, but it worked. Marginally. It emptied my mind of more than the rage... It washed out the uncertainty I’d started to feel.

  I drove around for a good long while before finally making it back to the loft. I took Xena for a quick walk and headed upstairs. I still wanted to break something, most notably Hiram’s face, but that wasn’t very constructive. Instead I settled for hard, thrashing alternative rock and a bout with my speed bag. I may be an eighties buff, but when it comes to good old angry music, the current stuff can’t be beat. First it was the Misfits, Korn and Disturbed, and finally Drowning Pool. “Bodies” was about halfway through its head-banging, surging triumph when a very masculine hand clamped onto my shoulder.