Behind Blue Eyes

by TL Schaefer

  I nodded jerkily. I would have expected no less. I had, in fact, half expected to be down at headquarters right now, sitting back in Interrogation One. I understood what his story had been...a way of building trust between us, a rapport that had needed strengthening. It remained to be seen whether it was because he was a cop or because he was a man.

  I filled him in on the things I knew—that CASI had been a purported school for the gifted, and what I supposed, based on my experience—that they hunted out and found their “talent” in kids like me, and used them until they burned out. I’d seen the burnout more than once, when children disappeared...like poor Airman Dobbs. When it came to the Meece Foundation, I’d never heard of them until I discovered them on the Net today, but it stood to reason that they were the corporate head of CASI.

  As I spoke, it was becoming more and more apparent to me that our killer was a former classmate of mine. Yeah, I’d suspected it more than once, but actually speaking the words aloud cemented the belief even further. One kid in particular came to mind, but Dave hadn’t struck me as being intelligent enough to pull something like this off. Devious and deviant enough, sure, but he hadn’t been the sharpest knife in the drawer back in the day, just a nasty little bastard. But my thoughts weren’t worth voicing. Not yet, especially when I’d never even known Dave’s last name.

  “So you think they’re government-backed?” Brian asked, musing, as he stared at the website I’d opened. It portrayed CASI in all its brooding glory. As for the Meece Foundation, there was little-to-no real information, just the usual blah-blah promo crap. Tomorrow morning we’d have to find a way to look into it...quietly. The Net was an amazing reservoir to the right people; I simply had to find one willing to do more digging than I could do on my own.

  “Yeah. I was operating in self-preservation mode before, when I was all about covering my own ass. But with your story about Dobbs, I can see it. It would be stupid for the Feds not to use our talents to that end. Saving my behind doesn’t mean as much with Amy hanging in the balance.” I shook my head. “She’s a kid. Like too many I knew before I bailed. What do we do now?”

  Brian pushed away from the computer and stood, and just like that, my mouth went dry from how hot and utterly delectable he was. Guilt reared fast and ugly at being so easily overwhelmed by his sheer presence when I should have been thinking of Amy and how to get her out of this mess. I walked into the kitchen to quell my jumping nerves and almost leaped out of my skin when he coasted up behind me, sliding a hand beneath my hair before settling on the nape of my neck.

  “Relax, Sara. I told you before. We’re cool, all right?” His simple words soothed, even as they pulled me deeper under his spell. “Now, can I mooch another beer before I head home?”

  I nodded, popped the tops on two more Shiners and settled onto the couch next to him. Foolish? Probably, but after everything we’d discussed, I needed the proximity of something good, something right...and at this point, something safe. Okay, I also wanted to sit next to him. It’d been a long time since I’d been this attracted to a man, even if I was skittish as a cat.

  “What color do you see when you look in the mirror, Sara?”

  “Huh?” I turned, and he was inches from me, so close that I could see that his unusual blue eyes were shot through with hazel streaks. The beauty of them forced the air from my lungs before I drew a deep breath—of him. Not much better for my equilibrium, so I made a conscious effort to answer his question, even while my mind reeled from the scent of clean man and tangy beer. “Nothing, I see me, no aura, no nothing. Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious.” But I could tell his cop’s brain was spinning, working on something he wasn’t ready to tell me...yet.

  When it came time for me to ask him to go home, I couldn’t do it. No, we weren’t going to have sex, at least not tonight, but I couldn’t bear being alone if Amy’s tormentor called again. I wanted someone else listening. Someone who understood—as much as I—what was going on.

  When I woke up on the couch the next morning, Brian’s arm slung over my body, my subconscious had figured it out. The fucker’s game was chess.

  Chapter Eight

  Before

  Wes was the only one of them I would talk to after isolation. At least willingly. And now that I was beginning to understand auras, I could see that he was no threat to me, had no deep, dark secrets. He was simply a freak, like me, but one with different talents. I still categorically refused to look him in the eye. With the others, I now had no problem spying, looking into their souls. I didn’t have much to lose, and really didn’t care anymore. But with Wes...I couldn’t do it. It seemed like a breach in the trust we’d built. The trust I was about to expand on.

  “So what do you do?” I asked one night as we watched the rest of the recreation room in their nightly pursuits. I was reading Dickens’s Oliver Twist. It seemed appropriate.

  He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, wary, and I knew I’d have to be the first to speak.

  “Fine. I see people’s auras. I also see what they feel.” My heart thumped at the admission. I’d never actually told anyone but Green that...and definitely no one willingly. It was quite a step.

  He gaped at me in shock, but recovered fairly quickly. “Can you see me?” he squeaked, in pre-pubescent shock.

  “Yeah, but it’s cool. You’re a good person. I can see that.”

  “I can anticipate things.”

  “Huh?” That confused me.

  “It’s kinda like telling the future, but not very far in advance. Someone tells me a situation, and I can figure out what the outcome will be...correctly.”

  “Wow.” How were they were using him? Had he gone through the same torture I had? Or was I the only one? Dare I even bring it up?

  He cocked his head and looked at me, and even though I kept my eyes averted, his attitude was entirely too adult and shrewd for a twelve-year-old child. By his expression alone, I knew he’d been through some of the same things I had, hated them as much as I did. His next words proved it. “Yeah. Think of what we could do together.” And the gauntlet was thrown.

  Now—Monday, 8:00 a.m.

  Brian slapped his hand on the table. “Jesus, Sara, you were right. The streets are laid out like a chessboard... Look. When you lay them out in starting position, it’s clear. The city councilman is a rook, Amy Singleton a bishop, Monica’s girl a pawn, even Hiram as a knight. Oh, don’t give me that look. He was a cop. In my book that makes him a knight, even if he was a colossal prick.”

  “Fine,” I said, topping off both our coffees. “Make him a knight. I don’t care.”

  I’d bolted off the couch with my wake-up realization and dragged Roney right along with me. Since I wasn’t in the habit of sharing my space with anyone, it was almost a relief that he didn’t press the issue of our sorta intimacy and leaped on my chessboard suggestion. Almost.

  “This is something, Sara. It’s something we can run with.”

  He’d continued to call me Sara, never even questioning if I wanted to be called by my old name. I was insanely, stupidly happy that he knew not to even ask.

  “I need to get into work, let the task force know what we’ve found. But first I need to know if there was anyone at CASI with the aura you saw at the crime scenes.”

  God, we were talking like my talent was an everyday thing. I shook my head.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. By the end of my time there, I’d seen everyone’s aura in the place. There was no one like this.”

  A heavy knock at the door pulled both of us from the question. “Who could that be?” I asked, even as I went to the door and looked through the peephole.

  Fabulous.

  I pulled open the door, turned and walked down the hall toward my glasses.

  “Foudy,” I said over my shoulder. “Coffee’s on. Help yourself.”

  “Thanks.” She shrugged out of her blazer. “I think I will.”

  I slid my glasses on
, then faced her as she poured a cup without once glancing at Roney. When she finally turned, she had a cat’s-got-the-cream expression. “Thought I might find you here.”

  Brian looked at her, saying nothing.

  “So what have we got?” She ambled over to the table, eyeing our crude board set-up with a critical eye. “Chess?”

  “Yeah.” Brian finally spoke. “He said to understand the game, look at the board, and we came up with this.”

  “And this was before or after you fucked?”

  I jolted upright from my oh-so-casual stance near the computer. What in the hell?

  Brian stood, dwarfing Foudy, but she wasn’t backing down.

  “While I was out pounding the street and looking at worthless crap until my eyeballs bled, you were in here banging a suspect. I want to know why.”

  “She’s not a suspect,” he ground out. “We’ve already established that. And we weren’t fucking.”

  “Fine,” she acquiesced with a small nod. “But she’s part of this investigation, and the way the two of you are playing footsies means you will at some point. You know better than this, Brian.”

  I stood on the sidelines, wondering if I should pipe up and exclaim that “she” was in the room with them, when Brian answered with deadly calm.

  “Yeah, I do. Have you considered what that means?” He cast a glance over his shoulder at me, and his eyes were hot with such emotion I damn near melted on the spot.

  “I wanted to make sure you know what you’re doing,” Foudy replied, breaking our mind meld.

  Brian swung his gaze back to her. “I know exactly what I’m doing. It’s only because we’ve been through the shit together that I’m even answering your question.”

  Foudy’s eyes found mine and lasered in with devastating, ferocious zeal. “Fine. As long as we’re clear on exactly what’s going on here.” She dismissed me and swung back to the makeshift chessboard. “Talk to me, Brian. Tell me what you’ve found.”

  I stood there for a long moment. What in the hell had that been? Did she consider Roney hers? Had I been right? Were they an item in the past? I slipped my glasses down and viewed her fully. As always, her aura was so vivid it almost hurt to look at her. But today it was tinged slightly. Yes, there was jealously there, imprinted on her emotions; it wasn’t the jealousy of a lover, but of a friend. She was afraid I’d hurt Brian.

  What if she was right?

  “He said we needed to understand the game. When you lay out the vics on a chessboard, it starts to make sense, especially when you factor in their personalities.” He looked up at Foudy. “What do we know about the last victim?”

  “I’ll do you one better,” she reached into the carryall she’d dropped onto the couch and pulled out a manila folder. “I brought the stills.”

  Roney grunted. “So all that ‘suspect’ talk was crap.” He stated without inflection. She wouldn’t have brought the stills to me if I was under any suspicion whatsoever.

  “Yeah,” she admitted grudgingly, “Davis cleared her half an hour ago. Regardless of that, I needed to see where you stood.” She turned to me with a smirk on her face. “C’mon, Wonder Girl. Take a look at these and tell me what you see.”

  Even as relief surged through me at being off the suspect list, anger overrode it. I stalked into the living room, more than a little pissed that she’d tried to work both of us that way. Plus, I could tell her pet name for me now garnered capital letters. Fabulous. “Don’t call me that, and don’t pull that stunt again. If we’re gonna catch this asshole, we need to work together, not play games.”

  She caught my arm, and I forced myself not to flinch at the storm of emotion thundering from her. It was the most I’d ever felt, and shocked me with its instability. She was like a super cell thunderstorm capping at ten thousand feet. A tornado was almost a certainty. “I’ll do whatever I please, Covington. I’m the lead on this case, and we’re all skating on seriously thin ice by even involving you. You’d better remember that.”

  I yanked my arm away and almost sighed in relief when the flood of emotion cut off. She was right in what she’d said, but at least she hadn’t called me Wonder Girl again.

  The stills looked hauntingly like the others. Slashed throat, right-to-left, by someone big and strong. The victim was male and had a build that would have made it difficult for even a man Roney’s size to take him down without a fight. But somehow he’d been stripped down and slaughtered without so much as a struggle. As with the others, his clothes—he’d been another richie-rich, because unless I missed my guess, his suit was Armani—had been placed tidily near his bare feet.

  “So everyone he’s offed has been high-profile, or at least high-profile enough for it to get our attention, including this guy. An oil baron. Why?” Foudy’s question speared the suddenly tense air.

  I looked at Roney and shrugged. It was up to him.

  He rolled it around in his mind for a moment before nodding.

  I gulped and stood, ready to flee, but his eyes drew me back into my chair like a beacon.

  “It’ll be all right, Sara. Trust me.”

  I bit my lip. Trust wasn’t something I tossed around all that easily, but that’s what I’d done with him, almost from the moment he flashed his badge that first night. Though the jury was still out on our relationship, such as it was, he’d do what was right. Even if it hurt. I could understand that, respect it. I let out the breath I’d been holding, hunched down in my chair defensively and curled my hands into fists.

  Foudy watched our exchange with puzzlement, and then anger. I didn’t need to slide down my glasses to figure that out. “You’ve been holding out on me, and a girl’s life is on the line. Come clean with me...now.”

  Brian held out a placating hand before reaching over to cradle one of my clenched fists in his big palms. As he began to speak, he brushed the pad of his thumb over my knuckles, comforting me. His touch was hypnotic, and got exactly the response he’d been aiming for. I relaxed and allowed his fingers to thread through mine.

  “Sara’s been living on a forged identity for the last decade or so. She attended a place called the Colorado Academy for Superior Intellect, a school...or institution...for ‘exceptional minds’ for two years. They honed her extrasensory talents right as she was hitting puberty, exposing her to the kind of people you and I deal with every day. When she rebelled they tried to kill her. She escaped, picked up a different name and started a new life. But our killer is someone from that past and has chosen to communicate with her for some reason we haven’t figured out yet.”

  Foudy sat there, face completely expressionless, while Roney boiled the formative years of my life down into a few neat sentences. When she finally spoke, her question surprised me.

  “What kind of talents?”

  “What you saw me do the other day,” I ground out, my back tensing again. I hated feeling this defenseless, and wondered if my fear of CASI finding me again wasn’t very far into my future. Foudy was the kind of by-the-book sort who would have no problem turning me over to them if she thought it would solve this case. The worst part was, I could understand exactly where she was coming from. To cover my terror, I stumbled on, trying to convince her I was more valuable to her in this capacity. “The easiest way to explain it is that I see another dimension. One where who and what you are is boiled down by aural color, along with your emotions.”

  “What kind of colors?” Foudy asked the question, but I could tell that Brian was interested as well.

  “Alpha personalities are hugely red, and if they’ve done something recently they’re ashamed of, or maybe overly satisfied by, it’s tinged to orange. Most alphas are never ashamed, so I don’t see many pumpkins around from that instance. The self-satisfaction though, I see that a lot.

  “Pacifists are serenely blue. People deeply connected to the earth are a rich chocolate brown. But those are the extremes. It’s the ‘off’ colors that freak me out the worst...the grays, who seem to have no moral compass wh
atsoever...the blacks, who scare the living bejesus out of me—thank God there aren’t that many of them out there...the sulfurs—almost always addicts. Our killer has a color I’ve never seen before, kind of a thick, muddled purple. It’s nauseating to look at.”

  “So that’s how you knew the girl was pregnant?” she asked, still giving nothing away.

  I sighed. “Yeah. It’s also how I knew that the vic down the street wasn’t by the same perp, though any good cop could’ve figured that out by looking at blade angle and the victim.”

  “And this school taught you how to do this?”

  “No, CASI took my unique talent and honed it. They did it with lots of other kids too.”

  “I guess I don’t see what’s so bad about that,” she admitted, staring me dead in the eye. Even with my glasses on, the complete frankness of her expression gave me the chills. She meant exactly what she said.

  “Jesus, Monica. She was fourteen-fucking-years old. They put her in isolation and drugged her until she cooperated. When that didn’t work they tried to kill her. The first two are criminal for God’s sake, and I don’t even want to think about the last.”

  “Not if her mother signed a release,” she pointed out logically. “And it’s easy for a kid to confuse punishment with something else. Trust me, I have a twelve-year-old. So, is this place still around?”

  “Yeah,” I replied, my voice arctic-cold now. To so easily dismiss what had been done to us... I hope the bitch got frostbite. Especially since she had a child of her own. The thought of Foudy parenting anyone gave me the shudders. “They’re still in business. But they’re legit now.”

  “Where?” Apparently an ice-queen like Monica Foudy wasn’t impressed with a small fry like me. Where I’d been intrigued and a little curious about her before, now she was starting to rank up there with Hiram.

  “About forty-five minutes from Colorado Springs.”

  “Good. I’ll book a flight for this afternoon out of DFW.”