The Third Eye

by Jenna Rae

  As she approached the crosswalk, she saw three Watchdog guards huddled around an unbathed, ragged teen. The undernourished, wan-faced blonde was crying and hugging herself.

  One of the guards reached out and snagged her backpack off her shoulder, pulling her hair in the process. She cried out, and the guards edged in even closer, boxing in the diminutive girl with their combined girth.

  She quickened her pace, reaching for her badge and opening her mouth to announce herself. Just as she reached earshot of the trio of costumed thugs, they broke up their circle and dispersed. Two dashed out into traffic against the light, nearly causing a collision. The other flung the appropriated backpack at the girl behind him as he scurried away toward the shore side of the boardwalk, disappearing from sight within seconds. The shaken teen stood staring at Brenda, her eyes wide and damp.

  “Thank you, oh my fuck, they were hella scary! What the fuck? I didn’t even do anything. Those assholes!” The kid looked maybe fourteen or fifteen, with her heavy makeup smeared by tears and her mouth drawn dark except where she’d chewed off the lipstick. “Fuck! I seriously didn’t do shit. I swear to Bob!”

  Brenda hid a smile at the girl’s apparent aversion to taking the Lord’s name in vain even as she tried out other curse words.

  “You okay?”

  “Fuck, yeah. I guess so.”

  “Where do you stay? Do you have a place?”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure.” No more willing to trust Brenda than any other unknown adult, the girl sidled away. “Anyway, thanks. Those guys are motherfuckers, you know.”

  “Hey, I’m not trying to hassle you, but I am a little worried about what those guys are up to. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

  “Nah. I mean, I just got to town and all, so—bye!” The girl turned and broke into an awkward run, escaping up the street and into the crowd headed toward the food trucks.

  A good twenty minutes early for her meeting with Shay Sheraton, she did a quick circuit around the perimeter of the chuck-wagon convention. In addition to the food trucks there were other vendors hawking everything from handmade jewelry to seascape paintings to hand-carved wooden toys. Alongside these were booths advertising financial institutions, cell phone service providers and insurance companies. Local produce vendors had gotten in on the act too, and it looked like half the town was milling around Livingston Plaza.

  For a moment she was not a police officer but a civilian, strolling around a fun event in her favorite city. She listened to the overlapping voices around her. They spoke a dozen languages and all sounded excited and convivial.

  “Isn’t it amazing?”

  She turned to see Shay smiling back at her, her dark eyes shining with good humor and her strawberry-blond hair golden in the sunlight that snuck through the clouds. Even in a severe gray suit and clunky platform loafers, the attorney looked like a kid at her first county fair.

  “I’ve been standing here sniffing the air like a puppy for an embarrassingly long time,” Brenda said. “This is incredible. I didn’t know we had something like this in Briarwood.”

  “That’s because it’s the first one,” crowed Shay. She came to stand right in front of Brenda and was bumped by an eager passerby. Her hands flew up reflexively, and Brenda steadied her with care. They grinned at each other for a few extra seconds, the air between them electric with energy Brenda decided not to examine too closely. The objective was to find out whether or not Shay had conspired with Harding to kill Donnelly.

  “Tami would’ve loved this.”

  “Harding said she made everything into an event.”

  “She did. That’s a great way to put it.” Shay smiled. “Costumes, music, the whole thing. She was fuller of life than anyone I’ve ever known.”

  Falling into silence, they let themselves be propelled forward and jostled closer together. Just when it seemed they were going to get carried along indefinitely as if by a tide, Shay grabbed Brenda’s hand and pulled her to the side, into a narrow passageway between two booths.

  “Thanks.” Brenda let go of Shay’s hand. “This was a great idea.”

  “You’re welcome. It’s great, isn’t it? I set this up, you know. I mean, not myself, of course, but the city council was dead set against it. I had to negotiate for the last six months just to get the permits. Your department was more than a little opposed to it too.”

  She scanned the crowd from the relative peace of their little alleyway. “I don’t see any officers.”

  “That’s one of the concessions we had to make. My firm had to get the coalition of investors to agree to pay for security. Dan Miller’s guys, Watchdogs, are providing the security for a pretty hefty fee.”

  She wasn’t able to hide her distaste.

  Shay laughed and made her own rueful face. “I know. It’s hardly optimal. But we just had to make money this one time, and then the city will go along with the next one. They’ve already made more than enough to justify the expense of police patrols, and we’re negotiating the funding distribution next week. I’d like to make it a yearly thing, maybe even quarterly.”

  “This is incredible. And I was over at the boardwalk earlier. They’re crowded too.”

  “That’s exactly what we were hoping would happen. Once people are down here, at least some of them will stay to shop. I’d like to set up shuttles so people don’t have to worry about parking, and I’d like to do it on weekends, when people don’t have to hurry back to work and they can bring their kids. I really think Briarwood is ready for this.”

  “I agree.” She looked around and grinned. “If this is your baby she’s a beauty.”

  Shay laughed. “Thanks. I’m just a cog mover in a very large machine, but I do feel proud of this. Briarwood’s old guard gets a little stodgy sometimes. It’s time to push past that resistance and really celebrate what this community can be.”

  “Ms. Sheraton, you are a visionary.”

  “Thanks. What looks good to you?”

  They spent a good ninety minutes walking around and sampling bits of this and that. They shared fruit kabobs, a spicy Thai peanut butter roll, lobster puffs and so many other treats Brenda thought she might slip into a coma from the effort of digesting. Shay seemed to know all the vendors and chatted up many of them as they went along.

  Finally the two women found a bench at a quiet table near the edge of the festival. The happy music of the chattering crowd played accompaniment to their quiet conversation.

  “Thanks for meeting me here, Captain Brenda Borelli.”

  She let silence fill the pause. She wasn’t yet ready to invite Shay to call her Brenda, certainly not while she was trying to find out whether she was involved in Donnelly’s death. She resisted the notion Shay could be party to Peterson’s disappearance, though anything was possible.

  They sat side by side, inches apart, while both scanned the crowd. She was surprised by the intimacy she felt just sitting next to Tami Sheraton’s big sister. Was their shared grief the reason she felt close to this woman she barely knew?

  Shay took off her sunglasses, and she reflexively took off hers too. They exchanged a long, silent look that felt more intimate than any conversation. Shay’s big, dark eyes were wet with tears. As they rolled down her cheeks, she swallowed.

  “You’ve been very kind to me. As you were kind to Tami.”

  “Your sister was a good kid,” Brenda said.

  “Yes. She was.”

  “I’m sorry she was killed. I wish—I’m sorry she was killed.”

  “Thank you. Do you think it’ll be over soon?” Shay put her sunglasses on.

  “Not sure.” Brenda put her shades on too.

  “You know more than you’re telling me.”

  “I’m afraid that’s how it has to be for now.” She bit back the question of whether Shay knew more than she was telling her.

  Shay nodded. “I understand.”

  “I don’t think she was following Donnelly,” said Brenda. “She was just going to the store, and he
happened to be there. Mason said she was going to get sake. And the store owner said she shopped there regularly. He had her come to the back door because in that neighborhood, police make people nervous. I think it was a coincidence.”

  Shay gaped at her. “Seriously?” She grimaced. “That’s—oh, my God. I don’t even know what to think of that. Thank you for telling me. Somehow that’s better, I think. It was random. I couldn’t have done anything to stop it.”

  “You know Mark Donnelly is dead.”

  Shay nodded.

  “Do you think someone killed him?”

  Shay shook her head. “You would know more than I. I’m not really watching the news these days. It’s mostly pretty terrible news, and I’m more sensitive to that now.”

  “That’s not hard to understand.”

  “You think someone killed him. You don’t think it was suicide.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know enough to say anything definitively.”

  “Prison would have been better.” Shay sighed. “He’s dead and will never have to face up to what he did. A nice, long prison sentence would have meant decades of suffering, and I would have preferred that. Does that sound terrible?”

  “No.” She wondered if Shay had anticipated her suspicions and said what she did to allay those suspicions. She didn’t think so but had to wonder if her attraction to Shay was interfering with her perceptions.

  She stood, and without thinking, offered a hand to Shay, who took it and stood gracefully without actually needing the help. It was another oddly intimate moment with a near-stranger who was the sister of a victim, and Brenda stiffened. She’d always been a stickler for propriety and was unwilling to relinquish her integrity for a momentary connection. Still, she felt the warmth and softness of Shay’s hand long after she’d released it. They walked back toward the center of the dissipating fray in silence for a few seconds.

  “The crowd’s thinned a lot.”

  She looked around. “It has. People were mostly on their lunch hour, I guess.”

  “It was supposed to be over by now. We didn’t expect this many people to show up, so everyone will be happy.”

  “Congratulations.” She looked at the sky and shivered. “Weather’s turning. That might end things now.”

  Shay laughed. “That’s okay. We’ve already exceeded everyone’s expectations. Next time, I’d like it to last longer. I suggested a real festival, pony rides, face painting, live music, all of it. Your friend Andrea suggested we have local folks sign up for time slots on a stage. Kids could do their dance routines, folks could sing, read poetry, all of it. Spring Festival or something.”

  “Andi always wants to give people a chance to be heard.”

  Shay smiled. “She could rule the world if she wanted to.”

  She laughed. “Yes, she could.”

  “So, you’d be interested? In an expanded carnival or festival? You think it’s a good idea?”

  “I do. The logistics will take some work, but Briarwood’s ready for some fun events that allow it to come together as a community. Why not a carnival?” She thought of what Peterson would say and made a face. “Minus the carnies.”

  “Yes,” Shay said, laughter in her voice, “minus the carnies.”

  “Thanks for meeting me here. I’m glad we got to experience this.”

  “I know you wanted to meet with me for a couple of reasons.”

  “Oh?”

  “You like me back. But you also wanted to see if there was anything I knew that would help you figure out who else besides Mark Donnelly was responsible for killing Tami.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “If I knew anything, I would tell you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I know you can’t reciprocate and I understand that. If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know, okay?”

  “I may take you up on that sooner rather than later. I have a few ideas but not enough proof to act on them yet.”

  “Call me anytime and I will help you. When this is all done,” Shay said. Then she stopped and looked away.

  “Yes?”

  Shay shrugged. “For now, I will call you Captain Borelli and not ask you if I can call you Brenda. I will step back because for you I’m off-limits until this case is resolved.”

  She opened her mouth and closed it again.

  “And I’ll back off because I can’t tell if you and Tori are still a thing or not. I will allow this formality between us because I’m the sister of a victim. So there’s all this stuff between us. This wall of propriety. And that’s fine for now. But at some point this will be resolved, and you and Tori—who’s lovely and brilliant and one hell of a golfer—will either be together or not, and whoever you may need to arrest will be in prison. It will be done.”

  Brenda nodded slowly. “And then?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? Because I like you. You like me. At some point I’ll want to know if you’re willing to see where that could take us.”

  She twitched her mouth.

  “No, don’t answer me now. Think it over. You will meet your obligations and fulfill your ethical duty and keep your side of the street clean. I respect that. But at some point, when all of this ugliness is cleaned up, then I’ll ask you again, and I’ll expect some kind of yes or no. I’m hoping it’s yes.”

  With that, Shay touched her lightly on the arm and walked away, her eyes again shielded by designer sunglasses. Everything about Shay was contained beauty: her hair in a low, tight bun, her lush figure imprisoned in its tailored gray suit, her feet encased in their weighty leather prisons. She waggled her fingers over her shoulder without looking back, and Brenda could only watch her walk away with a mix of hope, fear, regret and longing.

  She was inclined to believe Shay had not influenced or assisted Harding in murdering Mark Donnelly. So at least she’d accomplished that much. It seemed a small thing, compared to what she still had to do.

  She needed to find Peterson, Smith, and Fortune. She needed to figure out whether Harding worked alone to kill Donnelly. She needed to determine which, if any, members of her department were corrupt and dangerous. Things were about to get very hairy. Whatever happened next, it would be less enticing and much less complicated than getting involved with Shay Sheraton.

  Chapter Fourteen

  She swung by Andi’s bakery and saw a crowd gathered in what loosely approximated a line snaking out of the front door. She strode to her car with a renewed sense of purpose.

  In the relative quiet of the Caliber, she examined the myriad things she needed to resolve with her missing partner and the two vanished women at the top of that list. Some speck of insight glimmered on her mind’s periphery. She felt she had been chasing mental clarity for days. Now she realized she needed to stop chasing it and let it come to her.

  Having had this thought, she found herself listening for her phone, as though her decision to wait for the answers would summon them. When a full thirty seconds went by with no ping or vibration, she laughed at herself for waiting. Then she checked her phone. Darius had emailed her, and she read the material he’d sent before calling him.

  “Brown, you’re a genius!”

  “Borelli, you’re easily impressed.”

  “How did you get the financial information?”

  “What I’ve sent you is all part of the public record. I wouldn’t give you something you couldn’t use, obviously.”

  “I had no idea how complicated this all is. These guys are bigwigs. How can they be in this much trouble without anyone knowing it?”

  “People see what they want to, I guess. If you think somebody’s rich, you ignore anything that contradicts that, especially if they’re working hard to maintain the illusion of wealth. The rich are sharks, and they smell blood in the water faster than you or I would.”

  They chatted briefly before he had to ring off to attend a meeting. Then she focused on absorbing the wealth of material he’d sent. Both Marty Banks and Captain Wal
ton were living a lie. They resided in mansions, drove expensive vehicles, dined out in style and displayed daily sartorial splendor. Meanwhile, they were both drowning in debt. Were they both corrupt? She wasn’t sure, but at least she could focus on two department men instead of dozens.

  She needed to send Brown a gift, she knew, something the whole family would enjoy. She would figure out what after this was all resolved. With his help, it soon would be, she thought.

  She started the car and put it in reverse, and then the phone rang. Dan Miller’s name flashed, and she sobered, putting the car back in park.

  “Mr. Miller, thank you for calling.”

  “Sorry for the delay, Captain Borelli.”

  “Are you here in Briarwood, sir? I’d like to meet in person.”

  “Well—”

  “How do you know Jessica’s not yours?”

  “What?” There was loud, fast breathing on the other end of the line, and Brenda smiled grimly.

  “Mason Harding works for you, right? Some kind of computer genius?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “You’ve been trying to woo me to the private sector for as long as I’ve known you. Are you still interested?”

  “Of course I’m interested. You’d be a valuable asset—”

  “How about Dave’s Diner at seven?”

  “Captain Borelli, I’ve just arrived after a grueling travel day. I—”

  “Of course, how about tomorrow evening at seven? I’m sorry to press on you. I just want to be able to wrap things up with a nice, neat bow and move on.”

  There was silence. Brenda counted to fourteen. She worried she’d been too obvious.

  “Well, I’m embarrassed. I got caught being a wimp by someone I admire. Why don’t we go ahead and meet tonight? I mean, I’ll never sleep tonight anyway, right?” The salesman in Miller seemed to rouse himself. “I’m so glad you called, Brenda. I look forward to the chance to really talk with you.”