Blinded

by Teyla Branton

  “Give it time,” Cody said brusquely, without meeting my gaze.

  An hour later, with the house thoroughly searched, the only thing we found out of place was a set of footprints in one of the back flowerbeds. These we supposed might have belonged to the man in the hallway from the safe imprint, or one of the people who’d wrecked the lab, or perhaps the gardener.

  While Paige and the two officers finished up in the basement lab, the rest of us sat down at the rectangular table in Hamilton’s large kitchen, where a pair of dainty white ladies’ gloves were the only centerpiece. Hamilton put the gloves away while Drewmore made a pot of coffee and offered me a cup, which I refused.

  “Got any protein?” I asked.

  He reached in the fridge and pulled out a wedge of cheese. “Will this do? Or we might have a pork chop left over from dinner.”

  “This is fine.” I sat nibbling on my cheese while everyone discussed who might be responsible for the break-in and what we should do next. Everyone but Shannon, who stood up to pace by the window, staring out at the dark lake, and Cody, who edged around the room, touching things. Occasionally, he met my gaze and shook his head.

  A shuffle at the door drew our attention, and we all looked to see Maribel Hamilton coming into the kitchen from a door that I’d learned during the search led to the garage. Her peach dress was askew, as if she’d dressed hastily and misaligned the buttons. “Oh, I didn’t know we had visitors,” she said, her hands clutching a large black purse to her bosom. After wandering in confusion over the group, her eyes settled on Drewmore. “Has something happened, dear?”

  An odd expression I couldn’t decipher appeared on Drewmore’s face. “I called you, Grandma. Remember? We agreed you were staying at your friend’s tonight after the bridge party. I was going to pick you up in the morning.”

  Maribel frowned. “I decided I didn’t want to stay there. Her bed is too hard. I made her drive me home. Besides, I remembered your voice sounded odd, and I had to make sure you were okay.”

  “Of course he’s safe,” JoAnna Hamilton snapped. “I’d never let anything happen to him. You know that.”

  “Yes, JoAnna.” Maribel smiled, but her eyes didn’t quite meet her cousin’s.

  Drewmore stood and went around the table, placing a hand on his grandmother’s shoulder, a gentle smile of real affection on his face. “Why don’t you go upstairs and get ready for bed? I’ll come up and see you in a minute.”

  Maribel looked up into his eyes and nodded. “All right.” Still clutching her purse, she slipped by the table and disappeared through the far kitchen doorway.

  “Sorry about that,” Hamilton said to no one in particular as Drewmore reclaimed his seat.

  “So, who exactly is your competition?” Shannon asked as though the interruption hadn’t occurred. “Obviously, they’ll be suspects.”

  Hamilton exchanged a glance with Drewmore before she spoke. “Our two main competitors are Print Perfect and Tarragon Inc. Both have created 3D printers and have brought a watered-down version to market. However, Print Perfect is struggling with funds and Tarragon has run into problems with some of the models they released in Japan. That means we are poised to be the leader in the field, but they can’t know how close we are, not unless someone’s told them, and who would do that? Aside from our family, only a couple of our engineers have the whole picture, and when they aren’t here working with Ralph, they practically live at our other facility which has been under guard since we had some problems a few years ago. We have a profit-sharing program in place for those particular men that will make them rich. It’s hard to imagine them betraying us. Even if they did, they don’t have access to complete copies of our information. That is—or was—available only here.”

  Drewmore glanced at Cody, who was fingering a decorative ceramic bowl on the counter. “Tarragon has connections in Japan, and some important investors, but I don’t see how they or Print Perfect can be responsible. They don’t have the manpower or connections, I wouldn’t think.”

  Something Hamilton had said bothered me, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint it. It had to do with Tarragon, something that clicked with another tidbit of information I’d picked up that day, if only I could remember what.

  “We’ll check them out,” Shannon said, pivoting on his foot. “But maybe it’s not either of them. Maybe this is payback for something else.” His gaze rested on Russo at the foot of the table. Sitting next to him, bald Charlie stiffened.

  Russo carefully set down his cup. “If you’re implying that the payback is pointed at me, yes, several of my competitors could be responsible for such a thing.” He glanced at Charlie and then at his other two bodyguards at the end of the table. “However, none of my men would have passed information about the contract to my competitors, so it’s unlikely they would have knowledge of my impending deal with JoAnna, much less know her lab codes.”

  If his men were all loyal, how did JoAnna Hamilton learn about me and my role with the contract before I did? I needed to ask, but not with Russo hanging around. “What about Ace?” I asked instead. “Maybe he went to them.”

  Shannon shook his head. “He’s obviously got an agenda, but he’s mostly small time. He’s been a cop. He knows the score.”

  I wondered how Ace had started working for Russo in the first place. I looked at the mob boss, but he answered before I could voice the thought. “Charlie called him off the Internet the first time we used him. He was good at finding things so we used him on a case-by-case basis, up until the last fiasco. Frankly, I don’t much like the man, and not just because he’s an ex-cop. But then, I don’t like most people. I find them incompetent.” His lips turned up in a hint of a smile. “Present company excepted, of course.”

  Nobody returned his smile.

  “At any rate,” he continued, “Ace was never told anything important about my affairs, and I doubt he could learn anything vital in one visit here with Ms. Rain, even if he was allowed to see the lab. He was likely trying to ingratiate himself with me.”

  I thought he underestimated Ace, which was almost as bad as overestimating him as Russo had done in our case with the Japanese mobster Joben Saito, when he’d sent Ace into Saito’s lair without backup. That blunder had almost cost Russo’s cousin his life, and mine—and Ace’s and Shannon’s as well. I clamped my jaw tight so I wouldn’t say anything.

  Wait, I had it now, the thing that had been bugging me when Hamilton had been speaking earlier. She’d mentioned Japan. Hadn’t something else about Japan come up that day? I couldn’t remember. Maybe it was only my thoughts about the old case.

  Shannon studied me, his eyes somehow communicating desire, though I doubted anyone except me would be able to tell. “We still need to find out for sure what Ace was doing watching Autumn’s store.” Though his gaze didn’t move from my face, my reaction from his stare traveled down my body, saturating every inch with yearning. No wonder I’d avoided those eyes before we started dating.

  “I’d think finding out who tried to kidnap Ms. Rain would be higher on the list,” Russo said dryly. “It can’t be a coincidence. Maybe it was an attempt to stop our business deal, and if we find the perpetrator, we might find who tossed JoAnna’s lab.”

  Shannon spared him a glance. “Well, we’re also working another case, so what happened to Autumn could be related to that, but you’re right, it is a lead, and without anything more indicating where Ms. Hamilton’s brother has gone, we’ll examine every aspect carefully to see if what happened to her is connected.”

  Something had to be connected. Right now all we had was a series of events that didn’t make sense: old people dying, missing heirlooms, the awful imprint on the rug, my abduction, Ace’s odd behavior, JoAnna Hamilton’s secret, the ruined lab, the missing brother, the man in the hallway. And sitting above it all, the 3D printing technology, and nanites that might eventually create weapons or a child’s lung. Technology I didn’t want either Russo or his enemies to have.

  “Wha
t about the Saitos?” I asked. “Could they be involved?”

  Russo shook his head and Charlie actually smiled. “Still in prison and all their funds confiscated. No, I’d have heard if he’d regrouped enough to pull off something like this.”

  I was glad. Among other things, Saito had tried to kill a child for revenge, and he deserved to rot in prison for the rest of his life. Even with all the many evils Russo had committed, a part of me didn’t believe he was capable of such a thing. He’d at least wait until the child was grown before enacting his revenge. Not much comfort, when I thought of it that way.

  Which reminded me of Russo’s first wife. What exactly had happened to her? Maybe I’d ask Paige to contact the police in New Jersey to see if they knew anything. For some reason, it suddenly seemed very important, but Russo wouldn’t thank me for bringing it up.

  “So, Mr. Russo, how about giving us the names of people you think could pull off this break-in and have a reason to do so?” Paige said from the doorway, where she’d apparently been standing long enough to hear the end of our conversation. I could tell from her expression that she and the other officers had found no new leads in the basement lab. “Nanotechnology aside, it’s entirely possible that damaging you, and not Mrs. Hamilton, was the motivation.”

  Russo’s eyes narrowed. “Actually, there are half a dozen competitors that come to mind, but I will have to get back to you on their names. I need to do my own review first.”

  “That will waste time,” Shannon said with poorly concealed impatience.

  Russo stood, his bulk towering several inches over Shannon. “Nevertheless, I will do it. So unless you have reason to detain me, I think I’ll leave so I can get to work.” When Shannon didn’t respond, Russo flicked a hand at his men, and they arose, following him to the door. “I’ll be in touch, JoAnna. Please call if you hear from your brother.”

  “See them to the door, Winston,” Hamilton responded.

  Drewmore stood and opened the door leading into the garage, the same one his grandmother had entered before. Russo didn’t seem to mind the back exit, and I wondered if using them was a habit with him.

  Paige glared at Russo’s back until he was out of sight. “He’ll never give us any names.”

  “No,” I said. “He’s going to find out if any of his enemies did this so that if they have the backups, he can negotiate and keep any stolen nanotechnology for himself.”

  “I don’t believe any of his competitors would have the knowledge necessary to have done this or to understand the importance of our research,” Drewmore said. “We’ve kept negotiations very low key.”

  “Well someone knew.” Shannon met his gaze without blinking. “And if the men who destroyed the lab did catch up with Shatlock before he got away, Russo might have the means to track them down. He might try to recover Shatlock for his own purposes.”

  “He could get Ralph killed!” JoAnna Hamilton shoved back from the table and came to her feet, her face pale.

  I thought it was decent of her to worry more about her brother’s life than the information he held. By the tight look on her cousin Drewmore’s face, I couldn’t say the same for him.

  “Well, he might not give you a name, but I know at least one man he’s been at odds with for ten years.” Hamilton’s eyes gleamed.

  “JoAnna, are you sure?” Drewmore said, edging closer to her. “If Russo finds out . . .”

  “We have to protect Ralph.”

  Drewmore nodded and she continued, “The name’s Frank O’Donald. We don’t know exactly what happened between them, and I’m sure the conflict isn’t new, but it definitely escalated when Russo took over running his uncle’s business. If he’s involved, it’ll be what Russo needs to start an all-out war.”

  She exchanged a glance with Drewmore, and I knew there was more they weren’t saying, but I couldn’t force them to elaborate.

  “Thank you,” Paige said. “We’ll put some feelers out and see if they have a presence in town. I heard about them when I worked vice, but the only thing I really remember is that they’re big into drugs and they’re located somewhere on the East Coast.”

  Hamilton nodded. “That’s probably right. I’m not sure.”

  “So you don’t know this Frank O’Donald?” Shannon asked, obviously picking up on the same undercurrents I was sensing.

  “Russo mentioned him a few times, but we’ve never met.” Hamilton met his stare without flinching, but it didn’t mean she was telling the truth.

  “Well, there’s nothing more we can do here.” Shannon walked over to where I sat at the table. “But we’ll have people working on it all night. Now that Russo knows and there’s no need to keep it under wraps, we’ll be able to utilize more personnel.”

  “Then you’ll let us know?” Hamilton pushed in the chair where she’d been seated.

  “Of course. But call us if you hear from your brother.”

  “All right.”

  Hamilton walked Shannon and Paige to the door, this time the front entrance, trailed by the other two officers and Cody, who was still fingering things in a way that made me nervous. Drewmore and I brought up the rear.

  “Thanks for coming,” Drewmore said to me. “I could see that wasn’t easy for you. All the violence left behind, things most of us never realize are there. It must be a challenge having such a gift.”

  “It can be.” I still wasn’t sure what had happened when I’d touched Cody in the lab, but I hadn’t lost the hope it had given me.

  Drewmore gave me a smile that had something a little more in it, something that made me take notice. He had none of Shannon’s rugged good looks or his compact grace, and certainly not his eyes. He also didn’t have Jake’s broad shoulders and eye-catching locs, but his face was pleasant, his lips full, and his gray eyes were warm like granite left in the sun instead of cool like Hamilton’s. He was younger than I was by at least five or maybe six years, though I often passed for younger, and his face lacked the arrogance of other wealthy young businessmen I’d met. Under other circumstances, I might have been interested in him. He was interested in me—or pretending to be, which I suspected was more likely. I wondered if he had an object he wanted me to read.

  “Well, I’m sorry to have played a part in your coming here,” he said. “Maybe when it’s all over, I can make it up to you. Dinner, perhaps.”

  It didn’t seem to bother him that I had a boyfriend; maybe as Hamilton’s heir, he didn’t feel the same rules applied to him. Or he really wanted that object read.

  “We’ll see,” I said. “I just hope we find your cousin.”

  “He’s a smart guy. And paranoid to the point that he should probably see a doctor about it. If he got out before those men found him, I think he’ll stay safe.” His glance fell past my stained jeans to my bare feet, and his smile faltered. I nearly laughed aloud. Could he picture me as his date at one of his high-society business events? I very much doubted it. It took a certain kind of man to put up with my eccentricities. I’d once had doubts about Shannon in that respect—in fact, I still had some of those doubts.

  Winston gestured for me to go through the front door where the others conversed outside at the bottom of the porch steps. I started forward, but then stopped. “Uh, Mr. Drewmore, any idea where he might go? Shatlock, I mean.”

  “Please, call me Winston. And I hope you don’t mind if I call you Autumn.”

  I nodded. “Sure.” Whatever made him more open toward me. “So, is there someplace he might go?”

  “JoAnna would know better than me, but I really don’t think there’s any certain place. Ralph lived at the lab.”

  “He wasn’t there this afternoon.”

  Winston grinned. “It’s Friday. He always goes to the movies on Friday afternoons. Usually a double feature. Sometimes I play hooky and go with him.”

  I didn’t want to like Winston because I knew he and Hamilton were hiding something—maybe the secret she didn’t want me to read on the contract—but I found tha
t I did like him. I wished I could read a few of his imprints so I could understand what kind of a man he really was. Strange. I hadn’t always depended on imprints to tell me who should be my friends.

  “Last I heard, Ralph planned to go straight to the meeting after the films. He was supposed to have the backup ready beforehand. I assumed he had everything with him, but I guess he didn’t if he came back here.”

  “If they’d been watching him, wouldn’t the theater have been a better place to try to take him?”

  He shrugged. “They must not have known about the theater. He’s only been going the past six months since he moved the most sensitive things away from the main lab. As I said, he’s a little paranoid, and he wanted to guarantee more security.”

  “That seems to indicate he doesn’t trust someone.”

  “Yeah, but he’s always been like that. Look, here’s my card, in case you think of anything else you want to ask me.”

  “Thanks.” Pocketing the card, I went out the door and onto the porch. There was no sign of the ants under the lights, and I wondered if they’d been sprayed with poison and washed away.

  JoAnna Hamilton watched me walk toward them, her eyes granite and her face unwelcoming and stiff, quite a change from a few minutes earlier when she’d expressed worry about her brother. Her eyes shifted to me and then to Winston.

  Oh, so I’m not good enough for him, am I? I thought. I guess being good enough to help her find her brother was one thing, but that was as far as her trust extended. Good thing I wasn’t interested anyway.

  “I’ll send you a check for your services tonight,” she said. “And I would appreciate your continued work on the case. You can bill me for the hours.”

  “All right.” Most people who sought me out simply wanted a one-time reading, and it was my own obsession about finding whoever was missing that made me continue searching. I was never paid for the end result, which was probably why I still had trouble making the mortgage on my shop.

  Shannon reached for my hand, which was a little gummy from the cheese. I was too tired to care. “Let’s get you home,” he said.