Blinded

by Teyla Branton

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Cody growled. “I could be saving one just for you.”

  I sprinted out another door leading from the kitchen. Down a hallway I plunged, searching for the other entrance to the dining room, the one that would put me behind Frankie Jay. My heart measured out the few seconds I knew remained to Cody before Frankie Jay took his revenge.

  Where was Winston? What if he and Frank O’Donald had already left the house? Did Winston know his uncle was dying?

  One thing at a time.

  Down the hall, I could see half of Frankie Jay as he leaned into the dining room to taunt Cody, perhaps testing to see if he was bluffing about the one remaining bullet. What was Cody thinking? About his dark past, or the future he wouldn’t get to share with Tawnia and me?

  Frankie Jay entered the room, which left me free to race down the hallway and go in behind him. At the last moment, he must have heard me because he turned—right into my fist. Had I planned it for weeks, I couldn’t have executed it better. His head whipped back, surprise etched on his face. I chopped at the hand with the gun, following with a jab to his stomach that made him curl, clutching his middle.

  Obscenities fell from his mouth as he tried to bring up the hand that still clutched the gun.

  Cody was already leaping over the table, dragging his bad leg behind him. He wrested the gun from Frankie Jay’s hand and shoved it under his nose. “Mind your manners. You’re in the presence of a lady.”

  When Frankie Jay let spew another slew of curses, Cody drew back his left hand and punched him hard in the face. Cody might not be a young man, but he was fit and his artist hands were strong. Frankie Jay collapsed, his words cutting off abruptly.

  “Where’s Winston?” I asked Cody.

  Cody shook his head. “Haven’t seen him. They brought us here and gave Ralph something, but after they realized you’d gotten away, it was pretty clear they were planning to cut their losses. So I took matters into my own hands. I heard someone leave a while ago, though, probably O’Donald. Look, let’s use my laces and tie him up.”

  I wondered if there was any proof O’Donald had been here at all. Maybe after all he’d done, he’d walk away unscathed.

  “The police should be here any minute.” Kneeling, I untied the laces on Cody’s tennis shoes. “Ace called them. He’s here somewhere, by the way. Maybe he managed to find Winston.” That is, if the PI hadn’t deserted me at the first sign of trouble. Maybe he hadn’t quit the police force after all. Maybe it had quit him.

  I tied Frankie Jay’s hands behind his back and leaned over him, slapping his face lightly to bring him around. “Where’s your dad? Where’s Winston?”

  His reply was another stream of swear words that stopped when Cody took a step closer.

  Deciding he wasn’t going to tell me anything, I left Frankie Jay with Cody and went to check on Ralph, who seemed to be sleeping peacefully on the floor behind the table, his pulse strong. He should be okay until the ambulance arrived. Right now I was more worried about Bridger bleeding outside by the lilac bush.

  “I’d better look for Winston,” I said.

  Cody scowled. “You should just stay here.”

  “Winston might be in trouble.”

  He nodded reluctantly. “I’ll keep an eye on junior. I bet there’s more stuff in the kitchen I can tie him with.”

  “Good idea.” I paused at the door. “Oh, and Cody, that was pretty good table-jumping for a man with a hurt leg.”

  “Wasn’t it, though?” He grinned modestly.

  Relief spread through me. He’s okay. We’re both okay.

  I searched the rest of the mansion, but besides two uniformed maids cringing in a bedroom closet with a gnarled man who I learned was the gardener, the place was empty. Wherever Frank O’Donald had gone, he’d taken Winston with him.

  Still no sign of the police, and I was starting to grow angry—particularly at Shannon. Not because he was responsible, but because anger was better than worrying about Bridger bleeding to death and Ralph lapsing into a coma or dying. This house was a good thirty-minute drive from the station, but with sirens, they should have been here long ago. Something was wrong—and I was going to confront Ace once I found him. His incompetence was inexcusable.

  I’d found no phones in the house, and the maids didn’t have phones—apparently O’Donald didn’t permit cell phones on the premise. Neither could I coax the frightened trio from the closet. Finally, I shut the door and let them stay.

  Still no police.

  I believed Shannon loved me, and that he would move heaven and earth to get to my side if he so much as suspected I was in danger. It didn’t make sense that he wasn’t here.

  Unless he hadn’t been called.

  The thought struck me so hard I sat down at the top of the huge spiral staircase leading down to the entryway. Memories came all at once: Ace outside my store, him staring at the white van, his appearance at the theater, his bitterness toward Russo.

  Ace could be working for O’Donald. With the thought came a sick feeling that churned acid in my stomach. I remembered the phone call he’d said was from Shannon. What was it he’d said exactly? “She’s here with me. Yes, of course I’ll take care of her.”

  Would Shannon really ask him to take care of me? No.

  Fear crawled across my shoulders and tingled to the tips of my fingers. I have to be wrong about this, I thought. Ace had been connected with the police department for as long as I had known Shannon. The officers trusted him—how could I not?

  Because it fit. With his connections, he’d have access to all the information I did, and more through O’Donald, who’d been pumping Winston for months. Ace had known where JoAnna Hamilton lived and about Russo being in town. That meant he’d been watching her or Russo, or both—and me once I’d joined the case. No wonder he’d been so intent on what I did or didn’t touch. He’d probably watched to make sure I didn’t find an imprint that betrayed his intentions. He also could have disabled the alarms at JoAnna’s, seizing the opportunity to gain intel on our visit, adding it to information he might have already gathered while spying on them, perhaps for the past few months. He was trained to observe, and when Hamilton had taken us down to her lab yesterday, she’d been fast with the code, but not overly secretive. She was too arrogant to believe an enemy would come into the heart of her lair.

  I didn’t want to believe. Surely there was some other explanation. But I came up with nothing.

  Somewhere in the house I heard a loud clunk. Was it a door?

  That started me thinking about the thump I’d heard in the back of Ace’s car. Bridger said he’d been in the taxi’s trunk, and he hadn’t mentioned sharing it with the driver, so where was that man now? Had Ace been the person who’d enticed the driver away from the taxi while we were inside the theater? If so, the driver might be the one making the noise inside Ace’s trunk. Maybe he was tied up and couldn’t use the interior release, if there even was one in the old car.

  Of course the most important thought at the moment was what Ace had been doing all the time I’d been talking to Bridger and helping Cody. And searching the house.

  Get moving, I told myself. I needed to act, to save Ralph and Bridger. To protect Cody. But my body refused to obey.

  Steps below in the entryway alerted me to a presence. At last my muscles loosened, and I stood as Ace came into view, a small gun in his hand. Maybe Easton’s, but if so, I doubted the magazine was empty now.

  He lowered the gun when he saw me.

  So that’s how you’re going to play it, I thought.

  “Where have you been?” I hoped the impatience in my voice sounded natural.

  “Trying to stop O’Donald. He took off with the kid and a big guy with scars all over his face. They roughed me up. I barely got away.”

  He didn’t look roughed up. “No sign of the police?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  I contemplated whether I should go down the stairs, or put more space
between us by going up. Closer meant an opportunity to get the gun away from him, but farther away meant less likelihood of him shooting me before I was close enough to do any good. I’d never seen him carry a gun before, but he’d been a police officer, so he knew how to use one. And despite Crater Face’s disdain, a .22 could do a lot of damage in the right hands.

  I remembered the first time I’d seen Ace in Russo’s office, grinning that secret smile at me. I’d been pretty sure I could take him in a fair fight. He was short and thin like me, and probably strong, but I’d practiced martial arts every day for almost a year since I’d begun lessons again.

  Unfortunately, the gun tipped the balance in his favor.

  “Call Shannon again,” I said. “We’ve got to get Ralph to the hospital.” I didn’t mention Bridger. But maybe Ace had already stumbled over Bridger and had made sure he wouldn’t be a problem.

  Ace shook his head. “Can’t. They got my phone.”

  His phone but not the gun? Yeah, right. If I hadn’t already decided he was lying, I knew the truth now.

  “Then I’ll search for a phone upstairs.” Making up my mind, I turned and fled. There had to be some way to contact the police before he got rid of me and then finished off the others, one by one.

  Or maybe he’d already taken care of them. I pushed aside the thought. I’d been searching upstairs for a long time, but not that long. I hadn’t heard any shots. Besides, I was sure I still felt a thin tie with Cody.

  “Wait, Autumn!” Ace came after me.

  I dived down the hall into a family room and out into another hallway. Ace’s shouts grew faint behind me. I’d already searched everything upstairs, and I hadn’t seen any sign of a phone. Where could one be? All our cell phones had been taken away and probably disabled or destroyed, but if I found the pieces, I might be able to make one work. Maybe they’d been careless and left our pistols somewhere as well. It was a thin hope, but one I’d gladly cling to until I worked out a better plan. Easton was probably long gone in that car of his, and I didn’t hold much hope of him calling the police in to rescue me.

  “Autumn?” Ace’s voice, moving closer.

  How to get downstairs past him?

  “I guess this means you’ve figured it out,” Ace called. “I actually didn’t see O’Donald. What I’ve really been doing is making sure that odd friend of yours didn’t call the police.”

  Odd friend? I had to consider that for a moment. Oh, he had to mean Easton.

  “I realized he’d seen me talking to Frankie Jay outside the theater,” Ace continued. “When he took off into the woods, I knew he’d recognized me and that I’d have to go back for him. But he’s taken care of now, all wrapped up downstairs with your other friends. Unfortunately, I’m under orders to make sure none of you leave here alive.”

  He was too close. I slipped into a bedroom, remembering the long balcony that had stretched the entire length of the second floor. The tree, I thought. Maybe if I could get to the end of the balcony, I could find a way down.

  “Oh, I’m not going to kill anyone myself,” Ace said. “Except maybe you, since you keep messing up my cases. I’m going to leave the others to Frankie Jay. Might have already done the deed by the time I get back. He was pretty mad at being tied up. Now that he’s free, he might be too angry to wait for us.”

  Oh, no, I thought. Cody.

  “Or maybe I’ll save you for Frankie Jay.” Ace’s voice was louder now. “I’m nice that way, especially to him. Turns out he went to school with my cousin. We’re good friends now.”

  I sprinted across the room and slipped under the flowing yellow curtains covering a glass door. The door slid open easily. Ace was still talking, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I ran the length of the balcony until I got to the end where the tree limb poked out from the side of the house.

  The limb was a lot farther away than I remember. Not two feet, but more like five. Of course, I’d never really checked out the distance because the shooting had begun.

  I glanced behind me and saw Ace burst onto the balcony from one of the bedrooms, his smile looking macabre and sinister instead of secretive. “Nowhere to go, Autumn. But this makes the perfect place for an accident. Just like the ones that have been plaguing In Loving Memory clients.”

  That stopped me. “What?”

  Ace laughed. “You didn’t expect that, did you? Yeah, I know all about that investigation. In fact, when I heard you were helping with the case, I went to the owner, that skeletal guy, and let him know what you and Shannon were really up to pretending to shop at his estate sales. He even hired me to do something about it.” He barked a laugh. “Not that I was really going to do anything, but it was easy money. What could he do when I failed to get you off the case, turn me in? But he did start bugging me for results—he’s a bit gone in the head, you know, ever since his son died. It was beginning to be a problem, and since he’d already murdered at least half a dozen old people, I couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t go after me. Murder is kind of addicting, I hear, if you get away with it enough.”

  “He murdered the old people himself?” Ugh. I still remembered all too vividly the imprint on the rug.

  “Right. And then I heard Winston tell JoAnna that Russo was bringing you in to read the contract, and that reminded me that Russo wasn’t the only one who could benefit from your ability.”

  “You went to O’Donald!” The words felt ripped from my throat.

  Ace grinned, leaning casually against the railing, fingering the gun in his hand. “The son, not the father. I offered my services. As I said, I already sort of knew Frankie Jay, and about their feud with Russo. Frankie Jay hired me on the spot. He was desperate to know his father’s plans for his other whelp—can’t say I blame him for that—so I told him you were just the person to find what he needed. That way he could do something before his entire inheritance went to a stranger. I thought it fitting to choose the estate sale for his guys to make a move. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak—get the In Loving Memory guy off my case and help out Frankie Jay. I was only too glad to do him a favor, especially with this nanotechnology on the line. They’re not really all that close to creating living organs, but the technology they do have will revolutionize several industries. There’s so much money involved that not even I can comprehend it, and I’m good with numbers.”

  So Frankie Jay had been behind my attempted kidnapping. “If Frankie Jay wanted my help, why would he try to blow up the van?”

  “Are you kidding? He couldn’t have any of it getting back to O’Donald. These people are loyal to family, but they’re not above teaching their kids a lesson. Frankie Jay was taking a big chance going behind his father’s back like that, and he wasn’t about to let you ruin that.”

  I was beginning to think they were all crazy.

  Ace came at me fast then, feet pounding on the wood—and all the while sporting that horrendous grin. I slipped off my moccasins, leapt onto the balcony railing, and jumped.

  I hit the tree hard, but my arms curled around the branch. A shot exploded behind me.

  I was slipping. I scrabbled desperately, but I was still slipping. Just before my arms pulled free, I aimed my feet toward a lower branch, arching my body toward the trunk. I landed on the branch and was propelled forward, my cheek slamming into the bark of the trunk. I bit back a cry.

  From my vantage point I glimpsed Bridger, lying motionless by the lilac bush. No new wound that I could see, so I figured Ace hadn’t found him—yet.

  Another bullet embedded in the tree close to me, but I was already scooting around the trunk. If I climbed down one more branch, I might be able to jump to the ground without a problem.

  Except Ace was coming after me. I felt the impact as he hit the first branch. His next stop would be the branch I was on. If I went down, he’d have a clear shot. So I started climbing, following the branches around until the tree was between us.

  There, he was following my path. I grabbed a higher branch
and swung off it, targeting his chest with my feet. Breath whooshed from him, and for a moment I felt triumph.

  Then his fingers wrapped around my ankles.

  I kicked, but he held on. The gloves on my hands were tight enough that they helped me hold onto the branch as his weight pulled me down onto the rough bark. But I knew I couldn’t hold on forever.

  One of his hands came off my ankle. I worried for a minute that he’d let go to shoot, but the gun was no longer in his hands. I raised my foot and kicked down. Hard. Then again. At last he let go, but my own fingers slipped seconds later. Down we plunged, falling through several leafy tree branches.

  We landed on the bushes below, and before I had a chance to be grateful I hadn’t been impaled on a sharp branch, he was on his feet and coming toward me. I rolled from the bush and jumped up, fists raised.

  Perhaps I’d always known it would come down to this day, Ace and me slugging it out. If I hadn’t already been beaten by Crater Face and fallen from a tree, I might have been more confident at the outcome.

  Ace threw two punches and a kick. He knew how to hit, but the kick left him wide open. I sent a blow to his stomach, followed by an uppercut that tumbled him backwards. I bounced forward a couple steps. He staggered to his feet, and I knocked him down again.

  He wasn’t smiling now.

  “If you’ve hurt Cody,” I said. “You’ll regret it. I promise you.”

  Ace jumped to his feet again, reaching for something. I heard the click of a knife.

  What now? I’d come so far, and I was so close.

  Ace laughed, waving the knife in my direction. Then his eyes went to something over my shoulder, his grin faltering.

  I started struggling as arms closed around me from behind.

  Chapter 22

  “It’s okay,” a voice said in my ear. “I’ll take it from here.”

  “Shannon!” Tears stung my eyes.

  He was already moving, setting me to the side and lunging at Ace, fury etched on his face. My fear faded away as he grabbed Ace’s knife hand and slammed it against his knee, sending the knife flying. He flung himself on Ace, knocking him to the ground. Shannon began punching repeatedly, his fists a blur, hitting into Ace so hard I was amazed that all his parts stayed connected.