Blinded

by Teyla Branton

  JoAnna looked up as we crossed the room. Showing a surprising sensitivity, the Print Perfect guys nodded at us and stepped back a few feet, giving us a modicum of privacy.

  “How’s he doing?” I asked JoAnna.

  The hint of a smile reached her lips. “His heart suffered some damage from the attack, but he’s going to be okay. Eventually. It appears Frank’s men gave him a sedative, which wasn’t the best thing for a heart condition. Fortunately, it did calm his anxiety, which might have saved his life.” She paused before adding to me, “Thank you for finding him. For saving him. An officer who was here earlier told me what you did.”

  “All part of the job,” I said.

  She reached in her purse and handed me a check for two thousand dollars. “It’s probably not enough, given your hourly rate, but it’s something. I want you to know that if I somehow manage to save my business, I’ll see that you get some stock.”

  “I can’t take this. Use it for your business.” I tried to give back the check, but she shook her head.

  “Please. I can still well afford that amount.”

  I guess her level of poor was nowhere near mine, which I should have realized, considering the size of her house. “Okay. Thank you.” It would pay for my medical expenses, at least, if Shannon couldn’t get the police department to spring for them.

  “Look, there is good news,” I said. “I have something for you.” I pulled the music box from my bag.

  When she saw it, her control crumpled, and she had to hold her hand over her mouth several long seconds until she regained her composure. “It’s all gone. It’ll take years, even with Ralph, to get back where we were. We’ll be too late. Everything I’ve built for my son is lost.”

  “No.” I shook my head, lowering my voice so that only she and Shannon could hear. “Not with this.”

  She stared at me, understanding slowly penetrating her face. “You mean . . .?”

  I nodded. “This isn’t my music box. It’s the copy. There’s no music assembly. Remember? Your brother didn’t have time to recreate that. The funny thing is, this music assembly case isn’t empty. Ralph stored something in it.” I gave her an apologetic grin. “I think I would have figured it out sooner if I’d told Ralph I was the one you’d had him copy the original box for. He figured out that you’d given me the wrong one by mistake, but when we met, he didn’t know who I was, so he didn’t ask about it. He sent his friend Bridger Philpot to get the box and hide it elsewhere, but Bridger broke into my apartment and didn’t find it. He waited for me to come home, saw me carrying it, and must have decided it was safer to leave with me.” Or maybe Shannon’s presence had scared him off. It really didn’t matter now. “It’s been at my apartment all this time.”

  JoAnna hugged the little box to her chest, tears in her eyes. “Thank you so much. You don’t know what you’ve done for me.”

  I smiled. “Just don’t open it before Ralph’s better okay? I hear it needs a special touch.”

  Not even that dimmed her happiness.

  Shannon and I had turned to leave when I remembered the rocker. “JoAnna,” I said, hesitating. Something had been bothering me, and this might be my only chance to learn the truth. “The child’s rocking chair at that estate sale. With all the beautiful antiques you own, why did you choose it?” Something of so little comparative value, I meant.

  She smiled. “Because it reminds me of a rocking chair at the private clinic where I gave birth to Winston.” She hesitated a few seconds before adding in a softer voice, “I knew I wouldn’t be able to tell him I was his mother until he was much older, that Maribel would be raising him. That was okay—it was what I needed to do to protect him. But for that short time, it was just us. The best two weeks of my life.”

  “I’m glad.” I’d never tell her about the negative imprint, not that I would ever see her again. Maybe her good memories would be enough to eventually cover it and bring her family joy.

  As we left, JoAnna turned back to her young companions, both of whom instantly looked away from their phones. “Okay, gentlemen, I have decided to accept your proposal. Let’s do this job together. But remember that I will retain control of the company—and its investments.”

  Outside, dusk had fallen, and the world was still. “I think this is my favorite time of day,” Shannon said as we climbed into the Mustang. “When all the work is finished but it’s not too late to find something else to do.”

  “Me too.” As long as that something had to do with him.

  Before long I realized he wasn’t heading to my apartment. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  His statement brought a flurry of interest that quickly turned to disappointment when he pulled into a parking space across the street from the police station. “Guess you need to check on things, huh?”

  He pulled out his phone and studied his messages. “Let’s see. Boyd Nye was arrested for the In Loving Memory murders, Frankie Jay and Tarragon were also booked for murder, kidnapping, and assault. Maribel Hamilton is being held as well, and Ace will be charged with a bunch of crimes too long to list. The prosecutor is sure he’ll serve time, which, considering the years he spent as a police officer, will not be pleasant. I think that about covers all our most pressing cases.”

  “Then what are we doing here?” I let a little irritation slip into my voice. I was entitled, after all I’d been through. I wanted a lot of food and to snuggle with my boyfriend while we watched a movie or something. A boring movie with no guns or action or loud noises.

  “You can’t guess?”

  “No.” I studied the building, but nothing came to me.

  “This was where we began our first case almost exactly a year ago. Do you remember?”

  I remembered well—the case with the missing little girl. Shannon hadn’t known what to do with me and my so-called gift when he’d shown up at my antiques shop at the request of the child’s father. He’d acted like he wanted to throw me in jail instead of working with me.

  “You dropped everything and came here with me, barefooted despite the fact that it was cold enough for a jacket. You came even when crossing the bridge still made you panic. You faced me with fire in your eyes and told me exactly what you thought of me.”

  “Well, you did try to pay me not to find anything,” I reminded him. I’d tossed his hundred-dollar bill out of the window.

  “I thought you were a scammer. Then you touched the girl’s bike and I was sure of it—until your description pinpointed the suspect.”

  Too late, I wanted to say, but I didn’t because I knew I’d saved at least one other girl that day, and prevented the sick creep from taking others.

  Shannon took my hands, slowly pulling off one glove and then the other—his touch an intimate caress. “I’d never been so attracted to a woman. Never.” His thumb skidded across my bare skin, sending delicious tingles along the surface. “That was hard to deal with because even after that day, I didn’t want to believe.”

  “Poor baby.”

  In a swift motion, his hand tightened on mine and pulled me closer. His eyes—those incredible eyes that I’d spent all too much time avoiding in the past year—stared into mine and the feeling I’d experienced earlier inside the police station came back in a rush.

  Everything between us this past year boiled down to this moment.

  “I wanted to do this right,” Shannon said softly, a hitch in his voice. “I had a dinner all planned.” He grinned. “No, not pasta, I promise. It was going to be at my house. Candlelight on the patio, the whole works. But today didn’t go at all as I planned, and then I realized that tomorrow might not either. Or the next day. We never know what the future might hold, when one of us might get into just a bit more trouble than we expect.” He paused, shaking his head at my frown. “I’m not asking you to change. I know I overreact sometimes, but I care about you too much to demand a limit, and I know you feel the same about my choices. You’re doing what you love, and I’m
doing what I love, and we’ve been fortunate to do a lot of it together.”

  Yes, Shannon wouldn’t be Shannon without his drive and dedication—or even without his suspicious nature that had kept us apart so long. Maybe in the future, we’d both have to reexamine our life goals, but for the time being we needed to use our gifts to help others, even if it was sometimes dangerous.

  “We have to seize our opportunities.” His face was closer now—so close that he was breathing my air. I expected him to kiss me—I needed him to kiss me, but he didn’t close the gap separating us.

  He took another breath and plunged on. “The fact is that I’m crazy in love with you, Autumn Rain, and I want you to marry me. So will you? Marry me, that is.” He released one hand and dug into his pocket, slipping a ring onto my finger. “I’ve been carrying this around for months now. It’s a copy of that antique ring you liked.”

  The simple band was set with small stones of two alternating colors. I’d lost the bid for the antique version at an auction clear back in December when it went beyond my budget, and I still regretted not winning it.

  “Not an exact copy, and the stones represent us instead of whoever owned that one.”

  A ring he couldn’t return if I said no.

  But Shannon was the blood that pumped in my veins, the reason I continued doing what I loved even when it was hard, the man who had such a hold on my heart that I wasn’t sure how I’d ever been happy before he came into my life.

  “Yes,” I said, my voice low and hoarse. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Shannon Martin.”

  He kissed me then, pulling me tight and angling his lips over mine. The world stopped as it always did when it was just the two of us. I moved closer, my bare hand brushing the steering wheel. Emotions flared in a brief imprint: fear that I wouldn’t accept his proposal. Love so large it couldn’t be contained.

  I experienced a surge of glee. My gift was back and Shannon was mine.

  The vibrating of Shannon’s phone penetrated our emotions. With a growl, he answered. “Martin here.” He listened for a moment and then said, “Autumn’s with me now. You want us to do what?”

  He covered the phone. “Work,” he explained. “A homicide. Paige says there’s evidence she thinks you should look at.”

  Before I could agree, he spoke into the phone. “Sorry. Autumn needs to rest, and I’m officially off duty. Tell them not to call me at least until Monday—I’ll be celebrating my engagement. Yes, you heard me. But you go ahead without us. Take Warren with you.” He turned off the phone and grinned like someone who’d won a million dollars.

  Every part of me felt vibrant and alive. He was right. For once, work could wait. This weekend was for us.

  But on Monday, I’d do my thing again and solve another case.

  NOTE FROM TEYLA BRANTON: Thank you so much for going on this journey with me. If you enjoyed Blinded (Imprints Book 5), please consider telling your friends or posting a short review. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend and much appreciated. For your enjoyment, I’ve also included a bonus preview of Sketches (Colony Six Book 1), the first novel in my paranormal dystopian series. To learn more about me and my books, there is an About the Author section following the preview, and I invite you to sign up for new release notices and subscriber extras at TeylaBranton.com.

  THE END

  Bonus Preview

  Prologue

  Location: Welfare Colony 6, Dallastar

  Year: 2258, 60 years after Breakdown

  JAXON CAME THROUGH the doorway of Reese’s house without knocking, his steps dragging, his body hunched as if coming from a beating, though there wasn’t a mark on him. One glance at the slump of her best friend’s shoulders and the tightness in his face told her that his mother had a visitor next door.

  Her fingers froze on the pencil poised over her sketchbook. “Hey, Jaxon.”

  “Hey,” came the strangled reply.

  She arose from the small table in her living room, clutching her notebook to her chest. He’d almost reached her when the flash came, a mental image of the visitor’s face. For that single, bright instant, Reese could see the man as Jaxon had seen him inside his house only moments before. The vision was like a sketch in her mind, but burning vivid and real and in full color. Then it was gone, leaving her hands itching to draw the face of the stranger, to record him in her sketchbook.

  Even at only ten years old, Reese wasn’t too young to understand what the visitor meant. Everyone living in Welfare Colony 6, or the Coop as its residents referred to it, knew the facts of life and what people were willing to do for money. Or what they had to do if they wanted to do more than barely survive in this place that was as jam-packed with human life as any chicken coop.

  “Forget him,” she said.

  Jaxon nodded, the tension in his face receding slightly.

  Reese knew it bothered him that the man was with his mother, probably because he was still hoping his father would show up one day to claim him. As if that would ever happen. Jaxon’s father was long gone like all the other visitors, leaving only his son as the lone signal of his passing.

  “I’ll just put this away.” As she walked to her tiny room, she hastily outlined the visitor’s face on a blank page in her sketchbook, hoping the quick drawing might be enough to stop the compulsion she always felt after seeing a “sketch.” She could fill more in later.

  After carefully storing her sketchbook under her thin, CORE-issued mattress, Reese led Jaxon outside. The two children hurried past the fancy car that filled the entire narrow street in front of Jaxon’s house. The unmarked vehicle was a clear sign of the visitor’s wealth. Only people from outside the Coop had cars and the money to come here. Regular people used the public sky train and walked from the closest station.

  Sweat trickled down the back of Reese’s neck under her long hair, but she increased her speed as they wound through the maze of houses. Despite their slightly different shapes and styles, the buildings were really all the same. Laminate exteriors bleached by the sun, miniscule yards largely untended, trash everywhere, and each house wedged so tightly against the others you could almost hear your neighbor snoring at night. Reese didn’t mind the crush of humanity, but lately the smell seemed to be getting worse.

  The cement wall ahead signaled their arrival at the transfer station. Pipes from the station ran throughout the Coop, supplying the rows of houses with water according to the whim of those in control of the main station located outside the colony. Reese still remembered the year the water had turned to sludge and people had died by the hundreds. If she was ever lucky enough to get one of her dad’s empty sauce skins, she always filled it with water and stored it under her bed. She had eight stashed there now.

  Angling around to the back, they climbed over the wall using the knotted rope they’d managed to loop over one of the intermittent posts. The wall was twice her father’s height, but short in comparison with the outer wall that encircled the entire colony. Reese was glad she’d worn her one pair of jeans instead of cutoffs because she invariably scraped her knees against the rough cement. The other kids from their crew were nowhere in sight, but they’d arrive soon.

  Reese and Jaxon sprinted across the short open space, passed the huge metal grate that covered the opening between the entombed canal and the transfer station, and began scaling to the top of the station using the metal rungs embedded in the cement.

  Anticipation rolled through Reese. Unless they were standing directly on top of the grate, the roof of the transfer station was the only place they could glimpse the water as it rushed into the cement structure.

  Settling on the hot roof, Jaxon tossed a small pebble down, and it pinged off the grate, bouncing once before falling through into the swirling water. Reese imagined the hard, heat-soaked pebble diving into blissful coolness and longed to do the same, but the metal grate was a barrier they hadn’t yet been able to breach.

  Jaxon tossed another pebble, then lay back suddenly despite the heat of th
e cement rooftop. He put his hands under his head, not quite touching the ground, bare elbows curled up so they didn’t graze the blistering rooftop. “I just want to get out of here. I need to get out of here.”

  “And leave your mom?” Reese really meant “And leave me?” but she couldn’t say it aloud. Overhead, the blue sky was clear and painfully beautiful, a perfection that somehow made her insides ache. Her legs dangled over the edge of the roof, but now she pulled them up and hugged her knees tightly to her chest.

  Jaxon turned burning blue eyes in her direction, the color brighter than the overhead sky. They always startled her with their brightness, a glaring contrast to his dark coloring that was common in the Coop. Three generations of being confined to this colony had resulted in a blending of the races. The few pale faces, or those much darker than the norm, always stood out. “We’ll both get out of here, Reese. You have to believe it. Anything is possible.”

  Obviously, her casual statement hadn’t fooled him for a second. She wasn’t surprised. They’d been friends long before they started school. He knew about her father and his addictions, her obsession with drawing, and her ability to glimpse people she’d never seen. He understood about the water under her bed and her fear of dying. And most of all, how she longed for the mother she’d never known.

  She smiled, relieved that he wasn’t planning anything drastic because there was really no place to go. If they leveled out of school, they could get jobs at eighteen and work hard to prove they were valuable enough to leave the Coop. That meant a real life outside in society with the support and protection of the CORE. If they didn’t graduate, they’d work jobs here until they died in the same houses they’d lived in all their lives.

  She’d only been outside the Coop twice to visit her great-aunt, who was an art teacher for kids whose parents cared about that sort of thing. The woman was brusque and outspoken, and it was apparent she didn’t hold much love for her nephew, Reese’s father. But those brief visits, and her gift of the sketchbooks, were what kept Reese going to school month after month, and year after year. She hated the rigidness and confinement, and most of all the noise, but the only way out of the Coop was school. They were told daily how most of them would fail, that they would end up working all their lives in one of the Coop’s factories. But Reese didn’t intend to be one of those failures, and she didn’t plan for Jaxon to become one either.