Maggie Shayne - Innocent Prey

“Tell me how you think Rachel can help,” Chief Sub said as he pounded the bottom of the ketchup bottle.

“Well, to start with, she was blind for twenty years. She can give us some perspective on where this girl’s head is at, one we’re not gonna get from anyone else.”

“Mmm.” The chief got the ketchup flowing and made several neat round dots of it along the edge of his plate. “Can she keep this quiet? She is a writer, after all.”

“It’s not like she’s a freakin’ reporter.”

“I know that. The question is, do you trust her?”

“I trust her.” If the chief knew the enormity of the secrets Rachel had kept for him, Mason thought, he wouldn’t ask. “Actually, I can honestly say I trust her more than anyone I know.”

“Is that so?” Chief Sub dipped a fry in ketchup, then ate it whole. “You and she, uh...been seeing a lot of each other, haven’t you.” It wasn’t really a question.

“Some. Not...a lot. Really.”

“Why not?”

Mason looked up, surprised by the question. “She’s only had her eyesight back since last August, Chief. It’s a whole new world for her.”

“For you, too, I imagine, with raising those two boys.”

“Exactly.”

The chief shrugged. “I trust your judgment, Mason. If you think she can help you and you trust her, use her. I want Stephanie Mattheson found. Hell, I’m her godfather. Since this is off-the-books work, de Luca’s an off-the-books consultant. Just don’t let Howard find out you told her. You got that?”

“Yeah.” Mason picked up the gargantuan burger, took a huge bite and knew he would regret it later. After he chewed and swallowed, he said, “If I don’t turn anything up right away, you’re gonna have to convince him to make it official. You know that.”

“You let me worry about Howard.”

“All right, Chief.”

“There’s a party at my house Friday night. My fiftieth wedding anniversary. You’ll be there.”

Once again, it wasn’t really a question.

“I will,” Mason said.

“Good. Get a sitter for those boys of yours and bring de Luca.”

* * *

I had Myrtle on a leash, which was a joke, really. She was short and fat and slow, and about as likely to bolt away from me as I was from a glazed sour cream doughnut. We were doing our midday walk along the four-mile-long dirt track that passed for a road. It ran along the back side of the Whitney Point Reservoir, which really was more like a lake. There were a couple of houses at the other end of the road, near the village, but mine was the only one way out this way, just before the dead end. I loved the privacy. The quiet. And now that I had eyes, I loved the beauty of it, too. Trees and woods, all sporting their newborn pale green leaves now that spring had sprung in the Point, and the way the sun would sometimes shimmer on the water, making every ripple wink like bling on a rapper. Damn, I loved where I lived.

I had my cell phone with me in case Mason called. But he didn’t. He interrupted our walk in person, instead, breaking into our solitude with the too loud motor in his “classic”—aka old—black Monte Carlo. He pulled it over, shut it off, locked it up and got out while we stood there. Myrtle was wiggling her backside in delight, knowing it was him and overjoyed about it. (She’d have wagged her tail, but bulldogs don’t really have tails. So they wag their entire asses, which I think is a much more accurate depiction of extreme enthusiasm. Myrtle agrees.)

Mason approached her first, crouching down low to rub her head on either side of her face, and she closed her sightless eyes and basked in his attention. I do the same thing when he touches me like that.

Then he stood up again, but instead of kissing me hello—which would’ve been hopelessly goofy anyway, so I don’t even know why I was hoping for it—he said, “I need your help.”

I sighed my disappointment away. “Hi, Mason. I’ve been having a great day. Thanks for asking. Yes, I slept just fine after you left. Myrtle is a blanket hog, but not as bad as you are. And yes, as a matter of fact, we are enjoying our walk.”

He lowered his head, raised it again, grabbed my shoulders and pulled me in for a long, slow kiss. I let go of Myrt’s leash and got all mushy inside, sliding my arms around his shoulders and really getting into it.

Then he let me go, and when I straightened my knees tried to go jellyfish on me, but I snapped them straight again.

“I missed you,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, for crying out loud, don’t be so emo.”

But inside I was grinning like a kid.

“So what was the lunch meeting about? Or should I ask what you need my help with first?” I picked up Myrtle’s leash, and we went off the road and down toward the shore. This was one of Myrt’s favorite things. The water was still cold, but she loved to put her paws in, and drink and sniff around.

Mason came and stood beside me. “It’s the same answer to both questions. A judge’s twenty-year-old daughter is missing. He thinks she’s just throwing a tantrum and wants me to find her discreetly. Off the books. I want you to help me.”

I nodded slowly. We’d had this whole “police consultant” conversation before. He thought I should work with the Binghamton PD officially. But I wasn’t about to put “uncanny sense of what other people are thinking and feeling” on the application. And I would rather be drawn and quartered than labeled some kind of psychic. Besides, I already had a career. A nice lucrative one, thank you very much.

“It doesn’t sound like anything you can’t handle on your own.”

“You can handle it better.”

“Why?” I wanted to take it back as soon as I said it, because I knew that was exactly what he wanted. And now I’d opened the door. Shit.

“Because she’s blind, Rache.”

“Oh, for the love of—”

“Drunk driver hit her car last fall. September. Doctors just told her in March that there was no hope of ever getting her sight back. She’s not dealing with it very well.”

“No one deals with it very well.”

“I just want you to come with me to where she was last seen. Walk through the moments before she vanished with me. How bad is that?”

I heaved a sigh. “Myrtle needs her walk, you know. That evil lying vet of hers still insists she’s overweight.”

“He has a death wish. I’m sure of it,” Mason said, and then he shrugged. “Actually, walking is exactly what we’ll be doing. We can bring her along. You’ve already got her leash.”

“You know perfectly well she does not ride in a car without her designer goggles and matching scarf.”

He jogged up to the road to his car, opened the door and leaned in. When he came to the edge of the road again, he held up his gift. “Doggy goggles.”

They were hot pink with black peace signs all over them. I almost loved them. “Did you get those on the way over?” It took some doing, but I convinced Myrt to come back up the slope away from the water. Mason handed the goggles to me. Even the lenses were tinted pink. “And if so, where? ’Cause damn.”

“Great, aren’t they? Josh bought them for her on eBay. Used his own money, too. He put ’em in my car yesterday, but I forgot to give them to you.”

“They’re great.” I looked at him, at the goggles, at the car. I didn’t want to get involved in any sort of police work or investigation. And my reason was simple. So far, every time I had, I’d had brutally horrifying dreams about whatever was going on. Vivid, awful nightmares that were mostly true. Now, granted, I’d had weird connections to the killer and/or the victims the other times, due to our common organ donor. There was no reason to think that would continue with a case that had nothing to do with me or my corneas.