Innocent Prey (A Brown and de Luca Novel) (2 page)

Holding her head, she sank onto the seat and started screaming at the top of her lungs. “You fucker, you’d better fucking let me go or my father will
destroy
you! You’d don’t even know—”

The driver braked to a whiplash-inducing stop, and then he was on her, all his weight on her back. He pushed her face down into the seat while she wriggled and thrashed and cried. Her hands were tied behind her with what felt like a plastic band. A zip tie. She couldn’t breathe. He was smothering her.

He jerked her head up by the hair, and she sucked in a desperate breath. Then he wrapped a strip of duct tape all the way around her mouth to the back of her head. Finally he got off her and shoved her to the floor. In seconds the van was moving again.

She dragged herself up onto the seat, sobbing, trembling. She’d thought her life couldn’t get any worse. It was painfully obvious that it could. And had.

God, what had she done?

1

Whitney Point, New York

O
kay. Maybe the bullshit I wrote was a little bit true. If you wanted it, you could have it. There was more to it, of course. But that was the basis of every book I’d ever written. And it seemed like my own bullshit was determined to prove itself to me.

I’d wanted my eyesight back, I’d wanted my brother’s murder solved, I’d wanted to survive the holidays—literally,
survive
the holidays. And I’d wanted Detective Mason Brown.

I pretty much had all of that now. I could still see. No complications, no rejecting of the donor tissue this time—besides on moral grounds, that is. It did come from a serial killer—my brother’s killer—after all. I had survived the holidays, though it had been a damn close call. The case was solved, sort of. Tommy’s killer was dead. Twice now. And
his
brother, the aforementioned Detective Dreamboat, was in my bed, if only for an hour or two at a time.

I was actually beginning to believe that the messages of my bestselling books (and calendars, coffee mugs, app and upcoming series of imprinted apparel) were valid. I was actually starting to think, as Mason did, that my unoriginal philosophies on positive thinking and deliberate creation were popular because there was some truth to them, that they were more than just regurgitated new age psycho-spiritual babble. And if I were honest with myself, it felt good to believe that. It felt damn good to think I was serving some kind of higher purpose in the world.

I choked on a sarcastic laugh from my inner bitch, and it sounded like a snort. Higher purpose. Right. Still...I was warming up to the notion that there was a kernel of truth in there somewhere. For me, that’s about as close to a spiritual awakening or an “ah-ha moment” as it’s ever gonna get.

So why was I still kinda miserable?

Mason rolled away from me, sat up and bent forward to pull on his jeans. I glanced at the clock on the nightstand—10:00 p.m. “This has to be some kind of a land speed record.”

He stopped with his hands on his button fly and turned to look back at me. He was the sexiest man in the universe. I am not exaggerating. I didn’t know why women didn’t swarm him in the streets like adolescents mobbing a Jonas brother. (Yes, that’s a dated reference. I’m over thirty. You’re lucky I didn’t say Hansen.)

Mason leaned over and kissed me nice and slow. “Sorry,” he said when I let go of his lips. “But the boys will be home from the movies and—”

I held up a hand. “I know, I know. It’s just...”

“Just what?” He knelt on the bed, his jeans still undone, as he buttoned up his shirt. I thought he could’ve been on the cover of a steamy novel.
Fifty Shades of Brown.
Mason Brown, that is.

“I really have to go,” he said.

“So go, then. You remember the way, right?”

“Don’t be mad.”

I sighed, thinking I was acting like a sophomore pouting over her steady, which was stupid, because this was just the way I wanted it. And because I don’t even like sophomores.

“Don’t be dumb. I’m not mad. You’re the world’s greatest uncle, and you’re also all they have. Besides their grandmother, the queen of cold.”

“Easy, woman.”

I grinned at him, pleased with myself. By insulting his mother, I’d diverted his attention from my petulant little burst of emotional ickiness. “Go on. Tell Josh and Jeremy I said hi.”

He looked at me for a long time, like he was trying to decide whether to say something, or maybe waiting for me to say something more. Then he nodded, kissed me quickly and got up to finish dressing.

“I’ve got that meeting with the chief tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll call you right after, tell you what it was about.”

New subject. Nice. I was uncomfortable talking about...relationship stuff. Heavy stuff. Fortunately, so was he. “I already know what it’s about,” I said, crawling halfway out of the bed and pulling the little plastic stairs closer. Myrtle, my bulldog, was still snoring, but now she could join me when she was ready. Moving her doggy stairs away from the bed was essential to having good sex. Otherwise she spent the whole time trying to wriggle her way in between us. It was just wrong, you know?

“Yeah? What’s it about, then?” he asked, though he already knew what I thought.

“The rumors are true. Chief Subrinsky has decided to retire, and he wants you to be his replacement.”

Mason shook his head, sitting down on the edge of the bed to pull on his socks. “I don’t think so. This feels different.”

He’d already been wined and dined with Chief Sub in the company of a congressman, everyone from the D.A.’s office, the owner of the
Press & Sun-Bulletin
and the mayor. He was clearly being groomed for the job, even while insisting he didn’t want it.

I could’ve smacked him. It paid six figures. Low six, but still...

“‘Feels different,’ huh?” I asked. “You’re starting to sound like me, Detective Brown.”

“There are worse things.” He sent me a wink and a killer smile. His damn cheek dimples were my undoing. How did I live for twenty years without once seeing a cheek dimple like that? He pulled me close and did a better job of kissing me goodbye, then dropped me on my pillows and headed for the door. “I’ll call you after the lunch.”

“Okay.”

“Night, Rache.”

“Night.”

He closed the bedroom door on his way out. I rolled onto my side, curled up and pulled the covers over my shoulder, while my inner girlie-girl whined that she wished he could spend the whole night.

This is what we both want. It’s perfect. Don’t go thinking if a little is good, more would be better. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Just leave it alone. Don’t screw this up.

I waited until I heard his car leave, then got up, pulled on a robe and crouched beside Myrtle, who was still snoring on the carpeted floor. “I hear brownies and milk calling my name, Myrt. What do you think?”

She perked her ears but did not open her eyes. Not that it would matter if she did. She was blind as a bat.

“You hungry, Myrt? You want to eat?”

Her head came up a microsecond before she sprang to her feet and said, “Snarf!”

I scratched her between the ears. “This is good, right? Just you and me and bedtime brownies. Even if you do have to have the low-fat ones from the gourmet doggy bakery. This is the life, Myrt. This is the life.”

I wasn’t really convinced, but I figured if I said it often enough I could make it true.

* * *

Mason walked into The End Zone in the suit he saved for weddings. Overdressed for a sports bar, but if this turned out to be another part of the unending audition for the chief’s job, then it was perfect.

Besides, he’d already worn his funeral suit to a couple of the VIP meals the chief had been dragging him to for the past few weeks.

Grooming him to take over his office when he retired, or so Rachel kept telling him. He hoped to God that wasn’t the case. He didn’t want the headaches of that much responsibility, the hassles of politics or the boredom of a desk job, no matter how demanding it might be.

And yet, he was raising two boys now. Their father was dead by his own hand—as were a lot of others, though no one else knew that besides Rachel—and their mother was in a locked psych unit, after trying to reclaim a bunch of her husband’s donated organs. Including the corneas Rachel was currently using.

Yeah, his family was a mess. And yet Rache still hadn’t run screaming. Well, she had. A couple of times. Just not from him.

The chief-of-police position would bring a massive pay raise and much longer life expectancy. Didn’t he owe it to the kids to take it if he could?

But he couldn’t, could he? He’d lied. He’d covered up his brother’s crimes and destroyed evidence to protect his surviving family members. He didn’t deserve to still be a cop at all, much less chief of police.

He spotted the chief’s boxy flat-top silhouette at a table all the way in the back of the bar, swathed in shadows because the big-screen TV closest to it had been turned off. The only tables near it were empty.

Another man, taller and almost painfully thin, sat across from the chief with his body angled toward the wall and his head down. He was trying hard not to be noticed, Mason thought, and wondered why.

The chief caught his eye and waved him over, so Mason made his way to the table, giving the place a once-over on the way. There were only a handful of other customers, and no one seemed to be paying him any undue attention. But the chief’s companion was nervous, and that made Mason nervous.

Chief Sub rose and shook Mason’s hand, squeezing too hard and pumping too much. It was his standard greeting. The other man looked him up and down but didn’t stand, didn’t shake.

Mason knew his haggard face, had always thought the man looked twenty years older than he probably was. “Judge Mattheson,” he said. “Good to see you again.”

“Wish it was under different circumstances,” the man replied.

He honestly looked like a stiff wind would carry him a couple of blocks. And old, older than Mason recalled. The guy had to be pushing sixty, but he looked eighty-five.

“What circumstances are we talking about?” Mason walked around the table to take the chair that faced outward, toward the rest of the bar. This was not about any promotion the chief might be thinking about for him. This was something else. Something private, and something dark. He knew all that before he even sat down.

Chief Sub leaned over the table. “Howard’s daughter—”

“This has to be discreet, Brown.” The judge smacked the table to punctuate his interruption and make it seem just a little bit ruder. “You reading me? Discreet, until and unless we have reason not to be.”

Howard Mattheson’s face was age-spotted to hell and gone up close like this. No, wait, those were the remnants of freckles. He must have been a ginger as a younger man. Little remained of his hair. It was thin and had faded to a colorless shade that couldn’t even be called gray. Tough to tell if it had ever been red. “What is it I’m being discreet about?”

A waitress came by to ask Mason what he wanted. He glanced at the drinks in front of the other two. Chief Sub had a Coke, straight up. He wouldn’t add anything on the job. Judge Mattheson had what looked and smelled like bourbon, neat. “I don’t suppose you have coffee.”

“I just brewed a fresh pot.”

“You’re an angel.”

She winked at him and left them alone.

Silence stretched like a rubber band until the chief stopped it from snapping. “Howard?”

“Yeah. All right. It’s my daughter, Stephanie—Stevie, as she insists on calling herself. She’s disappeared.”

Mason sat up a little straighter. “How old?”

“Twenty.”

“And you’re not filing a missing persons report because...?”

“Because I’m not convinced this is anything other than a temper tantrum. Look, she was in a car accident last September. Drunk driver. It took her eyesight.”

A month after Rachel got hers back.
Mason swore silently but didn’t interrupt.

“We kept it quiet. We’re a private family, Brown. We like our space. I’ve always tried to keep my job separate from my personal life.”

“I respect that, Judge.” He slanted a look at the chief. He needed to know what exactly was going on here, and he needed to know now. If there was a twenty-year-old blind girl out there on her own somewhere, they ought to be finding her and hauling her right back home.

Rachel would probably kick his ass for that reaction. He could hear her in his head right then, voice dripping sarcasm like honey.
Since when is
blind
a synonym for
helpless?
Dumb-ass.

He almost grinned, then bit his lip just in time and pulled out his smartphone to start taking notes. “Give me everything you know, then.”

The judge cleared his throat. “She was told two months ago that there was no hope of getting her eyesight back. She didn’t take it well. She’s furious with the world and everything in it. Moody and morose. She hasn’t accepted her blindness, won’t even try, and resents the help we’ve been trying to get for her.”

“Help?” Mason asked.

The judge took a sip of his bourbon, set the glass down again and stared into the liquid at the bottom. “Therapy, a personal coach to help her learn how to live with it.” He slugged back the last of the bourbon, then held the glass over his head to signal his desire for a refill. “She gives that poor woman so much trouble I’m surprised she hasn’t quit.”

“That woman have a name?”

“Loren Markovich.” Judge Mattheson set his empty glass down, fished a business card from his pocket and put it on the table.

Mason took it and gave it a look. It was one of the judge’s own cards, but it had Markovich’s name and phone number written on the back. He dropped it into his shirt pocket. The waitress came back with his coffee and another bourbon for the judge, then left without a word.

“Loren took Stevie out near Otsiningo Park the day before yesterday. Told her to walk to the end of the block and back, using her cane.”

“Alone?” Mason knew he sounded more shocked by that than he should.

“It’s not that big a deal, Mason,” Chief Sub told him. “Your friend Rachel could tell you that.”

“Well, Rachel could’a done cartwheels to the corner and back, but that’s Rachel.”

“Who the hell is Rachel?” the judge snapped.

“She’s my— She helps me with cases from time to time.”

“No one else comes in on this, Brown,” Mattheson said.
“No one.”

“We know, Howard.” Chief Sub nodded at him to go on.

With a stern look at Mason, the judge went on. “Loren says Stephanie was good and pissed. She didn’t want to do it, but Loren pushed her, and she did it. Did just fine, too. Then at the end of the block she flipped Loren off, then kept on going, around the corner and out of sight. Just to be difficult. Just to teach Loren a lesson for pushing her so hard.” He took a big gulp of his bourbon, replaced the glass harder than necessary. “Loren ran to catch up, and Stephanie just wasn’t there. She just...wasn’t there.”

Mason nodded. “She couldn’t have gone far. Not on her own.”