Brown and de Luca Collection, Volume 1

by Maggie Shayne

  “He didn’t borrow. Their finances were fine. Marie didn’t lie to you.”

  “Drugs, then.” She said it almost hopefully. “Maybe he was on some sort of drugs that—”

  “He wasn’t on drugs, Mother.” Ironically, she was, but prescriptions, as she so often reminded him, were not really drugs. They were drugs, but not, you know, drugs.

  Mason took a breath. She wasn’t going to let go of this. “Eric had…problems. You know that.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Not problems. He was a quiet boy. Scared. But that’s natural, of course. Six years old, coming to a new country, a whole new family, learning a new language. We don’t even know what happened to his birth family in Russia.” She lowered her head again. “We never asked him, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Maybe if we’d asked him.”

  “I asked him once. He said he didn’t remember anything from before he was adopted.”

  She seemed to mull on that for a while. “We didn’t think we could have children, you know. When you came along not even a year later it was like a miracle.”

  “I know, Mom.” He’d heard the story a thousand times.

  “For him, too, though.”

  That part, he hadn’t heard before. It got his attention.

  “He lit up when we brought you home, Mason. For the first time I thought maybe he was finally coming out of his shell. He seemed happy. For a little while, anyway. Until middle school. Then he just seemed to…shut down again.”

  There wasn’t an answer for that. Had he been older, Mason would have personally kicked the asses of the school-yard bullies who’d tormented his brother. As it was…he wondered if that had anything to do with what Eric had eventually become.

  And now he was playing his mother’s game, with the whys and what-ifs. It wouldn’t do any good.

  “I had a call from the hospital this morning,” she said.

  “What about?” he asked, glad of the new subject.

  “The person who got the corneas is asking to meet the family of the donor.”

  Mason nodded slowly. He knew who that person was, but the rest of the family didn’t. Mother and Marie had asked him to handle all the details, and he had. He wondered why they’d phoned his mother and not him, or even Marie, but those answers could wait. As could the reaming out he intended to give to whoever had phoned his mother about it on the day of his brother’s funeral. “What did you tell them?”

  She sighed, and her eyes flooded. “I said I’d ask you. I don’t think I can…I don’t think I can bear to see my son’s eyes staring at me from some stranger’s face.” The tears spilled over, streaming silently down her pale, papery cheeks.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay, you don’t have to do that.” He closed his hand around hers, not bothering to explain yet again that Eric’s eyes were still with Eric’s body, that only a thin layer of tissue had been removed. “I’ll take care of this, okay? You don’t need to think any more about it. Just put it out of your mind, all right?”

  “Thank you, Mason. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She sniffed and wiped her cheeks with two manicured fingertips. “Remind me to phone the doctor when I get home, before things get too crazy and I forget. I’m going to need a refill on my Ativan.”

  He withheld comment and decided in that moment that yes, he would, eventually, agree to meet with the self-help guru who’d gotten Eric’s corneas. The one who’d said maybe the accident had been supposed to happen. Maybe if he could see one good thing that had come out of this entire mess, he could shake the dark feeling of impending doom that had been clinging like a shadow ever since that day. Maybe if he could see that blind woman, looking at him, seeing him, because of his brother, he could start to move past all this.

  But not yet. He was nowhere near ready yet.

  CHAPTER 5

  I’d been seeing pretty much twenty-twenty for a solid six weeks. And you know, it was mostly a good month and a half. Not all good. And definitely not serene, with the nightmares recurring. Still no word from Tommy. Or the cops, except to say they had nothing new. Myrtle continued to make herself at home, while I continued pretending to just barely tolerate her, because God forbid my entourage should think I was going soft. I totally was, though. I was putty in that fat little dog’s paws. I took her everywhere I went. I’d had a safety harness installed in my car—an ’02 T-Bird convertible. A classic, she was. Inspiration Yellow, with black-and-yellow leather and every available option. Yes, I’d learned to drive, and even while my sister was teaching me, Myrtle was my constant copilot. I bought her a yellow scarf to match the car, and a pair of tinted glam-dog goggles to protect her poor useless eyes from the sun and windborne grit.

  I hadn’t gone back to work in any way, shape or form, though. Everyone thought I was taking time to readjust to sighted life. But it was actually because I didn’t want to continue using my voice-recognition software now that I could see. I wanted to type my books from now on. I wanted to see the words unfolding on the computer screen as I puked them up. Which meant learning new software, not to mention keyboarding skills. It was bound to slow me down…for a while. Not much terrifies a writer more than the notion of changing her process. We all secretly believe that we’re able to do what we do because we’ve stumbled onto some obscure alchemical formula that magically transforms us into the great mythical beast known as author. And we all secretly fear that twisting one screw or adjusting one cog, or changing the color of our ink, could mess up the entire recipe and expose us to the world as the frauds we really are.

  So I wasn’t writing, though I would eventually bite the bullet and dive back in and it would be fine. I knew that. But there was so much else to do, and a whole lot to learn. You think there’s a learning curve when you lose your vision? Try getting it back sometime. Everything, everything, everything, has to be learned from scratch, from measuring coffee into the filter basket to remembering to turn off the lights at night. (Not all of them. Never all of them.) Operating the TV remote alone deserved a six-week tutorial. Personal grooming—the hair, the makeup, the matching of the clothes—well, I’d always had help before.

  And yeah, I still had help for the asking, but I wanted to do it myself, dammit.

  My first results with makeup had Amy giving me the kind of indulgent smile you give a four-year-old who presents you with his first piece of macaroni art. Then she marched me back to the bathroom, and made me wash it all off and start over, with her patient instructions this time. I’d improved a lot since then.

  But I’d still asked for help today. I wanted to look especially nice, because this was the day when I would meet the brother of the man who had given me his corneas. And see the look on his face when he realized his brother’s eyes had gone to a famous person. (Yes, Virginia, I have an ego.) And then I wanted to know if he knew anything about where these damned dreams were coming from. Because they were still coming.

  I’d had several more of the horrifying nightmares. They were currently averaging about one a week. In the most recent one, I hadn’t just seen the end result of the murder but had felt myself committing it. I was swinging the hammer, feeling the dull, squishy thud of it connecting, the smack of metal into meat and warm blood splattering my skin, ending once again with a sick, twisted rush of sheer, almost sexual, pleasure.

  I woke up and vomited that time.

  I’d been doing a little research of the woo-woo variety, as I liked to call it, and had found an alarming number of organ recipients who claim to have gotten more than just the organ from their donor. Habits. Tastes. Cravings. Even memories.

  I didn’t really believe any of it, but from a completely rational point of view, I had to check it out. Pretransplant, no nightmares. Post-transplant, nightmares. Simple math. And this guy I was about to meet might just be able to tell me if there was a rea
son for that.

  I’d been rehearsing my questions in my head and writing notes in longhand, because my handwriting needed a lot of practice. I would phrase my questions carefully, not to give too much away. I didn’t want the guy thinking his brother’s eyes had gone to a psycho, right? And besides, he might talk after our meeting. To the press. And I didn’t need that sort of headline. Not when BW was even now setting up future interviews in the wake of the big announcement. Her original plan to save the news for the right time went out the window when I told her I wanted my driver’s license and would not wait to get it. The minute someone caught wind of that, it would be obvious I could see again. So we did a press release: The woman who writes about how to create your own miracles has a miracle of her own. You couldn’t buy publicity that good, and we asked for the public’s patience while I adjusted to sighted life. Fortunately Wish Yourself Rich was already in the can, just waiting for its holiday release date.

  Our spin was that my consistently positive attitude and steadfast belief that my eyesight would one day be restored, my lack of doubt and my refusal to let my blindness become my focus, had inevitably created the miracle I had now experienced.

  Because that was the spin that would sell books.

  It wasn’t the truth, of course. The truth was, I got lucky.

  I got unlucky when I went blind. I got lucky when my sight was restored. Because shit happens. Good shit and bad shit. It’s random, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Period.

  But people don’t like feeling helpless and powerless against fate. So you sell them a reason to believe they’re not, and you “manifest” yourself a career and a pile of money. Voila! Magic.

  The meeting with the donor’s brother was set for the benches near the observation tower on my end of the dam. Myrtle and I could walk that far, and I loved walking even if Myrt did not. Even after six weeks, give or take, I couldn’t get enough of looking out over the reservoir. Do you have any idea how many different ways simple water can look? Choppy and dark green, or white capped and rough, or still and blue. My favorite was when the water became a mirror, and I could see the pines and vivid fall foliage reflected perfectly in it. I loved that.

  Myrtle and I walked slowly along my dirt road, all the way to the paved part near the village, and then we veered onto the walking path that encircled the reservoir. It was barely October, and the leaves had turned themselves up to full power. Had the colors been this vivid in the fall when I was a kid? I grew up in New York’s nether regions, the little-known places with more cows than humans, so I’d seen the trees put on their annual version of Fashion Week, but it was hard to remember. And now the colors were more vivid than anything I could recall. Like neon. Or black-light posters with the black lights turned on. Those I remembered.

  Myrtle was resenting the shit out of the enforced walk, but I kept telling her it was good for her. Yes, she was old and blind, but she was also fat. We’d been doing a slow, easy lap around the property every evening, though she hated it. If she could have talked, she would have cussed all the way.

  This was a little bit farther. And man, was she pissed.

  Near the tall rectangular tower on my end of the dam, I saw my donor’s brother right where we had agreed, using the hospital as intermediary, to meet. We hadn’t spoken yet, even by phone. He was sitting on a wooden park bench, staring out at the reservoir most people mistook for a lake. It was huge, almost six miles long and more than a mile wide.

  The guy’s back was toward me, so I got to look him over without him noticing. Short dark hair, nice and thick. A broad back, really wide shoulders underneath a blue windbreaker. I closed my eyes and tried to get a mental image, but my senses were on strike, and I realized it was because I was nervous. Me. Nervous. Go figure.

  I walked up behind him, and Myrtle sat down the minute I stopped walking and glanced up at me. The message in her expression was Try to move me right now and I swear to God I’ll bite your arm off. And by the way, I could use a snack.

  I dipped into my pocket for a Snausage and gave it to her, then refocused on the guy while she smacked, slurped, licked her lips and belched her gratitude. Hearing the dog, he turned, and my mouth went dry, because he was drop-dead gorgeous. I’m talking better than Hugh Jackman handsome. And that’s saying something, right?

  Maybe I’d better say something before he thinks I’m in need of a voice box transplant next.

  “I saw an eagle out there one day,” I said. “In fact, it was the day I got home, the first day I ever saw anything here.”

  He smiled a little, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It was one of those smiles that seemed like the right expression but wasn’t anything close to real. Then he got to his feet, moved closer, extended a hand. “Good to see you, Rachel.”

  I took his hand and made my shake firm, because men respected that, and then was instantly flooded with a sense of familiarity as his big hand completely enclosed mine. Warm. Nice. I looked at the little hairs at his wrist, wondered if he was hairy all over. Then my nose twitched. His scent was familiar. Not just the aftershave but the way it smelled on him. And his voice was still echoing in my brain like a skipping record.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, yanking my hand free. “I’ve met you before, haven’t I?” It wasn’t really a question.

  “Yeah, you have. I was—”

  I help up my hand, palm flat. “Don’t tell me.” He shut up, and I closed my eyes, because by now I knew that my other senses pretty much refused to stay on full alert when my eyes were open. There was just too much to see, and I was entirely too enamored with seeing it. But when I closed my eyes, my other soldiers came to attention. I stopped looking at the guy and starting feeling him.

  He was crouching down by then, petting Myrtle, his big hands moving over her as she wriggled without standing up. That dog was as lazy as I was sarcastic.

  “You’re just a raving beauty, aren’t you? Yes, you are.”

  He wasn’t being sarcastic, though Myrtle had a face only a bulldog lover could love. His voice was like velvet rubbing over gravel. His presence—whatever unique electromagnetic energy his body gave off—some call it an aura, but that term is just so freaking new-age-fluffy-bunny that I refuse to use it, but still, whatever you want to call it, it was just so familiar to me. And then it all clicked into place in one big flash.

  “You’re the cop who ran me over!” I opened my eyes. “Mason Brown.”

  He was straightening up and looking surprised, one hand still stroking Myrtle’s head. “How the hell did you know?”

  I shrugged. “I’m just that good. You never came to visit me in the hospital.”

  “Some things happened that day. I meant to come, I really did.”

  “I didn’t really expect you to come anyway, it’s fine.” I looked past him, not seeing anyone else. “It’s just that there was something I really wanted to talk to you about.”

  He shrugged. “So talk to me about it now.”

  I looked at my watch, then grinned, because I was actually looking at my watch. Little things like that still made me smile. “I would, but I’m meeting someone. It’s kind of important.”

  “I know.”

  Yeah, okay, so sometimes I’m a little slow on the uptake. But it finally hit me that he hadn’t so much as commented on my ability to see him standing there. And he had to have noticed, being that I was clearly blind as a bat the last time he’d seen me.

  I tilted my head and frowned, and heard my inner bitch say Duh, Rachel.

  He saw me figuring it out and filled in the blanks. “My brother died within a few hours of our—accident. He was your donor.” He smiled a little. “Do you remember what you said to me that day?”

  “Get this car off of me?” I suggested. And yes, I was using sarcasm to mask my momentary shock and to give myself time to snap all the puzzle pieces into
place. He hit me with his car, then his brother died, and then he gave me his brother’s corneas.

  He laughed just a little, lowering his head as he did. Oh, man, he was hiding something. My senses went on alert. This man was full of secrets. That energy thing you feel from other humans was all tightly coiled and staying close to him, his voice, restrained, his laugh, forced. He was keeping a lot inside. And I suddenly wanted to know what.

  Probably none of my business.

  Not if his dead brother gave me his nightmares along with his corneas it’s not. I need to know this shit.

  “Remind me,” I told him. “What did I say?”

  “You said, ‘maybe this little accident was supposed to happen.’”

  “Oh.” I blinked twice, thinking back and guessing that I must have been trying to reposition my Pollyanna mask. As I recalled I’d been a little bitchy when he’d first peeled me off the pavement. “Well, maybe so, but I don’t think even I could have suspected this was the reason. That I’d inherit your brother’s corneas.”

  “Well, you couldn’t have suspected that—unless you’re psychic.”

  “Right. And for the record, I’m not,” I said. And then I took the plunge and blurted, “Was he?”

  Mason gave me a quick but very deep frown. I liked his eyebrows. They were thick and dark and screamed I have lots of testosterone. It was appealing to my female parts, which tingled a little. Bad idea, Rache. Really, really bad.

  “Was he what?” Mason asked.

  “Psychic.” I watched his face. He didn’t give away a thing.

  “No, he wasn’t psychic. That’s a strange question. Why do you ask?”

  I shrugged and looked past him at the water, glittering in the sun. It was blue today, and the little ripples were gold flashes sending Morse code greetings back to the sun. Mason Brown was telling the truth. I felt it. He was hiding something, but not that his brother had been his secret weapon in solving crimes. It would have been a cool scenario. His brother sees crimes through ESP, then Mason solves them without letting on where he got his insider info. I inherit the “gift” along with the corneas, and we team up to fight crime. Hell, maybe I should write fiction.