The Blind

by Shelley Coriell

  “That doesn’t look familiar.”

  “I purchased this piece at a local art fair about fifteen years ago.”

  “Fifteen years?” She held the pendant up to the artificial light. “You know, this might be one of Harris Kerr’s. He works with mostly large metal pieces now, but I think when he was first starting out, he might have done some jewelry work.”

  “Do you know how we can get in touch with him?” Evie asked.

  “He doesn’t have a phone. No Internet. He’s one of those brooding artist types. Just leave him alone and let him create, but I think I may have his address as a few years ago I had to mail him a commission check for a piece of his we sold.”

  * * *

  6:42 p.m.

  “I’ve never seen so much barbed wire in my life.” Jack pulled the rental car up to the gate of Harris Kerr’s property, a few wooded acres off the Monongahela River, lit up tonight like the outer perimeter of a maximum security prison.

  “Technically that’s concertina wire.” Evie pointed to the top of the eight-foot chain-link fence. “That’s barbed wire, and that one along the side is a lovely little piece of art called razor-ribbon wire.”

  “Since he probably doesn’t have any executive assistant we can tap, any plans to get us into his fortress?” Jack asked.

  “He knows we’re here.” She pointed at a camera mounted on a post at the front gate. Then she took out her shield and held it up to the camera. The camera whirred, zooming in. “Let’s hope he chooses to do this the easy way.”

  Nothing had ever come easy to Jack, which was fine. He’d worked since the age of twelve, mowing lawns and shoveling snow. He didn’t mind working hard. Just the opposite. He loved pouring himself into a project. He loved racing to the finish line and notching the win. But this project, the investigation into his dead sister’s ties with a bomber, was eating at his gut. Had his sister known the bomber calling himself Carter Vandemere? Had he been warped and twisted back then? Had Abby sat for him? Had he hurt her?

  A hand settled on his arm. Evie’s. She nodded to the gate swinging open. “Looks like he’s going to play nicely.”

  Jack threaded the car along the pocked driveway. The wind had picked up, and lightning continued to streak the inky sky. “Do you really think this could be Carter Vandemere?”

  Evie was quiet a moment. These bits of quiet from the fiery FBI agent at first surprised him, but he was learning that Evie wasn’t all fire and brimstone. She had a contemplative side, when the hair atop her head tilted to the right and her big brown eyes narrowed. “The location concerns me,” Evie finally said. “Vandemere knows L.A., and unless this Kerr fellow has some West Coast property, I’m not sure if I can buy into his involvement.”

  The first thing Jack noticed about Harris Kerr was his eyes. They refused to meet his. In a business deal, that would have sent Jack out the door. Then Jack noticed the hands. Three fingertips were missing from the left hand along with the pinky on his right.

  “The things we sacrifice for the sake of art.” Kerr held up his hands, gazing at them as if they, too, were works of art. Jack only saw the hands of a possible killer.

  “Please show us your workshop,” Evie said with a bluntness he’d come to expect, not because she was rude but because time was of the essence. Tomorrow was the first day of November.

  The first icy raindrop fell as Kerr led them to a garage behind the small trailer that was his home. There Jack saw stacks of steel sheets, pyramids of pipes, saws, grinders, and cans of paint. Next to him Evie sent a sweeping gaze through the shop. Did she see traces of a killer? Bits of a bomber?

  She walked slowly around the room, her boot heels tapping the cement. She stopped at the workbench holding coffee canisters full of nails and screws and wire. “Do you make jewelry?”

  “Ahhhh, the commercial cash cow.” Derision dripped from Kerr’s voice. “Yes, I was guilty of sucking on that teat once in my career.”

  She handed him the sun pendant. “Is this one of yours?”

  Kerr plucked a loupe from the desk and held the pendant under a lamp. “That’s one of mine. I also made a matching pair of earrings.”

  “Only one?” Jack asked, the question as sharp as the wire that lined this place. If the answer was yes, the earring used in the second bombing belonged to Abby.

  “All of my pieces are one-of-a-kind originals. Where did you get this?”

  “I bought it for my sister at an art fair in town fifteen years ago.”

  “The blonde with the pretty blue eyes.”

  “You remember her?”

  “Super fans are good for an artist’s ego. She loved my work, fell head over heels with the sun set, but was crushed when she found out the price. I wished I could have cut her a deal, but I was doing the whole starving artist thing and couldn’t let the piece go.”

  Evie poked through the coffee canisters, metal clinking and clanking. “Have you ever been to Los Angeles?”

  “California? Never. Why do you ask?”

  Because I want this to end here, Jack thought. I want you to be the Angel Bomber so we can put an end to the death and destruction of human life. And so you can tell me where to find Abby’s body so I can lay her to rest.

  “When was the last time you flew on a plane?” Evie continued.

  “I’ve never flown. I’m quite happy right here.”

  Evie pulled out the mangled earring from her bag, a one-inch piece of twisted silver that sent Jack’s insides quaking. “Is this one of yours?”

  Again, Kerr settled the loupe on his eye. “Absolutely. This is from the same set as the pendant. There’s a hash mark on the back where I soldered the sun to the loop.”

  Abby’s earring. The one she’d worn in death. Which means someone had found her body. Jack’s fist tightened. Because while Harris Kerr was not the bomber, he’d dropped a bombshell.

  Sheets of icy rain fell from the sky as they left Kerr’s shop, but Jack didn’t feel the biting bullets. “Carter Vandemere found her body,” Jack said when they got into the car. “He touched her and took the earring.”

  “We don’t know that for sure.”

  “You do, Evie.” He spun on her, daring her to call him wrong. “You’re like me. You work from the gut. You trust what’s in your core. Tell me, what’s your gut telling you?”

  Her hands were in her lap, fisting and flexing. “That the bomber was obsessed with your sister, he knew her before her death, and he somehow got his hands on her earrings. And that right now we need to find out who your sister was hanging around with before she died.”

  He jammed the keys in the ignition and twisted hard. “I know where to start.”

  “Where?”

  The one place whose black, gritty dust he’d wiped from the soles of his shoes and swore he’d never see again. “My home.”

  * * *

  7:55 p.m.

  Jack secured the parking brake. The roads in this neighborhood were hilly, pocked, and strewn with loose gravel. They hadn’t changed much in fifteen years. “Zoe lives in the blue house on the right,” he said as he reached for the keys in the ignition switch.

  “Which means you grew up in the yellow one.” Evie squinted through the windshield where the wipers blasted at full speed. “That’s a great tree in the front yard. Bet you had a ball climbing it.”

  His hand hovering over the keys, he studied Evie, who was in turn studying the rows of tiny dilapidated houses and him. She was in bomb tech mode, checking out the landscape, looking for anything that might go boom. In other words, she was worried about him.

  “I did.” Jack rested his wrists on the steering wheel. “For the record, we didn’t have a horrible childhood. I don’t remember much about Dad, other than he loved to work with wood. On the weekends he’d go out in the garage and build things, chairs, cabinets, picture frames. That’s where Abby got her artistic ability. As for Mom, she worked hard and never complained about going without. Abby, when she was in her sunny place, she could li
ght up a room.”

  “But you wanted to get out of here? Like Abby, did you need more sun and light?”

  “I needed more life. This is a dead town covered in black dust.” He scrubbed his hands along his arms. “It’s called coke and settles into everything, the sidewalks, the rain, your skin.”

  “Not a beautiful place.”

  “Definitely not.” He switched off the car. “I tried to talk Mom into leaving, but she refused. She died two years after I left. Pancreatic cancer. No one knew because she didn’t have insurance and didn’t see a doctor.”

  Before he reached for the door handle, Evie grabbed his arm. “You don’t need to go in. This could be headed to some pretty dark places.”

  “I know.” Dark thoughts had been slamming his skull. Was the person now calling himself Carter Vandemere watching Abby at the river? Did he have anything to do with the accident? Was he one of the searchers? Did he find Abby’s lifeless body? And most important, if he did, what had he done with it? “That darkness is the reason I need to be here.”

  “You do realize that I have the power to bar you from anything to do with this case, don’t you?”

  “You won’t.”

  Her mouth quirked in irritation. “What makes you so confident?”

  Evie wore her heart on her sleeve for all the world to see. “You’ll do just about anything to find the Angel Bomber, and you’ll use any means and resources, including my pains and past, to get him.”

  Guilt washed across Evie’s face.

  He settled his finger under her chin and brought her gaze back to his. “I’m the type who appreciates and admires that kind of passion and drive.”

  Craaaaack.

  Another bolt of lightning split the sky.

  They ducked through the rain, which was on its way to sleet, and knocked on Zoe’s door. Zoe Sobeski grew up in the house next to his and had been Abby’s best friend, and unlike him, she’d never been able to shake the old neighborhood, first caring for her ailing mother, then taking over the house when her mother died. Zoe knew Abby’s friends, dreams, and fears.

  The door swung open, framing a woman with a bulging midsection and a little princess in her arms. The corners of his lips turned up.

  The woman’s eyes widened. “Jackie? Jackie Elliott?” She put the princess on the floor and wrapped Jack in a bear hug. Then Zoe held him at arm’s length and turned him as if inspecting a coat for possible purchase. “Man, Jackie, you grew up good, and you smell good, too.” A hand smoothed the side of her hair while the other tugged the baggy shirt over her very pregnant midsection. “I’m a mess. Dan and I have been at a Halloween carnival with the kids all day.”

  Today was Halloween? He hadn’t even noticed. Next to him, Evie looked equally surprised.

  “You look beautiful, Zoe,” he said.

  “You must be having eye problems.” She pulled him into the house, where in addition to the little princess, there was a little clown and an even littler hobo. With her toe, she nudged away a toy fire truck and four Barbie dolls. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Agent Evie Jimenez.” Evie took out a thin wallet, and with a snap of her wrist, showed Zoe her badge. The movement was so natural, the badge could have been an extension of her hand.

  “Cool costume,” the little hobo said as he tugged at Zoe’s oversized T-shirt. “Mom, can I be an FBI agent for Halloween next year?”

  Zoe kissed the top of his head. “Of course.” She turned the warm smile on Jack. “What brings you back home?”

  “Abby.”

  Zoe settled a hand on the little hobo’s head and pulled him to her side. Jack knew this wouldn’t be easy for Zoe. She’d taken Abby’s death hard. After the accident, Zoe wouldn’t talk about Abby, and she stopped coming over, even after his mom begged Zoe to remain a part of their lives. It’s like I’ve lost two daughters, his mom had said.

  Jack dipped his head at Evie. “It’s important.”

  “Of course. Let me get the kids upstairs. My husband is getting the bathtub ready now.”

  The little princess was staring at Evie. “You look like a cowgirl, not an FBI agent.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” her little brother said. “She has the badge. She’s an FBI agent.”

  The princess nibbled her bottom lip. “You’re a cowgirl, right?”

  Evie squatted so she was eye-level with the little girl. “I’m a cowgirl and an FBI agent.”

  The child’s eyes widened. “A girl can do that?”

  Evie didn’t blink. “A girl can do anything.”

  The princess smiled smugly, stuck her tongue out at her brother, and spun on her sparkly slippers. For the first time that day, Evie grinned.

  It didn’t last long as Zoe returned to the living room without the kids. She swept the blankets and blocks and scattered Cheerios from the sofa. With her hand at the small of her back, she lowered herself onto a rocking chair. “We have about twenty minutes before they’re done.”

  Evie took a seat on the sofa. “Did Abby have any friends who considered themselves artists? Particularly any who painted portraits?”

  “There wasn’t a big art crowd at school, and I don’t remember Abby talking about anyone like that.”

  “Did she ever sit for a portrait?”

  “She liked to be behind the canvas, not on it.”

  “Did she ever complain about anyone watching her, maybe even stalking her?”

  “Never. This is a small town. Everyone pretty much knows everyone’s business.”

  “You were at the river the day of the accident searching with the volunteers, correct?”

  Zoe rested her hands on the top of her belly and rubbed, long slow strokes. She nodded.

  “I know that was a tough day for you, Zoe.” Evie leaned toward the other woman. “But I need you to think hard. When you were searching the riverbanks for Abby’s body, did you ever see anyone who didn’t belong, a stranger or someone who looked out of place?”

  “It was dark and cold so everyone was pretty bundled up, but no, I don’t remember anyone out of the ordinary.”

  Zoe finally turned to Jack. “What’s going on? Why is the FBI asking about Abby after all these years?”

  Jack locked gazes with Evie, and she gave him a quick nod. He was not a trained investigator, but he knew how to deal with people, and Zoe had been like a sister to him.

  “Have you heard of the Angel Bombings?” Jack asked.

  “Of course. How awful. I had to turn off the television news after the last bombing. Those photos, especially of all those children outside the library.” She shuddered. “God, they were horrible.”

  “We believe Abby may have known the bomber.”

  Zoe stopped stroking her belly. “What?”

  “We found some artwork belonging to the bomber, and in that artwork was a portrait of Abby.”

  Zoe gripped the sides of the chair. “No.”

  “Yes, Zoe, and there’s more. You know the sun earrings and necklace Abby always wore, the ones I gave her? She was wearing them the day she died. One of the earrings was found on one of the bombing victims.”

  Her nails dug into the padded arms of the rocker.

  “We’re looking for a young man who was between the ages of fifteen and twenty back when Abby knew him,” Evie added. “He was socially awkward or shy. He may or may not have known Abby, but he must have watched her.”

  Zoe shook her head.

  “I know it’s hard to think about these things,” Jack said. Upstairs the water stopped running. “But try, Zoe.”

  “No, you don’t know.” She stood, her hands kneading her lower back.

  “The thing you need to realize about bombers,” Evie said, “is that they grow their skill set over time. Fifteen years ago when he knew Abby, he wouldn’t have had the knowledge or the confidence to do what he did to the women in those bombings.”

  Zoe’s chin trembled. “But now he does?”

  “Well yes, and we’re trying to stop him before a
nyone else dies.”

  Her body swayed. “Oh, God.”

  Jack turned to Evie, but her gaze was locked on Zoe, eyes hot and sharp. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. “What’s going on?”

  Zoe sank back into the rocker and wrapped her arms around her belly.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Jack asked. When neither Evie nor Zoe moved, he started for the stairs. “I’m going to go get Dan.”

  Evie grabbed his arm. “No.” She pulled him to her side. “Zoe is fine. She just needs to tell us the truth, and that will be much easier if it’s only us.”

  “What truth?” Jack asked. Something had just happened, and while he was in the middle of it, he had no idea what was going on.

  Zoe’s hands knotted in the fabric of her T-shirt.

  Evie looked up at him. “Your sister did not drown in the river. Someone pulled her out.”

  Zoe nodded.

  The words hit him as hard as the rushing river ice fifteen years ago. “Carter Vandemere?”

  Evie shook her head.

  Zoe finally spoke. “I did.” Then the silent sobs rocked her entire body.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Saturday, October 31

  8:09 p.m.

  Sit.” Evie pointed to the sagging sofa, and when Jack didn’t move, she reached up, placed her hands on his broad shoulders, and pushed. The man looked like he was about to topple over. Zoe Sobeski, Abby’s best friend, had just admitted that Jack’s sister had survived the crash into the frozen river fifteen years ago. Zoe sat in the rocking chair, convulsing with silent sobs.

  Upstairs the splashing had stopped, and giggles poured down from the steps. “Listen, Zoe,” Evie said, taking the woman by the shoulders. “I need you to get it together and tell me exactly what happened the day Abby got swept down the river.”

  The pregnant woman continued to rock and sob.

  “Your kids will be down in a few minutes.” She gave Zoe’s shoulders a soft shake. “They don’t need to see you like this.”

  Zoe wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “No, they don’t.” She let out a series of short, fast breaths. She cast a glance at Jack, then turned quickly. “I, uh, arrived at the river about a half hour after the crash, and like everyone else was searching the riverbank on foot, hoping to find her on the shore or, God forbid, see her through the ice. The sun was setting, and I knew we didn’t have much time.” The woman squeezed her hands so tightly her fingertips turned purple.