The Naked Eye

by Iris Johansen

  “No.” Not Colby. No confrontation yet. She glanced up at the rearview mirror. “But whoever they are have stepped up their speed. They don’t want to lose us.”

  “Not rangers, not Colby. Care to guess who—”

  “No time for guessing.” Kendra weighed her options. Confronting the people in the car was out of the question, especially since she had no idea with whom they were dealing. Giving them the slip also wouldn’t be easy, either, on this somewhat isolated road.

  Beth squinted at the small roadside sign ahead. “This is marker six.”

  Kendra pressed hard on the accelerator. “Whoever they are, I don’t want to lead them to that bag. We’ll double back as soon as we figure out how to lose them.”

  “Any idea how to do that?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  Kendra poured on another burst of speed, putting a bend in the road between them and their tail. The Caprice was hanging back about a quarter of a mile now, but she’d stretched the gap slightly. She looked ahead, searching … There was a small mobile-home park on the right, and beyond that, nothing.

  “Hang on,” she said. “This is going to be a little rough.”

  Kendra cut the wheel hard right and spun into the trailer-park entrance. She gave the accelerator another jolt. Her wheels kicked up a cloud of dirt and gravel as they sped toward the back of the park. She braked hard and cut the lights.

  Silence.

  A few seconds later, the Caprice roared past the entrance.

  Kendra drew a deep breath and turned toward Beth. “It won’t take them long to realize what we did. They’ll be back.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “You’re acting as if I have one. I’m reacting purely on instinct. We’ll stay off the road and work our way down the hill from here. We can get back to the marker in just a few minutes.”

  They threw open the doors and ran the length of the trailer park. They climbed a chain-link fence and worked their way down a steep hillside until they hit the relatively level desert floor.

  Kendra motioned back toward the winding road. “This way.”

  Beth cursed as the low branches scratched her face and caught in her hair. “Not so fast. Where did that moonlight go? It’s pitch-black now. I can’t see my hand in front of my face. I’m getting mauled here.”

  “It’s okay. Just follow me.

  Kendra darted in and out of the bushes and low trees, leading Beth over a clump of boulders that took them past the curve in the road above.

  Beth grabbed Kendra’s arm to steady herself. “I can’t see, dammit. Did that surgery give you night vision, too?”

  “Hardly.” Kendra was breathing hard, too. “You probably see better than I do.”

  “Then how are you doing this?”

  “Instinct. The air around objects feels differently to my hands and face. And there are aural differences when you’re faced with something as opposed to open air. Ask any blind person. It’s called acoustic wayfinding. It usually only comes in handy for me these days when I get up for glass of water in the middle of the night.”

  “It’s obvious I’ve never developed that instinct.” She was looking around her. “But I think my eyes are getting used to the dark.”

  “Good. Believe me, that works better.”

  “How much farther?”

  Kendra glanced up at the road. “We should start looking after another hundred yards or so. Be careful, it looks like there’s cactus on the ground here.”

  They made a wide arc around a clump of cactus plants and pushed on, running alongside the hill that led up to the road fifty feet above.

  “Damn.” Kendra pointed to the jagged hillside. “I hate to say it, but that bag could have gotten snagged anywhere on the way down.”

  “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s wait until Schultz gets back into town, and we’ll make him climb for it.”

  “No time. And remember, you’re the one who wanted to play detective.”

  “Don’t remind me. You know, I could be playing darts in a central California biker bar right now. More comfortable and less dangerous.”

  “We both could be. After this is over, I say we—” Kendra stopped in the middle of the path.

  Beth stopped with her. “What is it?”

  “Get down,” Kendra whispered.

  They crouched behind a large boulder. Kendra looked up. “Did you see that?”

  “I didn’t see anything.”

  “Look!” Kendra pointed to a pair of headlights gliding to a stop on the roadside above. The lights stayed on while two men climbed out of the car and looked down.

  Kendra and Beth held their breaths and watched the men for a long moment.

  “Who in the hell are these guys?” Beth whispered.

  Kendra shook her head. The men were still only shadow figures. “I think the tall one is using binoculars. I don’t see a night-vision glow on them, so I think we’re okay.”

  Almost simultaneously, bright flashlights powered on in the men’s hands. The high-wattage beams played across the hillside and darted over the brush where Kendra and Beth had been just moments before.

  Kendra and Beth retreated behind a cluster of desert shrubs and watched as the flashlights continued to play over the area.

  Kendra stiffened. “There it is.”

  “What?”

  She peered into the darkness. “I think I saw the bag. One of the flashlight beams went right over it.”

  “Show me where.”

  Kendra pointed to a spot at the bottom of the hill, about twenty yards from where they were hiding. Now that she knew where to look, she could see a reflection from the flashlight beams on the shiny black plastic. “It’s there.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  At that moment, both men suddenly started down the hill.

  “Shit,” Kendra said.

  “Go get the bag,” Beth said.

  “Are you crazy?”

  Beth nodded toward the men, who were half sliding down the steep hill. “They’re using their flashlights to light their way down. Go now. I’ll meet you back at the car.”

  “And what about those very determined guys who will try to intercept me?”

  “Just get the bag and get out of here. They won’t be coming after us.”

  “How do you know?”

  “See you back at the car.” She disappeared into the bushes.

  Kendra tried to stop her, but Beth was already sprinting toward the hill, several yards away from where the two men were still descending. What in hell was she thinking?

  But one glance told Kendra that Beth was right about the men’s being focused on climbing down the hill. Now was her chance.

  She sprinted toward the spot where the flashlight beam had briefly illuminated the bag’s shiny-plastic surface. Nothing but scrub brush and ground-cactus plants. Had it been just a trick of the light?

  No. There it was!

  She bent low and moved swiftly toward the bag.

  She could hear curses and the sound of the men above her half sliding down the hill.

  Quick.

  She reached it an instant later. Not a trick of light. She picked up the large plastic bag, which was closed by a drawstring. There was lettering on the side that bore the logo of a downtown dry cleaner.

  She had it.

  Whatever the hell it was.

  “Hey!”

  She’d been spotted. Both flashlight beams swung in her direction!

  She jumped to her feet and started running. The bag unbalanced her, and she fell to her knees.

  “Get her. She’s down!”

  She knew that voice.

  Stokes.

  Dammit, it had been the San Diego PD following them.

  Stokes and … She couldn’t clearly make out the other officer on the slope, but she thought it might be Ketchum.

  And there was no way she wanted them to confiscate this bag until she could look through it. She jumped to her fee
t and started running.

  Slipped again.

  Tumbled twenty feet. Hit hard.

  Cactus. Stinging her face and neck.

  But Stokes had slipped, too. He was struggling to get to his feet some distance away from her.

  She got up and bolted back the way she and Beth had come.

  Keep running. Keep ahead of him.

  Screech. Crack.

  The sound came from up above, on the road, in a groan of metal against rock. Before Kendra could look up, she was aware of the car’s headlight beams suddenly angled downward. She saw Stokes’s startled face caught in that beam as he stared up at the road.

  Bam.

  “No!” Stokes shouted, and started running up the hill as the Caprice rolled off the road.

  Kendra stared at it in shock as she watched the car hurtling toward the desert floor.

  What had happened?

  They won’t follow us.

  Beth.

  Stokes’s and Ketchum’s shouts and curses were almost as loud as the sounds of their car being pulverized by every stone and tree branch on its journey down. It finally flipped over, smashing whatever metal and glass hadn’t already been destroyed.

  Run.

  Run while the men were still in shock.

  Kendra clutched the bag closer to her and darted back toward their car. This time she wasn’t nearly as successful at dodging the tree limbs and cactus petals, as the brush tore into her flesh.

  It didn’t matter. Just keep running.

  Almost there.

  She climbed the hill and threw herself over the chain-link fence.

  “Get in!”

  Kendra turned around to see her car waiting there for her, engine running and passenger door open. Beth was behind the wheel. She repeated, “Get in!”

  Kendra jumped into the car. Before she could even pull the door shut, Beth peeled out of the lot.

  Kendra took a moment to catch her breath. “You do know you totally destroyed their car?”

  “Yep, crash, boom, bang. I did good, didn’t I? Couldn’t have them coming after us, could we? And it serves them right, for walking away with the engine running. For bad guys, they’re not very efficient.”

  “For cops you could say they weren’t either.”

  “Cops?”

  “Stokes and Ketchum.”

  “Oops. Well, how could we know? We were only defending ourselves from unknown attackers.”

  “I’m sure Stokes will appreciate that defense.”

  “We’ll worry about that later. At least, they won’t be on our trail for a little while.” She glanced down at the plastic bag in Kendra’s lap. “Is that it?”

  Kendra patted the bag. “Yes. Let’s go back to my place. We’ll take a look at it there.”

  * * *

  “THAT’S A NASTY BRUISE, KENDRA,” Beth said, as they entered the condo over an hour later. “I don’t look near as bad as you do. Sit down, and I’ll clean it up and find some salve to—”

  “I’m fine,” Kendra said. “I’ll clean up later. I don’t know how long it will be before Stokes decides it’s worth their while to come and harass me about what happened tonight.”

  “What can they do? All they saw was the bag; they don’t know what’s in it.”

  “And neither do we. There have to be some items that the police will consider evidence for this case. Not to speak of one destroyed car. Okay, so they never identified themselves before they tailed us or went on the hunt down that hill. But put the car and that bag together, and it will give them their chance to take me in and question me again. That’s why we have to hurry.” She looked down at her scratched and dirty hands. “On second thought, I’ll go and wash up a little before I touch anything. You take everything out of the bag and set them up on the coffee table. Be sure you put on a pair of those evidence gloves in the cabinet before you do it.” She headed for the bathroom. “I’ll be right back.”

  Beth was right, she thought as she glanced at herself in the bathroom mirror. Tousled hair, bruised face, and her hands looked as if she’d been plucking briars. She quickly splashed water on her face and hands and ran her fingers through her hair.

  Good enough.

  “Lots of stuff,” Beth said, looking up as Kendra came back into the living room. “Some cheap, some expensive, some kind of weird.” She pointed to the corner of the coffee table. “There are all of Schultz’s toiletries. I separated them out from the other things. The rest are mostly her figurines, there’s a hair barrette and a necklace.” She frowned. “I wouldn’t have thought Sheila was the type to wear a hair barrette.”

  “Neither would I. She was far too sleek and sophisticated.” She looked down at the amber-and-silver barrette. “Sentimental value?”

  “She didn’t impress me as being overly sentimental.”

  “You can never tell about people.” Kendra pulled on her gloves and sat down on the couch to survey the array on the coffee table. “And what’s weird?”

  “Just some keepsakes.” She pushed a small, cellophane-wrapped object toward Kendra.

  It was a ring wrapped in a red shoestring from a child’s tennis shoe.

  “Now that is weird. But it looks—” Kendra froze. “My God.”

  “Kendra?”

  She paid no attention. Her hands were moving quickly, frantically over the objects on the coffee table, putting some in front, discarding others.

  “Kendra, what are you…”

  “I have to go.” She jumped to her feet. She ran to the closet and grabbed a gray-and-white plastic bag, darted back to the coffee table, and placed the items she’d separated at the front into the bag. “I have to see Griffin.”

  “At this hour? It’s almost midnight.”

  “Too bad. I have to see him.” She grabbed her phone and dialed. “Griffin, Kendra Michaels. I have to see you. Meet me at your office in thirty minutes.”

  “And why should I do that?” Griffin asked sourly.

  This wasn’t going to be easy to say. It would be difficult for her to speak these words to anyone. To Griffin, it was excruciatingly difficult. “Because I need you.”

  Silence. “Amazing.”

  “Be there.” She hung up and headed for the door. “I’ll call you, Beth.”

  “For heaven’s sake, tell me what’s happening,” Beth said. “You’re not being fair. Don’t leave me like this.”

  “Sorry.” The door was closing behind her. She repeated, “I’ll call you.”

  * * *

  “GOOD GOD.” GRIFFIN’S GAZE TRAVELED over Kendra from her head to her feet. “You look like you fell off a cliff.”

  “Close. Very close.” She dropped down in the visitor’s chair. “I’m sure you would have been devastated if that had happened. Again, how would I have ever been able to pay off that favor I owe you?”

  “True.” He sat back down at his desk. “If you only wish to look at my callous side. Pity. When I have such a complex and interesting personality.”

  “Too complex for me. I’ve never been able to see beyond the barriers you made me jump over.” She placed the gray plastic bag on the desk. “I even hesitated to bring these to you. But I decided that your professionalism would keep you from letting anything else stand in the way.”

  “Really?” His gaze was on the bag. “And what do you have for me, Kendra? I’m beginning to be intrigued.”

  She pulled a pair of evidence gloves from her jacket pocket and tossed them across the desk. “Put these on first.”

  He smiled and reached for the gloves. “Okay, you definitely have my attention now.”

  Once he had pulled on the gloves, she placed the bag in front of him. “See for yourself. And think Colby.”

  She sat back and watched him take the objects out of the bag and set them out in a horizontal row on the desk one by one. Casually at first, then with growing tension, then with scarcely concealed excitement. “Damn,” he said softly. “This has got to be what I think it is.” His gaze flew up to meet he
rs. “Tell me it is.”

  “You know it is.” She indicated the first object. A gold compact with a turquoise lotus in the center.

  “This belonged to Tiffany Demarco, Colby’s third victim. She inherited it from her grandmother. It was the only thing missing from her purse the night her body was found.”

  Kendra opened the cover on her tablet computer and showed Griffin a grainy, yellowed photograph of the compact. “This was the picture her family gave us. An exact match.”

  Griffin picked up a hair clip with a blue hummingbird design. “This belonged to the girl in Chula Vista…”

  Kendra nodded. “Donna Robles. She was wearing two in her hair when she left home on the morning of her nineteenth birthday. Six days later, when her severed head was discovered with the others at the abandoned shoe factory in Carlsbad, she was only wearing one. This is the other.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “It’s also a match. As much as I didn’t want to pull up that photo, I checked.”

  He picked up a red shoestring, from which dangled a round gold earring. “What’s this?”

  “It’s a twofer. The earring belonged to Lanie Riedinger, victim number six. She was wearing the other when we found her corpse. The shoelace came from little Stevie Wallach, who had just turned twelve when Colby killed him. His left sneaker was still tied, but the lace had been removed from his right one. A red shoelace.”

  She sat back in her chair. “There are three others there, but I won’t go in depth into those victims. You’ll probably connect them yourself if you study the objects.”

  “Yes.” Griffin leaned on his elbows, staring down at the line of trinkets. “I’m sure I will.”

  “Trophies, Griffin. Trophies we never found when Colby was caught and sent to prison.”

  “Where did you get them?”

  “Sheila Hunter’s houseboat. Colby set them around the place to give me a shock and put a signature to Sheila Hunter’s killing.”

  He frowned. “I didn’t see them.”

  “Because her lover got nervous and scooped up everything in sight and made off with it. I just retrieved it.”

  He looked at the bruises on her face. “At some cost.”

  “Yes. It could have been worse.” She smiled faintly. “I had a fall, but I survived it.”

  His gaze went back to the objects before him. “Authentic?”