Blinded

by Teyla Branton

  I hurried down the path, my muscles still aching, though the pain was easing now in my face and kidney. Maybe I was only bruised.

  “Look, we have to call the police and an ambulance,” I said, pausing at a fork in the path. The forest had completely taken over now, with no flowers or manicured bushes, which must mean we’d left the private property.

  “Go right,” Easton said.

  Fine, I’d go right. “So, how’d you find me anyway?”

  “I followed you.” He smirked when I glanced back at him. “I slipped a GPS into your purse at my lab, and I followed the signal. I saw you get in the van with those guys.”

  “You didn’t call the police?” The doctor had to be absolutely nuts.

  “I thought you knew them. You all seemed kind of cozy.”

  It was all I could do not to slap him. Easy, I told myself. I needed his car to get Cody and Ralph out of here.

  A few minutes more and his cream-colored sedan was in sight through a break in the trees and bushes. Relief flooded me. I was directionally impaired, but a road and a car meant I could get to safety. Once I called the police.

  I hurried until I was about ten feet from the car—and stopped.

  “Keep going,” he said.

  I turned around. “No.”

  He scowled. “I’ll shoot. Don’t think that I won’t.”

  “Look, I’ll do your tests when all this is over because I want answers, but it will be on my terms. That is if I don’t hand you over to the police.” I strode toward him.

  “Stop!” he demanded, retreating a few steps.

  “No.” Reaching out, I yanked the .22 from his grasp. “Now give me your phone.”

  He reached into his pocket and handed it over, looking miserable. I wished I had time to give him something to look really miserable over, but I had none to waste.

  I dialed Shannon’s number. No answer. I didn’t know if he was busy or if he didn’t pick up because he didn’t recognize the number. I tried Paige next, but her phone went to voicemail, a sure sign she was using it.

  “Get in. You drive,” I said. On the way to wherever I decided to go, I’d call 911 and text Shannon. I couldn’t risk going back in to help Cody and Ralph alone—not until I’d notified someone in authority.

  “Someone’s coming.” Easton dived for the door of his car.

  The road was narrow and close enough to O’Donald’s house that I felt the same nervousness—until I saw the marked-up BMW.

  Ace. Finally he’d used some of those detective skills he claimed to have. I didn’t really like the man, but he was better than Easton for company. At least he’d never tried to abduct me.

  He pulled over and rolled down the window, giving me his secretive grin. “I see you’ve been fighting again,” he said lazily, as if we had all the time in the world. “Your face is kind of banged up. Tsk, tsk. Interesting what you’ve done to your skirt. I think the uneven hem suits you.”

  I didn’t bother glancing down. “Took you long enough to get here. I was beginning to think you didn’t see the men take us. I mean, you were there. You had to see something. Why were you at the theater anyway?”

  Ace gave me his usual grin. “You’re not the only one who works with cops.”

  “Where’d they put the taxi driver? I thought I’d heard him in the trunk of the taxi.”

  “He was. They’d knocked him out, but he’s okay.”

  That was a relief.

  “So,” Ace drawled, “what’s going on here? I mean besides O’Donald kidnapping you?” That he knew it was O’Donald said something more for his detective skills.

  “I have to get Shannon here.”

  “Already called him when I saw where they’d brought you. He should be there soon. Maybe they’re at the house already.”

  “What about an ambulance?” I asked. “Ralph’s having a heart attack. He needs help the second Shannon cleans out O’Donald’s men.”

  Ace reached in his pants pocket for his phone and his thin fingers flew over the surface. A second later, the phone vibrated with an incoming message. “Okay. Ambulance on the way.”

  I relaxed, though part of me rejected that the end should come so quickly and easily after all my bruises and scrapes. Well, it wasn’t over exactly, not until Cody, Ralph, and Winston were safe. Even then we still needed to find Bridger—or his body, most likely.

  Ace climbed from his car and jerked his head at Easton. “Who’s he?”

  I looked to see Easton patting himself down—probably in search of his car keys. “You don’t want to know,” I said. “Easton, come here.”

  Reluctantly, Easton sidled over, cowering like a dog before a spiteful master. He nodded at Ace, who nodded back. “Look, I’m not a part of this,” Easton said. “I just want to leave.”

  “You should have thought of that before,” I retorted.

  Easton scowled. “I wanted to do more tests before you get your ability back—and without Cody breathing down my neck. I’ve never had this opportunity before.”

  “Ability back?” Ace asked. Then he laughed. “So that’s why you weren’t touching things. Hah, maybe now I can solve a few cases for the police instead of you stealing my bread and butter out from under me.”

  I hadn’t realized I’d been doing that, but I guess maybe I had. Some cases I only needed to read one object to point officers in the right direction. From there, the guilty usually trapped themselves.

  Without warning, Easton grabbed his phone from my hand and darted across the street, vanishing into the woods.

  “That was weird.” I wasn’t sure if I was more surprised that he’d chosen the phone instead of the pistol or that he’d acted at all.

  Ace shrugged. “We don’t need him.” He glanced at the gun. “I see you’ve picked up a toy.”

  “Not mine. Easton’s. Look, come back to the house with me. I have to check on Ralph.”

  Ace’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you mean Cody, your father?”

  Why would Ace be digging into my background? “Cody’s not my father in any way except biologically. But yes, I do feel a responsibility toward him.” I was lying, of course. There was more between us now. I couldn’t forget that he’d dropped everything to come help me. I couldn’t forget the baby clothes.

  Ace frowned. “Okay, but we go in slow. If we don’t have a good shot, we wait for backup.”

  “You said yourself Shannon was on his way.”

  “Are you sure we shouldn’t wait for him?”

  “I’m sure.” I couldn’t trust Cody’s life to any possible delay. Even now Frankie Jay might be taking his anger out on him.

  Ace’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen before answering. “Ace here.” He paused. “Yes. No worries. She’s here with me. Yes, of course I’ll take care of her.” He hung up and grinned. “Your boyfriend’s very possessive.”

  “That was Shannon? Why didn’t you let me talk to him?”

  “Oh, sorry. Didn’t think about it.” He shrugged and started forward. “Come on, get in the car. I think I saw a better way back down the street to enter the property. No one will even know we’re there.”

  That was what he’d said the last time we’d worked together, right before he’d almost gotten us both killed. I should probably rethink going in with him, but my worry for Cody was building.

  We drove up the road, the BMW inching along. “It’s somewhere up here,” Ace said. “There.” He came to a stop, just as I heard a clunk coming from the direction of his trunk. Had the back tires rolled over something? I listened, but I didn’t hear anything further.

  I took the opportunity to check Easton’s gun. Both the chamber and the magazine were empty. “It figures,” I mumbled as I tossed the gun into Ace’s dashboard. “What a loser.”

  “Hey, careful with my car.” Ace turned off the engine and reached for the gun as I opened my door. He was welcome to the useless piece of junk.

  We slipped through the woods, ears straining. Ace found a path through th
e forest that soon gave way to a garden that led to the guesthouse, but there was no movement around the building and the front door gaped open. I crouched behind a bush with Ace, wondering what to do next. The sinking feeling in my gut was now telling me Cody was in danger.

  Wait, was that a connection I felt to Cody? Like the one I shared with my sister?

  No, it couldn’t be. I’d never felt that with Cody before, only my parents and Tawnia. But something was there. Something faint, tugging at my chest, like an invisible cord. I stared at the gloves. Could that mean my ability had returned?

  Well, it didn’t matter, not now. I needed to find Cody.

  “Ace, I think . . .” I looked around, but Ace was gone.

  I hadn’t heard him cry out, so he must have gone on ahead and not realized that I hadn’t followed. A brief movement from the side of the main house drew my attention. Had Ace found a way in? Keeping hunched, I ran that way. The garden was elaborately cultivated in back of the mansion, with fewer trees and several wide expanses of lawn. I hoped no one would look out a window and spy me slipping across the open places to the side of the mansion where a lilac bush promised concealment.

  I almost tripped over the leg before I saw it. Worn jeans, caked with blood. The rest of the body hidden behind the greenery. Everything motionless. I crept forward cautiously.

  Rounding the bush, I saw Bridger Philpot sprawled, eyes shut but his chest faintly moving. Gray patterned cloth that I recognized as the shirt he’d worn at the estate sale wrapped his upper leg and also wound around his middle. One of his eyes was swollen and black.

  What on earth is he doing here? My only idea was that they’d brought him here like us, and he’d escaped, though how that was possible in his condition, I didn’t know.

  His eyes clicked opened, changing from resignation to hopefulness as he focused on my face. “Autumn Rain?”

  I nodded. “Bridger Philpot?”

  His turn to nod.

  I knelt down by him, smelling coppery blood and unwashed male body. Up close, he looked every one of his fifty-odd years, except for the scruffy hair that was still mostly black. His face was haggard and his body thin to the point of emaciation.

  “Ralph Shatlock told me you’d been shot,” I said, “but how’d you get here?”

  “We were outside the theater and saw Winston arrive,” he said, his voice weak. “Ralph was heading inside with the hard drive while I kept watch. When they enticed the taxi driver away on some pretense and went after Ralph, I yelled a warning. They shot me. Had a silencer. No one even noticed.” He barked a low laugh that sounded too moist to be healthy. “Ralph was banging that hard drive on the ground, breaking it open. That’s what people stared at. Did he manage to destroy it?”

  I nodded. “What happened after you were shot?”

  “They put me in the taxi trunk. Probably thought I was dead. But they build ’em with releases now, and as soon as I came to, I got out. They’d even left the keys. I knew this is where they’d come, so I drove here to help Ralph.”

  Bridger drew himself up on an elbow, and gave me a thin grin. “Turns out, I’m not much help. I could only get this far.”

  “The police are on their way. Just sit tight.”

  Bridger fell back onto the grass, his eyes flickering shut, his mouth clenched in pain. “If I’d known then what I know now, I would have done things so much differently.” His words ended in a half sob.

  “I’ve met your wife.” It was the only thing I could think to say to him that might help. “Several times in fact. She’s a lovely woman.”

  His eyes closed. “She’s the only reason I keep going, but I don’t even know if she’ll take me back after what I’ve done.”

  I didn’t know enough of what he’d been through to answer that, though I suspected Claire would be willing to listen to his reasons. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Look, I’m going to try to find my friends, but I’ll be back, okay? There’s an ambulance on the way. You’re going to be just fine.”

  His hand shot out to stop me, his eyes opening. “I want—if I don’t make it, can you tell my wife I did it for us? To keep our family safe?”

  “From O’Donald?”

  Bridger shook his head. “Tarragon. He’s working with O’Donald now, but he wasn’t then.” He shut his eyes momentarily with his pain.

  “This has to do with Hamilton’s scientists who died, doesn’t it?” I glanced at the mansion, hoping any minute to hear Shannon or Paige. What was taking them so long?

  “Tarragon was going to steal information from them and have me patent it to legitimize his claim. But I followed him to New York and confronted him. He threatened my family if I didn’t go along.”

  It was a terrible moral dilemma, and I could tell he still agonized over his choices. “But you interfered anyway.”

  “The scientists still died.” His voice sounded forlorn. “And Tarragon knew it was me who called the Coast Guard.”

  “That’s when you came up with the idea of dying?”

  He nodded. “I figured it wouldn’t take more than six months to get enough dirt to bury them, and I could come home.” He swiped a thin hand across his face.

  Except his planned six months had stretched to three long years. Would I have been willing to stay away that long to protect my family? Yes, I decided. You did what you had to do, and my experiences with Russo had taught me that men like him and Tarragon didn’t flinch at taking revenge.

  “How did O’Donald get involved?”

  “He contacted Tarragon a few months ago, and I knew this was what I’d been waiting for. They were planning something, and I was going to nail them.” His brow furrowed. “Oddly enough, I think their connection has something to do with Winston Drewmore, though I’m not sure what exactly. Maybe the kid sold out his cousin.”

  “Mother,” I said. “JoAnna Hamilton is his mother, not his grandmother’s cousin. O’Donald is his father.”

  Bridger’s good eye blinked. “That explains why you’re all still alive.”

  I hoped he was right and that everyone was still alive. “And that explains why you were at the estate sale yesterday.”

  “I was following Winston. I thought he’d be going to see O’Donald again. Didn’t take me long to see that they were following you around.” He gave a dry chuckle. “Made it easier for me, especially inside that house. I just went wherever you were, and I knew they’d show up. But I didn’t learn anything.”

  “As far as I can tell, Winston knew nothing about his father’s plans. He wants a relationship.”

  “Poor kid,” Bridger muttered. “Look, tell my wife that I—”

  “No. You tell her yourself.”

  He frowned, and I glared back at him. “You can go the distance. I heard you have a new grandson. You’ll want to meet him. You’ve come too far to give up now.”

  He nodded, two spots of red appearing on his pale cheeks. “Thanks for the pep talk.” His voice was raw and full of pain but underlined with new determination.

  Of course there was still the very real possibility that he wouldn’t make it. The police hadn’t arrived, and my anxiety for Cody was increasing by the moment. And what had happened to Ace? “Where is Ralph’s other backup?” I asked Bridger.

  He laughed, a weak pitiful thing, but still a laugh. “You don’t know?”

  “If Ralph doesn’t know where you stashed it, how could I?”

  “Well, he does know, even if he doesn’t realize it. But I don’t think I’m going to spill it now. Not until we’re out of this place.”

  He had a point. What I didn’t know I couldn’t blab to O’Donald, not even to save Cody. Of course there was always the chance that the backup had been moved or discovered since Bridger put it away.

  I couldn’t delay any longer. “I have to go find my friends.”

  “Go ahead. I’m just going to lie here a moment and then I’ll follow you, okay?”

  “Okay.” We both knew he was going nowhere anytime soon, and
that if an ambulance didn’t arrive in the next little while, I really would have to explain to his wife what little I knew about his intentions these past three years.

  I looked at him and he returned my gaze steadily, an understanding between strangers, one we didn’t need to voice.

  “Luck,” he called as I rose to my feet and headed to a tree that grew at the corner of the mansion, stretching upwards toward an upstairs window that faced the lilac bush. The tree wasn’t close enough to get me in the window, but one of the long branches stretched sideways toward the back of the huge house, close to an upstairs balcony that ran along the entire back side. Maybe with enough luck I could reach it.

  I was about to begin climbing when a gunshot reverberated through the air.

  Chapter 21

  Abandoning my tree plan, I ran across the grass and onto the patio behind the mansion, hurtling over a cast iron chair that was in my way. I finally reached the back door, pausing only briefly to yank it open. More shots rang out through the once quiet evening.

  Belatedly, I wondered what I would do if a thug with a gun was on the other side of the door, but by then it was too late. I was moving on instinct to find Cody, following the very thin connection I knew I was probably imagining.

  There was no thug. Only a deserted kitchen the size of a small restaurant and beyond that a doorway to an elaborate dining room where I finally found Cody crouching behind a long wooden table he’d turned over for protection. An inert Ralph lay to one side. Cody was shooting at Frankie Jay, who occasionally fired back from another doorway on the other side of the room. The thug with the broken nose lay sprawled on the floor between Frankie Jay and the table.

  I pressed myself against the wall by the door, inching my way across the kitchen. I had no idea where Winston and O’Donald were, but the click of the gun Cody must have borrowed from the fallen thug told me he was out of ammo.

  Frankie Jay laughed. “Guess that’s it, old man.”