Blink of an Eye

by Roy Johansen

  She was already walking toward him. “No, I haven’t changed my mind.” She sat down on the bed. “Move over, damn you. I won’t be long; I just have to get this out. It’s been building all day and then you gave me that speech and marched off. Which will probably make certain I get no sleep until I get this straightened out.”

  Lynch didn’t move. “I know this isn’t a seduction. Is it an apology?”

  “No. Maybe. It could be an explanation.”

  “Then by all means, go for it.”

  “Everything you said was true. But that only makes it more confusing for me.” Her hand was clenching the sheet. “I went through hell while you were down in those gutters today. I knew you were going to die and there was nothing I could do about it. Then a miracle happened, and you lived through it. But when I saw you lying there unconscious with your head covered in blood, I thought it was only a matter of time.”

  “I told you that it wasn’t serious.”

  “And I was supposed to believe you?” She reached out and yanked down the sheet to bare his naked abdomen. “When I’ve seen every one of those scars you received over the years from all those terrorists and murderers who targeted you. You’ve even joked about some of them.”

  “It’s either that or plastic surgery. Scalpels terrify me.”

  “See? Shut up. I have to get this out. And then you ignored what had happened to you and I had to do that, too.”

  “We had no choice.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that?” she asked fiercely. “You were great today, magnificent, no one could have done it better. Anyone else would have been dead. That’s why they keep sending for you when no one else can do the job. That’s why they’ll always send for you. You’re unique, Lynch.”

  “How nice to be appreciated.”

  “I didn’t want you to think that I wasn’t grateful and didn’t realize that we’re lucky to have you.” She was trying to smile. “But perhaps I’m not as unique as you are because I’m having trouble adjusting to all the blood and having to chase after you to get you to go to a hospital. Which leads me to the thought that I’m probably not suited to a relationship with you.” She shook her head ruefully. “You knew this was coming. We’re really nothing alike. And I don’t know why you’d want a relationship with me, either.”

  “Sex, amusement, respect, admiration, mental stimulation.” He reached out and touched her lips with his index finger. “And several other facets of character and philosophy that are gradually leading us both to deeper and more mysterious places to explore. I could name a few dozen others if you like.” He added softly, “But not now. Truce, Kendra. Let everything else go. I promise we’ll settle everything later when we’re not walking an emotional tightrope.”

  She nodded jerkily. “I didn’t come in here to back you into a corner on any level. After risking your life in that hideous fiasco today, I thought you deserved honesty and everything to be clear between us.” She got to her feet. “That’s all I’ve got to say. Go to sleep.” She bent down and brushed her lips over the cut on his temple. “But you’re right, I probably will come and check on you sometime during the night. I wouldn’t want to waste the effort I put in dragging you to that ER.”

  “You notice I let you do it.” He cupped her face in his two hands and pulled her down and kissed her, long and hard. “That’s called compromise and might be the beginning of something truly exceptional.” He pushed her away. “Now go get some sleep yourself unless you’ve changed your mind about the seduction. I can always be persuaded…”

  “I know you can.” She smiled as she headed for the door. “Good night.”

  “It’s going to be a good day, Kendra,” he called after her. “Today was pure hell but things are going to start to go right. Dee is out there, still alive. We’re going to find a way to get to her, and it’s going to start when we hit the ground running.”

  She looked back at him over her shoulder. He had absolutely nothing on which to base what he was saying after the defeats they’d suffered lately. But as she gazed at him, in that moment he appeared everything that was strong, powerful, with an iron-hard determination. They were both intelligent and innovative. Why shouldn’t it be true? They could do this. She smiled at him. “I believe you.”

  * * *

  A few hours later, Lynch woke to hear the front door slam and then low conversation. It must be Jessie coming home, he thought drowsily because silence followed almost immediately.

  Almost.

  Because there were other sounds coming from the direction of the living room. Who? Why? He wasn’t going to sleep until he found out.

  He got out of bed and slipped on his pants and padded barefoot down the hall. He stood in the doorway of the living room to find Kendra connecting her laptop’s audio output to Jessie’s stereo system.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “You’re not supposed to be awake.” Kendra looked guiltily over her shoulder. “Go back to bed.”

  “I’ve had enough sleep. You know I don’t require much. And I was curious when I heard you rattling around in here.”

  “I don’t rattle. I thought I was being quiet.”

  He shook his head. “No way.”

  “Well, not everyone is black-ops-trained to notice if someone isn’t absolutely silent.” He was looking at her, waiting, and she shrugged resignedly. “Okay, I couldn’t sleep. Jessie came in exhausted and discouraged because the lab techs hadn’t gotten anywhere on the audio of our phone call with the kidnapper. After she went to bed, I decided I’d work on the audio and see what I could come up with. I have a little experience in that area.”

  “The FBI has an entire lab for this kind of thing. If you wanted to work on it, why didn’t you join Jessie and the audio techs there?”

  “Jessie was so hopeful that they’d come up with something wonderful. I was hoping, too. But it hasn’t happened yet and I’m getting impatient.”

  He gazed at her speculatively. “And that’s the only reason?”

  She hesitated and then shrugged. “This is all so bad for Jessie. Dee is special to her in so many ways. She needed something to keep her busy, occupy her mind, and give her that hope.”

  “And I bet you didn’t mention that you knew a ‘little’ in the area of audio?”

  “I’m not an expert like those techs.” She made a face. “But you know I tend to step in and take over when I get involved. I was trying not to be pushy.” She smiled. “But someone recently told me this was going to be a good day. I thought I’d help it along a little. I’m more comfortable working with my own gear. And there’s a limit to what they can do with their forensic tools. I figure it can’t hurt to take another approach.” She turned back to her laptop and loaded the audio file into her laptop’s Pro Tools audio program. “I need to listen to this conversation again. I have a gnawing feeling about something…”

  “About what?”

  “I’m almost positive Dee is being held by a woman.”

  Lynch stared at her for a moment. “Really?”

  She nodded. “I think we were talking to a woman yesterday morning. And she’s most likely wherever Dee is, since she was very quick to come back with the answer to Jessie’s question.”

  “How could you tell? The voice was electronically altered.”

  “You’re right, it was. But not enough to mask some very specific speech patterns. Women’s pitch often rises at the ends of sentences, almost like when we ask questions. Men’s voices go lower, like when we make definitive statements.”

  “I never realized that,” Lynch said.

  “Well, you should. You do it more than just about any man I know.”

  “Great. Now I’ll be self-conscious about every sentence that comes out of my mouth.”

  “You’ll get over it. Supremely confident men always do.”

  “You’re not making me feel any better.”

  “Women also tend to use more intensifiers in their speech, adding very and so mo
re than men do.”

  “That is so very interesting.”

  “Funny. Women also tend to be more linguistically precise than men. They’re less likely to drop g’s at the end of their words. And they’re far more likely to use whom correctly in a sentence than a man.”

  “Your years in the dark told you all this?”

  “Maybe subconsciously. When you’re blind, how people speak becomes much more important in how you size them up.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I’m also sensitive to it because of my music therapy work. Some autistic patients respond better to certain vocal patterns than others, just like they respond differently to various types of music.”

  She placed her hand over the laptop keyboard. “Listen to the telephone conversation and see if what I just told you doesn’t line up with what you hear.”

  Kendra played the recording, which began just a few seconds after she’d picked up the call to her cell phone.

  Lynch nodded and smiled as almost every one of the gender indicators was ticked off in the caller’s heavily altered speech.

  Kendra paused the recording. “See what I mean?”

  “Yes. Right on target.”

  “In most cases it’s impossible to reconstruct an electronically altered voice because too much information is discarded. But knowing it’s a woman, we can raise the pitch and maybe try out a few options.”

  Kendra’s hands flew over her keyboard and moved a few of the on-screen sliders. She restarted the recording, and this time the voice clearly sounded like a woman.

  “That’s amazing,” Lynch said.

  “We have no way of knowing if it’s really her pitch, but it’s a start.” Kendra pushed more sliders and tried again. The voice was still recognizably feminine, but now slightly lower in tone.

  “Nice. Does this tell you anything helpful about her?”

  “Hard to say. Electronic filters strip away so much of the voice’s character. Even if I happened to get the pitch right, we’re still missing a lot of what might make her voice and dialect unique. Hopefully they’ll have better luck with that at the AV lab.” She listened for another moment. “Wait a minute. There was something else there. Something mechanical…”

  “I didn’t hear it.”

  “Sure you did. You just weren’t paying attention.”

  She moved some sliders on the on-screen equalizer to filter out the vocals. She raised the volume, and they both listened to a low droning sound.

  “It’s an engine of some kind,” Lynch said.

  “But what kind?”

  She moved the cursor back and created a seven-second loop of the sound so that it played continuously. She placed her ear close to the speaker. “It isn’t a car. And I don’t think it’s a truck.”

  “Forklift?”

  “Maybe. It’s still being affected by the voice-changing tech, but the pitch may now be closer to the real thing. It sounds familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.” She listened for another moment before picking up her phone. “I’ll call Kelland. Maybe the AV lab has some thoughts.”

  * * *

  “We’re on it,” Kelland said after Kendra brought him up to speed on her audio discoveries. “Our sound guy thinks it may be a tractor.”

  “I disagree.”

  “He’s pretty good, Kendra.”

  “I’m sure he is, but I don’t believe it’s a tractor.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know.” She listened as the audio loop continued to play on her laptop. “But most tractors have an edgier, harsher sound. Tell your sound guy what I told you about the voice being a woman’s. Tell him to raise the pitch and give it another listen.”

  “Sure. But in the meantime, we’re sending agents to every farm in a hundred-mile radius.”

  She sighed. “You may be wasting your resources.”

  For the first time, she heard him speak in an annoyed tone. “Until I get something more concrete from you, this is how we’re playing it, Kendra.”

  “Understood. Did your techs get anything else off that recording?”

  “Not really.” His tone softened, as if he’d suddenly become aware of his harshness. “They didn’t even pick up on it being a woman, so thanks for that. We sent a copy off to Washington, so they may have something for us.”

  “Good. Thanks, Kelland. I’ll see you in the morning.” She turned back to Lynch. “He’s very stubborn.”

  “Amazing. Know anyone else like that?”

  “Shut up.” She was frowning. “And you should go back to bed. You may not usually need to sleep, but you know that doctor said you should get extra rest.”

  “Are you going to bed?”

  “Not yet. I’m going to see if I can come up with anything else.”

  “Then I’ll hang out and keep you company.” He dropped down on the easy chair and draped his legs over the arm. “When you decide to give it up, I’ll go back to bed.”

  And he probably thought that would be sooner rather than later since she’d practically ordered him to go back to bed. His eyes were twinkling with mischief. He was naked to below the waist and his feet were also bare as he idly swung one back and forth over the chair arm. He was everything that was teasing and arrogant and sexual at this moment.

  But he was not going to get what he wanted this time. “Do what you like.” She started to play the audio again. “If you go to sleep, I’ll cover you with that throw from the couch…”

  * * *

  8:05 A.M.

  “Lynch and I are out of here, Jessie.” Kendra came into her bedroom. “We’re on our way back down to the FBI headquarters.”

  “You heard from Kelland?” Jessie sat up straight in bed. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “No, we didn’t hear from Kelland.” She grimaced. “Well, not about the ransom drop. I did talk to him about some work on the audio I did after you came home last night. We agreed that maybe I’d made a little progress on it. Nothing earth shaking. I’ll call after we’re on the road and tell you about it. But Lynch is impatient to get back and make sure nothing goes wrong with the ransom setup this time. He wants to make sure Noah is toeing the line.” She shook her head. “I’ll be doing well if I can keep him from volunteering to do the delivery again. I told him that would be a disaster. He’s the last person those goons want to see again.”

  Jessie jumped out of bed. “I’ll be right with you.”

  Kendra shook her head. “You only got to sleep a few hours ago. Come a little later. I’ll call and let you know if we hear anything. We spent hours yesterday just waiting around for them to contact us.” She turned to go. “It’s going to be okay to slow down and just think, Jessie, and not let them dangle us like puppets. That’s why I decided to do a little work myself on those audio recordings. I knew it would make me feel as if I had a little control of the situation. I needed that feeling. Lynch has me convinced that today is going to be a good day.”

  “Now he’s just got to convince me,” Jessie said wryly.

  But Kendra had already left the room.

  And there was no way that Jessie could go back to sleep. She waited fifteen minutes and then called Kendra to find out what on earth she’d been talking about regarding the audio work she’d done last night. When she hung up, it was with mixed feelings of admiration and depression. What Kendra had accomplished might not have been world shaking, but it was clever, and she’d gotten farther along than anyone else had with those audio recordings. Give her a little more time and there was no telling what she would put together. Jessie slowly headed for the shower. She was tempted to ignore Kendra’s advice and just follow them to the FBI office; she felt almost compelled to be there, like the puppets Kendra had called them. The only break had been when Jessie had been in the AV lab watching them trying to put together the calls. That had felt different, as if she was close to accomplishing something. Still, she’d really only been an observer while Kendra had changed the dynamic and
actually reached out and started to bring the process under control. Now it was clear Jessie wasn’t needed and Kelland, the techs, and Kendra would be able to move forward quite well without her. Which meant sitting around and waiting again. More puppet work.

  To hell with that, she told herself impatiently as she jumped out of the shower. As Kendra had said, taking control of the situation was everything. So go down another road and make it her own.

  She was reaching for her phone and punching in Colin Parks’s number while she finished drying off. The call went to voicemail, so she dialed again. “Answer me, Parks. I need you, dammit.”

  He picked up. “You always knew how to push my buttons, Jessie.” He was clearly smothering a yawn. “How could I resist a message like that? In all these years I don’t remember you ever telling anyone you needed them.”

  “Then you should have answered me the first time. Meet me at Dee’s house and bring the video and audio surveillance recordings that you had your guy copy from there.”

  Silence. “Copy? I turned over the originals to Kelland the minute the FBI was called into the case.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But not before you had them copied so that you could study them yourself. You wouldn’t interfere with the case, but you lost two men that night plus your client. I know you too well. The first thing you’d do would be to go on the hunt yourself.”

  “Just as you would.” He paused. “I wouldn’t withhold evidence. I went over those tapes with a fine-tooth comb and there wasn’t anything on the copies that Kelland doesn’t have.”

  “Different people sometimes see different things. All I want is to examine the tapes at the sites where they were taken and see if I can notice…” She broke off and then started again, “Look, you want me to say I need your help again? I’ll do it. You have to know after yesterday that things aren’t going well for us.”

  “Understatement. I actually felt sorry for Kelland.” He added gloomily, “What am I saying? He’ll at least be able to get a job. I’m not sure I will. My other clients are abandoning me like a sinking ship. They don’t believe I can protect them.” He hesitated and then said gruffly, “Okay. I’ll meet you at Dee’s, but you’re not going to find anything that I didn’t.”