Double Vision (15 page)

R
ina walked through the sunlit house with Baby, her movements stiff and slow, courtesy of the eggshell tenderness of her head, as she refamiliarized herself with the rooms.

Being able to see was powerful and overwhelming, the light almost too much for her eyes, even with dark glasses. She would find herself staring, her mind frozen, the sensory overload too much when for years she had been trained to use every sense but sight. Even the simple motion of walking felt strange. She was used to memorizing her routes and counting out steps, her movement through a space a three-dimensional calculation. When she reached for her toothbrush she knew exactly how far to extend her hand from her body, and the small downward motion required before she could grasp the handle of the toothbrush. Everything was placed where it always was, but she kept missing her objective, her mind caught between two systems.

This morning when she had made herself a hot drink, despite the fact that the jug was in its usual position and she could
see
it, she had somehow managed to miscalculate and burn her fingers. If she had closed her eyes, the accident wouldn't have happened.

She paused in the sitting room and stared at the bookshelves that lined one entire wall. She picked a book at random and opened it to a page. With an effort she could identify individual words, but it was like learning a foreign language; en masse the words were a jumble. The difficulty she was having with the written word posed an unexpected problem. She wanted visual stimulus and, if possible, evidence, but if she couldn't understand the written word, searching Alex's files was going to be that much more difficult.

Flipping the book closed, she slid it back into its place on the shelf. The gold lettering on the spine caught her eye, a date, 1500. Somehow, numbers were easier; her mind grabbed them, no questions asked. She concentrated on the writing above the date, Ferdinand of Aragon. It was a book on Spanish history. She checked books at random, and several more turned out to be history tomes: English, Spanish, French and South American. Some of the material appeared to be written in Latin. There were a large number of books on the Second World War and Nazi Germany. She frowned. The amount of historical reference material Alex owned was substantial and some of the subject matter was surprising. He had never once indicated he had any interest in history. If he talked about anything at all besides business, it was usually art or current events.

The sound of a door closing alerted her. Alex had been at home most of the day to keep an eye on her, he'd said. To make sure she didn't have any more accidents.

Rina had stayed in bed and pretended to rest. When Alex had left for a meeting, she had managed to search his private suite, but she hadn't yet got into his study.

Slipping into the soft easy chair closest to the bookshelves, she ordered Baby to lie down, then eased her head onto the rest and pretended to be dozing.

Alex paused at the door to the sitting room. Gaze concealed behind the lenses of her dark glasses, she stared at an empty space somewhere in the region of his left shoulder and repressed a shudder. She hadn't looked into his eyes. If she did that he would know.

Sometime during the afternoon he had changed from casual clothes into a suit. According to Therese, he had a meeting this evening, which meant he should be out of the house for at least an hour.

When he left just minutes later, Rina walked toward Alex's study. When she stepped through the door, she closed Baby out. “Sorry, boy, you can't come in here.”

Letting Baby into Alex's personal space was the equivalent of leaving a calling card. If he smelled dog or found a dog hair, he would know she had been there.

Thirty minutes later she gave up on trying to access his computer. She was used to a voice-activated system with Braille keys. English type and the garish color pulsing from the screen were beyond her. She concentrated on searching his desk drawers. The top one was filled with pens and notepaper. As she slid the drawer closed, the light caught on an indentation in a notepad. Pulling the pad out, she stared at the blank page.

The notepad was in the water…ink smeared, numbers dissolving.

For a moment she hovered on the brink, then the wisp of memory slipped away.

Frowning, she slanted the pad so the light picked out the indentation. She sat down at the keyboard and entered the series of indented numbers and letters. The password wasn't accepted. Almost an hour later, after searching through every file she could find, she checked her watch. She was out of time. Apart from the moment with the notepad, nothing had stimulated her to remember anything more, and she hadn't found anything that looked remotely useful as evidence. If Alex kept details of his criminal activities, they were either in computer files, or kept elsewhere.

As she pushed to her feet, a tiny glowing light caught her attention. Adrenaline pumped. A discreetly placed video camera was situated in the corner, aimed directly at her. Whether Alex found out she was snooping in his office or not was no longer the question, it was when; she had been on camera all along.

Tires crunched on gravel.

Ripping the top two sheets off the notepad, she shoved them in her pocket and replaced the pad in the drawer. She closed down the computer, positioned the chair where it had been, walked from the room and collected Baby.

Seconds later, Alex paused by her office door. “I thought you would be in bed.”

Rina slipped off the earphones of her voice computer and swung around on her swivel chair as she normally would. Keeping her head up and her gaze straight ahead, she stared past his shoulder. “I get tired of lying down. My head aches just the same sitting up.”

“If you need anything, buzz Therese. She's staying on late tonight to make sure you're okay. I've got one more meeting.”

She forced a smile and tried to slip back into the groove of being the resigned half of a dysfunctional married couple. “Don't worry. When I'm finished here I'm going straight to bed. I didn't get much sleep last night—doctor's orders. Will you be late?”

Her skin crawled as he studied her face. He seemed fascinated by the cut on her temple. The butterfly plaster was still in place, but the split skin was visible on either side. Combined with the bruising, it wasn't a pretty picture, and it would scar. “Not tonight. It shouldn't take more than an hour.”

She smothered a yawn and didn't have to manufacture a wince when the movement of her facial muscles pulled at the cut and the bruised areas. “Then I'll probably see you in the morning.”

She listened to the sounds he made as he walked upstairs to his suite. Minutes later, the front door closed behind him. She waited until she heard the sound of his car leaving, then headed back to his study to see if the series of numbers that had been indented on the notepad would open his wall safe.

An hour later, after giving up on the safe combination, searching his trash can and even his adjoining bathroom, Rina walked back out to the sitting room looking for Baby. A cold prickling at her nape warned her. She spun, but not soon enough to avoid the blow.

D
ully, Rina heard Baby growl. He was crouched low, his gaze fixed on Alex. Holding her nose, Rina pushed to her knees in time to see Alex lash out at Baby with one booted foot.

Moving a step back toward the open French doors, he lifted a gun and trained it on Rina. “You can see.”

Baby growled, stalking forward. The barrel of the gun swung toward Baby's head. Movement out on the patio flickered. A large figure charged through the open French doors.

Cesar's gaze locked with Rina's.
“Get down.”

The first slug caught him square in the chest. Cesar attacked Alex with a grunting roar. The second shot sliced past Rina's ear, close enough that she felt the pressure wave.

The two men grappled and went down. The gun skidded across the floor.

Rina lunged at the weapon. The gun felt unexpectedly heavy and warm in her grip. A chill gripped her as Alex rose to his feet, the movement fluid.

Cesar wasn't moving. Grief clawed at her and her hands shook, but she kept the gun steady. She had never fired a weapon, she could only hope that the gun worked when she pulled the trigger, because there was no doubt in her mind that she was going to have to shoot Alex.

The smell of blood filled the room, some of it hers, most of it Cesar's, and it was having its effect on Baby. His muzzle was peeled back from his teeth, a low vibration issuing from his chest.

Baby crept closer to Alex. Alex glanced at the gun Rina held in her hands. For the split second he stared at the weapon, she had the uncanny notion that he didn't register the threat, that she herself was close to invisible, without substance: unimportant. He had gotten so used to walking all over her that he didn't believe she would have the guts to pull the trigger.

She kept the barrel of the gun trained steadily on his chest. Alex wasn't a tall, bulky man, but he had always kept in good shape, and that was never more in evidence than now. In a black T-shirt and black pants, his skin tanned, his hair cut neatly against his skull, he looked sinewy and powerful. Without the business suit and the persona that went with it, there was an animalistic quality about the man who stood in front of her, and she wondered that she could ever have missed it, no matter how “blind” she had been.

With a curious, flickering smile, Alex stepped over Cesar's sprawled form. In that moment Baby lunged, a streak of gold fur and muscle. With a ferocious baying he engaged, his teeth sinking into the arm Alex instinctively flung out.

With a muffled grunt, Alex attempted to physically pry Baby's mouth open with his free hand and break his grip. Blood flowed down his wrist and coated the back of his hand. With a short, vicious kick, he shook Baby off.

The thump of helicopter blades jerked Alex's head around. Lights strobed across the patio. In the distance, gunfire erupted. His gaze fastened on hers, cold, calculating. A split second later he was gone.

Rina kept the gun pointed at the open door. Baby crept toward the place Alex had been, teeth still bared, instinctively avoiding Cesar's body. Rina stared at Cesar. He was dead. There was no mistaking the complete lack of animation.

The whine of the helicopter reached a crescendo as it lifted off. Grief sliced through the stasis that gripped her. For a split second, when he'd come through the door, Cesar had been the father she had known as a child, big and rambunctious and protective. To intervene like that, he must have known what Alex had intended. If he hadn't charged in and knocked the gun out of Alex's hand, she wouldn't have had a chance. Alex would have shot Baby and dragged her onto the helicopter with him.

The sound of the helicopter faded. She let her arms drop so that the gun was pointing at the floor. If Alex had taken her with him, she would have been dead. Not soon, perhaps not for weeks or even months, but eventually. He would have tortured her until her mind gave up what he wanted. Once he had the numbers, and the money, he would have killed her.

Baby growled. The gun swung back up as if it had a life of its own. Rina called Baby to heel. Baby ignored her and every hair at the base of her neck stood on end. Now that the helicopter had gone, it was pitch-black outside. She was acutely aware of a myriad of sensory details, the thick scent of blood, the breeze flowing through the open French doors, the distant cascade of water from the fountain at the front of the house.

Someone was on the patio.

A shadow flickered. Baby launched with a bloodcurdling baying. Glass shattered as his shoulder caught one of the partially open doors and flung it wide. A sharp oath was followed by high-pitched keening, the sound terminated by a dull thud, then a scuffling sound, which receded into the distance.

Silence closed in, thick and oddly muffled. She was having trouble retaining her focus. Her breathing was too rapid and her hands where they were wrapped around the gun were shaking.

She lowered the gun. Her nose felt swollen, she was unable to breath through it, and the back of her throat tasted of blood. A throb of black humor surfaced. She was beginning to get used to the blood.

A dark figure flowed through the open French doors. Rina froze. He was armed, a large, black handgun gripped in both hands and pointed directly at her.

For a moment she didn't recognize him, then the faint bluish glow around him registered. Something about his size and the smooth way he moved clicked into place. She hadn't seen James Thompson, or JT as Taylor had called him, up close with her physical sight before, but he was recognizable despite the flak jacket and the lip mike.

His gaze locked on hers, the impact faintly shocking. Thompson was a stranger, and male. It was an odd time for that fact to register.

“Put the gun down. On the floor.”

His voice was cold, measured. She dragged her gaze from Thompson's and stared at the gun gripped loosely in one hand. She had forgotten she was holding it.

With slow movements, she complied.

“Kick the gun under the sofa.”

The words were flat and very clear. He wanted the gun out of commission. Using the side of her foot, she nudged the gun so that it slid across the tiled floor and disappeared beneath the nearest sofa.

His gaze swept the room as he stepped around Cesar. His questions were curt. How many men had gotten on the chopper with Alex? Had Slater been one of them? Was there anyone else in the house? All while he held a separate conversation with someone on the other end of the lip mike.

His assessment of her injuries was lightning fast and clinical, but that didn't disguise the fact that he checked her out for more weapons. Dressed in sneakers, jeans and a clinging tank top, she didn't have many places to store one, although, in the world Thompson came from, maybe that was a defeatist attitude.

He checked the hallway. “Most of the security staff are concentrated at the front of the property, so we'll be going out through the kitchen. Are you okay to walk?”

“I'm fine.” Her gaze touched on Cesar. Her throat closed up. “Just give me a moment.”

Crouching beside Cesar, she touched his sleeve, brushed her fingers over the back of his hand and gripped his fingers. Abruptly, the memory she'd had of Esther holding her hand after the car accident was strong in her mind. The prayer flowed as clearly as if she was still ten years old and in church. A split second before she opened her eyes, she caught a glimpse of light floating, shimmering, then JT's hand closed around her upper arm and they were moving through the house.

JT paused at the entrance to the path that led to the garages, then pulled her to one side into a clump of shrubs. Seconds later, a shadowy form ghosted past. Rina recognized one of Alex's regular security staff.

The pressure on her arm increased, the signal to move on. As they moved behind the garages, lights flared in the house and a flat popping noise split the air.

Thompson changed direction, pulling her deeper into the shrubs and trees that bordered the river boundary.

When they reached the river, he released her. “We're going to cross. It's not deep here, but the stones are slippery. I can carry you if you can't make it.”

“I can make it.” She still couldn't breathe through her nose, but she would run if necessary.

He went first, stepping into the slow-moving water with barely a sound. Bracing herself against the chill of the water, Rina followed, taking care with her foot placement. She'd spent enough time wading on the fringes with Baby to know that the rocks were treacherous.

Baby.

Her heart almost stopped in her chest. She hadn't seen or heard Baby for a good ten minutes. She wanted to whistle, but doing that would give away their position and she wasn't about to jeopardize either herself or Thompson. Besides, after the episode with the gun, she was under no illusions that Thompson would tolerate interference of any kind.

A pale blur in the distance that could have been Baby distracted her and her foot slipped sideways on a rock. She went down on one knee, her hand shooting out, saving her from submerging completely.

Thompson's arm clamped her waist. He hauled her up and half carried her to the far bank where a chain-link fence formed the boundary of the property. Crouching down, he began clearing branches away from the wire.

Rina gripped a trailing shrub to keep from sliding down the bank. “The fence is electrified.”

“I disconnected it when I came in.”

If he'd done that the alarm should have gone off, which meant he had altered the security program at some previous point. The permutations required to bypass Alex's security so that none of the complicated series of checks and alarms had alerted the security staff was briefly mind-boggling. The “hole” in Alex's security explained how Thompson had come to be in the house the previous evening.

Peeling back a section of chain mesh, he motioned her through. Seconds later they were on the other side, the branches pulled back in place and the cut section of the fence fastened down.

The thin beam of a flashlight cut through the darkness. Thompson's hand closed around her arm and they were moving again. Long minutes later, they stepped out onto the street. A van was parked at the curb, its dark paint job making it almost invisible beneath the arching shelter of an oak.

She stopped short of the van. “Mr. Thompson—James—”

“Call me JT.”

It suited him, short and direct, not one unnecessary frill. “I need to get Baby out. I can't leave without him.”

A short dark man in an FBI jacket climbed out of the front of the van. “There's no time. We need to go.”

Gunfire erupted in the vicinity of the house.

The side door of the van slid open. A second man, this one with blond hair, touched her arm. “Come on, Rina. It's just a dog.”

Rina's jaw clenched. The blond agent was Mr. Nice Guy in the double act, unlike Attila with the cold eyes. “Baby isn't just a dog.” He had been her eyes and her lifeline. He had saved her more than once. Without Baby she wouldn't have survived Alex.

JT spoke briefly into his lip mike. He checked his watch. “I'll look.” His gaze shifted, fixing on Attila. “Wait.”

Taylor clambered out of the van. “And that's an order,” she said beneath her breath.

She wrapped a jacket around Rina's shoulders and hugged her quick and hard. “I heard about Cesar.”

Grief surged. Rina's throat clamped tight. She was aware of Attila watching her and the fact that from this point on, everything she said, every reaction, every detail of her life, past and present, was under a microscope.

When Taylor released her, Rina huddled into the jacket. Despite the mild temperature, she was cold, probably because her jeans and her sneakers were soaked.

Taylor tried to coax her into the van, where it would be warmer. Attila sent her a cold glance when she refused to get into the van until JT came back with Baby.

Moments later, JT melted out of the darkness. “I can't locate him. I've been feeding him for weeks. Unless he's with you, he comes when I call. He didn't come this time, which means he's not within hearing distance.”

And for dogs, “within hearing distance” was a long way, which meant Baby had either been forcibly removed or he was unconscious. There was a third option, but she stubbornly refused to acknowledge it. She would
know
if Baby was dead.

“Right, that's it.” Attila started the van.

Rina allowed herself to be hustled into a seat. Mr. Nice Guy, who she noticed had a not-so-nice gun jutting out of a shoulder holster, slid the door closed. Taylor fastened a safety belt across her lap as the van pulled smoothly away.

Rina glanced back. JT was no longer on the sidewalk. Since he hadn't gotten into the van that meant he must have gone back to the estate.

“Don't worry about JT, he's got other fish to fry.” Taylor settled beside her and fastened her own seat belt. “Besides, he was never coming with us. He's not FBI.”

Rina stared out of the tinted windows, scanning the streets. Baby was out there somewhere. Minutes later, as they left the outskirts of Winton, she abandoned the search and sat back in her seat. Her head was aching, her eyes hurt and her nose was sore.