Tribes of Man: The Beginning [Tribes of Man] (Siren Publishing Classic) (2 page)

He was relieved when Bryce didn’t go into details. As soon as he started talking about the tomes of the past, Gideon’s eyes started to glaze. He decided to get back to the details. “How long have you two been dating?”

“Oh, we’re not dating,” Bryce said. Gideon could almost hear him blush over the phone. “We’re just friends. I date around. You know that.”

Gideon decided to ignore that. “So what do you want me to do? If the police haven’t found anything, I don’t think I will.”

“All I want you to do is to meet her and talk to her. Maybe investigate a little. If you don’t find anything, maybe she’ll calm down.”

“So you think she’s being paranoid?” Gideon asked.

“Not necessarily,” Bryce said doubtfully. “I’ve just never seen any sign of someone watching her. Of course, I only see her a couple of times a week.” He paused. “So will you do it?”

“Sure, bro. When?” Gideon was good at making snap decisions. Many times his life depended on it.

“This afternoon?” Bryce sounded doubtful. “She has a therapy session at the hospital, but I can pick her up and come by around two?”

“How about I meet you at her house after work? I have a few meetings this afternoon, and I’d like to see the setup at her house anyway.” If he was going to check it out, he wasn’t going to do it halfway.

“Thanks. That would be great.” Bryce sounded relieved. “I’ll e-mail you her address. Is six OK?”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you then.”

After they hung up, Gideon started to type up the facts as he knew them. He’d done this many times over the four years since he’d opened Phoenix Detective Agency. This time, however, he had a weird feeling about it. His instincts were telling him that there was trouble coming. He rubbed his hand over the network of scars on the side of his face. Of course his instincts weren’t always reliable. When an image of an explosion flashed through his mind, Gideon purposely got up, grabbed the sheet out of the printer, and headed toward the door. He leaned through, handed Joanie the sheet, and said, “Get a file together, would you? I think we just caught a case.”

“Sure, boss.” When Gideon turned back into his office to work on a missing person case that seemed to be growing cold, he heard her say, “Next time, just use the intercom.”

* * * *

The sun was just beginning to set when Gideon pulled his silver Honda into the driveway at the address Bryce had sent him. The file he had on the seat beside him was already filled with the police reports, autopsy, and research on hysterical blindness. He was hoping that Raina had undergone a CAT scan or MRI while in the hospital right after the attack. After looking at Michelle’s autopsy, he had a hunch about Raina’s blindness.

The driveway was fairly steep, and Gideon had to brace his hand on his leg to help him climb up the hill. The fire had damaged the tendons and muscles in his left leg as well as scarring the side of his body. He could walk for hours, but climbing hills or stairs was torturous. When he reached the front porch, he paused again before ringing the bell. He wanted to catch his breath and pull himself together before seeing his brother. He didn’t want Bryce to know about the lingering effects of his injury. The fact that he couldn’t hide the scars on his face was bad enough.

Gideon turned to look out over the Seattle skyline. The pretty little house in Queen Anne set high enough for Gideon to see twilight settle like a blanket on the city. Seattle was no longer his city to protect and serve, but he never lost his appreciation for it. He was startled when the door opened behind him. He expected his brother to open the door and was unprepared for what he found when he turned around.

My God, she’s beautiful
.

He couldn’t stop the thought and was surprised to find that he almost said the words out loud. There was something familiar about her, but he couldn’t place it. The only thing average about her was her height. She stood a little under five and a half feet tall and had dark-brown hair that swung down in gentle curls. One long tress was startlingly white. It lay across her full breast so that the slight curl at the end seemed to hug the tip of it. Her body was lush like a woman’s should be. Her eyes were a deep ocean blue, and upon further notice, as blank and distant as slate.

“Miss Kallan?”

“Yes. You must be Bryce’s brother, Gideon. Please come in.” Raina opened the door and gestured him in. She was smiling and facing his direction as though she was looking at him. “Bryce is in the living room. Can I take your coat?”

Gideon looked at her sharply. “How do you know I have a coat?” She smiled so that a dimple appeared in her cheek. “Magic,” she said. She laughed at his silence. “OK, I figured that, since there was a possibility of snow tonight, it must be cold enough for a coat.”

Gideon felt like an ass. “Sorry,” he said as he shrugged out of his coat.

Raina just laughed again. “I wish I had seen your face when I said ‘magic.’ I bet it was priceless.”

Her laugh was contagious. Gideon chuckled.

He was amazed that she referred to her blindness so casually, and even more amazed that he wasn’t uncomfortable with it. Whenever he had to deal with someone who had a disability, he found himself trying to ignore it, yet feeling like it was the invisible elephant in the room. It was just like Bryce had said. She made him feel comfortable immediately.

“There was no mirror around, so I missed it, too, but I’m sure it was quite a sight.” As soon as he said it he realized it must have been true. Expressions that his undamaged face used to wear comfortably often looked grotesque now. The scarring on his face did the same thing it did on his leg.

She must have sensed his discomfort, because her voice became gentle as she took the coat from him. “I’ll just hang this up, and we can head down to the living room.” Before hanging his coat up, she turned and typed a code into the small box next to the door. Gideon saw the light flash from green to red. Then she turned and placed the jacket on the hook. She led the way down the long hallway toward the living room. If he hadn’t known she was blind, he never would have guessed.

He walked into the comfortable living room to find his brother sitting on the overstuffed couch, shoes off, feet on the coffee table. The rest of the room was spotless, so Gideon didn’t think Bryce had been there long. He had a way of leaving debris behind in his wake. Gideon was a bit discomforted by the sight of his brother looking so casual. He wasn’t sure why, exactly.

“Hey, Gideon. Right on time.” Bryce didn’t bother to get up, but just waved at his brother from the couch. Bryce was a little taller and slimmer than Gideon. He had the same moss-colored eyes, but unlike Gideon’s piercing gaze, Bryce’s eyes had a dreaminess to them. He had the eyes of a scholar or a poet. Gideon had the eyes of a warrior.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Raina asked.

“No, thanks. I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of getting a copy of the police reports this afternoon.” Gideon sat and put the folder on an old wooden chest she kept for a coffee table.

“I don’t mind at all. Did you have any problem getting them?” she asked as she sat and reached for the teapot sitting on the table. It had been a long time since he’d seen a tea set with a cozy, china cups, and all. In addition to what looked like an old-fashioned tea set, the living room was also decorated with antiques.

“The only thing I couldn’t get was a copy of your medical files,” Gideon said.

Raina looked surprised. “Why would you want those?”

She didn’t sound defensive, just curious, so he answered matter-of-factly, “I think they might solve a puzzle for me. I had a look at Michelle’s postmortem, and I think I might have an idea of what caused your vision problems. If I’m right, you have a big problem on your hands.”

Raina stood up and said quickly, “Let me go get them for you.” She turned abruptly to rush out of the room and bumped into the arm of the chair. She stumbled then righted herself quickly, muttering, “Stupid, stupid.” Before either of the men could help her, she rushed from the room.

Bryce looked concerned.

“I take it that doesn’t happen often?” Gideon asked him.

“I’ve never seen her so much as double step,” Bryce confided. “She’s usually has an almost eerie sense of where she is in a room, even a room she’s never been in.” He looked at his brother. “Don’t tell her something that you might not be able to back up.”

Gideon was chagrined. He wasn’t going to tell her what he was looking for, but he’d been off balance since he came into the house. “I wasn’t planning on telling her that much, but I didn’t want to lie about why I needed to see her medical records.”

Before Bryce could answer him, Raina came back into the room. She held a file out for Gideon to take. He was surprised that she held it so close to him. Figuring it must have been luck, he took the file and began to flip through it.

He paused when got to the notation in her file that the attack seemed to have made her unable to have children. He felt a swell of pity. He understood it since he wasn’t able to have children either. He’d had mumps when he was younger. He didn’t think about it much since it had always been that way for him.

Moving on, he turned to the page with the paper copies of the MRI pictures. “You had an MRI.” It was more of a statement than a question.

“Yes, I think there is a copy of the report in the file. The films themselves would be at the hospital.” She gestured with her hand toward the file.

The room was silent while Gideon looked at the report. He took a photo out of the file he brought with him and held it up to the light. He saw that there was an “anomaly” on Raina’s brain in the same approximate location of the smudge on Michelle’s CAT scan. The report named it as a bruise, but Gideon suspected it to be a burn. He just wanted to be sure before he proposed the theory he had.

If he was right, she did, indeed, have a very serious problem, one the police couldn’t help her with. “Is it possible for me to borrow a few pages of this? I’d like to show it to a friend of mine. He’s somewhat of a weapons aficionado.”

“Why?” she asked eagerly. “Do you know what caused this?”

“I can’t be sure until he checks it out, but I have a theory.” He wasn’t sure how much to tell them. He didn’t know about her, but Bryce was likely to fly off the handle. He decided to give them some of it. “I think it might be a new weapon used for crowd control. It’s not supposed to cause blindness, but maybe they modified it.”

“Military weapon?” Bryce asked. “Isn’t that a little far-fetched?” He sounded a little testy.

“The description you gave of the gun matches something my friend showed me. It’s a weapon that is only supposed to render the victim disoriented for a short time.” Gideon had learned to trust his instincts, and as soon as he read Michelle Randall’s postmortem, they started to scream. “Describe for me exactly what happened right before you blacked out.”

Raina took a deep breath and sat on the couch next to Bryce. He put his arm around her in support. Gideon had the irrational desire to go sit between them. “I don’t know what you’re looking for. It’s all in the report. He grabbed my arm, and it looked like he was going to put the Taser, or whatever it was, up to my neck, then I felt a pain in my head as though someone hit me, and I fell to the floor.”

Gideon was taking notes in the file. “Did the weapon actually touch you?”

“I don’t know.” Raina stood up, unable to sit still any longer. She moved her head as though to escape the darkness and see a place to go. She sat down again.

“I’ll get you some water,” Bryce said gently. Gideon was surprised at Bryce’s sensitivity.

She looked delicate all of a sudden, and Gideon wanted to stop asking questions. He reminded himself that he had a job to do and asked her the last question. “Did you see spots before you blacked out?”

Raina jerked. “Yes. I remember thinking it looked like a strobe light at a slaughter house.” She stopped speaking and waited. When he didn’t say anything else, she said, “Please tell me what you’re thinking.”

Gideon couldn’t resist the plea in her eyes. He got up and sat on the solid wood coffee table in front of her. He reached out and touched her hands with his. All at once, he felt like he was being sucked into a vortex. His head spun, and he heard her gasp. The colors in the room were suddenly almost painfully intense. She stood up abruptly, breaking the connection, and ran toward the kitchen. She missed the furniture, but didn’t see Bryce and careened right into him. The stoneware mug went flying. The water made an arch in the air before landing on the floor. Gideon watched it fly.

So did Raina.

For a moment, the three of them were frozen, then everything seemed to happen at once. Raina cried out then collapsed. Both Gideon and Bryce leapt to catch her. Although Gideon was faster, Bryce was closer. He was on the floor already and just shifted so that she landed on him rather than the floor.

“What the hell?” Bryce’s exclamation echoed Gideon’s thoughts. “What did you do to her?”

Gideon didn’t answer. He had no idea what he did to her. All he knew was that the moment he touched her, the room sharpened. He could also swear that he saw her watching the arch of the water as it flew across the room.

Bryce stood up and carried her to the couch. He laid her gently down and began stroking her hair back in a loving gesture that made Gideon want to pull him up by the scruff of his neck. Gideon didn’t dare go over and touch Raina. He didn’t know what had happened, but he wasn’t about to let it happen again.

“I’ll get her a wet cloth,” Gideon said as he headed down the hall to the bathroom.

“There are some washcloths in the closet in the bathroom,” Bryce said, making Gideon wonder, again, about his brother’s relationship with Raina. The bathroom was decorated in ocean blue. Gideon opened the cabinet and grabbed a washcloth off the top of the stack. Unlike his closet, hers was organized and neat. All the towels looked plush and fluffy. She would be horrified if she saw his closet with the mismatched towels, some hopelessly threadbare.