Line Of Sight
A girl was lying across from him on the van floor, similarly bound, her purple-streaked blond hair falling over her face but not quite concealing her frantic eyes. There was a bruise on her face, dark even in the dimness.
Two men sat on benches, one on each side. Couldn’t make out their features in the darkness. One was smoking, the stink of it filling the van and making it even harder to breathe around the gag….
He jerked back into himself, gasping, and dropped the cards. A strange sound sawed at his ears, and after a couple of seconds he realized it was the girls, giggling. He was still in the coffee shop, in Venice Beach. He was safe. His heart was racing, his palms sweating, and he couldn’t get away from the feeling of fear and foreboding and claustrophobia in the vision.
He stood up, gathered the cards and jammed them into his pocket. “Sorry,” he said, and pushed through the crowd of girls to achieve the open air outside. He stood there, breathing deeply, trying to slow his pulse. Blue sky, warm sun, pounding surf. Laughing people. Weight lifters on the beach, displaying their oiled muscles and as much skin as legally possible. Skating, scantily clad girls. Jugglers. Sidewalk artists. Musicians. Normal life, by the community standards. Stefan stood there shaking, struggling to put himself back in his own body. He was unable to forget the bleak terror the girl was feeling.
DUAL ABDUCTION IN PHOENIX.
They were in a van, and they were in terrible danger.
He needed to tell someone.
He sat down on a bench facing the ocean and dialed his cell phone slowly, thinking hard about what to do. In the end, he did what he always did.
He called home.
“It’s about time,” his mother said. No hello because she already knew it was him—she always knew. “Are you all right, Stefan? I had a dream.”
“Did you?” He closed his eyes and smiled. “What about?”
“You, obviously. You were somewhere dark, and you were in danger. Where are you, my dear?”
“Not in the dark,” he said. “And not in danger. I think you had an echo of what I just had, Mom.”
“Ah. Vision?” She was businesslike about it, but then, she would be: it was her business. Rose Blackman, psychic to the stars and Hollywood nobility. A genuine talent. She’d taught him all about showmanship, too. “Tell me about it, peanut.”
“Mom, please don’t call me that.”
“Just tell me.”
He did, in as much detail as he could remember. Unlike some of his other visions, this one wasn’t fading like a nightmare—it remained immediate and frightening in its vividness. “Mom, I think it’s the girls who were on the news. In Phoenix. I think I should call the cops.”
“The cops? Oh, no. That’s the worst thing you can do. Believe me, I’ve been down that road before. Even in L.A., the police don’t believe in psychics, and you’re talking about Arizona? Pffft. You might as well claim to be from outer space.”
“What about the FBI?”
“What about them? Do you have any real information, Stefan? Anything that could really help those girls right now?”
He thought it over. The impressions had been immediate, but limited to the van, the pain, the fear. He couldn’t describe the exterior of the van, or even the faces of the abductors.
His heart sank, and he bent over to rest his aching forehead on the heel of one hand. “Then what do I do?”
“Whatever you do, son, it will be the right thing. I know this, because I know you.” Rose Blackman’s voice had softened, as if she could sense his distress. Maybe she could, even at this distance. It had been a source of annoyance and comfort to him all his life, that he couldn’t hide anything from his mother or—to a lesser extent—his father. They always knew, somehow, what he felt, if not what he was thinking. “Are you working today?”
“No. I’m supposed to have some production meetings later this week, but I’m at the beach.” He didn’t consider street performing to be working so much as playing, although he couldn’t say she agreed with him. “Why?”
“Maybe you’ll get more information,” she said. “When you do, you can decide what to do. And where to go. But, peanut—”
“Mom!”
“—I had the dream. So watch yourself.” There was a voice in the background, and Rose dropped her own voice to a lower volume. “I have to go. My morning’s very full.”
“Anything exciting?”
“Oh, you know, the usual. Should I take this job or that one? What about this guy I’m dating? Movie stars aren’t really any different from everyone else when it comes to insecurities. Except that you can’t keep them waiting. I love you, son.”
“Love to you and Dad,” he said and hung up. He rubbed the plastic of the phone case for a few long seconds, thinking, and then stood up to walk toward the stand of yellow taxis nearby.
“Stefan?” His gaggle of beach beauties stepped into his path, led by Heather in the orange bikini. She pressed against him, arms around his neck. Warm and so very tempting. “You’re not leaving us, are you?” He’d be a fool, that much was clear.
And of course, he was a fool.
“Want to see another trick?” he asked, and they all agreed they did.
It was a disappearing act.
His.
Chapter 3
Katie had been lucky on flights. After grabbing an overnight bag—she always kept one in her car, packed and ready—she’d been the last passenger boarded on the MD-80 out of St. Louis, and spent the flight refreshing her memories of Phoenix, Glendale and the surrounding area. According to her maps, Teal and Lena had been grabbed several miles from the school, which was odd; why hadn’t the girls caught a ride to the movies, or a bus or a cab? It was a long walk. She jotted down questions for Jazz and Kayla, then filled a second page with questions for Christine Evans. Made herself a note to contact the Phoenix field office on landing to make sure they knew she was involved. She might end up needing an intercession from SAC Evangelista, if the local bureaucracy was going to be difficult about things; then again, she expected at least one Athena grad in a position of authority would make some phone calls, and that would straighten out the tangle quickly.
Sitting strapped down made Katie’s bruises and cracked ribs ache fiercely. She swallowed some non-prescription painkillers and tried to nap, since she’d been short on sleep for days. She couldn’t. Her mind kept replaying the visuals she’d constructed from Jazz’s verbal account.
The blue van, easing in at the curb ahead of the three unsuspecting girls. The blitz attack, fast and overwhelming—as if the attackers had known to anticipate considerable resistance. Which implied that they’d done their homework on the girls, and also implied an uncomfortable amount of knowledge about the Athena Academy and its students. Almost certainly not targets of opportunity, these girls, or they’d have managed to surprise their abductors and fight their way free.
Still. It was possible that she was reading too much into it. Maybe this was a simple case of sexual predators cruising for prey…which was never simple. Her mind veered off in unwelcome directions. Too many cases that had ended horribly, too many trials, too many autopsies. She’d seen and heard things that wouldn’t leave her in moments like these, even with all her mental discipline and training. What if it was that rarest of breeds, the team of sexual predators—one to drive, two to abduct? That kind of organization was associated with the most frightening of offenders, the ones capable of the most excessive and calculated cruelty.
Given all that, sleep stayed a distant wish.
Katie opened her eyes as the plane approached the runway and got everything ready. She had one small bag, no purse, and she was fast off the starting blocks once the plane had taxied to a halt. She walked quickly down the Jetway ramp and breathed a sigh of relief when she achieved the open space of the terminal—room to breathe, finally.
As Katie made her way toward the transportation, the traffic congestion increased. It was prime West Coast arrival time, and the flight from LAX had just disgorged a flood of tanned beach-bunny types, along with some business travelers in the dreary uniform of the breed. She could fit in with them, really; she’d worn black slacks today, and sensible shoes, a white-collared linen shirt and black jacket. No jewelry. All she’d done was rinse off the worst of her sweat in the airport bathroom in St. Louis. Crime scenes weren’t fashion runways.
She cut diagonally through the milling crowd, trying to move faster, and collided with someone who had the same idea. “My fault, sorry,” Katie muttered and automatically backed off to steer around. So did he, and for a second she froze, staring, because he was…well, worthy of a good stare. Of a height with her, with a carefree tumble of raven-black curling hair. Big, dark, gentle eyes. Dark golden skin that could have come from half a dozen different ethnic heritages, a clever, handsome face and a devastating smile that he probably didn’t even realize he was using on her.
“No, that was definitely my fault,” he said. He had a great voice, too. She wondered why she was noticing him so intently, and why now, and then it occurred to her: he was noticing her. She wasn’t used to that kind of scrutiny, so blatant and yet nonintrusive. He didn’t leer, he just…appreciated. “I don’t think I can say I’m sorry about it, though. Nice to meet you.”
Realities crashed in. She didn’t have time for flirting; she had a crime scene to visit. The clock was ticking on two young girls, and she’d just wasted at least fifteen seconds of it on ephemera.
Katie took it out on him with a cool “Excuse me, I’m in a hurry,” then brushed by him, walked even faster and didn’t look back.
Stefan Blackman looked after the woman for a long moment, until she vanished into the crowd, and wondered what had possessed him to do a thing like that. There had been some kind of connection between them; he’d felt it, and he could have sworn she had, too. It hadn’t been a vision, not the way his mother received them, or even the way he usually did; it certainly lacked the power and definition of the images he’d received from the girl in the van.
Still. Something there. The woman was gorgeous. Obviously, not in the way he was used to; he couldn’t imagine her in an orange bikini, in-line skating around Venice Beach, for example. No, this one seemed cool and quiet and utterly self-confident, with just a hint of vulnerability in those dark eyes. Professional.
She was also armed. He’d felt it when they’d collided—a pancake holster under her plain black jacket—and his instant thought had been air marshal, but then he’d revised that. She seemed to be on her way somewhere in a hurry, and not just spending her days in airports. No, maybe a cop. FBI. Something like that. He didn’t imagine too many people other than those would be eligible to carry firearms on planes these days.
He’d never really had much to do with cops, other than the ones he ran into on the streets. Once or twice, one of his less-than-savory clients had brought about a visit from detectives, but usually it was perfunctory at most. He’d certainly never seen a cop like her.
Too bad he was on a mission. He was tempted to follow her, wherever she was going, although she’d probably have arrested him for it.
Hmm. Handcuffs.
He entertained himself with mental handcuff escapes as he shouldered his bag and strolled for the exits. He still wasn’t sure he’d done the right thing in hopping the last-minute flight, but something had told him not to delay. His mother had been correct—the police weren’t about to put any trust in what he had to say, and he didn’t yet have enough specifics to convince them. He needed more detail, and to get that, he needed to start at the beginning.
All he had to do was find the place where the girls had been abducted. Stefan hitched his backpack to a more comfortable position, thinking about the problem, and then strolled over to the nearest bank of phones. He flipped through the directory to find the number for the television station whose call letters he’d seen on the TV earlier, then programmed the main number into his cell phone.
He always did like the press. They were all show people at heart.
The cab stand outside the terminal was a zoo, every cab already claimed and being loaded. Katie growled in frustration and paced, watching as vacationers and business travelers loaded bags and laptops and kids into the available transportation. Come on, she thought. All I need is a damn cab.
One pulled up at the far end of the row, and Katie dashed for it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw someone else heading there, moving fast, and he was closer. His hand touched the door of the cab before she made it, and she pulled up short, fuming, as he pulled on the handle.
It was the man from the California flight, the one she’d bumped into. He’d been gorgeous in the terminal, but out here in the sun he glowed, his skin an impossible shade of light bronze, his deep black hair picking up blue highlights.
His smile was as warm as the sun.
“Okay, this time I do apologize,” he said and stepped back from the door to offer her the cab. “You look like you’re in even more of a hurry than I am. How about we share? You get dropped off first.”
She wrenched her stare away from that smile to some less dangerous territory. Not his eyes. His eyes were definitely, lethally beautiful.
“No,” she said.
“No?” He hung on to the smile. “You mean, no, you don’t want to share the cab, or no, you’re not taking the cab?”
Yes, she thought. He was rattling her, and that was strange and very distracting in its own right. She never let guys get to her. She’d seen all kinds—gorgeous charmers included—and she was definitely inoculated against their particular gifts. She’d seen the wreckage they left behind.
But this one…well. He was a challenge.
“I’ll take the next one,” she said. “You take this one.” She didn’t need a distraction, and he was the Las Vegas of distractions, neon and glitter and flashing arrows.
He frowned a little, and started to say something she was sure was going to be an argument, but then she heard someone behind her call, “Agent Rush?”
She turned. There was a police cruiser parked at the curb farther down, lights flashing, with two uniformed officers standing next to it. Katie waved.
“I think I already have a ride,” she said.
She walked away, resisting the urge to look back. After a few seconds she heard the click of the cab door shutting, and breathed a sigh of relief as the yellow sedan rolled by. She kept her focus on the police cruiser, and the two officers beside it, as she walked.
Okay, one glance at the taxi. He wouldn’t still be looking….
He was. She looked away, furious with herself, as he waved.
“Agent Rush, welcome to the lovely city of Phoenix. Detective Ryan sent you chauffeurs. Hope you don’t mind riding in our special visitor’s seats.”
The male officer was already opening up the back door of the cruiser. She ducked inside and found it depressingly familiar; she’d ridden in a lot of police cars around the country, and it always seemed to be the same damn car, over and over. Different colored wipe-down vinyl upholstery, and the heavy grillwork separating her from the front seat. There were no handles on the inside of the doors, of course. The whole thing smelled of the body odor and vomit of the last transport, overlaid with the astringent wipe-down they’d given it to make it presentable for her.
“Nice,” she said. “So I’m getting the royal treatment.”
“You know us locals, anything for our cousins from the FBI. Watch your head.”
Their names, according to the name tags, were officers Samson and Gilhoulie—one black, one white, one thin, one plump, one female, one male. The differences didn’t matter much, as far as Katie could tell; they seemed used to each other, in the way of partners or old married couples. Aware of each other at all times, but comfortable.
Samson was the driver of the two, apparently. He got behind the wheel and steered the cruiser into traffic, lights still flashing. Katie looked out the freshly cleaned window—it still smelled of the cleaning product they’d used to give it a streak-free shine—to get her bearings in the city again. In a sense, they really had rolled out the red carpet. Most cop shops would have assumed she could take care of her own transportation.
Phoenix never looked lush, but the weak winter sunlight gave it a wan quality that mirrored Katie’s mood. She remembered the city very well, but it wasn’t a homecoming, not given the circumstances.
“So,” Officer Gilhoulie said and twisted around to look at her. She was a height-challenged redhead with fair Irish skin and blue eyes that seemed pleasant, but had that inner distance all cops everywhere shared. “How long have you known Detective Ryan, ma’am?”
The ma’am was reflexive. All beat cops were courteous to a fault, until they weren’t. Part of their charm.
“Detective Ryan and I went to school together,” Katie said. That usually derailed the conversation because there was nothing more boring than old school-days reminiscences; nobody wanted to hear high school stories except people from your high school. Sure enough, Gilhoulie turned back to face forward.
But, to Katie’s surprise, she continued asking questions.
“You originally from Phoenix, then?”
“Pennsylvania. Philly, actually. I’m just assigned out of the Kansas City field office right now.”
“They move you around in the FBI, huh?”
“Every two years,” Katie said. “Until you get to a certain service level. I’ve probably got one rotation to go before they let me choose a permanent duty station. Doesn’t matter, though. I work all over the country.”
Chitchat, nothing Katie had to focus her attention on beyond the bare minimum. Gilhoulie’s partner, Samson, drove without saying much; he was constantly scanning the streets and sidewalks. Gilhoulie seemed to think it was her duty to entertain the guest, for some reason. “So,” the officer asked, “do you have some kind of specialty, or…?”
“Missing persons,” Katie said. “I specialize in missing persons cases.”
“No wonder Ryan called you,” Gilhoulie said. “So, what kind of school was it? Some kind of prep school, right? I heard it’s exclusive.”
Time to change the subject. “You get a lot of these kinds of abductions in Phoenix these days?”
“No, ma’am,” Samson said immediately. “Mostly the usual, you know, custody disputes. Sometimes we get a kid or woman snatched by predators, though. It happens here same as anywhere else.”
“Did you work the scene of today’s abduction?”
“Just perimeter stuff,” he said, shrugging. “Sorry. Can’t tell you much, except that Detective Ryan’s been a rock. If it was my kid nearly got snatched, I can tell you, I don’t think I’d hold up so well.”
Gilhoulie nodded soberly in agreement. “I always knew she was, you know, pretty good, but she’s been all over this thing today. Her kid’s been terrific, too.”
“Real trooper,” Samson added. He hit the blinker and turned the car onto a side street. “Right up ahead, Agent Rush. You’ll find Detective Ryan in the middle of it.”
He kept driving, passed through a police barricade and parked inside the perimeter, safely away from the crowd of bystanders and press. “Forensics is still processing,” Samson added, although he didn’t really need to; Katie knew from experience how long that could take, for a really complicated crime scene. “Probably got a couple more hours to go before they wrap it up.”
“Got it. Thanks to you both,” she said as Gilhoulie opened up the back door for her.
“Not a problem. Do us a favor. Find the girls, huh?”
“I’ll do my best.” Once upon a time, she’d have said, I will, but she knew that wasn’t always the case. “I appreciate the ride, guys.”
The air was cool outside, especially after the closed-in fug of the police cruiser; Katie took a deep breath, shouldered her bag and headed for the nearest on-duty cop she could spot. Her FBI badge got her instant directions to Kayla Ryan, who was half a block away in a huddle with other police.
There was something indefinable about seeing a fellow Athena Force member—a kind of recognition and simple comfort that went beyond just spotting an old friend. Katie saw Kayla step out of the impromptu meeting going on and head her way.
“Katie,” Kayla said and smiled. They shook hands in a brisk, businesslike fashion rather than hugged—purely for any cameras that happened to be pointed in their direction. “I can’t thank you enough for this. Let’s go someplace more private to talk.”
She led the way with quick strides. They’d always been the same height, but Katie recognized even more similarities. She and Kayla both moved with authority and confidence, thanks to their training both at the Academy and through their careers. Kayla’s skin was shades darker, and she’d let her long dark hair grow. Her brown eyes still looked disarmingly warm. That probably served her very well in interrogations—Katie knew that intimidation, for all its dramatic presentation, was generally less useful than empathy in soliciting information.
In short, Kayla looked great, if strained at the moment. As they walked toward a row of high hedges, backs to the cameras, she caught Kayla exchanging a look with a tall, good-looking detective standing nearby. A look. You didn’t have to be an investigator to read his regard for her, and to see it was something more than just professional courtesy.
“So I guess the press is all over this one,” Katie said and winced as she adjusted her bag on her shoulder. Her ribs were making their protests felt. Again. “Why the cloak and dagger?”
“Parabolic microphones. Some of the more enterprising news reporters have them around here. They can’t air the footage, unless they want to lose any cooperation in the future from the department, but they can still use the information they get in other ways.” Kayla shook her head. “Lots of ‘unnamed sources’ come from surveillance. I’m not willing to take the chance. Besides, guess who’s here as our special media guest?”
“60 Minutes?”
“I just wish. No, Shannon Connor.”
“Shannon!” Katie blurted, shocked. Not that she couldn’t have foreseen it happening, of course. Shannon Connor had been a promising student at the Athena Academy—in Kayla’s group, the Graces, in fact—but she’d shown a dark side, and had made history as the first girl ever expelled from the Academy. Not that she wasn’t bright, but she was ambitious and bitter. Since getting thrown out of the school, she’d gone on to a relatively successful career in broadcast journalism…but she was always looking for dirt on the Academy and its graduates. “She’d better be looking to help, not just digging for trouble.”
“You know Shannon. She’s looking for any angle that will make us look…” Kayla shrugged.
“I can’t believe she’d stoop that low. Not with kids at stake.”
“She’s a reporter. Of course she’d stoop that low.” Which might have been ungenerous, but Katie wasn’t much inclined to grant Shannon Connor any benefit of the doubt, either.
The hedges had a gate, which Kayla swung open and motioned her through. The other side was cool and green and open—a community garden, pretty and peaceful, xeriscaped with desert plants. Secluded.
A young lady slumped, hands folded, on a concrete park bench under the skeletal branches of a large tree. She looked up as Kayla and Katie approached, and got to her feet quickly.
Kayla’s daughter, Jazz, looked taller than Katie remembered, but that was the way with kids…. They grew while you weren’t watching. Jazz looked much more mature, though. She’d always been self-possessed, but the time at the Athena Academy had given her even more of that. Except for a hint of nervousness in the quick way she glanced at her mother, she looked as cool as ice.
She was dressed in blue jeans and a pink top, long-sleeved and hooded. Warm enough for a walk, but not for sitting on a cold bench. She was shivering.