Deadly Sight

“Seriously?” he blurted.

“Seriously.”

His face lit up. “Surveillance. I’ll bet that’s why Jeff sent you here.”

“Could be. My eyes don’t require any electronic enhancements to do their thing.”

“If you were to look at a person, how far away could you be and still make a positive facial ID?”

She shrugged. “A mile or so, day or night.”

“Huh?”

“I see as well at night as during the day.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Call Jeff if you don’t believe me.”

“I think I’d rather see a demonstration in person.”

There it was. The skepticism and mistrust. This was more like it. She was back on familiar territory with this man who, up till now, had put her so off her stride. She shrugged casually. “Sure. When it gets dark.”

“Why not now?”

She glanced at the heavily covered windows. “Sun’s out. Small drawback of my eyesight—I have about ten times as many rods in my eyes as you do. Cones see color, but rods are light receptors. And that means I’m a wee bit sensitive to bright light.”

“After dark, then. It’s a date.”

Surely he’d meant those words innocently. But their double meaning sent a ripple of something she’d rather not name through her body. He really was gorgeous in a mysterious, brooding way. He was far too clean-cut for her usual taste, though. She went for wild guys. Losers with no ambition or, more important, no sense of self-preservation.

Gemma Jones said Sam had a death wish but pushed it onto her lovers rather than face it in herself. Whatever the heck that meant. Sam had had enough of well-meaning but clueless counselors after she’d landed on the streets in her teens and periodically got dragged into shelters by various do-gooders.

She stood up, acutely aware of Gray’s sharp gaze on her. For a moment, she almost regretted her choice of leather, then thought better of it. Let the guy look. It wasn’t like he was ever going to get a taste of any Sam candy. With a toss of her head, she announced, “I’m going to go catch a few hours’ sleep. I do my best work at night.” And she darned well meant that double entendre.

She lived nights, truth be told. But she wasn’t about to share any more of her personal life than she had to with this man who already knew enough about her to make her feel naked. And frankly, the sensation was unsettling. Grayson Pierce was far too attractive for his own good. She needed to get away from him for a little while. Get her feet back under her.

She had yet to hear about the guy whose pictures were spread all over the kitchen counter and why Jeff had asked her and Gray to check him out, but that would have to wait until she could think clearly. Until she’d achieved a little emotional distance from the disturbing man staring intently at her.

“The second bedroom’s pretty small,” he offered, “but it’s clean and reasonably comfortable.”

It sounded like he’d had to go to some effort to achieve both. “Thanks,” she muttered. She relished the view of his muscular physique as he showed her down a short hallway and into the room. Streaks of sunshine leaked between the slatted blinds, and she slammed the sunglasses back over her eyes as icepicks of pain stabbed her eyeballs.

“Sorry,” he said quickly. “I’ve got an errand to run, but I should be back by the time you wake up.”

As he backed out of the room, she quickly dug in her duffel for eye drops and her good blindfold. She never spent this much time in daylight, and for good reason. She’d forgotten how bad direct sunlight hurt. She put in the anesthetizing eye drops and sighed with relief as they numbed her burning eyeballs. She popped a pain pill for her smashing headache, pulled a velvet blindfold over her eyes and fell asleep to visions of a tall, enigmatic stranger who was far too sexy for his own good and not her type at all.

She woke to the sounds of quiet swearing from the living room. Based on the rosy light that made her squint as she peeled up a corner of her blindfold, it looked to be near sunset. But just to be safe, she donned her sunglasses before taking off her blindfold all the way.

The swearing led her to Gray, who was seated on the living-room floor with nylon cord tangled all around him. And yet, he still managed to look … noble.

“Making your own fishing net there, Sparky?” she teased.

“Putting together a new curtain rod for your room. But these instructions stink. They’re really, really badly translated into English.”

“And I need a new curtain rod why?”

“I got you some blackout shades, but you need something to hang them on.”

The thoughtfulness of the gesture pierced her defenses almost painfully. People didn’t do nice things for Sammie Jo Jessup. Ever. She knelt down beside him and said softly, “That’s incredibly sweet of you. Thank you.”

He looked up in surprise and their gazes met. She rocked back on her heels, startled at what she saw there. It was like looking into the depths of … nothing. It wasn’t that he was a psychopath. She’d looked into the eyes of guys like that a time or two. After all, punks and jerks were her specialty.

Rather, it was as if everything Gray was had been stripped away from him. As if he was completely, utterly lost. He wasn’t caught in the abyss. He was the abyss.

Shaken, she offered lamely, “You don’t have to bother with a curtain rod.” She looked into his eyes again, and this time saw only a wall of gray-green. Had she been hallucinating there for a minute? She mumbled, “If you have a roll of duct tape, just tape the curtain to the wall. Minimizes leakage of light.”

“But it won’t be very attractive.”

She shrugged. “I’m more about functionality than beauty.”

“That’s too bad,” he remarked as he climbed to his feet. “Life’s too short not to enjoy its beauty.”

The words made sense, but they felt recited. Like he’d heard them before and was parroting them back with no conviction or real understanding. What in the heck was going on with him? Is this why Jeff had sent her out here? To rescue his buddy?

Gray fetched a roll of duct tape from a drawer in the kitchen and she followed him to her bedroom. Bemused, she held the fabric in place as he neatly taped the curtains to the wall. Their shoulders brushed as he taped his way across the top of the window frame, and a strange little shiver of pleasure washed over her.

That was weird. She’d just dumped the latest loser, Ricky “The Rocket” Rossini, and was still deep in her mandatory, man-hating, post-breakup phase. There weren’t supposed to be any shivers, thank you very much.

Gray cleared his throat as he stepped back from her hastily. “I got weather stripping for around your door frame, too. It’s the self-adhesive kind and shouldn’t take long to install.”

Stunned, she stood there in the middle of the tiny room and stared at the open doorway through which he’d disappeared. When he came back, holding two rolls of narrow foam stripping, she demanded, “Why are you going to all this trouble for me? You barely know me.”

He stared at her and looked downright confused. “Because it’s the polite thing to do?”

She scoffed. “What’s your angle? What do you want from me?”

He drew himself up to his full height, clearly not missing her implication. “I don’t want anything from you,” he snapped. “Not in that way. If you can help me figure out what Luke Zimmer and this Proctor guy are up to so we can both go back to our regularly scheduled lives, that would be fantastic. But that’s it.”

He didn’t give off a gay vibe. Was it possible he was straight and actually wasn’t interested in her? Truly? Every guy wanted to do her. It was just a fact of life she’d learned to live with. But this one … didn’t?

She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. She supposed she ought to be vastly relieved, particularly since they were going to be working together. But somehow, she wasn’t. Man-hating phase, darn it. She would be relieved he wasn’t panting after her, and that’s all there was to it.

“I’m glad we’ve got that clear,” she declared. Yup. Relieved. That was her. Except something buried deep in her gut felt … restless … at the notion.

“Hungry?” he asked casually.

“Uhh, sure.” Dang, a man who could cook was smexy—smart and sexy!

“What’s your pleasure, ma’am?”

Her gaze snapped up to his, startled.

“For supper,” he clarified dryly.

Darn it. So much for relieved. “I prefer vegan. But I’ll take simple vegetarian.”

He snorted. “You are going to stick out like a sore thumb around here. This is the land of hardcore carnivores.”

“I’ll be fine with a salad for now if you’ve got the stuff. I’ll go shopping later and lay in my own food supply.”

“Grocery closes at nine,” he commented from deep within the refrigerator. He emerged with an armload of salad fixings.

Great. How was she supposed to live her night-owl existence in a town that rolled up its sidewalks and went to bed about when she was waking up? And she wouldn’t even have satellite TV or streaming, Wi-Fi internet to keep her company in the wee hours. This place was going to suck.

She hopped off the stool. “If you’ve got a knife, I’ll start chopping. But you’re going to have to move those pictures so I can fix my breakfast.”

“Would you like an omelet to go with that salad?”

“You know how to make omelets?”

He shrugged. “Sure. They’re not that hard.”

Hah. She had literally ruined a pot while boiling water before. The crash of the Hindenburg came to mind when she thought about her one and only try at omelet preparation. As she recalled, a fire extinguisher had been necessary before it was all said and done.

“What kind of salad dressing do you like?” he asked.

“Anything sharp and tangy.”

“Should’ve known.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

“In my experience, women’s food preferences match their personalities.”

“I’m sharp?” Hey, she’d been on her best behavior for him.

“As in clever and intelligent, yes,” he replied smoothly.

“Nice save,” she retorted skeptically. She wasn’t about to tell him what a sucker she was for a high-quality, smooth milk chocolate to see where he went with that. Instead, she said, “Tell me about you.”

He went still. Completely, head-to-toe, not-moving-a-muscle still. That was weird. He formed words, but they sounded torn from deep inside him. “Not much to tell.”

If only she had her laptop and a wireless connection! She’d know everything there was to know about this mysterious man in two minutes. What had happened in his life to make him so brittle and closed? She said lightly, “You know everything about me. Don’t you think I deserve a little reciprocation, here?”

“I do not know everything about you,” he declared.

He was trying to divert her away from the subject of his life. Interesting. She had to find access to the internet, somehow, and get the scoop on this guy. “Name one thing you desperately want to know about me,” she declared.

“What did you have on under that leather jacket this afternoon?” he shot back at her.

Her jaw dropped momentarily before she managed to control it. That was way out of left field. Revealing, too. The man found her attractive, after all, huh? That restless feeling in her tummy felt a little better. “Tell you what. I’ll wear the same thing tomorrow, and you can find out for yourself … if you’ve got the courage to try.”

He whirled and had his hands on the counter on either side of her so fast she barely saw him move. Trapped between his arms and more titillated than she cared to admit, she stared up at him defiantly.

He spoke quietly, his voice a dangerous caress. “Be very careful about teasing me, little girl. You may get back more than you bargained for.”

Little girl? She hadn’t been one of those since she was about six and her mom’s latest boyfriend made a punching bag out of her for the first time. She ought to be offended. Tell Gray to go to hell. But he actually did make her feel young and rather foolish with that extreme self-control of his.

“That sounds like a challenge,” she responded belatedly. It was a lame comeback, but all she could manage with his large, muscular frame only inches from her own. Darned if her breathing wasn’t going all wonky, too.

He pushed away from the counter and she let out a careful breath. He turned around and something metal flashed in his hand. Knife. Her own hands flashed up defensively and her foot lashed out and connected with his shin. Hard.

“Ouch!” He leaped back from her. “What’d you do that for?”

“The knife … Saw it coming … Didn’t stop to think …” She trailed off into silence, too embarrassed to continue.

He was studying her far too intently for her comfort. “Are you a trained martial artist?” he finally asked.

“I’ve had some self-defense training.” Although her reaction had a lot more to do with a long string of jerkwad boyfriends—her mom’s and hers—than any self-defense training. But she wasn’t about to tell Mr. Perfect that. He’d probably never had a bad breakup in his entire life. But then, he probably never dated nut-balls, either. His women were no doubt as perfect and well-bred as he was.

He laid the knife down carefully on the counter in front of her. “If you’d like to chop up the tomatoes and cucumber, I’ll wash the lettuce.”

Crap. She berated herself silently for making a fool of herself over a stupid knife and vented her irritation onto the hapless veggies, which she minced nearly into pulp.

The omelet turned out to be as irritatingly perfect as its maker, all fluffy and light and neatly folded. It didn’t help her bad mood that Gray was quiet through the meal, alternately staring at his food and glancing up thoughtfully at her. She’d inadvertently revealed far too much of herself to him, and clearly he wasn’t hesitating to draw all kinds of no doubt accurate and damning inferences about her.

Too jumpy to stand those thoughtful looks any longer, she leaped up and cleared the table. While she washed and dried the dishes by hand—apparently dishwashers were off-limits in this wacky place—he gathered the pictures he’d piled together earlier and spread them out across the table.

She dried her hands and approached them.

“Sit beside me,” he ordered absently.

Startled, she sank into the chair he’d pulled up beside his. It brought their ankles, knees, hips, elbows and shoulders into a proximity that threatened to destroy her concentration. Really, she ought to just jump the guy’s bones and get him out of her system so she could work with him. Otherwise, the next few days could be seriously miserable.

Gray filled her in efficiently. “Luke Zimmer’s upbringing was pretty normal. Middle class, Midwest, average home, average income. He ran with a neo-Nazi gang in high school, however, in—” he shuffled through the printed pages “—a suburb of Chicago. But his current political leanings are more antisocial than that.”

“What’s more antisocial than neo-Nazis?” she blurted. She’d hung out with a skinhead or two, and they’d been way too violent for her taste.

Gray continued, “Zimmer moved into this area several months ago, apparently at Jeff’s request.”

“Given that Jeff mentioned a cult leader to both of us, I’m assuming Luke got sent here to infiltrate Proctor’s group on behalf of Winston Enterprises?”

A flicker of something suspiciously like respect passed through Gray’s opaque gaze. “That’s a good guess. Although why Proctor’s a threat to an international conglomerate with no business dealings anywhere near here is a mystery to me.”

“Maybe Luke’s profile can give us a clue into what kind of a person Proctor is, or at least what the orientation of his cult’s stated beliefs is.”

The respect thing flickered again in Gray’s gaze as he replied, “My main impression of Zimmer is that he’s severely paranoid. I did a little reconnaissance on him yesterday, but without electronic equipment, I couldn’t get even remotely close to him. Although I don’t know if his paranoia predates his relationship with Proctor or is possibly a result of it.”

“Enter the girl with eagle eyes.”

He smiled a little at her. “If you can point your eagle eyes at this guy and learn more about him, that could be enormously useful.”

“Does Luke have a job?” she asked.

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“How’s he paying his way, then?” she asked. Even losers had to eat and buy drugs.

“I’m working a little too off-book to just stroll into the local bank and ask.”

“I could hack into the bank’s computers—” she broke off “—but nobody uses computers around here, do they?”

“A few folks actually have them. They have to use hard-wired, buried cable lines, though, and there are no Wi-Fi networks.”

She shrugged. “It probably doesn’t matter, anyway. Guys like Luke work in cash. Leaves less of a trail for the cops to follow. What else do you know about him?”

“He’s twenty-seven years old. Computer science major at Cal Tech. Didn’t graduate, though. Busted a couple of times for pot possession by campus cops. Thirty days in jail and a fine the last time. Nothing remarkable about his family. Two brothers—one older, one younger. He got decent grades in high school, ran about a 2.5 GPA in college. Nothing else shows up on him in the system.”

She doubted she could dig up more than that if she had a computer and internet access at her disposal. He didn’t sound like the kind of guy whose life would leave much of an electronic trail. “Anyone interviewed the family?” she asked.

“I don’t have those kinds of resources at my disposal.”

She frowned. What the heck did that mean? “What can I do to help your investigation?”

“Anything you can see and learn is more than I have to go on now.”

“And who do you work for, exactly?”

He leaned back in his chair. Crossed his arms. Pressed his lips into a thin white line. He even spoke tightly. “At the moment, Jeff Winston.”

He might have dodged her question, but all that body language spoke volumes. He had secrets to keep. “You do realize I have the equivalent of military top-secret clearances or better,” she commented.

He didn’t seem impressed. And he didn’t open his mouth. There were not too many employers in the United States who demanded complete and total silence from their employees. She considered him thoughtfully. He didn’t look like a mercenary for a private security firm. He was too clean-cut for that. Too by-the-book. Government, then.

“Okay, Sparky. I’m going to assume you work for some spooky, secret government agency until you say otherwise. Which begs the question of why you don’t just have your peeps poke around a little and hand you a complete list of names of every known associate of one Luke Zimmer. Order up a little surveillance detail on his cronies, and you’d know what ole Luke’s up to in under a week. I don’t see why Jeff thought you would need my help at all.”

“It’s not that simple. Given our total lack of ability to use electronics in this area, the manpower required to mount the sort of surveillance op that you’re proposing would be prohibitive. Not to mention, people in this region routinely live completely off the grid. They’re nearly impossible to track by any other means than direct visual surveillance. For all I know this kid’s using a fake ID and isn’t going by the name Luke Zimmer at all.”

She nodded. “Fake identities are pretty easy to get.”

“You say that like you have one,” he replied, amused.

She had several, in point of fact. More than a little of her youth had been misspent. But she wasn’t about to admit that to him. “It’s dark enough to go outside and do parlor tricks with Sammie’s eyesight. If you’ll grab something with writing on it, I’ll start jogging down the road.”

“I have a better idea. Let’s put your eyes to work for real,” he suggested.

“What do you have in mind?”

“How about you put on some walking shoes and I’ll show you?”

He definitely came from the government-intelligence community. Those guys always answered a question with a question. Curious, she went to her room and grabbed her neon yellow running shoes. When she came back, Gray was just finishing packing a rucksack.

“Let me guess,” she said dryly. “You were a Boy Scout and you’re taking along a few items in case we get stranded in the woods. With angry bears. In a blizzard. On the side of a cliff. And we need to put on Thanksgiving dinner for a dozen guests.”

He grinned. “I’m not that anal.”

“Had me fooled,” she grumbled under her breath.

“I’m trained to anticipate contingencies and plan for them.”

Oh, yeah. So a spy. When he headed for the passenger side of the Bronco, she rolled her eyes. “Really, Gray. I can get my own doors.”

“Really, Sammie Jo. Aren’t you confident enough to let a man get them for you?”

The quip hurt. She was sure he didn’t intend it, though. How could he know how inadequate she felt around polished, sophisticated people like him? To distract herself, she asked, “How old is this vehicle?”

“It’s a 1972. The first onboard car computers were put out in 1975, so all the cars permanently in the NRQZ have to be ‘74s or earlier.”

“This place is like some kind of bizarre time warp.”

He nodded. “Just think about how bizarre it’s going to seem in another twenty years. Tourists will come here to see the living history exhibit it’s rapidly becoming.”

“Where are we going?”

“Luke lives in the next valley over. Little town called Spruce Hollow. It’s known for being a bit cultish.”

That lifted her eyebrow. “Define cultish.”

“I wish I could. But I’ve only been here one day. As best I can tell, the folks there are particularly intent on eliminating all electronics from their lives. Real back-to-the-good-old-days fanatics. And apparently they’re pretty suspicious of outsiders. I thought it might be prudent not to just barge in and start asking questions.”

“Good call. I’ve done cultish before, and you have to be very careful in your approach. Best bet is to find a way to get them to invite you in.”

He looked over at her sharply. “Define having done cultish.”

She winced. It simply was not in her nature to be secretive. Yet again, her big mouth had given her away. “Let’s just say my choice in boys wasn’t always stellar. A few of them were gang types.”

“What kinds of gangs?”

“Bikers. Skinheads. Drug dealers.” She omitted the coming apocalypse bunch her mother had dragged her into the middle of. She nearly hadn’t gotten away from that particular cult alive.

To his credit, Gray didn’t show any outward signs of horror. He asked casually enough, “Do you still go for guys like that?”

The question stopped her cold. Did she? Until this afternoon, she might have said yes. But Grayson Pierce was a revelation. She’d had no idea that decent men actually existed. She’d always thought they were a figment of television producers’ imaginations. She settled for mumbling, “I don’t go for men at all at the moment. I’m a committed single person.”

He made a sound that was probably supposed to pass for a laugh, but somehow failed. “Me, too.”

“Why’s that?” she queried. “You must have women falling all over you.”

“Work,” he answered from between gritted teeth. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he’d gone a little pale. What on earth?

She waited for more, but he didn’t add anything to that one-word response. She prodded, “Most men work and yet manage to have relationships. What’s the problem with your work?”

“Long hours. Lots of travel.”

“And then there’s the whole undercover thing,” she added sympathetically. “And the killing.”

His hands clenched the steering wheel abruptly, and in the glow of the dashboard, he looked a ghastly shade of gray. He gave no other outward sign of tension, but it was enough. Her eagle eyes didn’t miss much. She spoke quietly, “Your secret is safe with me.”