Author's Note: Thank you Roseveare for the beta and for encouraging me to write more Haven fics!
The square was filled with sunshine and people, the former drawing the latter out of their houses and offices to enjoy their lunch hour in the open air.
Joanne Soctomah, town hall clerk, was in a hurry to get her lunch and go back to work, but even she stopped to squint at the sky, sighing at the warmth on her face. Clouds building at the horizon spoke of rain later, this day only a temporary respite from the past week's weather. Joanne had done her duties to the best of her abilities for almost forty years, yet even so, she was tempted to dawdle, just this once. If the reception desk remained unmanned for another fifteen minutes or so, it couldn't matter much. There was no such thing as rush hour at the Haven town hall.
"Excuse me, ma'am?" a mild voice said. "Would you care to give some money to the Red Cross?"
Joanne blinked and started fumbling in her jacket pocket for her wallet. "Oh yes, of course!"
The woman asking had a large straw hat and sunglasses. It made sense on a day like this, with such a pale tone of skin, the pallor increased even further with the aid of make-up. Dark red lipstick and a flowing paisley dress served to create what Joanne thought was a highly glamorous look, more suited to an old movie star than a charity worker.
Wallet in hand, she noticed something missing and said, "Where's your collection box, sweetie?"
"Well, ma'am," the woman said slowly, tilting her sunglasses down. Joanne got the merest glimpse of eyes before darkness fell.
It was an impenetrable black, and Joanne had time to wonder if it was her eyes or the sun that had failed her – you never knew, in Haven – before she felt her wallet snatched away from her hand.
"Wait! No!" she protested, making a grab for the woman, but got only a brush of cloth against her hand and the sound of wooden heels, running away. The darkness was so disorienting that it took her a moment to get her thoughts together and call out louder: "Help! Thief! She's taking my wallet!"
More running steps, now coming in her direction, a few rushing past her to try to catch up with the thief. Hands on her arms, indignant and soothing phrases intermingling:
"Damn it, she got away!"
"Are you all right?"
"Did you get a good look at her?"
A good look... Joanne realized then for certain that she was the only one affected by the darkness. Somehow, she had gone blind. A decades-unused curse escaped her lips.
"What did she do to me?"
Nathan and Audrey were off having lunch when the call came, and while Nathan listened to Laverne's description and interjected with the occasional question, he noticed that Audrey had stopped chewing to follow the conversation.
"Finish your sandwich," he told her. "No rush."
Into the phone he asked, getting back to business, "No pepper spray, or...? Okay."
Audrey was wrapping up her sandwich in a napkin before Nathan had even finished speaking, and he shook his head at her.
"Really, Parker, there's no rush."
"But there is a Trouble," she said, standing up. "Isn't there?"
"Seems like it." With a sigh at her determination, he finished his own lunch and rose from his seat, telling her the details on their way to the car. "This woman was mugged and suddenly went blind. No apparent reason."
"The mugger blinded her?"
"Maybe. But they can't seem to figure out how."
"Trouble," Audrey confirmed.
Once they reached the hospital, they were taken straight to Joanne Soctomah, who was in an examination room along with the local ophthalmologist, Dr. Grayson. The doctor gave them a quick nod and patted his patient's shoulder.
"I'll do some more tests and get a CT scan ready, to make sure there's not anything I've missed, but I'm sure you'll be fine. Okay?"
Joanne nodded and attempted a smile. Nathan recalled having seen her at the town hall a couple of times. Her normally open face was now drawn in worry, though on the whole, she remained collected.
Dr. Grayson left the room to order the MRI, and Audrey introduced them.
"Ms. Soctomah, I'm Officer Parker of the Haven PD, and this is my partner, Detective Wuornos."
Both of them brandished their badges, but they might as well not have. When Joanne raised her head, it became clear that while her dark eyes looked perfectly normal, they weren't looking at anything.
"It's good to have you here," she said in a low voice. "I'll feel ever so much safer once that woman is caught."
"Can you tell us some more about her?" Audrey asked, sitting down on the bed. "What happened before you lost your eyesight?"
"She said she was collecting money for charity," Joanne said, furrowing her brow. "When I got my wallet out, she tilted her sunglasses down and looked me in the eye – and that's when everything went black."
"And then she took your wallet?"
"Yes. I tried to stop her, but it all happened so fast, she was gone before I could react." Joanne's hands, lying in her lap, clenched into fists instinctively.
"You didn't recognize her?" Nathan asked. Haven wasn't small enough for everyone to know everyone else, but there was a pretty good chance of at least having seen people around before.
"No. But I don't socialize much, and she was younger than me, maybe thirty or forty. It was hard to tell what her face looked like, the sunglasses and makeup stood out so much."
"Did she do anything to you?" Audrey asked. "When she blinded you. Did she touch you, or..."
"She just looked at me. That's all. I wasn't even sure she'd been the one to do it, at first, but it must have been her, mustn't it? No one around me was affected. And the way she snatched up my wallet!"
Her voice went fierce again.
"Can you tell us anything about what she looked like?"
"She was rather tall and thin," Joanne said. She spoke slowly, concentrating. "A bit on the pale side, though that was partly the makeup. Lovely paisley dress... sorry, that's no help at all, is it?"
"It could be," Audrey said. "You never know."
"Hair color?" Nathan asked.
"I'm afraid I can't say. The hat was in the way." She turned her head towards him and asked, "You're Pauline's boy, aren't you? Ethan?"
"Nathan," he said, softening at the question, and the memories it brought. "Yes."
"I remember you from when you were little," she said and reached out to find his hand, which she gave a light squeeze. "You were always such a good boy."
Audrey put a hand up in front of her mouth, even though Nathan knew damned well what that mirthful look in her eyes meant. Right then, he didn't care if she did laugh at him.
"Thank you," he said, responding in kind to the unfelt touch, and the sentiment behind it.
Audrey got her facial muscles back in check and asked,"So, how are you holding up? This must be pretty scary."
"It certainly wasn't my plan for the day," Joanne said, drawing a shaky breath. "Still, they say that the others were all fine within hours, so I suppose I'll just have to wait and see – hopefully."
Nathan and Audrey both leaned forward as one to take in this unexpected new information.
"The others?" Audrey asked. "What others?"
"Oh, did no one tell you? Apparently, there were three cases yesterday, just like me."
Dr. Grayson spread his hands in a half-apologetic shrug. "There weren't any crimes committed in conjunction with yesterday's cases. Just sudden onsets of complete, inexplicable, but fortunately temporary blindness. We can't call the police every time there's no given diagnosis to a malady. Especially not in this town."
That, Nathan had to acknowledge, was far too true. If people actually had called the police whenever there was a Trouble going on, they'd need a police force the size of half the town.
"But there's a crime now," he said slowly, "and a suspected criminal. Did they meet this woman too?"
"Not that I know of. The first one was afflicted in his home, the second walking his dog. The third was driving, but thank God he'd just stopped at a crosswalk."
"Where someone was walking across?" Audrey asked.
"I suppose so."
"Okay, that's a start, then. Are the patients still here?"
"No, two of them were released last night and the last early this morning. No aftereffects, like it never happened. I'll ask the nurse to call them up, see if they're willing to make a statement."
"Thank you," Audrey said. "That'd be great."
"No medical cause?" Nathan asked.
"Their eyes were fine. Brain too. And it was definitely not psychosomatic – if it had been, their eyes would have contracted when exposed to light, and they didn't. Everything in perfect order, but useless. I'm still not done with the tests on Ms. Soctomah, but by the look of it, it's the same with her."
Nathan nodded at the explanation, recognizing it as the kind of thing doctors had been saying about his condition too, first when he was a boy, then again in his adult years.
Audrey clicked her tongue. "What about the dog? Was the dog affected?"
"Not that I know of. But then, I don't treat dogs. Do you mind if I get that CT scan started? Temporary or not, I don't want to keep my patient waiting. It's hard enough for her as it is."
"Absolutely," Nathan said. "You take good care of her."
His emotions must have come through in his voice, because Audrey threw him a glance, and after the doctor had left, she said, "This got to you, didn't it?"
"She's a nice old lady who doesn't deserve this crap," he said, and added, more quietly, "And she knew my mother."
Audrey gave him a sympathetic smile, but didn't touch upon that part of his comment. "It's a lousy mode of operation. Pretend to collect money for a charity, wait until the mark has their wallet in hand, wham, instant blindness. I feel for most of the Troubled in this town, but I'm not so sure I feel for this one."
"Mm, I'm with you there. So, where do we go from here? The first guy?"
"Definitely. He was at home, four walls around him..."
"Right. If any strangers showed up, he'd know."
Audrey had her hopes up, but unfortunately Bryan Durant of Tulliver Lane claimed not to have seen any strangers whatsoever. His house was in the same neighborhood as the dog walker's, which was promising, but it was quite secluded behind a hedge that had once been well-trimmed, but now showed signs of more inexpert gardening.
"Maybe she went up to the front door," Audrey said as she did the same.
Bryan took a while to open and then quickly ushered them inside. "Officers? Welcome. Pardon me, I'm in a conference call. I'll be right with you."
He hurried back to his call, while Audrey and Nathan slowly followed him into the living room, where they watched in silence as Bryan finished the online conversation with his business partners.
The room was sparsely furnished, though each individual piece of furniture was of high quality, giving an impression of items from a high-class catalog being cut up into the beginnings of a collage. One end held an entertainment system and a large leather sofa, and in the other there were two mismatched armchairs. Multi-patterned, sixties-type curtains were a strident departure from the white walls, which were otherwise almost entirely bare. There was a cocktail cabinet and a sole bookshelf, half-filled with mostly CDs and DVDs, alongside some nonfiction books. Audrey took it all in, feeling a strange sense of familiarity, while Nathan browsed the CD collection.
"There," Bryan said, closing his laptop. "How can I help you?"
"We'd like to ask you some questions about yesterday," Audrey said.
"The blindness. Right. The police is involved now?"
"There was another case today, a woman whose wallet was stolen just as she went blind. We think the thief might have caused the blindness."
Bryan looked dazed at the news. "Caused the blindness?" he repeated. "How?"
"We're not sure."
"Is it..." He lowered his voice and glanced at Nathan. "A Haven thing?"
"Might be," Nathan said.
"Oh, my." He mulled that over, rubbing his ear. "But it's all right now, right? I won't go blind again?"
"Not that we know of."
"That's good. That's good. I plan to go back to the office tomorrow, I have a heap of work to do. So, what can I tell you? I'm sure the doctors have gone through the basics; I really don't know much."
"Were you with a woman when it happened?" Audrey asked.
"A woman? Not me, I'm afraid. Can I get you something? A drink? You're working, so, coffee?" He was already on his way out into the kitchen, not stopping for an answer.
"Thank you," Audrey exchanged a glance with Nathan before they once again followed Bryan into the next room. "So you were alone?"
"My daughter was upstairs," Bryan said, preparing the cafetiere. "But she's only eight. I'm pretty sure she's not the thief you're looking for." A quick smile flashed over his face. "But of course, at that age, who knows, right?"
"And there was no one at the door? A salesperson, neighbor, anything like that?"
"Nope. No one." He started heating up the water, eyes on the work. "Would you prefer me to warm some milk?"
"No, it's fine," Audrey said, keeping her eyes on Bryan. "What about the window? Could anyone have passed by the window?"
"I suppose they could have. I didn't really think about it."
"Where were you?" Nathan asked.
Bryan, just about to pour water over the coffee, blinked. "Here."
"In the kitchen?"
"No... out front. Just about to go down to the grocery store."
Audrey snapped her fingers. "Did you have the door open?"
His expression brightened. "Yes... yes I did! Good call, the person you're looking for must have walked by on the street just then. Talk about bad luck!"
"And where was your daughter when all this happened?"
"I called for her when my eyesight went, but before that... I think she was playing video games. You know what kids are like when they do that."
Nathan crossed his arms. "Can we talk to her?"
"She's at school. She lives with her mom during the weekdays. I only moved in a few months ago, that's why things are a bit rough."
"And she didn't notice anything?"
"Not a thing. Scared the crap out of her when her daddy suddenly couldn't see, though." Bryan shook his head and sighed, but brightened up a bit as he poured the coffee and handed the mugs over. "Well. Here's hoping you find that woman before she causes any more trouble!"
They took their cups and sipped the coffee, which Audrey found made for a welcome change to the cheap machine-brewed kind at the police station.
"Great coffee," Nathan said, voicing her thought.
"Mm," she agreed, before trying a different track. "Did your eyesight all go away at once?"
"Yeah," Bryan said, inhaling deeply to smell the coffee before he started drinking it. His shoulders relaxed visibly.
"Did it all come back at once, too?"
"No, that was more gradual. Started with shapes, then became clearer."
"How long would you say..."
Nathan's and Audrey's cellphones both went off at once. Audrey was the first to read the message from Laverne on hers, but Nathan was quicker to make the call back.
"Wuornos," he said, and then sighed at what he heard. "Okay. Do they have a suspect? I'll be right over." He finished the call and told them, "There's been another one. The thief got away again."
"Right," Audrey said, preparing to leave, but Nathan shook his head.
"I'll take this one. You finish up here and talk to the others from yesterday."
He drained his cup and nodded towards Bryan. "Be seeing you."
The warning inherent in that statement was so subtle that Audrey doubted the other man had spotted it at all.
They met up again about two hours later, and though Audrey could tell from Nathan's face that it was a bust, she still asked, "Anything?"
"Not really," he said. "Same M.O., taking the wallet before the victim has time to react. Guy from the post office, this time. He gave a better facial description, but since he's still blind we can't do a sketch yet. I went to the school and talked to Durant's kid, too, she claimed not to have seen or heard anything. Might even be true. You?"
"The guy in the car remembers a woman in a bright blue dress and, quote, 'shapely legs'. He couldn't give a very good face description, but said it seemed like she had been crying. The dog-walker saw her as well, and described her similarly to Ms. Soctomah: tall, thin and pale. Hair brown or dishwater blonde, he was pretty vague on that one. He didn't notice anything in particular about her makeup, and no hat, so my guess is she put those on this morning to hide her features."
"Crying," Nathan said slowly.
"It could just mean that she was shading her eyes," Audrey pointed out.
"Or that she was upset over something and her Trouble kicked in."
"If she was, she got over it pretty quickly." Audrey sat down and thought for a while. "Isn't it weird that no-one so far has recognized her? I thought this was the kind of town where everybody knows everybody."
"I think most people don't have 20,000 acquaintances."
"Still." She bit her lip. "They found the wallet, didn't they?"
"Ms. Soctomah's? Yeah. In a trash can on the south end of town. The cash was gone, but the cards were still there. No prints."
"Yesterday's blindings were all near the waterfront. Today's were mid-town, in the crowd. So why south?"
"Maybe she lives there," he suggested.
"Right. So what was she doing by the waterfront yesterday?"
Audrey raised her eyebrows at Nathan. The corners of his lips tilted slightly upwards.
"Visiting Bryan Durant."
"I did get the feeling he was lying through his teeth, yeah," she said. "But it's one thing to believe it, and a whole other to prove it. You didn't get anything from his daughter?"
"No. She seemed nervous Could just be talking to the cops."
"Kids like you, though," Audrey said with a teasing smile.
Nathan smiled back, not even bothering to deny his soft spot for children. "She's a bit old for cooing and peekaboo."
"Granted." Audrey's smile widened, then died away, and she sighed. "All right, so, by the end of the day we might be able to get a sketch ready, but even that will be of limited use to us if she's not already in the system."
"We could run it in the paper with a warning."
"Mm." Without any mention of the thief's Trouble, all it would amount to was a general alert about pickpockets. That wouldn't normally merit a sketch, but Audrey figured that perhaps they could get the Chief to allow an exception. As minor as the crimes were so far, this kind of Trouble in the hands of someone unscrupulous could lead to much worse, and Audrey could only hope that the culprit didn't have the nerve to go there.
"It's just a couple of wallets," she said, to herself more than to Nathan. "Maybe it'll stay that way."
So far, it was a slow night at the Gull, and though Duke noticed the battered romance paperback that Nora stuck under the bar the moment he walked in, he didn't say anything. Nora was a professional, she could pour up a B-52 even with half her mind on a bodice ripper, and if more people should appear she'd have the sense to put the book away.
There were a few customers out front, enjoying the fine weather, a cooing couple by the window, and a single lady by the bar, cradling her drink. Judging by the care she'd put into her makeup and that blue dress of hers, she had been expecting company – or maybe just hoping for it. There was a slight air of desperation about her, even though, to Duke's mind, she wasn't bad looking, at least if you didn't look too close at the profile. On a weekend, she wouldn't have to sit alone for long, but tonight, she'd most likely leave the way she came.
As Duke ducked into the kitchen, he reflected that he'd have to do something about these slow Tuesdays. Even with less staff, it was barely worth keeping open, but he was well enough acquainted with the people of Haven to know that they did like to have fun, they just needed a good excuse.
He was doing inventory when he heard Nora's calls from the restaurant – first just an exclamation of surprise, then indignation, and just as he stood up to go out there, a loud, "Duke! Help me!"
Nora had dealt with drunken louts twice her size without blinking an eye, and Duke paused only long enough to get the nearest gun before rushing to her side. He caught a glimpse of a blue dress heading out the door. The lonely woman, running away. But why?
"Are you okay?" he asked Nora.
She was gripping the bar with both hands, knuckles whitened, and turned her panicked face vaguely in his direction. "Duke? She did something... I can't see."
His gaze fell on the cash registry behind her, open and empty, and he cursed a streak, running out to the porch. The customers out there were acting confused and frightened, standing up at their tables, some taking tentative, aimless steps with their arms waving.
Duke could spot the woman in the blue dress, on her way towards the road, and he dodged the customers, running after her until he got a good line of shot and could fire the gun at her. By then, she was so far away his shots missed, and she jumped into a black BMW, driving off before he could do more than shoot out the tail light. The license plate was in clear view, but too dirty to make out anything more than the general round shape of the letters and numbers, getting smaller as the car left. Though he knew it was futile, he kept firing until the clip was empty.
"Okay," he heard Tracy, the waitress, say behind him, her voice loud and slightly too high. Turning around, he saw her standing in the middle of the porch, hands held up in a gesture of peace that was lost on the people around her. "Can anybody here see, at all?"
"I can," Duke said, and two of the customers echoed his statement.
He stepped back up onto the porch and asked Tracy, "What the hell happened?"
"I don't know. Everything just went black."
Everything went black, but not for all of them. Duke recalled the way people had been seated before this happened, and realized that the two who could still see had been facing the windows, away from the bar and the lonely woman with the BMW. Quietly to himself, he wished for a fiery pit to open under this town and its Troubles.
"All right, stay calm," he said. "It's the same with Nora in there, I'm going to go check on her, and then I'm calling for help, okay?"
He had his cellphone out already and dialed the number as he made his way back inside, to calm down Nora and try to fix this situation. Though he knew that the best course of action was probably to get an ambulance, his fingers automatically tapped in the number that meant "help".
"Audrey?" he said into the phone, pouring his bartender a generous drink and putting it in her trembling hand. "I could really use you here. Some Troubled lady just robbed the Gull."
"I thought she was looking for a hook-up and not very good at it," Duke said, running his fingers through his hair as he paced the hospital room. Keeping his hands occupied seemed a good way to stop himself from punching something. "I couldn't imagine her robbing us. And who robs a bar on a Tuesday night? Hardly worth the effort, even with a Trouble like hers."
"She probably preferred a slow night," Audrey said. "Her Trouble seems to require eye contact. In a crowded room, someone might take her down before she had a chance to meet their eyes. Even this is a bit of a risk compared to those grab-and-runs she started with. She's getting bolder."
"But they were all okay, right?" Nora asked from the hospital bed where she'd been placed to spend the night. The quiver in her voice was almost unnoticeable as she continued: "They can all see again?"
"Yeah," Audrey assured her and patted her hand. "They were fine, and you will be too."
"I just wish I'd looked closer at her, picked up some detail."
"You didn't happen to card her?" Nathan asked.
"No. That much I could tell, even with all the makeup, she wasn't some kid."
Audrey sighed. "Well, we've had Vince made a sketch, at least. Now that she's taken to robbing local establishments, they'll definitely want to run it in the paper." She opened her file and dug out her own copy. "Duke, if you'd take a look..."
"Absolutely," he said, taking a momentary pause in his pacing at the chance of something useful to do. Seeing the drawn features, he gave an irritated click of the tongue. "Yeah, that's her all right. She had that Greta Garbo thing going. No chin, though."
"What, compared to you?" Nathan asked drily, and Duke grinned.
"Detective Wuornos developing a sense of humor, who would have thought it! Did you scavenge the evidence locker for a funny bone, or was that joke one you'd been polishing for years, just waiting for the right time to use it?"
Nora covered her face with her hands, but the quiet laughter was forceful enough to rattle the bed, and even Audrey's mouth twitched a little.
"Boys," she admonished them, and Nathan scoffed in reply.
"An overbite, Nate," Duke said with mock patience, though he was pleased that the mood was at least a little lighter. "Ruined her style, that's why I noticed it."
"Okay," Nathan said, without taking the bait. "We'll get the picture tweaked. Anything else?"
Duke raised his hands, palms out. "Don't know. What about the car? Even without a license plate number, it can't be that hard to find a black BMW in this town, can it?"
"We'll add it to the APB."
"What happens if you do find her?" Nora suddenly asked. "How do you stop her from turning you blind too?"
There was an uncomfortable pause before Nathan suggested, "Sunglasses?" and Audrey filled in with, "Or mirrors, maybe?"
"The people at the Gull who looked in the other direction were fine," Duke pointed out.
"We can't catch her if we look in the other direction," Nathan said.
"You can't exactly run around with mirrors either."
"Hey, it worked for Perseus," Audrey said. "But I guess we should pick up some sunglasses."
"And then what?" Nora asked, raising her voice to be heard above the conversation. "If you do catch her, take her to trial – you're going to hand out sunglasses to everyone there? And if she goes to jail?"
Audrey sat down next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "We'll think of something. Things have a way of working out."
"Yeah, until next time." Nora closed her eyes, and pressed her lips together.
"They..." Duke glanced over at Nathan and sighed. "I hate to say this, but these guys are pretty good at what they do. I don't think you have to worry."
"I've just had it with this town," Nora said, her eyes still closed. "You know, the moment they let me out of here, I'm going to call up my sister and ask to come stay with her in Chicago. Should have done it years ago."
"No!" Duke protested, but with a tinge of hopelessness, as he knew far too well that her reaction was more than reasonable. He crouched down next to the bed, on the opposite side from Audrey, and his voice was gentle when he said, "Come on, you can't desert me here! Do you know how hard it is to find a good bartender in this dump?"
She actually laughed at that, though a tear slipped through her eyelashes. "I'm sorry, but yes, I can. I need to quit while I'm alive."
He sighed and stroked her hair, looking up at the others. He knew that they, too, recalled Troubles with much more devastating results than temporary blindness.
"Yeah," he said. "I guess so."
On her way into the station the following morning, Audrey passed by the Chief, who stopped and pointed at her.
"There you are. They found a skeleton down at Doleba Bay, Nathan and I were just heading over there. Oh, and we've got a match on that black BMW. There was one stolen from a garage at the Nodam Cell company. Stan's looking into it now."
Audrey had just shrugged out of her jacket and was starting to put it back on, but halted in mid-motion to think. "Do they have a description of the thief?"
"Nope. Stolen from the garage."
"No cameras?" Audrey asked, but then corrected herself. "Of course not, because this is Haven, home to love and trust and sudden skeletons in the closet."
"Skeleton in a cave, anyway," the Chief said with a shrug. "Must have been there for years, it's a wonder no one found it before. So, are you coming?" Her evident hesitation made him guffaw. "This blinding robber case really got to you, didn't it? All right, stay here and investigate that car if you'd rather. I doubt the old bones are gonna up and run away on us. Then again, this is Haven."
"Well, you and Nathan call me if that happens," she told him cheerfully and then went to ask Stan about the car theft.
There weren't all that many clues to find in the files, and after half an hour or so of going through everything with Stan, Audrey figured she'd be better off looking at the scene of the crime.
Nodam Cell developed accessibility software for cellphones and was fairly sizable for a Haven-based company. Audrey walked past rows of offices, many of them still unoccupied at this hour in the morning, and talked to Jeffrey Kendall, the meek office clerk who'd been in possession of the car when it was stolen, and who admitted with some embarrassment that he'd left the keys in a ceramic ashtray on his desk when he went to lunch.
That complicated matters, but it also raised some interesting possibilities. Any stranger who went into people's offices and nipped things from their desks would be noticed for sure. The culprit would have to be someone with easy access to the building, most likely another employee. After taking a look at the garage, she talked to the receptionist and got some employee photos of women who might fit the description, as well as the duty roster for the day before.
None of the photos she took back to the station looked quite right, and Audrey wondered if the robber could have used makeup props to alter her appearance. The weak chin Duke had described would be hard to fake, but not impossible. Audrey made some copies that she could doodle on freely, but her artistic talents weren't of a kind that could magically make robbers appear from office clerks. She continued her search, until she noticed Nathan standing in the doorway, watching her.
"Hey," she said. "So, no call from you guys, I guess that means the skeleton didn't get up and walk, huh?" His expression made her greeting smile die away. "It did? Oh, God, I'm not sure if I'm sad I missed it or incredibly grateful."
"It didn't get up and walk," he said, stepping into the room. "Turns out it's a bit younger than we thought, though. Julia says it's only a few weeks old, a month at the most. It's been picked clean, but the bones are fresh."
She put her files down and sighed. "So we've got a potential murder on our hands. Great." A thought struck her. "Helena?"
"I talked to Beattie, she said no," Nathan said. "She could be lying, but..."
"I'd like to think we can trust Beattie."
"Yeah. How are things your end?"
"Nothing yet." She leaned backwards, tilting her chair so it balanced on its hind legs, and put her hands behind her head. "What's the deal with Nodam Cell?"
"They make cellphone software."
"I know. I was there. Why is the name so familiar?" Sitting back up, she reached for the phone. "I'll ask them for a full staff list, see if there's some way I can dig up that car."
The ringing of a phone filled the room, and Audrey had time to pick up the one she was reaching for before she realized that the sound came from the cellphone in her pocket. Switching one phone for another, she saw Duke's name on the display and raised her eyebrows. A call from him long before lunchtime was a rare occurrence.
"Yeah, hi?"
"Hey, Audrey," he said. "Do you remember the black BMW that blinding lady drove?"
"Do I ever."
"Well, it's right in front of my truck on Main Street."
That caught her attention. "Does the license plate say 8003 BO?"
"Still muddy," he said. "But it might do. Oh! She's slowing down. Stopping. Oh, yeah, that's her all right. Headed for the... wow."
"What?"
"For the bank."
Audrey stood up and took her jacket. "Stay where you are. We're on our way."
They pulled up on Main Street behind the black BMW and hauled out their guns, but paused before going inside.
"So how do we play this?" Audrey asked. "I don't have any sunglasses, do you?"
"Nope."
"I do have a makeup mirror." Even as she said it, she had a vague recollection of leaving the mirror in her other jacket.
"If the FBI teach you how to catch a culprit while looking in a makeup mirror, I'm impressed," Nathan said. He looked around for inspiration. "Drug store?"
"Duke," Audrey said, catching Duke's eyes where he was still sitting behind the wheel of his truck.
She mimicked a pair of glasses and he rummaged through the glove compartment. When he found a pair of sunglasses, he held them up with a questioning expression, and she nodded.
"Okay," she told Nathan. "You hold the ground, I'll go get the sunglasses."
She ran to Duke's truck, and Nathan took up position by the door, gun brandished.
Duke had rolled down the window and held out the sunglasses, only to pull them back when Audrey reached for them.
"And what am I supposed to do when she comes out?" he asked. "I need these too, you know."
"You shouldn't even be here," she pointed out.
"Is that the thanks I get for making sure you got here on time? I have as much right to hang around Main Street as anyone else."
"Duke..."
"All right." He handed the sunglasses over with a smile. "I'll get a new pair."
The door to the bank slammed open, and Audrey looked up. Nathan, with his gaze firmly on the ground, still got a good enough aim in that the woman fleeing the scene flinched at his shot before she got into the car.
Audrey reached the police car just as Nathan did, ready to pursue.
"You okay?" she asked. "Not blind?"
"Not blind," he confirmed. "What took you so long?"
"Duke was... being Duke." Since Nathan was the one behind the wheel, she handed him the sunglasses. "Just in case she can run her mojo from this distance."
It was still an hour or so until lunch, and the streets were mostly empty, which was fortunate at the speed they were going. The BMW kept making quick turns into side streets, the robber clearly trying to shake the cops off.
"Let's hope she goes into a dead end," Audrey muttered, as Nathan veered to match another turn. This time, it led out of Haven into the countryside.
Her phone rang, and she took the call without looking
"Where are you?" Duke barked.
"Are you okay?" she asked, instantly on alert. "Did she get to you?"
"No, she didn't get to me, I went to buy two extra pair of sunglasses, and when I came back, you guys were gone. I went in what I think is the right direction, but I can't see you yet. Where are you?"
"State route 200, north," she said automatically. "Hang on, Duke, you can't follow us."
"Yeah? You think I want you blinded in there? Or Nathan? Come on, you need me."
"Duke, you're a civilian, and as sweet as it is of you to offer, I can't have you in the middle of police business."
"Never mind, I see you now," he said. "Okay, talk to you later."
She threw a glance in the rear view mirror and saw the truck coming up behind them. "You're going way over the speed limit," she said, only to find that she was speaking into an empty line; Duke had already closed the call.
"Is Duke trying to play hero?" Nathan asked drily. He, too, had seen the truck in the mirror.
"He wants to bring us more sunglasses."
"Well, it's not the worst idea he ever had." The BMW took another sharp turn, into the forest, and Nathan followed.
There was a fork in the road, and the BMW went left, on a narrow, bumpy path that made it hard to keep the speed up.
Suddenly Nathan said, "I know where she's going," and slowed down.
"What are you doing?" Audrey asked.
"Let her think she's lost us. There are some hunting cabins up ahead. Two of them belong to Nodam Cell, can be rented by staff members over the weekend."
"Nodam Cell again," she said. "She doesn't work there, not unless she's better at makeup than anyone has a right to be."
"No, but there's a connection all right." Nathan pulled to a halt, which gave Duke time to catch up with them. The truck, much like their own, was covered in leaves and twigs, mementos of the journey.
Duke opened the door and called, "Why are we stopping?"
"She's headed for the cabins," Nathan called back. "Do you have the sunglasses?"
Taking the small drugstore bag from the passenger side, Duke stepped out of the truck and handed over one pair of sunglasses to Audrey, putting on the other pair himself. "So, what's the plan?"
Audrey and Nathan exchanged glances.
"I don't suppose there's any chance of you going back to Haven and leaving us to do the police work?" Audrey asked.
"That woman's the reason Nora's packing up to go to Chicago," Duke said. "The one person in Haven who can make a proper Ramos Gin Fizz – " he raised a finger to emphasize his point " – by hand. I've been robbed of a star bartender. Listen, if you think I'm going to be in the way, I'll be out of here in five seconds flat, no problem. But if you think I can help, are you really going to be hindered by police procedure?"
Nathan sighed. "Fine. You're backup. Wait outside by her car, grab her if she tries to go back to it."
They returned to their vehicles, driving slowly and as quietly as possible up the path, stopping just out of sight from the first Nodam Cell cabin. The BMW was nowhere in sight, but as they walked up to the door, Audrey noticed fresh tire tracks leading to the back. She nodded to Duke, who took the cue and followed the tracks around the corner.
Audrey and Nathan proceeded up the front steps, and Audrey tried the door. Unlocked. With great caution, they walked through the hallway. The single lamp was unlit, and the light from the door made the furniture throw long shadows across the carpet. Audrey continued ahead, leaving behind Nathan who stopped and lingered at the entry to the recreation room a half-floor below, gun ready.
"One more step and I'll blind you," a voice called out to them.
The robber stood in the kitchen doorway, and as Nathan turned to face her, the tense expression on her gaunt face gave way to a smile.
"Sunglasses?" she said, fiddling with her own. "Too bad that's not how it works."
She took hers off, and the last thing Nathan saw was her eyes through his own dark-tinted glass. He squeezed the trigger of his gun reflexively, and a shot went off, hitting wood by the sound of it.
"Just come quietly," Audrey said, taking a few steps forward on the soft carpet. "Don't make this worse for yourself."
"Why are you still... no!"
Dual sets of running steps were interrupted by the sounds of a tussle. Another shot went off, hitting something soft. Flesh? Nathan wasn't sure, and he hurried forward, only to stumble and fall, first on his face, and then, as something impeded his fall, on his back.
The sounds of the fight were too jumbled to make sense of, but a sharp thud told him of something large and blunt slamming into a body, which hit the floor with a groan. Once again, someone started running, but only one person, heading out the back.
"Audrey!" Nathan called, and then louder, "Audrey!"
There was no reply.
Holding his breath for a moment, Nathan could just about make out Audrey's breathing - if it was Audrey lying on the floor and not the other woman, but that wouldn't make sense, and he could smell Audrey's perfume faintly. He just didn't seem able to get to her. Whichever angle he chose, he encountered some sort of block, and he could only get further away, not closer.
There was too much space on each side of him. Reaching out with his arms, he should be hitting one or both walls of the narrow hallway, but he wasn't. The only obstacle was in front of him, between him and Audrey, and that didn't fit with the view he'd had of the room before his blindness. Forcing down his panic, he listened intently to the sound his hands made on the surface that blocked his way. Wood, not carpet, and his hands were horizontal, so that meant it couldn't be a wall. He wondered briefly if it was some form of furniture. Not the chest of drawers or the clothes-hanger. It was low enough for one of the footstools, but too bit. Then it clicked in his head: steps. The steps down to the recreation room; he had fallen down them. Knowing this made it easier for him to push his way up, reaching, finally, the hallway and a clear path to Audrey.
Two shots from the front of the building made him flinch. They were followed, a short time later, by the sounds of a car starting. Even from this distance, he could tell that it was Duke's truck, and he shouted Duke's name repeatedly.
The kitchen door slammed open, and heavy, clumsy steps made their way closer.
"Hold your horses, Nate, I'm on my way."
Nathan's hope died back down when he heard the clamor of Duke making his way towards them.
"She got you too, huh?" Nathan called.
"Yeah. So much for protective eyewear, huh?" Duke shuffled on into the hallway, until his foot hit the fallen body. "What...?"
"It's Audrey," Nathan said, crawling closer. "At least I think it is. Be careful."
"Yeah," Duke said softly, his knees hitting the carpet. "Hey, Audrey, wake up." A couple of light slaps followed. "Wake up."
"Is she okay?" Nathan asked.
"She's alive, and I don't think she's bleeding." Duke's fingers tapped something hard. "What's this, a hunting rifle?"
"It was hanging on the wall," Nathan recalled. "That must have been what she got hit with."
Duke breathed out through his teeth. "Taking that against the head could knock you out, easily. At least the carpet's soft. What are you doing?"
Nathan stopped his crawl and scowled, to no avail since Duke couldn't see it. "Everything's disorienting. It's easier this way."
"What, you're afraid to stand?"
The scathing disbelief in Duke's voice was so close to mockery that Nathan snapped, "You try getting by on sound alone."
"Oh. Oh, shit. Wow."
Now it held a tinge of pity, which was even worse. "Don't even start, Crocker."
"Whatever." Duke sat down and started pressing numbers on his phone. Just as Nathan's hand finally connected with skin, skin he could feel, Duke said, "It's not working."
"I don't think there's any reception around here."
"Damn it. Do you know where she went?"
"She left in your truck."
Duke sighed. "That's what I get for flattening her tires. Okay. I'll go outside, call up your colleagues. You stay here with... no, hang on, that's not a good idea. If she gets worse, you won't be able to help her."
"I can help her."
"Nathan..."
"Go!" Nathan ordered. He was well aware that this would be a good time to tell Duke that he could feel Audrey, but it was so personal he didn't want the other man to know. Even Audrey didn't know yet.
Duke stumbled out the front door, and Nathan remained, listening to Audrey's breaths. They were still steady, but there was blood seeping out by her scalp. Following the skin of her arm, he reached the area where things went numb and tugged hard, rewarded with a ripping sound.
"Sorry to ruin your blouse," he mumbled.
He gripped the ripped fabric hard, and trailing the edge of sensation he could tie it around the wound on her head. It was strangely backwards, working this way, like a form of make-believe, using what didn't seem to exist to cover that which did. The knot was made from memory, but seemed to hold – at least nothing moved when he tried it with his fingers.
Even from fifty yards away, he could hear Duke's irate yelling: "Damn it all to hell!"
There were more strings of curses, and then Duke made his way back to the house, with somewhat more certainty in his steps this time.
"Nathan!" he called before even reaching the house. "She shot out the police radio. I don't suppose there's a landline in there?"
"Not that I saw!" Nathan called back. "I don't think they bother with one."
Duke went up to the door and stayed there, sighing deeply. "No landline and no cellphone reception. That's great. I suppose we could wait around for the effects to go away. It usually takes, what, six-seven hours?"
"If Audrey doesn't wake up, she's going to need a doctor a lot faster than that," Nathan said, his voice low with worry.
"I know. And I sincerely hope she does wake up, but we can't count on it. Your car is still working, though, it's just the radio that's out. So we could try driving back down the road until we meet someone or the phones get reception again."
"You want to drive blind!?"
"No, I don't, but it may be our best choice. It's not like I'm going to be racing the car. I can't carry Audrey back to Haven, but I can carry her to the car and take it from there."
Nathan noticed that Duke had now gone from saying "we" to "I", clearly not counting on any help.
"I can carry Audrey," he said.
"What? No. You could barely stand a minute ago, you'd trip and drop her! Don't worry, I'll come back for you."
"I'll carry her," Nathan repeated and started rolling up his sleeves for maximum skin-to-skin contact. "You can feel the way and lead me through."
"That's a really bad idea. You're missing two senses here, and..."
"I won't drop her."
He wouldn't be able to feel the parts of Audrey that were covered with clothes, but after all this time, he knew pretty well how to maintain grip and balance while carrying things, even without looking. The doctors had come up with some explanation concerning his proprioception, but then, they hadn't known what was going on any more than he had.
Duke made a doubtful sound that set Nathan's teeth on edge.
"Listen, do you think I'd suggest this if I didn't know I could handle it? I don't overreach, and you know it."
"All right," Duke said after a moment's pause. "Hold out your hands."
Nathan did as told and slid one hand in under Audrey's neck. The other encountered resistance, and he tugged at it until he got a sliver of skin against his arm, though his hand had to reach lower still, to the unfelt regions of her trousers. He couldn't figure out the position enough to get a good grip, not until something – Duke's hands – guided him along. He could hear the other man move, and the way he sometimes held his breath in concentration, as his hand slid further and then stopped, stuck.
"There," Duke said. "Tighten your grip. Good. Now stand up. Slowly."
Nathan had to struggle hard for balance, even though he knew consciously that he had Audrey's weight to consider. The dark void that formed the world tilted and swayed, and despite his assurances, he half expected to fall, but something blocked his path and steadied him.
"Are you sure about this?" Duke asked, giving him a few more, almost inaudible, pats on the back and arms.
"Yeah. Just... stick with me."
The hallway was only about twenty feet long, but they took it a few inches at a time. At first, Duke tried to keep a hand on Nathan's arm, but it did neither of them any good and quickly became unmanageable in the narrow area. After the first attempt, they switched strategy, with Duke walking ahead, hands and feet searching for obstacles, and Nathan following the sounds of his footsteps.
Duke was heavy enough to make noise even on the soft carpet, and he was very diligent in mentioning everything he encountered: chest of drawers, coat-hanger, threshold. Following thus became less of an issue than walking. While Nathan could feel Audrey's head on his left arm and adjust his right arm whenever it seemed like she was slipping, he became acutely aware of the lack of sensation in his feet, reminding him of those first few weeks when his Trouble returned.
After the threshold, he stopped, having to admit that the steps were too much for him to handle on his own.
"Um," he said to Duke who was already halfway down. "Could you..."
"I got you," Duke said, backing up. "Okay. I'm right in front of you, one step down. My hands are touching Audrey. They're touching your arms. You've got a good, strong grip there. If you fall, I'll catch you both, okay? Might crack my head on the ground, but you two will be fine."
"Don't joke like that."
"It's fine. Nathan, I promise, it's fine. My feet are... they're right in front of yours. I'm taking a step down now, with my left foot. That means you can step down with your right. Like that... and stop. Good. Right foot, your left. See? Piece of cake."
It wasn't, for either of them, but they made it. By the time they reached the garden path, Duke was breathing hard and smelled faintly of sweat, but he laughed in triumph and Nathan joined in.
"All right! The rest is just gravel and a teensy bit of a slope. We can deal with that."
Maybe it was just their relief, but it did seem like the progression was faster down the garden path, Nathan following the steady crunch of Duke's feet without half as much effort as before. Even so, it seemed an eternity until Duke's foot hit the tell-tale thud of rubber and he declared, "There! Cop car. Come on, let's get Audrey in the back."
Nathan turned down shotgun and sat in the back with Audrey's head across his lap as Duke started driving down the road, making quips about being entrusted with a cop car. He listened with half an ear, most of his attention on Audrey's pulse and breathing. This was why, after ten minutes of so when he thought he heard something like a groan, he ordered, "Shut up."
"Excuse me? Am I getting to you, officer?"
"Shut up now."
Her face was contracting into a grimace under his hands, and the following groan was loud enough that Duke heard it too, and fell silent.
"Audrey?" Nathan asked. "Are you awake?"
There was a pause, and then a very quiet word: "Ow."
"That was an ow," Duke said, laughing in relief. "Definite ow. Welcome back! I was starting to miss you. Don't know about Stoneface back there."
"I was really starting to miss you," Nathan said, with a scoff of exasperation aimed at Duke.
Audrey gave a low half-chuckle and asked, "Where are we?"
"Heading back to Haven," Nathan said.
"But we..." She started to sit up, but thought better of it and sank back into his lap. "Why are we going so slowly?"
Duke replied from the front: "To somewhat reduce the risk of me wrapping this baby around a tree, thanks to our friend with the evil eye."
"She got to you," Audrey said, alarmed. "Both of you? And you're driving?"
"Not a lot of choice," Duke said, just as Nathan caught on and asked, "Wait, she didn't get to you?"
"No. No, she tried, but..." Once again, Audrey tried to sit, leaning heavily against the back of her seat. "It didn't work."
"Well, if you can see, you're welcome to drive!" Duke said, braking carefully.
"I think I'd better not," she replied, dazed. "Since I'm seeing two of you. And... oh, hell!"
With that, she threw up in close proximity to, and probably on, Nathan. The smell filled his nose, but that bothered him less than the symptom in itself.
"Seems like you picked up quite a concussion there."
"I'm just glad her whole brain wasn't bashed in," Duke said.
"We still need to get her to a hospital."
"Yeah, yeah, starting up."
"This is such a bad idea," Audrey muttered, awkwardly taking off her jacket.
Nathan felt her hand brush against his, as she wiped both of them off, but his attention was soon caught by something much more alarming. The sound of gravel on the road was becoming more quiet, and he could hear the soft whooshing of high grass hitting the car door.
"Duke, you're drifting off the road," he said sharply.
"What? How do you know?"
"I hear the grass. How come you don't? Stop the car before we..."
The world jolted, and Nathan fell straight into Audrey's arms.
"Damn it!" Duke yelled, slamming his hands down on the wheel.
"It's just a ditch," Audrey mumbled. "We can get out and push."
"Well, you're in no condition," Duke said. "Nate? Can you?"
"I guess, if you show me where to stand."
They maneuvered out of the car together and, after getting Audrey safely to the ground, took up position in the ditch. Getting into it upright was a hassle, but once they were there and Duke had placed Nathan's hands right, he found that the actual pushing wasn't so hard. He just kept moving his arms forward, despite the resistance, reveling in the seemingly impossible, until the car shifted, a few inches at a time.
Then it all slipped back again, and Nathan lost his balance, hearing the breath rush out of his body as he hit the ground.
"Shit!" Duke yelled, and Audrey called from above: "Nathan, are you okay?"
"I think so," Nathan wheezed, but the taste in his mouth when he spoke contradicted his words. "Um. I think I'm bleeding."
Duke cursed some more and started hauling Nathan out of the ditch, ignoring any protests. He was loud enough that even without the aid of sight, Nathan could get a pretty good punch in, enough to shut him up.
"You can't do this alone," Nathan hissed. "Do you know how much that car weighs? Don't be ridiculous."
"You could have bones broken! Or internal injuries that we don't even know about!"
"Your concern is cute, but I'm pretty sure it's just a split lip. Either way, I'm still upright, and I hardly think it's beneficial to us if you end up squashed by a police truck. Now, put me back in position so we can get the job done!"
Duke grumbled, but did as told, and they started pushing at the car again. Possibly the sliding back and forth had created some tire tracks, because it seemed easier this time around, while they did have to struggle more to keep the car from sliding down again.
Audrey was still sitting at the grass on the edge of the ditch, but seemed to have lost attention – she was no longer putting forth any encouraging remarks or suggestions. Nathan feared that she was drifting back into unconsciousness, but there wasn't anything he could do about it at the moment.
At long last, the moment came where Duke breathed out in relief, straightened his back, and waited. Nathan stopped pushing too, and when nothing came crashing back down, Duke hollered: "Yes! We did it! Finally!"
At the edge of his hearing, Nathan noticed Audrey speaking, and then another voice, a voice he'd listened to every day for the past ten years.
"Listen!" he told Duke.
"I don't know where we are," Audrey said , seemingly to herself. "We were up at the hunting cabins and I guess we're on the way back."
The other voice replied, and though he could hear no words, Nathan could clearly recognize it as Laverne's.
"Do you have reception up there?" Nathan hollered, and she answered back:
"Yeah! I'm calling the station!"
Duke started laughing hysterically, and Nathan knew how he felt. All this work, and they could have just waited for rescue once the car hit the ditch.
"Oh, well," he said. "I guess that's a reminder to check the phones more often."
Six hours later, when Nathan could see well enough to move about without knocking things over, he left his hospital room behind with vindictive ease and went to find Audrey.
She was still in hers, sitting up in the bed with a laptop propped up on her legs.
"Hey, there you are!" she said. "I was wondering where you got off to. Duke was here before, but I think I bored him."
"You seem to be doing better," Nathan said, sitting down.
"And so I should." She gave him a radiant smile. "I solved the case."
It occurred to him that after all they'd been through together, she shouldn't have been able to surprise him.
"From here?"
"Of course! It's easy, really. I should have checked the entire Nodam Cell staff list from the start, because guess who else works there." She didn't wait for an answer. "Bryan Durant. Which got me thinking of those curtains of his. Big patterns, not his style at all. Totally our robber's style, though. So I looked a little bit more, and, voila! Karen Durant."
She clicked forward a picture and turned the laptop so Nathan could see. He peered at it, making out some features in the general blur. A wedding photo of Bryan Durant, about ten years younger, and a blonde with a pixie cut.
"You think that's her?"
"I know it is. Hair and makeup is easy to fix, but that's exactly the overbite Duke described. The overbite that, coincidentally, never made it into the artist's sketch or the newspaper. Which means she has no idea that we can identify her."
"Have you told the chief all this?" he asked, though he knew the answer from the way she was bubbling with excitement to share the news.
"No." She was more subdued at this question, and looked down at her blanket for a moment, frowning. "The thing is, if Karen can't affect me, the way the chameleon couldn't kill me... then I'm the only one who can catch her, aren't I?"
"Maybe," he said, not liking where this was heading, "but the longer we wait, the further she'll get from Haven."
"No, that's just it. We left Haven going north, but the hunting cabins are south of the town. She was circling back, trying to shake us off rather than split as far away as possible. And I did talk to the chief about one thing: Duke's truck."
"Yeah, I know," he said. "It was left half a mile from a bus stop to Bangor."
"The buses go both ways," she pointed out. "She could have taken it back to town, jumped off somewhere – for instance, at Dix Lane, which crosses Chase Road, which just happens to be where she lives."
"And you think she's still there?"
"She didn't have to come back, and she did, that means there's some kind of unfinished business. So far she might think that she's safe, but if we send police sniffing around her, she's bound to run. Now, if only we knew what she came for..."
Something clicked in Nathan's head. He was surprised that it hadn't in Audrey's. "The kid."
Audrey's lips parted, and she remained immobile for a few seconds, staring at him, before she pulled the laptop closer and started hammering away at it.
"That's it," she said. "That's got to be it. She quarreled with the ex, blinded him – ten to one that was about the kid. I'm going to check the court files from the divorce, see if there's something... And that means we can put most of the surveillance on the daughter rather than Karen herself, and if nothing happens on that front I'll go in tomorrow."
"Not alone," Nathan said firmly.
She paused her work and gave him a sympathetic grimace. "Believe me, I'd feel a lot better if I could take you with me, but it's just not possible."
"I know." He hated admitting it, but did so anyway. "I'd be a liability. So take someone who can feel. The chief."
Even as he said it, he knew it wouldn't fly, and her dubiously raised eyebrows just took the point home.
"The chief's a great cop, but he'd be blinded too, and then he'd still be the one calling the shots. It'd be different if I could order someone around, like I did with Duke that time on the boat, but even then... who could I trust to just move where I said without seeing?"
"Duke," Nathan said. The name sat heavily in his mouth, but today's memories mitigated the effect somewhat. "For some ungodly reason, you trust Duke."
She smiled. "Nathan Wuornos advocating that I work with Duke Crocker on official police business? Really?"
"On this particular police business, yes," he said, ignoring her teasing tone. "He got us both out of the cabin today, so you know he can work blind. Like you said, you're pretty good at ordering him around. I'd feel safer if he were there, and don't you ever, ever tell him I said that."
"I won't," she said softly. Her smile widened into a grin. "But I'm going to need a moment to process how sweet you're being."
She chuckled to herself, and he prodded gently at her laptop.
"Just look up those court files."
Duke was pretty surprised when Audrey came to him with the request, and on a normal day he would have said no to the idea of deliberately getting himself blinded again, and on police business no less. This time, though, he saw the pallor of Audrey's face and the slight tremor of her hands, which really should have earned her another day at the hospital, and he agreed to do it.
Karen Durant lived in an apartment building in what had been "the new part of town" when Duke was a kid, but was now the most likely place to get affordable housing on short notice. Duke followed Audrey's path, and his fingers curved, longing for the weight of a gun between them. He distracted them by fiddling with the comm link in his ear. This was really not any more comfortable than the last time he'd worn one, though perhaps this time around he wouldn't have to get naked.
A breeze caught Audrey's hair and she flicked it aside with an irritated gesture that briefly revealed the blonde locks underneath. Taking a cue from the suspect, she was wearing a dark wig, and it brought home the similarity to Lucy so thoroughly that Duke winced every time he lay eyes on her.
As they stepped inside, Duke threw a glance across the road, where he knew Stan was located on the third floor with a pair of binoculars like a fully mobile Jimmy Stewart. He would have preferred Nathan up there, strange as it was to admit, but Nathan was busy chasing skeletons with his old man. That was probably just as well, in case Karen Durant's Trouble worked through binoculars.
They made their way up to the right apartment, and Audrey pressed the doorbell, while Duke leaned on the door, his back against the peephole.
"This is a bit over-polite, don't you think?" he said.
"We like to give people a chance to play nice before we kick down the door."
"How very moral of you, Agent Officer Parker. And what if she goes out the fire escape?"
"Stan has it covered." She clicked her tongue a couple of times, then sighed. "Okay, that's long enough. Stand back, I'm gonna..."
The door opened, and Duke got a glimpse of the woman behind it, before everything, predictably, went black. He could hear the door starting to close again and Audrey pushing against it, hard enough that something snapped and scraped. A security chain, his mind filled in.
"Stop! Police!" Audrey shouted, but that didn't stop the sound of feet rushing away, first Karen's, then Audrey's.
Duke remained where he was, listening to the sounds. No one was going out any windows yet, at least, which also meant less of a risk of anyone tumbling down and cracking their head on the pavement below.
"You okay?" Audrey's voice asked quietly and a bit breathlessly in his ear.
"Blind, but ready," he replied.
"That quick, huh? Hang on." Much louder, in an official tone of voice, she said, "Ma'am, put down that gun. You're just making things worse for yourself."
Gun? Gun meant Audrey might get shot, which was a whole lot worse than being knocked out. And so might he. Worst possible time to go blind.
A shot went off, followed by more sounds of running. Duke held his breath, but heard two pair of feet, so Audrey hadn't been shot. On the other hand she wasn't shooting, either. The way he figured, a cop – not to mention an FBI agent – would be perfectly within their rights to shoot at a dangerous criminal resisting arrest, at least as long as that criminal wasn't him. This was the patented Audrey Parker Troubled Whisperer empathy running wild.
"Stand by the door," Audrey ordered him, which was pretty easy to obey since he'd never moved away from it. Not the most comforting, though, with an armed criminal headed towards him.
But instead of shooting, Durant turned left just before she reached him, heading into the bedroom. That damned fire escape. Duke followed after her, and banged his shin pretty hard, but he was close enough now that he could use the upset in balance to throw himself forward and tackle her legs.
Without sight, his aim was a little off, but he bumped into her enough to make her stumble, and after a bit of fumbling he pulled at her ankles until she fell. On her way down, she kicked him hard in the face, and he felt a sharp pain in his lip as it cracked open. He and Nathan would be a matched pair, now.
Audrey barged into the room, and her barked "Stay put!" might have been meant for Duke or Durant, it was hard to tell. Either way, Duke held on until Audrey hauled Durant up and started rattling off her rights.
"Couldn't you just have shot her?" he asked, sitting up and wiping the sticky mess off his face.
"It didn't seem necessary," she said. "Sorry I took so long getting back to you. I'm a bit slower today."
"You're a bit concussed today," he pointed out. "Giving robbers the benefit of a doubt seems overly compassionate under the circumstances."
"Why doesn't it work on you?" Durant complained.
"I haven't the foggiest," Audrey told her, and then to Duke: "Listen, I got to take her to the station. I hate leaving you here all... like that, but I can't really manage you both. Would you mind waiting for Stan?"
"Oh, so that's what I get for helping?" he joked. "You and your priorities. Just don't come asking me again."
There wasn't much he could read from the snort she gave in reply, but he had a feeling that she knew just as well as he did that the reason she shouldn't come asking, was because he'd always say yes.
Audrey stepped into the interrogation room and took Karen Durant's blindfold off, as well as the handcuffs. Durant glared at her, and then sagged her shoulders when she saw who she was dealing with.
"This is cruel and unusual punishment," she said.
"Necessary measures," Audrey said, "and you know it."
She met the other woman's eyes and held the gaze. They were large, hazel eyes with flecks of green and thick, long eyelashes. Eyes like that could give a woman lots of compliments – and maybe that was why the Trouble had manifested the way it had.
Right now, they shifted this way and that, and finally looked away.
"I think it's time you cooperated," Audrey continued. She took a pair of sunglasses from her pocket and slid them across the table. "It would be the smart thing to do, and you're pretty smart, aren't you? Smart enough to figure out a way to use your Trouble to your advantage. Smart enough not to shoot a cop, which, let me tell you, would have been a really stupid thing to do. But then again, going on a crime spree was stupid too."
Durant, still looking down, reached out a hand and poked at the sunglasses with a long, skinny finger, pulling them closer only to push them further away again.
"I needed the money," she said in a flat voice.
"To get your kid out of town, right?" Audrey asked, and Durant's eyes flew back up again, her face a mix of emotions. "I read up on you last night; had some time at the hospital. You lost your job last month, and a few days ago, your ex filed for sole custody. Dick move – but seeing how you solved that problem, it may just have been the right one."
"You don't understand," Durant bit out, fierce tears threatening to spill. "She's my little girl, she should be with me. And I could have taken care of her too, kept her safe. Both of us."
"Using your Trouble to provide for her? That's not exactly what I'd call a safe upbringing, even if you hadn't been caught."
"I would have made it work. He won't even let me talk to her now, after what happened, but the moment I'm out of here..."
"That could take a while," Audrey pointed out. "She'll be in high school, maybe college."
Durant fell quiet and they watched each other in silence for a while, careful, guarded.
"You can't just keep me locked up," she finally said. "I deserve a fair trial."
"Yes you do. Which is why you should be wearing these." Audrey pushed the sunglasses across the table again, and when Durant didn't immediately take them, said, "Listen, if you don't want to play nicely, there are other ways to do this. Did you know that there's a blind guy in this town whose shadow kills people? He's keeping to himself these days, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind watching over you, for the greater good and all."
Durant paled. "You're bluffing."
"Maybe," Audrey admitted with a shrug. "There are better ways, of course. The high school wrestling team has a blind player, what's his name? Newman, Newton, something like that. He might appreciate earning some extra cash as a prison warden. Or you could just put on those damned glasses, keep them on, and stop making things worse for yourself. I can make sure you get to see your daughter from time to time. Maybe some day you'd even be able to look her in the eye."
Durant's lips thinned, and she scratched at a stain on the table with her thumb nail, before reaching out and taking the glasses, slipping her onto her nose.
"Satisfied?" she asked.
"Much better. Now, let's discuss where you hid the money..."
Audrey came out of interrogation about half an hour later and found the Chief standing outside with a file tucked under his crossed arms.
"Good job," he said.
She stopped, pleased with the compliment, but also a little wary of why he'd make it. "Thanks."
"Strictly speaking, you're still on medical leave. But seeing how you just took down a bank robber, with Crocker as your backup, no less, I take it you're back on duty."
"Are you saying that file is for me?" she asked with a smile.
He handed it over. "Another skeleton. Young bones, but picked clean. By maggots, apparently. Super-charged energizer maggots."
"That's a fun Trouble," she said, starting to leaf through the file.
"Nathan's there now. Julia's going over, you can ride in her car."
"Okay, will do."
"She's still packing up her things, so if you need a cup of coffee, or even a sandwich, there's time to get it. I don't want you fainting on the job."
Audrey didn't know whether to be touched, amused, or irritated at the gruffly expressed concern. She settled for a "thank you" as she closed the file. In all honesty, she was feeling a little dizzy, and some food could probably do her good.
"Hey," he called as she was headed over to get that sandwich. "Do you really think she'll keep those sunglasses on?"
Looking back towards the interrogation room, contemplating the woman behind it and the choice she had to make, Audrey paused for a moment before she said, "Yeah. I really do."