Innocent Prey. Maggie Shayne

      “Fuckin’ cops. You’re like Big Brother, you know that?”

      “Not the point.”

      I nodded. “I know it’s not. What is the point is what difference does it make? What are the chances the kidnapper ran the light?”

      “If he was going that way? Pretty good, actually. People get all hopped up during the commission of a crime. Adrenaline’s surging, they’re nervous, jumpy, in full-blown fight-or-flight mode.”

      “Walking textbook,” I accused.

      “What? It’s as good as you wanting to check the phone for photos.”

      “I do not want to check the phone for photos. I want to see who she’s been talking to. Blind women do not snap a lot of pictures, Einstein.”

      “I knew that.” He picked up the pace as we hustled to the end of the block, and Myrtle jogged along happily for most of the way, then started snuffing at me as if to say, Enough with the running, already. Do I look like a sprinter to you? “I was teasing about that Einstein thing,” I said, slowing my pace to accommodate my bulldog.

      “I know you were.”

      “Could you get the traffic-light photos without making the case official? I know Judge Howie wants to keep it under the radar.”

      “Yeah, except it won’t do any good. Look at the camera.”

      “What?” I looked. It had what looked like a bullet hole in its lens. “Shit.”

      Mason turned in a slow frustrated circle. “I feel like I’m missing something.”

      “Like what?”

      “I don’t know. The judge. Something was off about him.”

      I frowned at him. That again, I thought. “So? Elaborate already. In what way was something off?”

      “I don’t know. I wasn’t ready. He’s an old friend of Chief Sub’s, and I was expecting another power lunch, not an off-the-books case. I didn’t have my game face on, you know? But there was something.” He sighed. “I wish you’d been there.”

      Wow. That he’d said it to me twice now told me he meant it in spades. And that made my insides get mushy. My inner idiot acting up, I guess. “Maybe it’s that he wants it off the books at all? ’Cause, damn, Mason, that has my antennae all aquiver.”

      “No, I can see him wanting it handled discreetly. They kept her accident and blindness quiet.”

      “How did they manage that? I thought it was a drunk driver. Wasn’t there an arrest? A trial?”

      “Must’ve been. The judge said he got the max. Still, the judge is in the public eye. It makes sense to keep this out of the press if Stephanie is just throwing a tantrum.”

      “I don’t know. If my twenty-year-old kid went missing—hell, if my dog went missing—I’d have the National Guard on it before morning. He waited two freaking nights. And how can you say you get that? What if it was Jeremy? How long would you wait to report him missing?”

      “I don’t know. Ten minutes?”

      “There. See?”

      He nodded. “Yes. I see.” Then he stopped looking at the sidewalk and turned to me. “Maybe you’ll get the chance to talk to him yourself, see if you...pick up anything.”

      I lifted one eyebrow the way he so often did. I had practiced doing it in the mirror and thought I was pretty good at it. I loved mirrors. Looking into them, trying different expressions out on myself. It’s not vanity. I hadn’t had a clue what I looked like for twenty years, you know? “I’m picking up something now. From you. What do you know that I don’t?”

      He sighed. “You’re too good at this game.”

      “No such thing. So what haven’t you told me?”

      “Chief Sub’s fiftieth wedding anniversary party is Friday night at his place. The judge will be there. We’re invited.”

      “And by invited, you mean...?”

      “He told me to be there.”

      We’d been standing still so long that Myrtle decided to lie down. Head on her paws, she closed her eyes and was snoring with her next breath.

      “And by we, you mean...?”

      “He said I should bring you along.”

      I couldn’t have been more surprised if lobsters had crawled out of his ears. “So now he’s auditioning me? Doesn’t he realize that we’re not...serious?”

      He got a little red in the face as he turned away. “I couldn’t exactly blurt out that we were just each other’s most reliable booty call, could I?”

      My radar went completely haywire. I didn’t know if he was being sarcastic or serious, if he was a little hurt that I’d said we weren’t serious or making a joke so I’d know he agreed.

      Jesus, why didn’t my supercharged intuition come with an instruction manual and a twenty-four-hour tech-support hotline?

      I said, “I don’t like that ‘most reliable’ line, pal. You’re my only booty call.”

      He looked almost relieved. “Me, too. So then, we’re...exclusive.”

      “I guess we are.” It was, I realized, the single largest declaration either of us had made in regard to our relationship, and it was more than enough for one day. For both of us.

      “You don’t have to come to the party if you don’t want to,” he said.

      “No, I want to.” Shit, it was getting gooey again.

      He looked at me. “Yeah?”

      “Yeah,” I said, and quickly shifted focus back to business. “I want to see this Judge Howie and try to get a feel for what’s going on. Presuming we haven’t found Stephanie by then.”

      “Good. Good.” He looked relieved to be back on topic, too. “Just...don’t call him Judge Howie.”

      I smiled at him. “I want you to get the chief’s job, remember? You’re the one dreading the offer.”

      “I’m not dreading it. I’m undecided.”

      Nodding, I said, “How about we wrap things up here? Myrtle’s getting hungry, and so am I.”

      “Myrtle’s entering a coma. But okay. Back on track. You’re the expert on being blind. Tell me this, just in case this turns out not to be her phone. Once she got around this corner, how far do you think Stephanie could have walked in the time it took her coach to run from the park bench to here?”

      I mulled on that for a second, then got a brilliant idea. “Let’s find out. I’ll go back to the park bench where they started. You wait at the corner. Then, as soon as I sit on the bench, you close your eyes and start walking. I’ll come running and we’ll see how far you manage to get.”

      I could tell he didn’t like the suggestion by his thoughtful scowl. “Why don’t I be the coach, and you be the blind girl?”

      “Uh, ’cause I was the blind girl for twenty years and I could walk without my eyes faster than you walk with yours. Stevie was new at this. Like you.” I bent down to pat Myrtle’s head. “Come on, Myrt, we’re back on duty.”

      “I hate when you make perfect sense,” Mason said.

      Myrt opened her eyes and sighed heavily, then got upright again, stretched and farted at the same time.

      I handed Mason Myrtle’s leash and jogged back around the corner, then back down the sidewalk to the bench. I sat down and waved at him, where he stood on the corner with Myrt. “Okay, close your eyes and go!” I called.

      So he scrunched