Running Blind Read online

  Jina’s phone buzzed a couple more times, and each time she rejected the call in favor of work. For a couple of hours they each handled billing for the insurance company that owned this building in downtown Dallas. It was a boring job, most of the time—all right, all of the time—but the pay was decent. Carlin figured she was lucky to have the job, considering the general state of the economy. She wasn’t in charge, like she’d been in Houston, but this was a much larger company than the one she’d left behind and there were opportunities for advancement, if she stayed for a while, kept her nose clean, and didn’t screw up. When she put her mind to doing something, sheer stubbornness made her keep at it until she could do a good job. Working in billing wasn’t glamorous, but so what? It paid the bills. Now and then she’d think about going back to school, but until her mind settled on one career path, what was the point? She needed a job; she didn’t have a calling, and that was okay with her because that made her more flexible, instead of being focused on one thing.

  Jina was antsy, up and down from her desk, bringing Carlin—and herself—coffee a couple of times. Just before lunchtime, she jumped out of her chair and crossed into Carlin’s cubicle. “Did you bring your lunch?”

  “Yeah. A sandwich and a bag of chips.” Cooking wasn’t her thing. Some of the women who worked in the office brought in little individual containers of homemade soup, or lasagna, or casserole, which they heated up in the break room microwave. Carlin preferred a sandwich any day over going to all that trouble.

  The “yuck” face Jina made was almost comical, but then she was into gourmet stuff. “That doesn’t sound very good. I’m going down the street to pick up a veggie pizza. Split one with me?”

  Pizza sounded good, and Jina obviously needed company, so Carlin agreed. She pushed away from her computer, stretched out the kinks in her shoulders, and reached for her raincoat. “I’ll walk with you.”

  Jina cocked her head and pursed her lips. “I was kinda hoping to borrow your raincoat. I left mine at home, along with my umbrella. And I really do need to walk off some of this … let’s call it excess energy.”

  “If you’re sure.” It didn’t seem fair that Jina should brave the rain alone for the pizza, but on the other hand Carlin definitely understood needing to work off some temper.

  “Positive.” Jina snagged the raincoat and slipped it on, then rubbed an appreciative hand over the sleeve. “Nice. I wish I could find a raincoat this color! If you ever decide to get rid of it …”

  “I’ll hang on to that raincoat until the day I die—but I’ll look online this weekend and try to find one for you.”

  “Oooh, shopping. I’m in serious need of some retail therapy, though a mall is more my style than a computer. It’s more interactive. Plus there are restaurants. We should do that this weekend.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Carlin smiled, glad enough that she didn’t have to go out in the rain. Spending part of the coming weekend shopping with Jina didn’t sound like a bad idea; she could use some retail therapy herself. “I have a couple of Diet Cokes in the fridge, if that suits you.”

  “Yep. I’ll be right back!” Jina hurried toward the elevator, dialing the pizza place as she walked. Carlin went on into the break room to get the drinks, paper plates, and napkins. Over pizza Jina could tell her all about this latest boyfriend issue, if she wanted to talk. Maybe she needed a place to stay until she could get the live-in cleared out, if this was a serious breakup and not just an argument. It wouldn’t hurt to offer, Carlin thought.

  They could make plans for shopping. She sat down and stretched her legs out, relaxing. She felt better, and ready to laugh at herself. Okay, not laugh, but at least she wasn’t about to come unglued. That hadn’t been Brad’s Toyota; Brad was in south Texas, and had no idea where she was. She had a new life here, was making friends, and not even Brad Henderson was going to ruin it for her.

  BRAD STOOD ACROSS the street from the skyscraper and watched the front entrance from the shelter of a green coffee shop awning. He sipped on his second cup of coffee, a tall, hot latte, and wondered which floor Carlin was on. If he knew exactly where she was, he might be able to corner her somewhere inside the building, in a restroom or an empty office, but that was relying too much on coincidence and happenstance. A lot could go wrong; he didn’t know the routine of anyone in the building, didn’t know the layout or how stringent the security was. He was content to watch and wait—for now.

  This was his second trip to Dallas since Carlin had run away from him. Normally he wasn’t a patient man, but being impatient would be a mistake. These things took time, and careful planning. The bitch would pay for what she’d done. She thought she could file a complaint against him and just waltz away? It hadn’t taken him more than five minutes to find her. He’d told her he was good with a computer; she should’ve believed him.

  Who did she think she was, blowing him off the way she had? He’d thought they had something special. Instead she’d suddenly started turning him down when he asked her out, and when he tried to talk her around she’d freaked, filed a harassment complaint against him. Thanks to his buddies on the force no one had taken the complaint seriously, but it was on file; if anything happened to her, he’d be at the top of the list of possible suspects.

  So he’d planned carefully. Yeah, this was one of his days off, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. Instead he’d looked at the situation from every angle, and he was certain there weren’t any holes in his alibi.

  It was laughable that the stupid bitch thought she could outsmart him and get away from him. She hadn’t even moved out of the fucking state. How easy was this? If the opportunity didn’t present itself this time, eventually it would. He just had to be prepared to act, and act immediately. She was going to die. Too bad he couldn’t grab her and take her off somewhere, have some fun with her first, but he couldn’t be out of town that long without setting off some alarms. What fun would it be if he got caught?

  The weapon he carried couldn’t be traced back to him; he’d taken it off a low-life drug dealer who had subsequently been dumped in the bay, and filed the serial numbers off. He’d also programmed his computer to show intermittent activity during the day: chat rooms, Facebook posts, instant messages … it would look as if he’d been on the computer off and on with no eight-hour-plus break to drive to Dallas and back.

  Security in the parking garage was too tight for him to try to catch Carlin there. Eventually she’d leave, though. Maybe she’d walk to one of the nearby restaurants for lunch, or she might even head his way for a cup of coffee. Wouldn’t that be a fucking kick? He’d love to see the expression on her face when she recognized him, right before he put a bullet in her head.

  All he had to do was wait, and watch. He was good at waiting.

  Just before noon, he saw her. She’d been wearing a red raincoat that morning when she’d left her apartment, and she was wearing it now; he actually spotted her before she stepped through the glass front doors and onto the sidewalk, even though the rain was falling hard enough to blur visibility. The hood was up, a silky hank of blond hair peeking out, as she lowered her head against the driving rain and started down the street.

  She didn’t cross the street toward him. Well, that had been asking a lot. The possibility had been fun to think about, but he’d known it was a long shot. Instead she turned right, walking fast through the rain.

  Brad thought about setting what remained of his coffee on a nearby outdoor table, but thought better of it. DNA was a bitch. He poured it out, and stuffed the paper cup in his jacket pocket.

  He pulled his own dark hood up and forward, hiding his face. Thanks to the rain, no one would think anything about it; almost everyone else was doing the same. He mirrored her movements on the opposite side of the street, and crossed at the corner, his eyes focused on that red raincoat the entire time. He didn’t want to lose her, but he’d have to be piss-poor at trailing someone if he did. The circumstances were perfect; everything
was falling into place, as if this opportunity was a gift. Rain kept a lot of people off the streets, and those who were out kept their heads down and their focus on their feet. It wasn’t a day for a leisurely stroll, for checking out the other pedestrians. And with the rain falling as it was and his hood up, even if someone did look his way they wouldn’t be able to see him well. No one would be able to give a description. Eyewitnesses were notoriously unreliable. And even if they did manage a vague description, he had his alibi.

  His stride was longer than hers, and while Carlin walked with purpose, so did he. He was right behind her, so close—closer than he’d been in months. A part of him wanted to look her in the eye as he pulled the trigger, wanted to make sure she knew that he had been the one to kill her, but the situation was what it was. He’d take what he’d been given. He’d offered Carlin Reed his devotion, and all he’d gotten in return had been insults and rejection. She deserved to die.

  Ah. She turned down a side street, and they had a long section of the sidewalk to themselves. Yes, a gift, that’s what this was. It was a near perfect opportunity that might never come again.

  He reached into his pocket and gripped the automatic. His pace fast and smooth, he closed the distance between them, his rubber-soled shoes silent on the wet sidewalk. When he was just a few feet from her, Brad pulled out the weapon, aimed, and fired, then immediately tucked the weapon back into his pocket.

  It was a good shot, but he’d known it would be. He was the best shot on the force. The bullet entered Carlin’s brain just an inch or two above the nape of her neck. Her body jerked and she dropped, facedown, onto the sidewalk. By his calculations, she’d been dead before she landed. The hole in the back of her red hood was neat; the view from the front would not be so clean, but he couldn’t stick around to turn her over to survey the damage. The gunshot had drawn attention from those few who were walking in the pouring rain, and at least one man was looking directly at him, but Brad didn’t think he’d seen the pistol. People—from the sidewalk, from the businesses along the way—ran between him and the man. He lost sight of the witness as he calmly walked away, confident that the rain and the hood and the excitement would make the eyewitness less than useful.

  The rain began to fall harder, steadier. Head down, Brad took long strides toward his car. It was his car, but the license plate on it wasn’t his; he’d taken the precaution of stealing one that morning off a junker that looked as if it hadn’t been cranked in years. He’d covered all the possibilities. He kept his hands in his pockets, his right hand on the pistol grip in case the man who’d seen him at the crime scene decided to do something stupid, like follow him. But no one came after him, and he got lost in the confusion. Sirens sounded in the distance—he needed to get in his car and on the road before streets were blocked. He had time. Not much, but he had time. Already his mind was working ahead. He’d dump both the coffee cup and the gun somewhere between Dallas and Houston. He’d also dispose of the stolen tag and reattach the right one. No one would ever be the wiser.

  He felt good. Lighter. Vindicated. Carlin was dead, and he was happy. Dead. It was her own fault. She was his, he’d laid claim to her, and she’d tried to run away. He’d missed her at first, but not now. What choice had he had? None. None at all.

  There was no reason to second guess himself. Carlin had gotten what she deserved. It was done.

  Chapter One

  IO MONTHS LATER

  BATTLE RIDGE, WYOMING, didn’t look like much. Carlin Reed pulled her faded red Subaru into a parking space in front of an empty store and looked around. There probably wouldn’t be any jobs here, but she’d ask around anyway. She’d found work in some of the damnedest places, doing things that she’d never before have considered. Work was work, money was money, and she’d learned not to be picky. She wasn’t above doing yard work, washing dishes, or just about anything else as long as it didn’t involve prostituting herself. Her first attempt at mowing a lawn on a riding mower had been something worthy of a clip on YouTube, but she’d learned.

  From what she could see, Battle Ridge had fallen on hard times. Her atlas gave the population as 2,387, but the atlas was six years old, and from what she had seen driving in, she doubted Battle Ridge supported that many residents now. She’d passed empty houses, some with “For Sale” signs that had been up so long they’d become dingy and weather-beaten, and empty stores with “For Sale or Lease” notices in the windows. Here in the West it would still be considered a fair-sized town, especially in a state the size of Wyoming, with a grand total population of half a million people. Nevertheless, the reality was that half the buildings around her were standing empty, which meant she’d likely be moving on.

  Not right this minute, though. Right now, she was hungry.

  Not surprisingly, traffic was light. Hungry or not, Carlin sat in the dusty four-wheel-drive SUV and through her dark sunglasses carefully studied everything around her, every vehicle, every person. Caution had become second nature to her. She hated losing the unconscious freedom and spontaneity she’d once known, but looking back she could only marvel at how unaware she’d been, how vulnerable.

  The level of her vulnerability might change depending on circumstances, but she was damned if she’d add in the factor of not being aware. She’d already noted that the license plates of the cars and trucks parked on each side of the street were all from Wyoming. There was little chance her movements could have been anticipated, since she hadn’t known she’d be stopping here, but she still checked.

  Two buildings down on the right was a café, The Pie Hole; three pickups were parked in front even though two o’clock in the afternoon wasn’t exactly a prime mealtime. The name of the café amused her, and she wondered about the person who had come up with it, whether a quirky sense of humor or a don’t-give-a-damn attitude was behind the choice. Her amusement was momentary, though, and she returned to studying her surroundings.

  Directly behind her was a hardware store, another small cluster of vehicles was parked in front of it. To the left was a general store, a Laundromat, and a feed store. A block back she’d passed a small bank, and beside it had been a post office. Down the street she could see a gas station sign. There would probably be a school, and maybe people from fifty miles around drove their kids here. Was the town big enough to support a doctor or a dentist? To her, it seemed like a good deal: a thousand or more patients, and no competition. A person could do worse.

  After she’d watched for a few minutes, she settled back and watched some more, waiting for that inner sense to tell her when she’d been patient long enough. She’d learned to listen to her own instincts.

  The normalcy seeped into her bones. There was nothing frightening here, nothing unusual going on. She got her baseball cap from the passenger seat, pulled it on, and grabbed her road atlas and hooded TEC jacket before getting out of the Subaru. Though it was summer, the air was cool. The TEC was very lightweight, just a couple layers of nylon, but it had so many pockets that it had actually taken her days to locate all of them. If she had to run, everything she needed was in those pockets: ID, money, a throwaway cellphone—with the battery removed and stored in yet another pouch, a pocket knife, a small LED flashlight, even a couple of ibuprofen and some protein bars. Just in case. Seemed as if these days she surrounded herself with “just in case” items and scenarios; she was aware and prepared.

  She hit the lock button on the remote, and slipped the key and remote into her right front jean pocket, then headed toward the little café; her leggy stride covered the distance at a fast clip, just one more detail about her that had changed during the past year. Once, she’d never gone anywhere in a hurry; now her instinct was to move, to get from A to B, get her business accomplished, then move on. While it was true that a rolling stone gathered no moss, she wasn’t worried about getting mossy; more to the point, a moving target was harder to hit.

  Still, when she reached the café door, her own reflection startled her. Baseball cap, long blo
nd hair in a ponytail, sunglasses—when had she acquired the whole Sarah Connor–Terminator vibe? When had she become someone she barely recognized?

  The answer to that was easy: the moment she’d realized Brad was trying to kill her.

  She opened the door of The Pie Hole; a bell over the door sang as she walked in. Stepping to the side, she took a moment to do a fast assessment, looking for another exit—just in case—evaluating the three men currently riding the stools at the bar counter, their legs spread and boot heels hooked on the railings as if they were on horseback—again, just in case. There was no clearly marked rear door she could see from her vantage point, though there was one door with a plain “Keep Out” sign. Could be a storage closet, or an exit. She could also assume there was a back door off the kitchen, though, and maybe a window in the bathroom. Not that she’d need either, during this short stop.

  The three men at the counter evaluated her right back, and she found herself tensing. She didn’t like attracting notice. The more she stayed under the radar, the less likely it was that Brad would be able to track her. It was reassuring that there was nothing remotely familiar about any of the men, and that their clothing proclaimed them local. She’d gotten good at judging what was local—wherever “local” happened to be—and what wasn’t. These men fit right in, from their creased hats down to the worn heels of their boots.

  She shouldn’t have come in here. Too late she realized that any stranger would stand out in a place this small, where the locals might not all personally know one another, but they’d certainly recognize who belonged and who didn’t. She didn’t.