In the Blink of an Eye

“Where’s the damn phone?”

Chapter Three

Mac waited with exhausted patience while he was transferred from the Fourth Precinct desk to his cousin, police captain Mitch Taylor.

“Mac.” Did he imagine the caution in the phone greeting? Or had he developed a paranoid mistrust of all his senses?

“Am I under investigation?”

“So much for small talk.”

Mac shook his head, bemoaning his crass impulse. He hadn’t asked about Mitch’s pregnant wife, or checked how the precinct was getting along without their forensic chief. He breathed in deeply, trying to slow down the rest of the questions careening through his brain.

Autumn air and sunshine teased his nose. Jules. Sticking by his side to keep him from totalling his body and ruining his recovery.

The suspicions he’d sensed in her had put him on guard in the first place. He remembered her rapid pulse, beating beneath his fingertips. The way she’d backed into him, seeking safety.

He’d reacted on instinct, holding on to her, offering her a bit of reassurance, as if he was like any other man.

As if he could protect her from any real threat.

“Mitch? I know I’m officially on leave. But if you’ve got any answers for me—”

“I know, I know. You’ve got plenty of questions.” Mitch was more than a cop. He was an adopted big brother. They’d grown up together. Mac drew on that connection to get a glimpse of the truth.

“I just had a visit from Internal Affairs. They wanted to know if I thought Jeff Ringlein’s death was suicide, and if he intended to kill me. What’s going on?”

The heavy sigh at the other end of the line wasn’t a good sign. “Jeff was under investigation at the time of his death.”

This was news to him. “Then why are they just getting around to asking me questions now?”

“You were in the hospital for five weeks, bud.”

“Before that. Why the hell didn’t anybody tell me there was trouble in my department?”

“You know I don’t have any influence with Internal Affairs. They’re a separate investigative unit. I can’t tell you anything.”

Intellectually, he knew his cousin’s hands were tied. But the frustration eating through Mac’s reserve of patience threatened his ability to think rationally. And, dammit, he needed that ability right now. He needed to think, to ask the right questions, to put the clues together in a way that made sense.

And then he felt the gentle grip at his elbow. The strong hand to anchor himself to in a flood of fear and panic. Jules.

Just as she had reached for him when he’d been so disoriented earlier, she reached for him now. Even that most impersonal, professional of touches grounded him in the chaos of his own personal darkness. Julia’s strength allowed him to tap into his own strength.

In a much calmer voice, he pressed Mitch for information. “I’m guessing this has something to do with missing or tainted evidence.”

“Mac—”

“There’s no other reason to destroy a crime lab. We’re not street cops. We’re not first on the scene. We’re the detail guys. The nitpickers. We don’t arrest people and send them to prison.”

“Your testimony can.”

“We’re the scientific backup to a good case.” He shook his head, running on pure speculation at this point. “I think Jeff was in trouble. I.A. seems to think so, too. He was destroying evidence the night I found him in the lab.”

He heard the whistle of breath from Mitch. “You sure? That would definitely interest Internal Affairs.”

“What interests me is why Jeff would do it. Was he taking a payoff? Protecting someone? Afraid of someone?”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Mac. This isn’t your case. They were probably just checking you out as a character witness.”

Mac remembered Julia’s bossy accusation when she’d caught Eli Masterson snooping through his things. He couldn’t equate that protective tone of voice with any innocent activity. “They wanted something more. I’m just trying to figure out what.”

“You think Jeff altered evidence before that night? I could run a check of cases he worked on. See if any of them have been dismissed because of the lab work.”

“No, I’ve got that information…” Mac’s self-assurance faded on a sobering thought. He couldn’t read through his files or access his computer. “Can you copy them in braille?” His sarcasm was too sharp to be funny.

Mitch’s patient sigh deflated the remnants of Mac’s ego. “You can’t—”

“I know. I can’t read braille.”

The grip at his elbow tightened, summoning his attention to the woman standing quietly by his side. “I could read a report for you,” she whispered.

His fractured pride warred with his mind’s need to find answers. “It’s pretty technical stuff.” He tried to warn her away, get her to retract her offer.

“So? I’d just be reading the words. You’re the brain.”

Meaning she wasn’t? Nobody got through college and earned a registered nursing degree without their fair share of intellect. Julia’s teasing at her own expense nagged at his subconscious mind, but he filed away the casual observation to analyze later.

He turned his mouth back to the receiver. “Send me the files. Maybe I can find a pattern of some kind.”

He doubted there was much he could do toward proving Jeff’s motivation for destroying the lab, but it would give him a break from trying to identify the chemicals which Jeff had been using the night he died. “Jeff had a tray of lab samples swimming in a pool of corrosive acid. I suspect it wasn’t an isolated incident. Either he was taking a bribe, or he was in big trouble. From his words and behavior I’d say he was coerced.”

“You think somebody was blackmailing one of my cops?” A territorial authority that made Mitch Taylor one of the most respected captains of any Kansas City precinct almost elicited a smile from Mac.

“If I.A.’s on it, they may suspect corruption somewhere else, too.”

Mitch’s curse was choice and succinct. “You watch your back, Mac. I know you’re not involved in anything illegal. But you were the last person to see Jeff alive. Whoever was blackmailing him may think you figured out what he was up to.”

He could hear the snap of paper, the click of a pen at the other end. He could envision Mitch taking charge and taking action—in a way Mac could not. “I’ll put out some feelers from my end, see if we can dig up anything else about Ringlein and his connections. I’ll send someone over to keep an eye on Melanie Ringlein’s place.

“And I’ll post a guard at your house, too, just in case anyone comes snooping around. If nothing else, they can give you advance warning if I.A. returns to ask more questions.” Once, Mac would have protested such take-charge, big-brotherly behavior. Now he accepted it as a practical matter of course for a blind man.

“Fine.”

“You there by yourself?”

The question drew Mac’s attention back to the steady hand on his arm. “No. Jules is here.”

As if mentioning her name had the same impact of one of his defiant arguments, she released him. The scent of sunshine faded as the whisper of denim took her away from him.