A Blind Eye (11 page)

“Hey, hey, hey,” I said, pulling her onto the bed beside me. “You don't have to be scared. You're safe here. This house has an excellent alarm system, and no one can get in without detection.”

“Then why were you carrying a tennis racket?” She let out a laugh that she obviously didn't feel. “Anyway, that's not why I'm scared. I don't want to go back to sleep.”

Who could blame her? Who wants to dream of people dying and then wake up only to have it all come true? “What happened in your dream? Who did you see?”

“Christian, I was wrong about my first dream. It wasn't Katie on the operating table.” She broke into a sob. “It was me.”

No way. It couldn't be. She wasn't with them anymore. She was with me. How could she still dream about her own death when she was away from the killers? Maybe the dreams weren't really a prediction of the future. Maybe what happened with her grandma was just a fluke. And the landlord. And his wife. And perhaps others she'd never mentioned. “Are you sure? If you were wrong before, maybe you're wrong again.”

“I'm sure. I didn't recognize myself the first time. But now I know. I dreamed it again tonight. It's me.” Her little body shuddered, and her tears left dark spots on my navy-blue duvet. What could I say? How do you comfort a person who has just seen her own death?

“Listen,” I said. “We can change it. We already have. You got away from them. You're safe here.”

She said nothing, just rocked back and forth.

“You've had the dream twice, right?”

“Yes.” She sniffed.

“And it still hasn't happened. That's because it won't. We fixed it. Your subconscious mind just doesn't know how to process that. So it sent the dream again.” That made sense. I'd almost convinced myself.

She nodded.

“What about Katie?” I asked. If she wasn't the girl in the dream, maybe she was safe and sound back in England. “Is she still in danger?”

“She was in my dream, alive. She was in the surgery with us, helping.”

One thing I'd learned about Scarlett in our short time together was that when the truth was hard to swallow, she had a great knack for keeping it out of her mouth. “Helping you? Or helping them?”

“Helping them.” She cried hard now. Her whole face was wet with tears. I went to my bathroom and brought her a roll of toilet paper. She unrolled a few squares and dabbed at the mess.

“Let's get you back to bed. In the morning, we'll figure something out, okay?”

“Sure.”

“How would you say, ‘Don't give up?'”

She snorted then quickly wiped her nose. “Don't lose your bottle.”

“Don't lose your bottle? That sounds more like something you'd say to the town drunk.”

She laughed halfheartedly, but the fear in her eyes dissolved, and their color went back to vacant brown.

I escorted her back to her bedroom and stood at the door for a few minutes. “I'll wait here until you fall asleep, okay?”

“You can sit in the chair,” she offered hopefully. She really didn't want to be alone.

“Boundaries. Remember?”

“Right. The gentleman.” She rolled onto her side and lay still.

Those dreams must really drain her because it didn't take long until her breathing organized itself into slow, steady breaths. I tiptoed back to bed and let myself relax, finding at last the sleep my body had been craving.

* * *

“'Bout time,” she said when I walked into the kitchen the next morning, yawning and still in my sweats.

“Why, what time is it?” I asked as I glanced at the clock on the microwave.

“Dunno, do I? No talking clocks here, eh.” She sat on a bar stool and was showered and dressed in another new outfit of varying shades of black. I guess that made it easier to match.

No wonder she went for color in her hair. Who was responsible for the shocking pink though? Did someone say,
Scarlett, your wardrobe is bland. Why not color the front sections of your hair something fluorescent
?

“Why is your hair pink? You keep telling me you don't know colors. Who picked pink?”

“I did.” She sounded proud of herself. “My gran used to give me bubble gum. I could blow huge bubbles with it. Bubble gum isn't so easy to get in the UK, mind, so it was a real treat. She told me a million times to keep that pink gum out of my hair.”

“So you put it in permanently. I guess that's kind of cool.”

“Yeah, well, the dentist told me not to chew sugary gum, didn't he? Bad for my teeth. Now get moving. I'm fantastically bored. And hungry.”

“It's Saturday, and I'm seventeen. I'm supposed to sleep till noon. It's only ten thirty.” But I went back up to shower and get dressed anyway.

After a breakfast of french toast—which she loved, but not the syrup, too sweet—we called her guy-friend in England again. Still no answer. I wanted Scarlett to be safe, but part of me cheered up knowing she'd be with me a little longer.

I set my laptop up on the kitchen counter. I wanted to see if I could find any more information on the deceased waitress and get answers to some of the other questions that circulated in the back of my mind.

I pulled up the
Columbian
, the newspaper for Vancouver. There was a short article in yesterday's news, but it didn't tell me more about the waitress than the detective had. I Googled “how to trace the location of someone using a cell phone.” It turned out to be pretty easy, and anyone could do it.
Note to self: When leaving the house, turn power completely off.

I read everything out loud to Scarlett. She listened with interest, and it hit me again how different her world was from mine. She couldn't read a computer screen or even tell the time. Things I did a thousand times a day without a second thought. Yet she navigated through the darkness so well that it was easy to forget she couldn't see.

I decided to take Scarlett to the cemetery to see if she could find her way back to the building she had escaped from, or at least point us in the right direction. I had stopped there on my way out in the late afternoon. Did she walk all night and into the day or hide most of the time, listening and waiting? If we could find something close by, maybe we'd be able to tell the police and get Deepthroat off our backs and clear my murder allegations.

I also found the name of a little store downtown that sold special aids for the vision impaired. I didn't know how long Scarlett would be here, but she ought to at least be able to know the time and use the computer. According to the meager website, they carried talking watches and clocks, computer software for screen readers, and some Braille books.

Cemetery first. We drove the short distance up to West Hills Memorial Gardens. On the south end of the cemetery sat a big, rundown mortuary, and the old-growth trees of Forest Park bordered the rest. A light rain fell from dreary gray skies—typical Portland weather. I decided maybe I should rethink my first plan of moving to Canada and find somewhere south to finish up my senior year. Somewhere with sun and sand.

I drove straight to my mother's grave and parked the car by the big cedar tree. Scarlett waited for me to come around and get her. She looked so tiny again, standing by the car in the rain. I pulled her in close, under the umbrella.

She hooked her hand into the crook of my arm, and we walked among the rows of headstones, our feet mushing in unison in the damp grass, the smell of wet pine heavy in the air. Somewhere along the way, I slid my arm down until I held her hand, our fingers laced.

“This is my mom's grave,” I told her. A big, flat slab of stone stood about a foot off the ground. Simple but stately.

She crouched down and ran her fingers over the polished granite, reading the words as she went. “Catherine Cooper Morris. That's a nice name. What was she like?”

“I don't remember her much. It was a long time ago, and I was young.”

“C'mon. I told you about Gran, didn't I? Let's hear it.”

“Well.” I poked around into the depths of my memories. “She loved the cabin at Hood River.” I hadn't talked about my mother to anyone for a long time. Not because it was painful but because my memories were so vague. Just a few simple moments that came to me like a three-second video clip.

“We went there almost every weekend during the summer,” I said. “She was fascinated by Mount Hood. My dad didn't work so much then. He was with us on Saturdays and Sundays. He would build a roaring fire, Mom would make popcorn, and we'd sit on the couch and watch a movie. I would wedge myself in between them, and they'd think they were so sneaky, kissing over my head. I always fell asleep before the end.”

Scarlett stood up and wiped her damp hand on her jacket. Well, my jacket. “A perfect life.”

“I guess. Anyway, about eight years ago she got sick and died.”

“What happened to your dad?”

“I don't know. He just never really looked at me again.” Why did that hurt so much more than the loss of my mother? When my mom passed away, I thought my life was over. I was right, but not for the reasons I'd expected. I'd recovered from Mom's death. My own death in my father's eyes tormented me daily.

Scarlett slipped her hand back into mine. “What did you do?”

“I cried, when I was younger. Then I turned into a terror, causing trouble at home and at school. When that didn't get Dad's attention, I turned to drugs. He never seemed to notice when I came home smelling like cigarette smoke—or worse. I'm not sure he even knew. I only caught sight of him a few times a month at most.” That was when Jay came along, scraping me off the bench and shoving me back into the game.

“I finally decided that nothing could reach Dad, so I gave up. I studied hard, got good grades, and figured my only hope was to get into a decent college as far away from him as possible. Make a new life, without a family.”

“Why did you run away on the day we met? You said you had to finish your last year of high school. So why leave early?”

She'd been honest with me about her miserable life, so I told her the cold, hard truth. My low point. My shame. “I tried to kill myself.”

“Crikey O'Reilly!”

“Yep. I took a bunch of pills and woke up hours later in a pile of my own vomit. How's that for a nice anecdote? He never knew. I thought if I died he might finally care.

“That's when I knew I had to get out before the end of the year. Before my powers of judgment failed me again. Three days later, I found you in the back of my car.”

She lifted both hands to my face, seeing with her fingers the furrow in my brow and the tight line of my lips. “Berks, like I said.”

“Berks?”

“Gits. Idiots. Parents.”

“Oh, right.”

Her touch lingered on my mouth. I think she did it on purpose this time, knowing how irresistible it was. I leaned down and kissed her, pressing her against me and lifting her body off the ground until she stood on my mother's gravestone, equalizing our height.

“Scarlett?” I said.

“Yeah?”

“You're the most interesting, amazing, and beautiful girl I've ever met.”

“What?”

“I just want you to hear the truth about yourself, in case no one has ever told you.” I brushed a lock of damp hair from her face. “I know what it's like to be deserted by a parent, always wondering what you've done wrong to never deserve their love. You shouldn't have to feel that way.”

She smiled. “Now you're just taking the Mickey.”

I laughed out loud. “I swear you're making these up.”

“I'm not. Honest. My gran watched a lot of telly. I picked up only the best of the Queen's English. It means you're teasing.”

“Well, I'm not giving you Mickey. I'm serious.”

She snorted. “
Taking
the Mickey. If you can't get it right, don't even try.”

She pulled me in for another kiss. I dropped the umbrella on the grass so I could give Scarlett's lips my full attention.

Christian vs. The Receptionist

Scarlett wasn't sure which direction she'd come from to get to the cemetery. I tried to get details. How big was the tree? Did she smell flowers? How long did it take her?

All she knew for sure was that she'd walked until she'd felt warmth from the sun. Then, worried she might be spotted, she hid in the bushes. She must've stayed there for hours, frozen from wandering all night in the cold and wet, wearing only her
Mind the Gap
T-shirt. Not to mention the stress of never knowing for sure if she was fully concealed or not.

When she'd heard me pull in and the car door open and close, she waited a few minutes then slunk over and quietly climbed in. Not much to go on.

We sloshed back to the Rover and cruised the surrounding roads, me searching for some kind of medical-looking facility, Scarlett basking in the warmth of her seat heater. I didn't see anything promising. A couple of rich people's houses, and that was all.

Most of the area surrounding the cemetery was Forest Park. Plenty of druggies hung out there, the backdrop of the occasional murder or rape that showed up in the news. It was a miracle she'd made it to the cemetery in the middle of the night alone. She must've been terrified. And then, when she thought she was safe, some moron had dumped her on the highway. I groaned out loud just thinking about it.

“What's wrong?” she asked with her eyes still closed.

“Nothing. I was just thinking.”

“About what?” She turned her face to me.

“About what a loser I am.”

She laughed. “There's still time. Football is a game of two halves.”

First of all, football has four quarters and has nothing to do with my mental state. I opened my mouth to ask for interpretation, but she cut me off. “Nope. I'll let you figure that one out.”