Blind Justice (8 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Deacon Munroe ran his fingers over the fabric of the garments in his closet and found the suit he wanted to wear the next day. In the past, he had tried several different organizational methods for the blind involving marking the garments in some way or sorting them by color on the clothes rod, but those still required outside help. So when a handy device called the Bright-F became available, he jumped at the chance. The gadget functioned by detecting the brightness, saturation, and hue of objects, allowing the device to determine the object
’
s color. It had also allowed him to more easily handle his own laundry. One step closer to total independence.

As he waved the flashlight-shaped scanner over his clothes and compiled the proper outfit for the next day, Annabelle sat down on the bed behind him. He could feel her disapproval from across the room but knew her feelings didn
’
t relate to his wardrobe choices.

“Just say what
’
s on your mind,” he said. “Your stare is burning holes in my back.”

“You sure didn
’
t waste any time.”

“In what?”

“Replacing my brother.”

“Jonas Black is a big, dumb animal. He
’
s hardly meant to serve as a replacement for Gerald.”

“Then why?”

“You know damn well why.”

“This investigation already took my brother. I don
’
t want to lose you too. Just let it go, Deac. Let NCIS handle it.”

He walked over and sat next to her on the bed. He wanted to take her hand but wasn
’
t sure how she would react. They had yet to speak of their kiss and her abrupt exit. She seemed content to pretend that it had never happened. “NCIS doesn
’
t have both oars in the water on this one,” he said. “I owe it to your brother to find the people responsible.”

“You
’
ve never been a crusader.”

“Maybe now
’
s a good time to start.”

“By bringing a murderer into the house where your daughters sleep?”

He shook his head and gave a dismissive laugh. “You read his file. Black
’
s a soldier and a trained killer, but he
’
s not a murderer. Not really. He had less than six months left on his sentence.”

“I know. He seems like a good man, but…”

“I
’
m not running from this fight, and make no mistake, it will be a fight. Good old-fashioned, down and dirty. Jonas Black is an attack dog. And, when I find the people to blame for this mess, I
’
m going to let that dog off his leash.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Wyatt Randall may have been some kind of scientific genius, but he wasn
’
t good enough at being on the run to hide from Antonio de Almeida forever. Randall had phoned his mother to let her know that he was okay, and the considerate act had been his downfall. Almeida easily tracked back the call to a small rent house in the countryside near Annapolis, MD that Randall had paid for with cash. Almeida found it terribly convenient that Randall had chosen a place with no immediate neighbors to hear the scientist
’
s screams.

Now, Almeida stared down at Randall
’
s lifeless form. After knocking the man out, he had placed him in the small home
’
s bathtub and prepared him for the interrogation to come. Before beginning, Almeida took a moment to pray for Wyatt Randall
’
s soul and for God to open the man
’
s heart and mind to answer his questions without suffering needlessly.

With a wave of smelling salts beneath his nose, Randall
’
s eyes fluttered open and darted around his surroundings with animalistic fear. The rest of his body didn
’
t move.

“Hello, Wyatt,” Almeida said. “Don
’
t bother trying to move your arms or legs. I
’
ve injected lidocaine into your brachial plexus nerves and the subarachnoid block, essentially paralyzing your extremities.”

“What the…Please…
You can
’
t kill me. Lennix needs me.”

Almeida shrugged. “I think that like many Americans you overestimate your own self-worth.” He moved to the edge of the tub and leaned down close to Randall. “When I was a boy in Colombia, I was stolen from family and forced to work as slave labor in the coca fields. This was years before I met Ramon Castillo, and the man in charge of the fields showed no compassion to me as Ramon did. They encouraged us to chew on the coca leaves as we worked. It gave us more energy, and as we became addicted, we were more dependent on our captors. The leaves had a strong tea-like odor and a pungent taste. I can still feel the texture on my tongue. One night, a group of Colombian and American soldiers raided the camp, and during the fight, the building where the children were held caught on fire. Almost all of my friends were burned alive. Only myself and a few others, who had been selected to work that night, survived the battle. In the confusion, I ran into the jungle and hid beneath an outcropping along the bank of the river. But the mud there was like quick sand. My feet sank down, and I was not strong enough to pull them out.”

“Please, I—”

“Shhh.” Almeida hushed him gently like a mother comforting her child. “It started to rain, and the waters of the river slowly rose around me. Creeping up my body like some great beast was devouring me, like the way an anaconda feeds. I learned that day how frightened and helpless it can make a person feel to see his or her own death slowly approaching. I have never felt fear like that again. I would have given anything to hold back the waters. Luckily, God answered my prayers, and I learned something from that experience. I learned much about myself, but also about the nature of fear and our primitive survival instincts. Later on, I put this knowledge into practice when I went to work for the Castillo Cartel.”

“You
’
ll never find anything if you kill me.”

Almeida ignored the comment. His calm and smooth exterior never cracking. “Today, Wyatt, you will feel what I felt as the waters slowly consumed me. I
’
m going to turn on the faucet here in the tub, just a slow stream, and your paralyzed body will be unable to escape it. I will not stop the flow until you
’
ve told me all that I want to know. Please do not test my resolve on this. You will tell me where to find the stolen files or you will die. But first, you will learn the true power of fear.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Jonas Black gritted his teeth and popped his massive knuckles as he descended the stairs to Munroe
’
s kitchen. His anger hadn
’
t subsided since the night before when he had overheard Munroe and Annabelle
’
s conversation. He felt the urge to show Munroe exactly how much of an attack dog he was, but he also knew that any man who could pull him out of prison could see him back in a cell just as quickly.

When he reached the bottom floor, the smell of bacon and eggs made his mouth water, and his hunger momentarily eclipsed his indignation. It had been a long time since he had eaten a home-cooked breakfast.

Munroe apparently wasn
’
t down yet, but his two daughters sat at opposite ends of a big rustic-looking kitchen table. Annabelle was at the stove, humming the Ray Charles song “Georgia on My Mind” and cracking eggs into a skillet. She noticed him and said, “Good morning, Mr. Black. How do you like your eggs?”

“Sunny side up would be wonderful.”

“Coffee?”

“Sure. I take it just like my last name.”

She poured him a cup, and he took a center seat at the table, the two girls flanking him on each side and his back to the wall with a good view of the whole room. It was an old habit of maintaining full situational awareness. In fact, the idea of eating bacon and eggs and being served coffee seemed so surreal and alien to him that he once again realized he felt more on edge at that moment than he did standing in the prison yard among murderers and rapists.

Makayla ignored him, but Chloe said in her bubbly voice, “Good morning. I bet you slept like a log. With this being your first night outside of a prison cell, I mean.”

He smiled back and shrugged. “Actually, I had trouble sleeping. Bed was too soft.”

“
I don’
t know how that
’
s possible. I would sleep in a bathtub full of marshmallows if I could.”

“Just depends on what you get used to.”

“Gerald never had a problem with it,” Makayla said, not looking up from her cell phone.

He didn
’
t know what to say to that, and he supposed there wasn
’
t a good response. Everyone in the house had recently lost someone whom they loved dearly, and now Black had stepped in and, by no choice of his own, was sleeping in the dead man
’
s bed and wearing his clothes. He felt like a new dog brought home from the animal shelter the same day the last dog was hit by a car, and he suspected that when any of them looked at him it dredged up memories of the better man they had lost.

He noticed Annabelle wipe at her eyes even though she acted as if she hadn
’
t heard Makayla mention her deceased brother. They all sat in silence for a moment, the awkwardness growing heavy. Black searched for something to say and blurted, “Do you girls like magic tricks?”

“Not really,” Makayla said.

Chloe frowned at her sister
’
s rudeness and said, “Sure. What do you got?”

“I
’
ll be right back.” Black ascended the stairs and rummaged through his old military duffle until he located a battered pack of Deland
’
s automatic playing cards. He returned to the kitchen table and placed the cards in front of Chloe. “You know how to shuffle?” he said.

She picked up the deck, examined both sides, and then started mixing them up.

“Shuffle as many times as you want,” Black added.

She re-sorted the deck four times and then placed them back on the table. He grabbed the cards and, looking away, fanned them out with the faces toward her. “Pick a card. Any card. Don
’
t let me see the card, and don
’
t tell me what it is.”

She slid her fingers over the top of the fan and grabbed a card out of the left side. Black placed the rest of the cards back on the table.

“Okay,” he said. “Now, I want you to hold the card up between us and focus on what card it is. I
’
m going to read your mind.”

She rolled her eyes and gave a little giggle as she held up her card. He stared at her for a moment. Then he instructed her to place the card back into the deck and shuffle as many times as she wanted.

As she shuffled, Black said, “When I was your age, I wanted to be a magician. I saved my lunch money for two weeks to buy that deck of cards.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You wanted to be a magician?”

“You act surprised.”

“It
’
s just that you’re so big.”

“Big guys can
’
t be magicians?”

“Well, it would be harder for you to make yourself disappear, but what I meant was that it seems like you
’
d want to play football or basketball or boxing or something like that.”

He nodded, thinking again of her father referring to him as an attack dog. “That
’
s what everyone else said too. I guess that
’
s why I never got past the card tricks. That and my brother made fun of me. Sometimes people take one look at who you are on the outside and instantly form a conclusion about you. When on the inside, things may be very different from how they appear.”

When Chloe was done shuffling, Black cut the deck into six equal piles. Then he placed the third pile on top of the sixth, the first onto the fifth, the fourth onto the second, and formed them back into a whole deck. He asked Chloe to shuffle them again. She did so, and he started flipping over each of the cards to see their faces. He flipped through the deck until he reached the eight of hearts. He pulled it out and dropped in front of Chloe. “Is that your card?”

“Holy shit,” Chloe said.

“Chloe!” Annabelle yelled from across the room, where she was also watching the trick as she cooked. “Watch your mouth!”

“Sorry, but that was amazing. Did you see that Mak?”
Chloe asked.

Makayla grunted in response, and Chloe added, “Do it with Mak now.”

Black turned to Makayla, who rolled her eyes and, with what seemed like great effort, put her cell phone on the table. Black repeated the whole process again with Makayla. When they were done and Black had correctly guessed her card, she sat up a bit straighter and furrowed her brow. “Do it again,” Makayla said.

Black replicated the trick with her four more times, and with each repetition, her gaze grew more intense and focused. She looked as if she was trying to burn holes in the cards with her eyes. By this time, Annabelle had delivered a plate of eggs and Black started eating. But Makayla
’
s eyes remained on the deck of cards.

With a mouthful of eggs, he said, “What are you thinking, kid?”

“Don
’
t call me kid. And I
’
m trying to figure out how you did that. It has to be math-based, but there are too many random variables.”

Chloe started snickering, and Makayla quickly turned her gaze on her sister. “What are you laughing at?”

Chloe shrugged. “Just that I figured out how the trick works and you didn
’
t.”

“Yeah, right. You
’
re so dumb you tried alphabetize a bag of M&Ms.”

“Really. If I
’
m that dumb, then what does it say about you that I figured out the trick right off and you
’
ve been sitting there staring at that deck like an idiot.”

“Hey, girls,” Black said. “Not a big deal. It
’
s magic. It
’
s supposed to be fun.”

Chloe ignored him. “The answer is easy. Completely obvious, really. You always act like you
’
re so smart, but you don
’
t even have any common sense. Maybe that
’
s why no one likes you.”

“Whoa, girls, I
’
ll tell—” Black
’
s words were interrupted by Makayla throwing the deck of cards at her sister and storming from the room.

Annabelle yelled, “Makayla! Get back here,” and followed after the older girl.

Black looked over at Chloe, who was picking up the cards with a wide grin on her face. As she rebuilt the deck, she said, “Ever notice that really smart people seem to miss the most obvious answers.”

“You mean how your sister didn
’
t even consider that maybe the cards are marked?”

Chloe looked up from her sorting and said, “The cards are marked?”

Black tilted his head in confusion. “Yeah, the pattern on the back of each card is coded with the value and suit. I thought you figured that out?”

She laughed. “No, I thought maybe you were actually psychic. The obvious answer I meant was that I was lying about figuring it out just to get under Mak
’
s skin.” Chloe looked at her phone, placed the cards back on the table, and said, “Time for school. Thanks for the trick. Very cool. Maybe you can teach me how to read the cards later. That would piss her off even more if I could actually do the trick.”

Black blinked a few times and said, “Yeah, we
’
ll see.” As he watched the girl throw a pink Hello Kitty backpack over her shoulder and walk out the door, a small part of him missed his nice quiet cell back at Holman, even with the white supremacist trying to urinate on him.