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  Yet there were still cases that had the power to bring out his protective instincts. Like when a child got caught in the crossfire. Or the murder he could hear Pete Diangelo and Lieutenant Morgan discussing. The body of a young woman had been discovered around 2:00 a.m. in West Baltimore. The killer had worked her over for a while before he’d strangled her. Another crazy on the loose.

  Diangelo, who’d caught the early shift, was already into the nitty-gritty of the investigation. He was telling the lieutenant that he’d stopped at the victim’s house around eightthirty that morning. He’d been through her effects and hadn’t found an address book. Maybe she kept it in her computer, but he hadn’t figured out a way to access it. So far he had a “stone-who-done-it”. A murder without a clue.

  Ben didn’t envy Diangelo. His friend was looking at long days of chipping away at details and interviewing everybody in sight until he got a lead, which probably wouldn’t get him anywhere.

  After downing several swallows of the hot coffee, he returned to the stack of reports on his desk. He’d given up cigarettes five years ago, but he wasn’t going to add caffeine to his private list of controlled substances.

  As he came within earshot of the two men, he heard Diangelo rattle off a list of names. One of them—Jenny Larkin—made him stop dead in his tracks.

  Lieutenant Morgan glanced inquiringly in his direction. “Something I can do for you?”

  “Sounds like my kind of case,” Ben heard himself saying. His kind of case? Nobody wanted this kind of case.

  Morgan waited.

  “I, uh, think I could give you some help,” Ben said. “Remember that computer course I took last year? There was a unit on non-standard equipment.”

  Diangelo looked relieved. “Be my guest.”

  “Okay with you, Lieu?” Ben asked.

  “Sure. Pete’s the only one who’s been assigned. Everyone else was out on a case when the call came in,” the squad leader answered.

  Morgan headed back to his office, and Ben pointed toward the sheet of paper Diangelo was holding. “Did I hear you’ve got a list of people who called the victim’s answering machine in the past twenty-four hours?”

  “Yeah.” Diangelo handed over the printout.

  Ben scanned the transcripts of the phone messages and the names. Stars indicated that Phil Tracy, Larry Lipcott, and Cameron Randolph had left their full names and numbers. Jenny had left a work number, although her message had sounded personal. The other woman caller was someone named Sue. Both women’s last names had come from phone-company records.

  “You interview anybody yet?” Ben asked.

  “Give me a break. It’s only ten.”

  “I could leave the computer for this afternoon and help you out with these. Maybe the perp was stupid enough to give his name and number.”

  Diangelo laughed. “Sure.”

  “Why don’t I take the women? And you interview the men.”

  “Hey—”

  “The women are probably her friends. You want the job of telling them she’s dead?”

  Diangelo reconsidered. “Okay.”

  “It sounds as if there are some ritualized aspects to the M.O.,” Ben said. “But I don’t remember hearing about anything similar.”

  “One of us better put in a query to the FBI database,” Pete suggested. “Whoever gets back first can check with the feds.”

  Ben nodded, figuring he was going to get the job. Back at his desk, he reached in the top drawer for a piece of hard candy. This month it was cinnamon, last month it had been peppermint. After copying down the phone information on the women, he used the office cross-reference to find the addresses. Then he grabbed his jacket and headed toward the garage. Not until he was in his car did he allow himself to think about his motives for getting assigned to the case.

  Well, not motives exactly. More like a reflex action when he’d heard Jenny Larkin’s name. If anyone had known him well enough to ask the right questions, he would have said emphatically that he’d gotten over Jenny Larkin years ago. If “gotten over” was the right term. But it seemed he hadn’t forgotten.

  How long had it been since he’d seen her? Twelve years. A lifetime ago—back when she’d been a senior at Howard High School and he’d been a junior. The age difference had put her out of his reach. Not to mention that he hadn’t been the big-man-on-campus type she’d dated. On top of that, he’d been new to the county the year before. So he was willing to bet she couldn’t even remember his name.

  He’d lost track of her, hadn’t even known whether she was still living in the Baltimore area. He glanced at the work address—43 Light Street. He wondered what kind of job she held. And then he wondered why he was getting into such deep speculation with so little information. This Jenny Larkin might not even be her.

  Probably the woman wouldn’t be able to tell him much, anyway. He’d interview her once, type up the report for the case file, and that would be the end of it. As he approached her building, he pulled another cinnamon candy from his pocket and tossed the wrapper on the floor of the passenger side. Then, realizing his pocket was stuffed with wrappers, he emptied them onto the floor with the other one.

  He managed to keep his mind in neutral gear as he studied the directory in the lobby. The woman he was looking for was at Birth Data, Incorporated, an organization he’d learned about when he’d had a murder suspect with amnesia. They put adoptees in touch with their birth parents. Jenny’s title was computer analyst. Interesting, he thought, considering what had happened to her.

  By the time he stepped off the elevator on the third floor, he felt like the tongue-tied kid he’d been twelve years ago. But he strode down the hall like he owned the place and barreled into the office waiting room.

  A receptionist looked up with a startled expression as he made a quick inspection of the premises. His eyes lit on a young woman working at a computer terminal. From the back, she looked a lot like the Jenny Larkin he remembered. Long, honey-brown hair. Slender waist. Narrow shoulders.

  The receptionist near the door finally found her tongue. “May I help you?” she asked.

  He snapped his attention back to the desk in front of him and flashed his detective’s shield. “Ben Brisco. Baltimore City police. I need to talk to one of your employees, a Jenny Larkin, about an investigation I’m working on.”

  The woman at the computer must have been tuned in on the conversation. At the mention of her name she turned in Ben’s direction.

  A welter of conflicting emotions surged through him as he stared into the face he hadn’t seen since his carefree high-school days. It was his Jenny Larkin, all right.

  Chapter Two

  No mistake. She had the same delicate features, the same creamy, unlined skin and honey-brown hair, the same crystal-blue eyes. No, not precisely the same eyes.

  It looked as if she was staring straight at him through the open doorway, and he went very still as if he were a burglar suddenly caught in the glare of a spotlight. He stifled the impulse to make sure his short, dark hair was neatly combed and his tie was straight. Then he realized that while her face was turned toward the outer office, she was waiting for an auditory cue to zero in on his exact location. Like everyone else in school, he’d known she’d been blinded in a car accident. Obviously she hadn’t miraculously gotten her vision back.

  It flashed through his mind that he might come right out and say that he’d gone to Howard High with her. Lay it all out on the table right at the beginning. But he discarded that plan as soon as it surfaced. After the accident she’d withdrawn from everyone and everything she’d known. He had no reason to believe she’d changed her mind about her former schoolmates. Besides, raking up the past might interfere with the present investigation. At least, that was how he justified his decision.

  “Miss Larkin?”

  “Yes.” She stood up and reached for a long white cane he hadn’t noticed because his attention was so tightly focused on her. It was propped against the wall beside her
desk. He watched her swing the cane to the left as she took a step with her right foot, then to the right as her left foot moved, making sure there were no obstacles in the way as she came toward him. Her progress was surprisingly rapid, and her assessment of his location very accurate. She stopped about four feet from him, waiting.

  He cleared his throat, wondering if she’d recognize his voice now that they were standing close enough that he could smell the lilac scent of her perfume.

  “You…you say you’re a police officer,” she said hesitantly. “And you want to talk to me?”

  He was accustomed to reading people. She was pretty uptight below her controlled exterior, as if she had something to hide.

  “Yes. A police detective, actually. I’m afraid I have some bad news about your friend, Marianne Blaisdell.”

  Her face drained of color. “Oh, God. Is she dead?”

  He noted the intensity of the reaction. “Do you mind my asking how you came to that conclusion?”

  She sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “Ever since I heard that news story about the dead woman on the radio, I’ve been worried that it was Marianne. I left a message on her answering machine this morning, but she hasn’t called me back. Is she the woman they found at that vacant house?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  Her hand fluttered beside her and came to rest against the wall. As soon as she connected with something solid, she slumped sideways, and he stifled the impulse to pull her against his shoulder and hold her steady while she absorbed the shock.

  “I—I was worried… but it’s hard to believe….” A gasp stole away the rest of her words.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” The official expression of sympathy. He’d uttered it countless times, but today it sounded particularly cold and stilted.

  “Why were you worried about Miss Blaisdell this morning?” he pressed.

  She pushed herself erect, struggling with a turmoil of sharp, twisting emotions that played across her face. “Uh— do-do you mind if I sit down?”

  “That’s fine.”

  Her steps were leaden as she turned and headed back into her office.

  He followed slowly, watching her drop into her desk chair as if her legs would no longer support her weight.

  “Can I get you something? A drink of water?” he asked.

  “No. I’ll be okay.”

  Taking the visitor’s chair, he studied her with a sense of freedom that was tinged with guilt. Usually the only time he had the opportunity to observe someone so blatantly was through a two-way mirror in an interrogation cubicle. Despite the shock—or partly because of it—she looked astonishingly young and fresh. She wore her straight hair in an unadorned style that brushed her shoulders, and she was dressed simply in an aqua shirt and a khaki skirt. The colors were good on her. He wondered who’d helped her pick the outfit

  She was the one who broke the silence, although her voice was still a little breathless. “I’m a friend of Marianne’s. But how did you know to contact me specifically?”

  He stopped making unprofessional personal assessments and flipped open his notebook. “We’re interviewing everyone who left a recent message on Miss Blaisdell’s answering machine. You sounded worried. Why were you concerned about her?”

  Jenny gestured with her hand as if searching for words. “I know it doesn’t sound so alarming when I try to explain. She had a date last night—with a man she’d been talking to on a computer network. She hadn’t met him in person before, but she kept telling me how nice he was.”

  “You didn’t agree?”

  “Well, I never talked with him myself, so I couldn’t make any personal judgments. But I warned her to be careful about…intimate contact. Oh, God… I must sound like a guest on one of those dreadful talk shows or something.” Jenny took a deep breath and started over. “She was acting so out of character. And I’d just read an article about computer networks—about how people can project any personality they want when they’re not meeting face-to-face.”

  “Read?” he asked.

  “In braille,” she shot back. “A lot of magazines and journals have braille translations.”

  He cleared his throat. Stupid mistake. “Let’s set aside the computer contact for a moment. Did she have any enemies? Anyone who might want to hurt her?”

  “Her ex-husband.”

  Ben’s pen hovered above the notebook page. “Name?”

  “Duke Wakefield. Marianne took back her maiden name when she got divorced. In the back of my mind I was sort of wondering if he might have been the guy she was talking to on the computer. I mean, I wouldn’t put it past him to play that kind of dirty trick on her. The only problem with that theory is I doubt he could afford a computer. Or know how to use it” she added in a lower voice.

  “You think he would take her life?”

  “Well, I’m not sure I would go that far.”

  “But the divorce wasn’t amicable?”

  Jenny’s features narrowed. “He was the one who dumped her—when she started losing her sight Then he was angry that the court awarded her such a generous settlement.”

  Ben took down the information. She sounded pretty positive the husband was a jerk. But being a jerk didn’t make him a murderer.

  “He’s still in Baltimore?”

  “As far as I know.” Jenny stroked her fingers along the edge of the chair arm. “Marianne hated being alone after Duke left her. I know she felt self-conscious about her vision—and Duke’s rejection. I was encouraging her to get out and meet people and suggested she try the computer. Probably it’s my fault that she was on the network in the first place. Now look what happened.” The last part came out on a choked gulp.

  “She made her own decisions. You said you tried to talk her out of the meeting, and she didn’t listen.”

  Jenny appeared to be staring down at her hands, which were now clasped tightly in her lap. “Yes, but I’m the one who pushed her to try something new. Then she threw herself into it with a—a kind of giddy enthusiasm. I should have… I don’t know…” she trailed off helplessly.

  A swell of protectiveness surged through him. “Don’t blame yourself,” he said softly. He wanted her to know that he understood what she felt. She couldn’t see his face, so he laid his hand softly on her shoulder, molding his fingers around the feminine curve.

  Probably it was too intimate a gesture, given that he was a police detective come to interview her about a case. But when she raised her face toward him, he saw that her eyes were bright with moisture—and full of pain and regret

  “It sounds like the computer chats filled a need she had,” he murmured.

  “And someone took advantage of that.” There was an edge of anger in her voice. “I want you to catch whoever it was.”

  “We’ll do our best.” He wished he could promise he’d close the case. Instead, he gave her shoulder a quick squeeze, then awkwardly removed his hand. “Did she tell you the name of her new friend?”

  She sat up straighter. “Oliver—although I know that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It’s a lead we can follow. Perhaps he contacted other women. Do you know which computer service she was using?”

  “She had trial memberships on several.”

  “Did she call you from home last night?”

  “No. I think she was at the place where they were meeting.

  He leaned forward. “Where was that?”

  She shrugged apologetically. “A bar or restaurant. I wish I’d made her give me the name.”

  He tried not to let his disappointment show in his voice. “I’ll leave my card so you can contact me if you think of anything else that could be pertinent.”

  “It’ll be better if I write it myself.” She gave a good imitation of having pulled herself together as she turned toward her desk and picked up two hinged plates, one with die-cut patterns of dots. After inserting paper between the two plates, she began to press rapidly across the sets of dot
s with a stylus.

  Strangely, she worked from right to left. He’d imagined writing braille would be slow and cumbersome but she wrote with the same speed as someone using a pen.

  “Okay, I’ve got your name. What’s your phone number?” she asked.

  He gave it to her and added that she could talk to Pete Diangelo if he wasn’t in the office. She took down the information, all business as she completed the note, folded the paper with the reverse side out, and stuck it into one of the vertical holders along the side of her desk. “Leave the card, too, in case someone else needs it.”

  “Sure.” Ben was about to stand up, when the secretary poked her head in the door.

  “Jenny, I hate to interrupt, but didn’t you say you had to be somewhere at eleven-thirty?”

  “Is it that late already?” Her fingers went to the watch on her left wrist, and she opened the cover. As she checked the time, her expression clouded. “My ride should have been here by now.”

  “Where are you going?” Ben asked.

  “I’m meeting with a student who’s considering getting a degree in computer science. She’s interviewing me at the National Federation of the Blind.”

  For the second time in as many hours, Ben spoke before his brain had time to catch up with his mouth. “I could give you a lift.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.”

  “No trouble at all.”

  She’d given him an out, but he hadn’t take it. And he refused to ask himself why.

  THE DOWNTOWN Baltimore sports bar was noisy with a lunchtime crowd. Accountants, lawyers, investment bankers and office staffers laughed and argued good-naturedly as they ate crabcakes and downed imported beer. Despite the congenial atmosphere, the man known to his few friends and numerous enemies as L. J. Smith was all business as he studied the blunt features of Joe Cornelius, the new client from Chicago. He didn’t like face-to-face meetings, or telephone calls either. E-mail was more his style. But a lot of money was on the line today and more business to follow, if all went well. So he’d made an exception.