Behind Blue Eyes

  Behind Blue Eyes

  T.L. Schaefer

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Behind Blue Eyes (CASI, #1)

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  About the Author

  BEHIND BLUE EYES

  Colorado Academy for Superior Intellect (CASI), Book 1

  By TL Schaefer

  Published by Terri Schaefer

  Copyright 2017

  Cover by Sweet ‘N Spicy Designs

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at author@tlschaefer.com.

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination. www.tlschaefer.com

  Dedication

  For Jenn, Pat, Skully & Tera... Y’all always make me do the hard stuff, and it makes a better book.

  And as always, to August... Twenty years of marriage and I love you even more today!

  Prologue

  Now—Dallas, Texas, Tuesday, 8:30 a.m.

  If I’d known when I woke up this morning that my life was going to change in a major way—again—I probably would have pulled the covers over my head and hidden like the coward I am.

  Instead, I was actually pretty chipper as I took Xena for her morning walk, both of us enjoying the springtime morning sun. Guess that should have been an indicator of things to come.

  Around us, the residents of Deep Ellum were going about their business, strolling into the weirdly trendy shops, grabbing cappuccinos, letting their dogs run free in the pocket park. I’d bet if I tipped my glasses down most of their auras would be relaxed and happy. But even as carefree as I felt this morning, opening myself up to strangers’ auras and emotions wasn’t in the cards on any day. At least when I wasn’t on the job, that is.

  I slipped Xena off her leash and she scampered through the grass, her tail waving like a flag. Yeah, a shih tzu is such a girly dog, but hey, what can I say? I’m a girl, and the pooch gives me unconditional love. These days I take all the simple joys I can get.

  I rescued her from an animal shelter only a few hours before she was to be put down. Don’t ask me what drew me to the SPCA; it’s not like I was looking for a companion, but I found one, nonetheless. Maybe it was two lost souls calling to one another. I’m just glad we found each other in time.

  At the thought, a shiver of foreboding rippled through me, making me glance left, then right. There was nothing different about the people surrounding me, or the day in general that seemed out of place. But even as normal as it seemed, I’d learned to trust my intuition a long time ago. I whistled for Xena and boogied back to the loft. With each step I took toward home, my spine became stiffer and my heart heavier.

  As I climbed the stairs to my haven, certainty hit me like a punch. There’d be another murder tonight, in my division, and I’d be called in to shoot it. Not that there was any shortage of violent crimes in Dallas on any given night, but the cloud-blotting-the-sun feeling I’d had in the park told me this one would be different. Time to suit up and put my game face on.

  Shit. Sometimes being “gifted” with the Sight was a good thing. Most of the time it was a bitch.

  Chapter One

  Before

  It was a picture-perfect Christmas card photo. The building sat atop a high hill like a dowager queen, holding court over sweeping valleys and snow-tinged pines. The fact I was so scared I’d almost peed my pants wasn’t lost on Mother. Through some weird sixth sense I figured out what was coming as soon as she opened the car door. She’d been too nice to me the last day or so. My shabby suitcase sat on the backseat alone, no luggage of hers accompanying it.

  We weren’t going to the orphanage she’d threatened me with so often, or even an adoption agency. No, this was something different, something awful. But how could anything possibly be as bad as the life I’d led to this point?

  The battered old car wheezed to a stop in front of imposing double doors. Even at fourteen, I realized the folly of trying to run. The last building had been miles back, and we’d passed through a set of formidable gates flanked by a fence looming tall and stark and menacing against the fresh snow.

  Standing at the door was a spindly looking academic—stereotypic right down to the lab coat and pocket protector. Dr. Green, Psychiatrist, his badge proudly proclaimed.

  He was all smiles, comforting to my mother, careful of me. Sanctimonious prick. Yeah, even at my fourteen, I knew those words...and exactly what they meant. Thank my ever-revolving host of “uncles” for that.

  As soon as Mother left, Dr. Green showed me to my room, which was nothing more than a glorified cell. He was a talker, loved the sound of his own voice.

  He told me of the progress we’d make with my delusions, how with therapy and lots of psychotropic meds, I’d soon be as normal as any other teenager. And I’d have the Colorado Academy for Superior Intellect (CASI for short, he informed me pompously) to thank for it.

  Then he left me alone. All alone in that cold, dark little room, and for the first time in my young life, I seriously contemplated suicide. Because regardless of my earlier thoughts, I was sure this new life would be worse than anything I’d ever imagined. Somehow, some way, I made it through the night, and when morning came, my two years in Hell began.

  Now—10:30 p.m.

  Pure malevolence weighted the air as I pulled my SUV into a No Parking zone and slapped a DPD placard on the dashboard. Guess I’d been right...again. Damn it.

  Camera in hand, I walked quickly down the filthy alleyway, trying not to breathe too deeply, but failing miserably. The rank aroma of urine, spilled beer and marijuana permeated the air, and it took everything in me not to spew.

  I didn’t because I’m a professional, and I’ve seen and lived through worse. Much worse. But now was really not the time to go there.

  My pace slowed as I approached the yellow crime scene tape fluttering feebly in the sweltering, almost-midnight breeze. Kliegs starkly illuminated the scene, showcasing graffiti-riddled walls rising above clumps of refuse that looked disturbingly like used condoms and dirty needles. Yeah, great neighborhood. But in my experience, murderers didn’t traditionally stick to the high-end zip codes.

  Enough stalling. I took a tainted breath and slid my tinted glasses off slowly, wincing before the scene had even fully unfolded before my defenseless gaze.

  Pure sensation arrowed through me with ripping claws, cleaving my brain before settling into a low throb pounding behind my eyes, making me close them in pure reflex. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.

  “You okay, Sara?” The concerned voice came from my left and belonged to Officer Juan Alvarez, the uniform who’d been first on scene and happened to be one of my few friends
. Sorta.

  I gave him a grunt for an answer and prepared myself for what I would see when I opened my eyes again. I whispered a low prayer that it wouldn’t be as bad as my initial impression, and took the plunge.

  As crime scenes go, this one was no better or worse than the hundreds of others I’d visited over my career as a photographer. At least not on the surface. Beneath it was a whole ’nother story.

  My stomach rolled as my brain tried to process the lust, hatred and terror imprinted on the next dimension. Sights and sensations only I could see and feel. It was my gift, my curse.

  The victim lay naked in the back doorway of a bar that had seen better days, sprawled in a graceless heap, arms and legs askew. Vivid scarlet seeped from the gaping knife wound curving around his neck like a gruesome Valentine’s Day tie. His clothes were folded at his feet in a neat pile, designer dress shoes set tidily on top.

  As suddenly and overwhelmingly as the Sight had overtaken my senses, it retreated into a low, almost-nauseating sensation that slid sinuous and shark-like through my senses, that I could taste at the back of my throat.

  I pushed the discomfort away, like always, and concentrated on the reality moving, living and breathing around me.

  Unseasonable heat blasted off the asphalt and even at ten thirty I could feel sweat rolling down my back, soaking my T-shirt. The sunshine I’d enjoyed this morning had morphed into early summer with a vengeance.

  Uniforms and a few plainclothes detectives walked back and forth, cracking jokes. Their morbid humor had pissed me off once upon a time, when I was young and inexperienced. Now I recognized it for what it was—a defense mechanism. I could appreciate that, if nothing else.

  I ducked beneath the tape and set myself up for the first shot. Drawing a great, shuddering breath, I raised the Nikon to my eye. At twenty-seven, I’d been shooting crime scenes for almost ten years. You might think that’s way too young to stomach the sights and sounds of death, but I’ve been around it far too long to flinch. Much.

  I could easily take the pictures using the two-by-two-inch screen in the body of the digital camera, but that would distill the scene too much, make it too one-dimensional. Using the viewfinder muted the world down to two dimensions, diluting the fourth that had haunted me since childhood, but still giving me the crisp detail I needed to properly shoot the scene.

  I snapped the first photo, falling into the clinical detachment that had served me well since the day I discovered the distance a camera could give me. It was with that detachment I saw the victim had been handsome—strikingly so—with a toned, muscular body and pampered hands. How had he ended up here, in the worst part of Dallas? Had he been hunting drugs or “companionship” and found more than he bargained for? Namely, trouble of the worst kind.

  I walked around the body carefully, my feet moving of their own volition. I’d shot so many vics before I knew instinctively where I could and couldn’t step in order to preserve the crime scene.

  Through the camera, details became vividly clear. The clothes folded at the victim’s feet were pricey, too pricey for this kind of neighborhood. The impression of a rich man’s body was confirmed, as was my initial impression he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’d’ve had pity for him if he hadn’t put himself in the position in the first place. I had no doubt he’d been here willingly. There was no sign of a struggle, no bruises at his wrists or ankles, no hint of a binding of any sort.

  His face was peaceful, as if he’d simply gone to sleep, with not an allusion of horror or pain. The dichotomy of the brutality of the crime and the expression on the vic’s face, the obvious, sprawled positioning of his body, careened through me. This was wrong, very wrong.

  When I finally lowered the camera, my heartbeat now ratcheted back to a relatively normal level, one thing struck me again, and it was as bright as a neon sign. And now that my paying job was complete, I could concentrate on the unsettling vision my “gift” afforded me.

  The victim’s aura, in direct opposition to his facial expression, screamed of a panic so excruciating it flashed me back a decade, to a place I’d locked away years ago. Bile rose in my throat. I hadn’t barfed at a crime scene since that the first year, and I wouldn’t do it now.

  I forced my attention away from the victim and focused on his murderer. Anything had to be better than feeling the vic’s terror roll through me as sure as the tides.

  I was wrong.

  The killer had left his signature: a thick, viscous smear of purple hovering in the air, an exclamation point of rage and perversion that meandered lazily toward the street. He hadn’t worried about being caught at the scene. His aura was too smug, even as it was tainted by an anger so intense it made my breath catch. More than anything, the anticipation I saw, the pleasure he found in his evil, gave me the shivers. It was an echo of familiarity from my past I wasn’t touching with a ten-foot pole.

  My gut told me what I couldn’t tell the cops. This perp had killed before—and would again. The sonofabitch liked it.

  I slid my tinted glasses on again and everything faded back to normalcy.

  But after what I’d just seen, I had a bad, bad feeling life was going to be anything but normal.

  An hour after I left the crime scene, I kicked my front door shut behind me, took off my glasses and let the Sight unfold. The loft was as I’d left it, warm and inviting, with no recent human auras tainting the atmosphere. In my line of work, a girl could never be too careful. A bad guy might not take the time to distinguish the difference between badge- and piece-carrying cops and an independent like me. If you were on the other side of the crime tape, you were a cop. Ergo, you were a target.

  The stills I’d taken of the job were now safe and sound at headquarters, ready for the homicide dicks to do their magic. For the sake of the victim—and his family—I hoped they found the perp quickly. The killer had exuded a sense of malice that still sent a tremor through me. One I didn’t want to consider too deeply. The case was Homicide’s problem now.

  I shook off the evening’s events and focused on the here and now, on the safety and security of coming home. As I did, the tap of claws on the parquet floor preceded Xena.

  I carefully set the Nikon down and crouched, waiting for the shih tzu whirlwind as she launched herself into my arms. She smothered my face in doggie kisses as she wiggled before sliding to the floor and looking at me with a “gotta pee” expression.

  Smiling, I clipped the leash to her collar, slipped on my glasses and opened the door. I’d started down the stairs when I heard someone opening the street-level door. Dammit, I could have sworn I’d locked it. Or maybe the lock was broken again.

  Apprehension slithered up my spine. Not many people knew I lived here, and even my division overlord, Deputy Chief Davis, didn’t bother me after a particularly gruesome shoot. He wasn’t exactly a hearts-and-flowers kind of guy, but had taken me under his wing when he was still a homicide dick. He popped by every once in a while, but never this late, and he always rang the street-level buzzer. So if it wasn’t Davis, who was darkening my doorway?

  Whoever it was, they were big; I could tell by the creak of the old stairs as body mass hit each tread. A beat of unreasonable panic fluttered through me. Even if this wasn’t the greatest of neighborhoods, I’d never been afraid before.

  Since fear had been such a huge part of my childhood, I tended to heed my intuition. Right now it screamed for me to get my happy ass back in the house. I turned to the door and had begun inserting the keys to let myself in when a rough, thoroughly masculine voice hailed me.

  “Sara Covington?”

  I left my keys hanging from the door and turned on my heel, my fight-or-flight instinct shifting to the first with a surge of adrenaline that made my pulse spike. I slid my right hand into my pocket and pulled out my trusty switchblade, opening it with a deadly snick before laying it next to my thigh. The element of surprise could be a girl’s best friend, and I’d yet to find a man who expected me to carry
a blade.

  I got a good look at my nocturnal visitor and realized how futile the gesture was. This dude, whoever he was, was huge, filling the narrow stairwell with the width of his shoulders, his head almost brushing the low ceiling. I was dead meat if he wanted to hurt me. Even a blade wouldn’t slow this guy down.

  Xena yipped happily and darted forward to gnaw on his shoelace. He danced back less than gracefully and swore as he almost fell down the stairs. I struggled—and failed—to hide a relieved grin. I didn’t think I was in much danger from a man pushed back by a ten-pound ball of fluff...and one on a leash, no less. What the hell he wanted was a whole different concern.

  I retracted the blade and tucked it in my pocket.

  “Call your...whatever it is...off.” Now he sounded pissed, and my grin became a full-fledged smile.

  “Xena, c’mere.” She dutifully scampered back, seated herself at my feet, and set to work on my shoes. “She’s harmless. She just wanted to love up your shoes.”

  “Whatever.”

  His words were dismissive and automatically put my back up. Love my dog and you’ll get points. Diss her and we’re gonna tangle.

  “Sara Covington?” he asked again as he stepped forward, into the light. The sight of his face made me lose my breath. Sharp, angular features dominated, softened by a mouth that could only be described as carnal. His eyes were slate-blue and burned with a zeal I’d call possessed if I knew him better. Dark, too-long hair brushed the collar of his starched white shirt. And the body that had been hidden by the darkness was as powerful as it had sounded coming up the stairs, even camouflaged by a boring off-the-rack navy suit.

  All in all it was a pretty arresting package, one that would have made me take a second, and third look if I’d passed him on the street. That quick surge of attraction made me go against everything I’d taught myself over the last ten years.

  I tipped my glasses down to get a read on him and was shocked speechless. He exuded absolutely nothing whatsoever. I’d never met anyone without an aura, and it scared me again, more than a little. With everyone else I read, I had a clue what I was dealing with, but with him...nada.