“‘In on it…’ Just what is it we’re all ‘in on,’ Calvin James? Who are we hiding her away from? They’ve been saying on the news they think it was somebody with a grudge against the local authorities up there in South Carolina that fired those shots, and it was just bad luck those poor women got in the way.” His mother paused while her eyes took on a narrow, considering look. “But that’s not true, is it? You and Jake-and that means the FBI-think it was that billionaire, the little girl’s father. Isn’t that right? You think he had his wife killed and that he’s going to come after Caitlyn. That’s why all the secrecy. Oh, my lands…” She leaned against the sink, fanning herself.

Ashamed of himself for all the trouble he was dumping in her lap, C.J. rubbed his eyes and said unhappily, “Momma, I wish I could tell you more, but I promised Jake-”

She made that swatting motion again. “We’ll handle things as they come, don’t worry about that.” She leveled The Look at him again, the one he was sure could see inside his brain. “What I want to know is, what’s all this got to do with you?”

He shifted in his chair and squinted guiltily at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you don’t just offer up your family’s home to shelter a notorious stranger without good reason.”

C.J. snorted. “I’d think it was pretty obvious why-”

“And by good reason I don’t mean because there’s somebody maybe trying to shoot her. The FBI is more than capable of stashing away people where nobody, not even billionaires, can find them, and I’m sure they’d’ve done just fine without your help.” Her eyes narrowed even more. “But you didn’t want that, did you? You wanted that girl where you could keep an eye on her-you personally.” After a little pause to let him squirm some more, she asked softly, “So what is it about her, Calvin James? What does this girl mean to you?”

He knew from sad experience it wasn’t going to do him any good to lie, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hem and haw and try and beat around the bush as long as possible. He stretched back in his chair and rubbed a hand over his face and finally settled on “It’s complicated, Ma.”

Typically she came to her own conclusion, and as usual, managed to hit the nail on the head without any help from him. “You feel responsible for her. For what happened to her.”

He agreed defensively, “Well, yeah, I do. People keep telling me I shouldn’t, but they’re wrong.” He gave his mother a hard, fierce look, but inside his head he was seeing himself standing in the yellow glare of a yard lamp with the racket of a springtime night all around him, and Caitlyn’s silvery eyes pleading with him. “The simple fact is, she asked me to do something for her and I said no. Instead, I turned her in to the police. And I don’t care how right-minded it seemed at the time, if I hadn’t done that, none of what happened would have happened. A woman wouldn’t be dead, she wouldn’t be-”

“Son-” Gentle now, his mother pulled out the chair closest to him and sat in it. “You can’t go back and undo it. No matter what you do, you can’t unfire that gun.” She reached to touch his hand, but he wasn’t in a mood to be comforted.

“No, I can’t.” He snatched his hand away and felt wretched and mean for doing it. “But I intend to do what I can to make it up to her. Set things right.”

“How are you going to do that? You can’t give her back her eyesight.”

He was too angry with her to answer. Because, of course, he knew she was right.

She studied him for a while in a sad, faintly amused way that irritated him even more, then said softly, “I expect by making it up to her you mean you’d like to do something big enough and good enough to cancel out the wrong you think you’ve done her. What you want is to be her hero.”

He snorted. “I’m no hero.” No, his inner self said, but you want to be. You want to be a superhero and make the world turn the wrong way around, make time turn backward and give you another chance to save the woman you…

“Son, you’re not a superhero,” his mother said, in the uncanny way she sometimes had of seeing inside his mind. She rose up out of her chair and snatched his empty plate and milk glass out from under him, then stabbed at him with a spare finger. “You just remember that, when this-this Vasily fellow comes looking for that girl of yours, you hear me, Calvin James? Your body won’t stop bullets.”


Caitlyn woke to her perpetual darkness and, wide-eyed and listening, sought to understand what it was about this particular morning that was so different from other mornings in her recent past. It came to her at last. It’s so quiet.

It came to her, too, that quiet was very different from silence. As she’d discovered during her time in the hospital, silence spoke with many languages; silences must be deciphered, interpreted, understood. Quiet, on the other hand, was…peace.

One thing hospitals and jails had in common was that they are never quiet. It occurred to her that this was the first time in many, many weeks that she’d had a chance to think…really think about everything that had happened and where she was now and what the future might hold, to think without shock and pain and fear, without the shadowy specter of Panic lurking like a stalker just beyond the edges of her mind’s eye.

The first thing she thought about was what a wonderful relief it was to wake up this morning and not feel terrified. It was somewhat of a mystery to her why that should be so; she was still definitely blind, still almost certainly in danger, still very much alone among strangers, just as she’d been yesterday.

Unable to solve that puzzle, she put it aside and moved on to the second thing that was missing from her life this morning: pain. Okay, not completely missing; there was enough tenderness under the bandages that still encased quite a large part of her head to make her wince and gasp when she touched it with exploring fingers. But the pounding, nausea-inducing headache that had been her constant companion in the days following the shooting had faded to a hum in the background of her mind.

Having determined that much, her fingers moved on, lightly now, tracing the bandages…then her eyebrows…her nose…cheekbones…lips. Exploring the shape of her own face. How odd, she thought, that I’ve never done this before. What must I look like? She’d been swollen and bruised. Was she still? Were her eyes still bruised? And my hair! Did they shave my head? Do I have any left? Gingerly she felt the top of her head, breathed a long sigh when she felt the familiar short, slippery tufts. Badly in need of washing, she was sure, but there.

She’d never been vain, but now she would have given anything for the chance to look in a mirror and see her own reflection looking back at her. She’d never thought before how vulnerable it made a person, not to be able to check out her own appearance before presenting herself to the world. How awful not to be able to tell if she had a smudge of dirt on her face, spinach in her teeth, food spilled down her front, clothes that didn’t match. A rooster tail in her hair!

She threw back the covers. Trembly, she sat on the edge of the bed and explored her body as she had her face. Arms…shoulders…collarbones…breasts. What was she wearing? Oh, yes-cotton bikinis and a camisole top that Jess had said belonged to her daughter, Sammi June. Jess had told her they were pink-Sammi June had evidently been very fond of pink-with a little edging of lace. Yes, she could feel that and also three tiny buttons on the front of the camisole near the top. She felt bones in unexpected places; she’d lost weight. Small wonder…

She stood up carefully, feeling brave and very tall in her personal darkness. She put out her hands and the left one brushed something-a lampshade. Yes-on the nightstand! And there were all the little plastic bottles with her medications Jess had put there for her the night before. A glass of water.

Feeling her way, she moved clockwise around the room, identifying the door to the hallway, then a tall dresser, and another door, this one obviously a closet. Then a rocking chair…oops, and a small desk. Then…a window. She explored it with her fingers and discovered that it was very much like the one in her room in her parents’ house in Sioux City-an old-fashioned wooden sash, double-hung, with a locking lever. She moved the lever and tried to open the window. It slid up easily-evidently the former occupant of the room had liked fresh air, too. It rushed in, cool and light across her face, and she gave a little sobbing gasp of joy. Prickles filled her nose and eyes, then tears; she hadn’t expected she would ever feel joy again.

Sinking to her knees, she rested her arms on the windowsill, and then her chin. How do I tell, she wondered wistfully, if it’s morning or night?

But wait-it was the bright and busy twitter of birds she heard, not the ratchety chorus of frogs and insects that filled Southern nights. Daytime, then. As if in confirmation, she heard the creak and bang of a screen door, and someone’s-Jess’s-voice talking to the dogs. “Hey, Bubba… Hey, Blondie. Yes…good girl…down now. Okay…yes…aren’t you a good ol’ boy…” And the eager woofs and grunts and whines they made in reply.

How she longed to be out there, too! Could she? Why not? But…by myself? Do I dare?

Yes, she told herself firmly. I do. I must.

Yes…because the one thing in the world she feared more than being blind was being dependent. I won’t, she thought, as memories of last night’s attack of panic rose like a nightmare specter to taunt her. I can’t. She closed her eyes and felt again the warm and solid strength of C.J.’s arms around her…how good they’d felt…the chill of loneliness when he’d left her. She shuddered. Never. I’d rather be dead.