Innocent Prey (A Brown and de Luca Novel) Read Online Free PDF

said.
    “Hope she doesn’t get confused about her own identity.”
    “What’s to be confused about? She’s a pacifist pirate.”
    He laughed. That was what I was going for, eliciting that laugh. I could tell more from Mason’s laugh than from anything he said or any vibe he emitted. He was too much a cop, played things too close to the vest, to let me read him the way I did other people. But I could still read him. It was just tougher. And his laugh was the easiest way I’d found so far.
    This one rang forced and tight.
    “You’re worried about this.”
    He nodded. “Something’s off about the whole thing.”
    “Spidey sense tingling?”
    “I wish to hell you’d been a fly on the wall at lunch so you could tell me if you sensed it, too.”
    “Is there some reason you’re doubting your eerily accurate cop instincts, Mason?”
    He looked at me, then at the sidewalk. “Yeah. A couple of them.” He didn’t elaborate, so I didn’t push it, figuring it was either something deep and emotional or something about us, and those topics were things we’d sort of agreed to avoid without really ever saying so out loud. He was no more into gooey emotional gunk than I was, thank goodness.
    It was beautiful outside. Warm in that springlike way that would seem chilly a month from now, but sunny and fresh. I’d always loved that about spring, that freshly washed newborn feeling it had to it. But I loved seeing it even more. The trees were taking on a pale green cast as their buds started to become leaves. Birds were flitting around singing like extras in a Disney flick. Tulips and daffodils everywhere you looked. And the apple blossoms were busting out all over. Out in the Point they were barely peeking out of their buds.
    Myrtle hurried from one spot to the next, sniffing everything thoroughly, excited by a new place and not even keeping her side pressed to my leg. She really was getting more confident. I loved that.
    “So she walked from this bench to that corner,” Mason said. “Bitching all the way, according to her coach.”
    “Her blindness coach. The person her father hired to teach her how to be blind.”
    “Yeah.” He chose to ignore the sarcasm in my tone.
    “But the coach is sighted, right?”
    “Uh-huh.” He said it like he knew what was coming next. Hell, he probably did.
    “And that makes sense because no one knows what it’s like to be blind better than a sighted person does, right?”
    “Of course not.”
    “So explain it to me, then, ’cause I’m not getting it.”
    He stopped. We’d walked about five steps. (Myrtle, twenty.) “I didn’t say I thought it was a great idea, I’m just telling you how it went down.”
    “I know.” I said it like it should’ve been obvious. “I’m just saying. ”
    “Can we focus here? And stop looking at the damn birds, Rachel, we need to look at the ground.”
    I’d been watching a red-winged blackbird in a nearby tree. He was perched on the topmost branch, and he kept chirping this loud, long note and hunching up his shoulders at the same time, so the little red patches were more prominent. Showing off for the ladies, I bet. “ You look for clues with your eyes. I look with my other senses, remember?”
    “So is that bird giving you anything to go on?”
    I shrugged. “It’s spring. Horniness thrives. I say we question the boyfriend. She does have a boyfriend, doesn’t she?”
    “Two that her father felt worth mentioning,” he said. “One former, one current.”
    “Let’s talk to them both. And the blindness coach.”
    He nodded. “Already on my list.”
    “I’ll be more helpful when we’re doing that.” I glanced ahead and saw a fat robin skipping along the sidewalk pecking at something too small for me to see. Myrtle sensed it or felt it or something, because she was focused in that direction, too, leaning forward like she was getting ready to lunge at the bird, even though she couldn’t see it. “If we do it indoors,” I