The Blind Read Online Free PDF Page A

beauties. “I’m clearly involved. You need me.”
    “Agreed, and I’m sure we’re destined to have some nice, heart-to-heart chats.” Right now Elliott was key, but he was also an unknown.
    “We need to get moving on this.” Urgency edged his words.
    “That’s the plan.” Elliott opened his mouth, but she held up a hand. This guy may be king of his universe, but not hers. “Mr. Elliott, exactly why did you send Brady and your jet across the country to pick me up?”
    “You’re the best.” Another cold, hard fact neither of them could dispute.
    “Exactly, Mr. Elliott. Now please let me do what I do best.” She flexed her fingers, placed her fingertips on the broad plain of his chest, and nudged. The element of surprise—because she got the feeling no one shoved Jack Elliott around—must have worked for he backpedaled out of the gallery.
    Then she reached for her phone. She had to contact Vince Ricci at LAPD, dig up background information on Elliott and these portraits, and get details on who had access to this collection, but first she needed to take care of a not-so-minor detail.
    She punched in Parker Lord’s number to tell him she had just defied presidential orders and inserted herself into the Angel Bomber investigation.
    *  *  *
    9:42 p.m.
    Jack stood on the balcony of his penthouse just down the street from the Elliott Tower and held a glass of bourbon up to the moon, hidden tonight by streaks of clouds. The liquid was too dark. He waited until the clouds shifted, leaving the moon to set the night aglow. The whiskey warmed and brightened. There, that was the color of her eyes. He turned the glass, the ice clinking. The color was right, but the ice was all wrong. There was nothing cold about Special Agent Evie Jimenez.
    This morning when he’d seen the tabloid photographer’s gruesome images and made the connection to his Beauty Through the Ages collection, he’d immediately called an associate who worked for the FBI and asked for the best bomb investigator on the planet.
    He took a sip and set the glass on the ledge, the ice bobbing and sending fractured bits of caramel light across the balcony. He dipped a hand into his pocket and took out his phone.
    “Jack,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “Good to hear from you. How did things go this evening?”
    Jack checked a laugh. Like Parker Lord didn’t know. “Your Agent Jimenez is quite impressive.”
    In his office, she’d stood before him, her flushed cheeks as red as the cowboy boots on her feet. A pile of wild, dark brown curls hung askew from her head, and fire shot from her eyes. For a moment Jack wished he were a painter of great art instead of a mere collector, but even with the skill of one of the masters, he would not be able to capture on canvas the fire inside Agent Jimenez.
    Jack had seen the all-consuming passion, felt it rolling across his office. “I showed her the paintings and the crime scene photos your man got for me. She agreed that there’s a connection. I’m surprised she hasn’t called you.”
    “Oh, she has.” Parker did not check a laugh. “Four messages within the past hour, each louder than its predecessor.”
    “And you haven’t returned her calls?”
    “I’m waiting on word from the president.”
    “Not sure if that’s healthy for the state of California. If she blows, she’ll go hard.”
    “That’s my Evie.” Parker’s fatherly tone was not lost on Jack, but it surprised him.
    Except for her size, there was nothing diminutive or childlike about Agent Jimenez. With those red boots, tight jeans, and wild hair, she could pass for a teenaged street walker, but she had plenty of impressive miles on those boots. The background check he’d run on her showed a woman with an exceptional and decorated service in the U.S. military and a storied career with Parker’s FBI team. Nothing about her past gave him pause until the bombing two months ago in Houston. She’d been the lead officer