She did, and Pete must have calmed down some, because Eva nodded to him. “We’ll let you know if we find anything,” she promised.
Finn missed the next part of the conversation.
“If you can get a flight home, that would be great,” Eva finally said. “Just let me know when to expect you.”
Finn wasn’t surprised that Pete’s plan was to fly home immediately. That was exactly what he would do if it was his son who had been taken. The way Eva sat looking so forlorn made him long to offer comfort. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, willing the traffic to part like the Red Sea, allowing him through.
“Pete’s never going to trust me with Mikey again.”
“Eva, please stop berating yourself. The real fault lies with the men who would stoop so low as to use a child as hostage to get a package back.”
Eva wiped the tears from her face. He pulled into Pete’s driveway and got out from behind the wheel. After freeing Abernathy from the back, he approached Eva. Fresh tears streaked her cheeks, ripping at his heart.
“You don’t understand,” she said as he approached. “Remember how you asked me if I’d noticed anyone following me?”
He frowned, trying to understand where she was going with this. “Yes, but you can’t beat yourself up for not noticing someone tailing you. You’re not a trained police officer and, even then, clearly we were followed tonight without my knowledge. No one is invincible. And these guys could have two vehicles for all we know. Switching them out would make it even harder to find a tail.”
She shook her head, looking impatient. “No, it’s not that. I wasn’t entirely truthful with you.” She took a deep breath, as if bracing herself, before she met his gaze head-on. “I didn’t tell you about the problem with my vision. About how my peripheral vision is limited. Not only that, but it’s hard for me to see clearly in dim lighting. Facial features are often blurry.”
He was surprised by her admission. “Is that something new you’ve been dealing with? Maybe you need to see an eye specialist.”
“I have seen a specialist, and no, it’s not anything new. I have a degenerative vision disorder called retinitis pigmentosa. It’s a progressive blindness disorder that is hereditary in nature. I’ll likely be deemed legally blind in three years.”
Finn was shocked at the news, although it helped drop a piece of the puzzle into place. He understood now why she hadn’t been able to give a detailed description to the sketch artist and why she was so in tune to the way the two men sounded and smelled rather than how they looked. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you say anything before now?”
“I had my reasons, and really, none of that matters right now. I wanted you to know the truth.” She glanced down at Abernathy standing patiently at his side. “Let’s keep searching for Mikey.”
Finn wasn’t keen on the idea of dropping the subject as if it were a rotten tomato, but she was right about time being of the essence in finding the boy. Yet, as he put Abernathy to work, his thoughts whirled. Was her limited eyesight the real reason she’d pulled out of his arms earlier in the day? He didn’t like thinking she was ashamed of her diagnosis.
He made a mental promise to approach the issue of her eyesight later, once they’d found Mikey safe and sound.
* * *
Eva should have felt better after telling Finn the truth, but she didn’t. Plagued by guilt, she couldn’t help thinking that if her eyesight had been better—or if she’d told Finn the truth before now—Mikey wouldn’t have been kidnapped right under her nose.
They walked up one street and down the other, a painstaking process wherein Finn worked hard to encourage Abernathy to pick up Mikey’s scent. They stopped at each apartment building, each intersection, anywhere that one of the two men who’d kidnapped the boy might be holding him hostage.
She replayed the conversation with Pete in her mind, wondering if he’d got a flight home yet. As Finn and Abernathy took another detour up to a rather run-down apartment building, she used her phone to call him.
“Did you find him?” Pete asked, his tone betraying his hope.