"Isaac!"
I ran into his house, ignoring the man dusting for prints on the front door. "Isaac?"
"Carter?" his voice came from the living room. "I'm in here."
He was on the sofa, and he turned to face me. Brady sat on the floor between his legs, and Isaac's hands grasped his collar. An official looking guy, not in uniform, was sitting beside him, but stood to meet me.
He looked down at the flowers in my hand, then at my face. "Detective Zinberg," he introduced himself.
"Carter Reece," I answered absently. I was looking at Isaac. "What happened?" Isaac didn't answer, so I looked at the detective. "What happened?"
He smiled tightly at me, and again, looked at my hand.
I followed his gaze to my hand, and at the stupid fucking flowers. I held them up. "I bought these." Then I sat down next to Isaac and took his hand. I realized then, he wasn't wearing his trademark sunglasses. His eyes were closed. I know how he hated not wearing his sunglasses in front of others. "Isaac, please tell me what happened? Are you okay? Is Brady okay? What happened?"
Detective Zinberg cleared his throat. "Mr Reece?"
"It's Doctor," I automatically corrected him. "Doctor Reece. I'm a vet."
"Okay, Doctor Reece," he amended. "Can I ask what you're doing here?"
I shook my head. "What?"
"What are you doing here?"
"I was taking Isaac to see his sister," I answered in a daze. "She just had a baby."
"He's my boyfriend," Isaac added flatly.
The detective nodded thoughtfully, his expression didn't give much away, but he wrote something down in his notepad. I hadn't even notice he had a notepad. My mind was having trouble focusing.
"Can someone please tell me what happened?"
Detective Zinberg looked directly at me. "There was a home invasion-"
"A what?" I cut him off, and turned to Isaac. My blood ran cold. "Jesus, Isaac! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," he replied curtly. "This will take twice as long if you're going to make the detective repeat everything."
I blinked, and blinked again, still trying to get my head around what happened. I couldn't believe it. Home invasion. Jesus, fuck. "Isaac…"
"Carter, I'm fine," Isaac cut me off. "Detective, please continue. I'd like to get this over with."
The detective looked at me, then back to Isaac. "Let me recap. So you got off the bus, and you believe you were followed."
"Yes," Isaac said. I knew that tone. His patience was wearing thin. "I heard someone follow me."
My stomach twisted.
"But you got inside the house, yes?"
"Yes."
"But you were pushed from behind?"
Oh fuck, no.
Isaac nodded. His voice was quiet. "Yes."
"Tell me what happened from there."
I tried to listen, tried counting to ten in my head before I lost my shit, while trying not to be physically sick.
"I unlocked the front door and stepped inside with Brady, but before I could close it, I was pushed in the back." Isaac spoke quietly, holding my hand in one of his, and Brady's collar in his other. "I fell into the foyer, and just sat up against the hall wall with Brady."
Oh, God.
The detective prompted him. "Did he speak to you?"
Isaac cleared his throat. "He said if I knew what was good for me, I'd stay where I was." Then he corrected, "His words were, 'If you know what's good for you, blind man, you'll stay down, and keep your fucking dog on a leash'."
I put the flowers on the sofa next to me and squeezed the bridge of my nose to the point of pain with my free hand.
"Your dog," Detective Zinberg started.
"Brady," Isaac corrected him. "His name is Brady."
Zinberg nodded. "Brady stayed with you?"
"Of course," Isaac said. "I held him. I didn't want him getting hurt or kicked."
I groaned. Imagining him huddled on the floor, holding onto Brady. "Fuck."
Detective Zinberg gave me a sympathetic smile, before turning back to Isaac. "Mr Brannigan, how long do you think he was in the house for?"
"It felt like an hour," he said. "But it was probably five minutes."
"Do you know if he took anything?"
"Not like I can have a look around now, is it?" Isaac bit back at him.
I squeezed his hand. "I might be able to help," I offered. "To see if something's missing at a glance."
The detective nodded. "Yeah, that'd help."
"He took my sunglasses," Isaac said softly. "When he left."
"While you were sitting in the foyer?" Detective Zinberg asked. "As he walked out?"
"Yes."
My stomach knotted, and I swallowed down the urge to vomit and scream. "He touched your face?" I asked, trying to sound calm, but my voice croaked.
"He snatched them off me," he clarified. He seemed so vulnerable, like his one weakness was so exposed. So not like my Isaac. I hated seeing him like this.
The detective made notes in his notepad, then he added, "We can take the footage off the bus, but there's no saying the culprit got off the bus with Mr Brannigan, or was waiting. Without a physical description…"
Isaac's face spun to the sound of the detective's voice. His mood went from vulnerable to pissed off in half a second. "So then ask me more pertinent questions, Detective. No, I can't see, but Jesus Christ, I'm not fucking useless!"
That got a facial expression from the detective. "I never assumed you to be useless, Mr Brannigan."
I squeezed his hand, but his anger was justified, considering what he'd just been through, and then the officer telling him his statement was worthless without a visual description.
"Yeah, right," Isaac scoffed disbelievingly. "I might be blind, but I can give descriptions."
"Such as?"
"He wore hiking boots, the hard-soled kind. Carter has a pair like them; they sound the same. He spoke with an inflection, to suggest he's from the Upper East Side. He didn't sound like a street thug. I'd even say from the way he spoke that he was educated. And he smelled like rolled tobacco, the port wine-scented kind."
Despite everything, I smiled proudly at Isaac. Detective Zinberg blinked in surprise, but dutifully made notes. "Doctor Reece, your hiking boots. Where are they?"
"Um," I tried to think. "Um, at my place, I think. When did we go hiking last?" I asked Isaac. Jesus, my mind couldn't keep up. "No, wait, they're here, in the garage," I said, remembering. "They were too muddy to wear inside, so I left them in the garage."
"Here?" the detective asked.
"Yes."
He looked up and called out to another officer who was somewhere in the house, asking them to look for my boots in the garage and to bag them.
"Bag them?" I asked. "What for?"
"It's just protocol."
I couldn't believe it. "Do you think I had something to do with this?"
"Detective Zinberg," Isaac hissed. "If you're implying Carter was somehow the man who came here today, you're very mistaken."
Huh? "No, Isaac," I said, shaking my head. "I'm sure he didn't mean it like that."
Isaac squeezed my hand, and before the detective could answer, Isaac told him, "I said they were the same type of shoes, not the same gait. I can't see, but I can tell you the man who was here earlier walked different. His footfalls were heavier, somewhat off-kilter, like he had a limp. And Brady growled the entire time. Brady would never growl at Carter." He absently stroked the dog's neck. "And he smelled different. He reeked of stale tobacco and sweat. Carter doesn't smell like that at all."
The detective stared at him disbelievingly. "You know people by how they smell?"
Isaac's brow pinched. "Yes, of course! You'd be surprised how other senses take precedence." Isaac shrugged, then told the detective, "Like how you smell of coffee and cheap aftershave."
I pulled on his hand. "Isaac."
Isaac's only response was to raise his chin, just a fraction.
"My daughter gave me this aftershave," Detective Zinberg admitted, trying to lighten the mood, I think.
Isaac answered flatly. "I suggest you tell her you dropped it."
"Okay, Isaac," I said softly. "That's enough." I grimaced apologetically at the somewhat stunned officer.
Zinberg smiled at me. "Doctor Reece, we might do a look around to see if we can notice anything that might be missing?" he nodded pointedly to the doorway.
"Sure." I squeezed Isaac's hand, kissed his cheek and told him I wouldn't be far. Before I stood up, I leaned in and whispered in Isaac's ear. "Do you want my sunglasses? They're in the car. I'll get them for you."
He shook his head. "I'm fine. Thank you."
I squeezed his hand. "I know how you prefer to wear them."
"I'm fine."
I dropped it, knowing it would only further irritate him. Though it was obvious he wasn't fine, at all.
I followed Zinberg into the foyer. I spoke quietly, not sure if Isaac could hear, or if he was too distracted. "Isaac tends to lash out when he's upset," I said by way of an apology.
"He's been through quite an ordeal."
I nodded, and looked over at him where he sat on the sofa. He was still clutching Brady's collar, and he was pale.
I looked back at Zinberg. "Detective, how did this happen?"
"Mr Brannigan said he'd caught the bus every day for two weeks?"
"Yeah, he wouldn't let me drive him," I told him. "He's very stubborn."
"I can tell," the detective said with a smile. "It wouldn't be a far stretch to think the person of interest noticed a blind guy on his own, watched him for a few days and figured out his routine, taking him for an easy target."
Fuck. "What do we do now?"
"Well, we'll run fingerprints, pull the CCTV from the bus, speak to possible witnesses," he said, rather formally. "But first we need to confirm any items that might have been stolen."
"Okay," I agreed. "Where do you want me to start?"
"We can start in the formal living room first," Detective Zinberg said, with a glance to the room on the right of the foyer, the room Isaac hardly ever used. It was a large room with a formal lounge suite and a large wooden, antique-looking writing desk. The drawers were askew, and a police officer was dusting for prints.
Then the bedrooms, both bathrooms, sunroom and finally back to the lounge room where Isaac was still sitting. From what I could tell, it was all smaller, pocketable items, or items that could be stashed in a backpack like his expensive sunglasses, iPod and laptop.
"Items that can be pawned or sold," Detective Zinberg had explained. "The bathroom cabinets were ransacked for any type of prescription medicines. It looks like he was after anything with a street resale value."
"It shouldn't be too hard to find a guy trying to pawn off laptop with a screen reader, or with a Braille cover on the keyboard, surely?" I asked.
"Detective?" Isaac's quiet voice interrupted us.
"Yes, Mr Brannigan?"
"I've been going over what happened in my head. I've been trying to place a sound he made," he said, still holding on to Brady. "It was a metal clicking noise. I heard it twice. I think he unlocked some windows."
I turned to the detective, who had one of his uniformed officers confirm a bedroom window and the sunroom window were indeed unlocked. "Why would he do that?" I asked, though I was fairly sure I already knew.
Zinberg looked at me, and told me seriously. "It would suggest he intends to come back."
Oh, fuck.
Isaac took a deep breath, and I was quick to sit back down beside him and take his hand. "You're coming to my place tonight."
He shook his head defiantly. "I won't be run out of my own house."
"Then I'll stay here with you," I told him.
"Carter, I'll be fine," he said. "The alarm will be activated."
"I don't care, Isaac," I told him flatly. "You're not staying here tonight by yourself."
He clenched his jaw. "I don't need a babysitter."
"I'm not babysitting you," I told him, trying to sound calm. "But I'll be fucking damned if you're here by yourself and that asshole comes back."
Isaac took a deep breath, and spoke through gritted teeth. "I don't want you to stay here."
His usual defense of saying hurtful things had no effect on me right then. I wasn't giving in. Not this time. "Then I'll stay to keep an eye on Brady. As his vet, it's my professional opinion that he needs overnight observations. He's been through quite an ordeal today."
Isaac opened and closed his mouth a few times before he said, "You won't let this go, will you?"
"Not this time."
"Whatever, Carter. I'm not up for the argument. You can take the spare room." Then he added, "And you can stop fucking smiling. You didn't win that one."
"I'm not smiling."
Isaac growled. "You can't lie for shit."
Grinning, I said, "I'll go home, grab Missy, and some clothes and come straight back. I'll be fifteen minutes, the police won't leave until I get here." I looked at Detective Zinberg, and he gave me a nod.
And true to my word, fifteen minutes later, I walked back into Isaac's house, just as the detective was leaving. The first patrol car was gone already, but Detective Zinberg had waited for me to get back.
It was only when my dog, Missy, bounded over to where they were still sitting on the sofa, that Isaac let go of Brady. He stood slowly and I slid my arm around his waist. "Hey, told you I wouldn't be long."
Zinberg bid us farewell with promises to be in touch if there was any news or developments, or if they had any more questions. He gave me his card, told us to call him any time, and he left. I closed the door behind him, set the security alarm and walked back to Isaac.
I kissed his cheek. "You okay?"
He nodded.
"We'll need to call Hannah."
"Ugh. Really? I don't want to have this conversation with her," he said. "She'll worry herself sick and she's just had little Ada. She's still in hospital..."
I took his face in my hands and kissed him chastely. "Did you want to have a shower, and I'll call her and tell her what happened," I offered, knowing a hot shower would do him a world of good. "By the time you call her back, she'll have had some time to calm down."
After a short pause, he gave me a small nod. "Okay."
I tidied up his bathroom a little—the police weren't exactly trying to be clean when they dusted for prints on everything—and once the water was running, I phoned his sister.
It wasn't an easy phone call.
There was shocked silence, then she yelled, and then she cried, telling me she could leave the hospital at any time; she'd be there in half an hour. I told her Isaac was upset, but he was safe.
In the end, I asked to speak to Carlos, telling him to calm Hannah down, and to come over tomorrow. I told him to tell her that Isaac would call her later tonight, how he was, above all else, really pissed off, and given that Hannah had just been through childbirth two days earlier, they were both too emotional and it really, really wouldn't end well.
I suggested that maybe tomorrow, when Hannah lectured him about being a stubborn ass for not allowing me to drive him to work, he'll have had a night's sleep to deal with it. Carlos agreed. “They’re being discharged from hospital in the morning,” Carlos said. “We’ll come around after Ada's lunchtime feeding.”
I thanked him, and disconnected the call. By the time Isaac walked back into the living room, I had a damp cloth and a cleaning spray, trying to clean up the print dust residue from the windowsill.
"Are you cleaning?" Isaac asked. His sense of smell was almost as good as his hearing.
"Yeah, that black dust the police use is everywhere," I told him.
"Oh."
"It won't take me long," I reassured him. "I ordered some dinner. Chinese food."
He nodded, sitting down on the sofa. He was dressed in sleep pants and an old t-shirt. He was quiet and sullen. There was a frustrated anger just under the surface. I knew him and every mood he could throw at me. Admittedly, his mood swings, in particular his temper, have been fairly tame these last six months. But I was used to them.
I knew he lashed out at those closest to him. Actually, whoever was there in that particular moment, who just might happen to say the wrong thing. And the looming silence is usually directly proportionate to the size of the temper storm about to hit.
For two whole hours, he never said a word. I'd ask him something, and he'd either shrug or ignore me altogether. He had a very brief, one sided phone conversation with Hannah, which only served to darken his mood, and then I put my foot in it after dinner. He didn't eat a bite, just pushed his food around his plate with his fork before pushing it away and standing up.
"Isaac, please. Talk to me."
And he snapped.
"Don't tell me what to do, Carter!" he said loudly. "I said I'm fine, and I mean it."
But he wasn't fine. That much was obvious. "Isaac, you're not fine."
"This is why I didn't want you here!" he yelled at me. "You're trying to tell me what I'm feeling now? Christ, Carter, this is why I don't want you to move in! Do you get it now? Is that what you wanted to know?" he sneered at me. "Why I don't want you here all the time? Because I can't stand to have people tell me what I can and can't do, and what to feel!"
I blinked, shocked at his outburst. It had been a while since he'd unleashed on me like that, and regardless of how angry he should be, it stung to have it directed at me.
He stomped to his room, slamming the door behind him, while I sat at the kitchen counter, blinking, staring at where he'd just stood.
Though it'd been a while since I'd seen them in full force, I was used to his moods. He didn't come out of his room. I didn't hear a peep from him for the next few hours. After I'd rechecked that all the windows and doors were locked properly and the alarm was set, I finally fell asleep in the spare room. Only to be woken two hours later to the sound of Isaac screaming.