Gingerbread Man

being completely blind, and woke up screaming.
    It was Tommy who came to my bedroom, sat on the edge of my mattress, hugged me close, told me it was all gonna be okay. That he’d be with me, no matter what. And he was, before the addictions took him away. He went from coke to crack, from the oxy-twins—contin and codone—to heroin, his standards lowering with his resources, until he was broke and homeless and taking anything he could find that was stronger than aspirin. Anyway, before all that, when he was a freshly showered fourteen-year-old kid with a future, he hugged me, conceded to my demand that he leave the light on, and told me stories until I fell back asleep.
    When I woke up, I thought he’d lied to me. I thought he’d turned the light off after swearing he wouldn’t. But he hadn’t. Turned out my nightmare was a premonition. I was totally blind.
    I shook off the memory about the same time I heard squealing tires and a blasting horn, and realized about a second too late that I’d stepped off the curb and into the street without checking first. Sure as shit, the car hit me. I couldn’t even believe it. One step, a loud horn, and
bam
. I flew fast and landed hard, hipbone, then shoulder, then head, in that order. And then I just lay perfectly still while pain blasted through every part of me.
    Damn. I’d thought this day couldn’t
get
any worse.
    * * *
    DETECTIVE MASON BROWN had a series of rapid-fire impressions;
Leggy brunette. Dark sunglasses. White cane. Blind? OhfuckI’mgonnahither!
He jerked the wheel and slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. The thump made his stomach heave. The car slid sideways, but only a few feet—hell, it was city traffic, he hadn’t been moving very fast to begin with—and came to a stop. He opened the door and lunged out before he’d even finished processing what had happened. And then he was bending over the felled female in the middle of the street outside the station, hoping to hell she wasn’t seriously hurt. Hands on her shoulders. That was autopilot. Then the brain kicked in.
Don’t move her. Spinal cord and all that. Hell, her eyes are closed.
    And then they opened and looked slightly past his left shoulder. They were sky blue eyes, and they were completely blank.
    "I’m okay, I’m okay." She was trying to sit up while she talked.
    "Hang on. Hold still a second, just in case."
    She was lying on her side, propped up by one bent elbow on the pavement. Short skirt. A brand-new run in her stockings. Long brown hair, kind of wavy. She patted the blacktop with her free hand. "Am I in the road? Get me the hell out of the road." Her questing hand found her big sunglasses and she quickly jammed them onto her face. They were crooked, but he didn’t think she knew. "Do you see my bag?"
    Since she was apparently getting up with him or without him, he helped onto her feet, then kept hold of one upper arm. "It’s over by the curb. Can you walk?"
    "Yeah." To prove it, she started limping back the way she’d come. It was closer, though how she knew which direction to go, he couldn’t figure. A couple of his colleagues had jumped into action by then, blocking traffic, directing it around his still sideways unmarked car. His partner, Roosevelt Jones, was standing by the hood, shaking his shaved head and smiling so hard his face actually had wrinkles. He was a hundred and six—okay, fifty-seven—and still only had wrinkles when he smiled.
    "Quit your damn grinning and move the car, Rosie."
    "Nossir. We’re gonna need photos and whatnot." He scooped up the handbag and cane just as Mason got her back on the sidewalk. Rosie held her things out to her. "Here’s your stuff, miss. You sure you’re all right?"
    She turned her head toward him and, with a precision that surprised Mason, reached out and took her handbag, then her cane, from Rosie’s outstretched hands. "I think so."
    "Do you hurt anywhere?" Mason asked.
    "All over, but—"
    "Best let the medics have a look at you in the E.R.," Rosie said. "Just to be sure. Damn, Mason, I knew you were desperate for a woman, but I didn’t think you’d run one down in the street." Then he laughed like a seal barking.
    The woman’s head snapped toward Mason again. "
You
were the one who hit me?"
    "Damn straight he was," Rosie said and turned to Mason. "What’s wrong with you, running down celebrities in the street?" Rosie smiled at her. "I’m Detective Roosevelt Jones. My partner—who talked me into letting him