Read Online Blind Justice by Ethan Cross - Free Book Online

out of the chuck hole. She slapped on the restraints and called into her radio, “ Open L-23. ”
    The door slid open, and she led him through the cell block past a hundred sets of eyes peering out the tiny windows of the gray cell doors. Anything happening on the block constituted entertainment to the prisoners of Ad Seg. His tennis shoes squeaked across the concrete floor with every step. The whole block smelled faintly of sweat and excrement.
    Connected to the cell block was a small room that the Warden and Captains often used to have private conferences with the prisoners. An old wooden table with a scarred surface that had been spray-painted gray sat in the center of the room. Four white, plastic chairs—the kind that people typically used as lawn furniture—surrounded the table.
    The female guard shoved him down into one of the chairs. The restraints behind his back forced him to sit uncomfortably on his hands. A man wearing dark, expensive-looking, designer sunglasses sat in one of the chairs opposite him. He guessed by the look of the quality of the man ’ s suit that it cost more than Jonas had made from a week with hazard pay. The guy had the stink of a government agency all over him, the kind identified only by initials. Jonas Black, like many other soldiers that had witnessed firsthand the casual attitude toward sending men to their deaths that alphabet agencies displayed, was instantly distrustful of anyone representing such a bureaucracy. The woman next to the sunglasses man had skin the color of dark chocolate, wavy black hair that fell to her shoulders, and the prominent cheekbones of a model. Her eyes were red and puffy, like she had been crying.
    The man stuck his arm out over the table as if to shake Black ’ s hand. Couldn ’ t the guy see that his hands were cuffed behind his back?
    The woman said, “He ’ s restrained, Deacon.”
    “Apologies.” The man ’ s hand fell back under the table. “My name is Deacon Munroe. I ’ m a special investigator with DCIS. This is my associate, Miss Annabelle Dixon.” When he spoke, the words were smooth as silk. He had a Southern accent, but it didn ’ t have a country or redneck feel. Instead, it had a cultured quality like that of a professor.
    Black sat quietly. He knew that Munroe would be expecting him to ask what interest DCIS had in him, but he had always found that silence had a strange way of establishing dominance in situations such as this.
    Munroe reached up and removed the sunglasses, placing them on the table with delicate care. The man ’ s eyes were a piercing blue, but the stare was vacant and cold like that of a dead body, gazing off into nothingness. The eyes were wide and haunting and made Black feel strangely uneasy.
    “Do my eyes bother you, Mr. Black?”
    He didn ’ t think he had shown any reaction, especially one that a blind man could have detected. “Not nearly as much as they must bother you.”
    “I ’ m sure you ’ re wondering about me being an investigator but also being blind. Most people do. They always ask if I have super smelling abilities or ultrasonic hearing or things of that nature.”
    “An old blind man used to live next to my family in East St. Louis. The kids in the neighborhood always either treated him like he was an invalid or that he had some kind of superpowers and could hear through walls and figure out what you ate for breakfast just by smelling you. Neither of those things were true. But the bottom line is that I don ’ t really care about your abilities one way or the other. If you don ’ t mind, let ’ s get to the point of why you ’ re disturbing my rehabilitation.”
    “Do you have other important matters to address today, Mr. Black? Things that I ’ m interrupting? ”
    “It ’ s meatloaf day.”
    “You must be a big fan.”
    “I hate meatloaf. I ’ d rather eat dirt.”
    Neither man spoke for a long moment. Munroe broke the silence first. “It ’ s my understanding that you