Make Me Melt (14 page)

She smiled. “Nope. I told my dad that he could convert it to another guest bedroom, but he said he liked it just the way it was.” She paused. “He said it reassured him that there was still innocence and goodness in the world.”

“I understand what he meant.”

“Do you ever want to do something different?” she ventured.

“Nope.”

“But you could be a trial lawyer with your background,” she said.

“Can you honestly see me striding through a courtroom, making impassioned speeches?” he asked. “I spent ten years in law enforcement before I was appointed to the marshal position. This is where I belong.”

Caroline nodded. She knew exactly what he meant. She recalled that moment when she realized she was meant to work with underprivileged children. She’d had a sense of complete fulfillment. While corporate law might be more lucrative, she would never find it more satisfying.

“What about you?” Jason asked. “Ever see yourself as a trial lawyer?”

She gave a surprised laugh. “Me? No. I’ve thought about using my trust fund to set up a foundation for needy kids.” She sensed his sharp interest. “I really enjoyed the pro bono work I did in Richmond for the child welfare office. I felt like I was making a difference.”

“That’s a noble endeavor,” he finally replied. “What about working as a child advocate here in San Francisco?” He gave her a wry grin. “Trust me, if I’d had someone like you on my side back when I was a kid, things might have been very different.”

Caroline sobered. “But then I might never have met you. You wouldn’t have ended up in my father’s courtroom, and you certainly wouldn’t have spent time with us while you finished college.”

“And you wouldn’t have spent half your time watching me when you thought I wasn’t looking,” he said, his tone teasing.

Her eyes widened. “You knew I used to spy on you?”

Grinning, he pulled her into his arms. “Like I said, I knew everything about you.”

They stared at each other for several long seconds. Jason swallowed, and his gaze dropped to her mouth.

She placed her hands lightly against his chest and pressed her lips sweetly to his. The moment their lips met, heat flared. With a rough groan, Jason captured her face between his big hands and slanted his mouth across her own. She didn’t resist when she felt the intrusion of his tongue against hers, and then there was only a slow burn that made her nipples ache and her center throb.

She wound her arms around his neck, speared her fingers through his hair and reveled in the hard, solid feel of him, flush against her from chest to knees. He slid a hand to the base of her spine and pressed her forward so that she could feel his growing erection beneath his jeans. In another second, she was going to drag him into her childhood bedroom, throw him across the pristine white bedspread and do all the things that she’d ever fantasized about doing to him.

The sound of a car door slamming nearby startled them both, and they broke apart, their breathing a little labored. Stepping past her, Jason moved swiftly into her bedroom and over to the side window. She followed him, and they both looked outside.

A car had pulled into the driveway of the house next door, and a woman had climbed out of the passenger seat. She wore a plain beige uniform with a white collar and cuffs and white service shoes. As they watched, the car reversed slowly and backed into the street before driving away.

“That’s the neighbor’s housekeeper,” Jason noted.

She remembered the woman from that first day, when she had insisted on seeing the spot where her father had been shot. Now the woman carried two large shopping sacks in her arms, and Caroline could see a long loaf of crusty bread and a leafy vegetable poking out of the top.

“She must be the cook,” she murmured. “Or maybe she does both. Looks like she has something good planned for dinner.”

They watched as the woman climbed the steps to the back door and then pulled out her house key, struggling to balance the two sacks of groceries and her pocketbook. She glanced once over at their house and gave a quick nod of acknowledgment. Caroline knew that one of the deputies stood guard on the back porch, so she must have just become aware of him observing her.

“Poor thing,” Caroline said. “She must be completely freaked out.”

Unable to juggle the groceries and her pocketbook, she set her purse down by her feet and quickly unlocked the door. She disappeared inside, and then returned a scant second later to scoop up the pocketbook and close the door firmly behind her.

“Yeah,” Jason said thoughtfully. “She didn’t look too happy.”

14

T
HE
FOLLOWING
DAY
, Caroline stood near her father’s bed and carefully arranged the dozens of flowers, potted plants, balloons and cards that had arrived daily since the shooting. He’d been moved out of the intensive care unit and into a private room and could finally accept personal items.

While the judge spent most of his time sleeping, he’d been awake for intermittently longer periods of time. Not wanting to tire him out, Caroline had sat quietly reading.

Jason was never more than a few steps away, although she noted that his guard seemed to be lowering a bit, now that her father had regained consciousness. He seemed convinced that the judge would eventually recall exactly who had come to his door that fateful night, and that an arrest was imminent.

Now he stood by the windows, conversing in low tones with Deputy Black and two FBI agents. Caroline glanced at her father, but he was sound asleep, his mouth slack. The last thing she wanted was for him to overhear any of the conversation and become distressed.

Seeing him so relaxed, she turned her ear to Jason’s discussion. She knew the FBI had recovered fingerprints from the beach house in Santa Cruz but had not been able to come up with a match. They’d also pulled a second partial footprint from the soil beside the house that seemed to match the one they’d retrieved from the Sea Cliff house.

There was no longer any doubt that whoever had attacked her father had also ransacked the beach house.

“This involved more than one person,” Jason said. “Unless they brought a ladder, which there’s no evidence they did, one person couldn’t have reached the electrical service drop without help.

The FBI agents seemed in agreement with his assessment, and they had stepped up security at both the houses and the hospital. They had set up a command post of sorts outside her father’s room, with several laptops and communications systems that allowed them to speak to their teams located outside the hospital.

“The neighbors can’t recall seeing or hearing anything unusual at the house in Santa Cruz,” the first agent said. “They said there was a downpour that evening that drove everyone indoors for about two hours. My guess is that’s when the perps entered the house. They may have even parked their car outside the area, so as not to arouse suspicion.”

“What about the footprint?” Jason asked. “Are you sure it’s a match to the one found at the primary residence?”

“Absolutely,” the second agent said. “The rain actually worked in our favor, since it softened the soil. Again, it’s only a partial print, as if the perp was walking on his or her toes.”

“Her?” Jason’s voice sharpened.

“It’s only a theory,” the first agent said. “We don’t have the complete footprint, so there’s no way of telling the exact size of the shoe, but it looks to be on the small side. So it could be a male with smaller feet or it could be a female.”

Caroline watched as Jason’s face grew thoughtful; then he excused himself and walked over to where she sat. She stood up and drew him over toward the door, out of earshot.

“I heard,” she said. “Why would any woman do this?”

Jason shook his head. “I don’t know. Did your father ever mention a female friend? Someone he was seeing, either romantically or maybe as a friend?”

“No,” she said fervently, keeping her voice low. “To my knowledge, my father lived like a monk after he lost my mother. He never once brought a woman back to the house, and if he ever had a date, I didn’t know about it.”

Jason smiled grimly. “No doubt part of his plan to keep you innocent.”

She gaped at him. “Are you telling me that my father did have relationships?”

He gave her a helpless look. “He’s a man, Caroline. He’s also wealthy and powerful. I’m sure there are a lot of women who find him very attractive. Just because he didn’t bring them home, or tell you about them, doesn’t mean they didn’t exist.”

She felt a little stunned. “But I wanted him to date,” she said. “I used to try to play matchmaker for him, and he’d just laugh and tell me that he was a hopeless cause. He said I was the only girl for him. Eventually, I just gave up, because he seemed so dead set against it.”

“He was only dead set against bringing another woman into your life,” Jason said softly. “He loved your mother very much, and I don’t think he ever wanted to replace those memories. He wanted you to remember her, too.”

Caroline felt tears prick the back of her eyelids. “But I don’t really remember her. I have only vague, hazy memories of her.” She smiled at him. “But they’re all happy memories. Sometimes a song or a particular scent will bring her face into clear focus, but if I try and picture what she looked like, I can’t.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Jason said, pulling her into his arms. “I lost my mother when I was very young, too. At least you have those good memories. I couldn’t even tell you what color hair my mother had.”

She pulled back to look at his face. Although she knew his homelife had been difficult, she didn’t know the details, and her father had refused to discuss them with her.

“What happened to her?” she asked.

Jason shrugged. “I don’t know. She left us when I was just a toddler. My father refused to talk about her, and my grandmother would only say she was trash.”

Her heart constricted. “Oh, Jason, I’m sure that isn’t true. Have you ever tried to locate her?”

He nodded. “A couple of times, but I never came up with any leads on her.”

She hugged him hard. “I’m sure she had her reasons for leaving and not bringing you with her.”

“That’s what the counselors told me,” he said. At her questioning look, he sighed. “After I ended up in court, and your father decided I was worth saving, he pulled me out of Hunters Point and sent me to a residential school for troubled youths. Part of the program to rehabilitate me involved meeting with counselors every day.” He gave a huff of laughter. “I was a pretty angry kid, ergo I had a lot of counseling.”

“My father did that?” she asked. Her father had given many kids a second chance, but she hadn’t understood the extent of his generosity. “He sent you to a private school?”

“He did. Your father is the only reason I didn’t end up like Eddie Green, because back then I was doing my best to imitate him.”

“I had no idea,” Caroline admitted. “I mean, I knew that he sometimes took a special interest in juvenile offenders, and did what he could to give them a second chance, but I had no idea he did so much.”

“I’m not saying he did that for every kid,” he said. “But what he did for me changed my life.”

“What he did for you changed my life, too,” she said tenderly, gazing up at him. “I would never have met you otherwise.”

Jason chuckled. “I’m not sure if your father could have looked into the future and seen us together that he would have been so eager to help me.”

She gave him a tolerant look. “That’s not true. He loves you like a son. You heard him earlier—he always thought we should be together. He just about gave us his blessing.”

This time, there was no doubting Jason’s amusement. “He’s strung out on morphine, sweetheart. He had no idea what he was saying.”

Before she could respond, his cell phone began to beep. He glanced at the screen and then over at the two agents. “This is my office. Sorry, but I need to take this call.”

The two agents retreated to the corridor, and Jason moved to the far side of the room to speak quietly into the phone. Caroline went back to her father’s bed, surprised when she saw he was awake.

“Hey, Dad,” she said, leaning over him. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” he said weakly, giving her a wan smile.

“Go back to sleep,” she urged him. “Everything is okay, and the doctors say you’re going to be up and around in no time at all. I’d rest while you can.”

“Thirsty.”

Because of his injury, he’d not yet been cleared for solid foods and still got most of his nutrients intravenously. Caroline knew she couldn’t give him any water, but she could let him suck on some ice chips. Reaching for the cup where she kept his ice, she saw it had melted to several inches of water, which was tepid, at best.

“I’m just going to refill your ice bucket,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

Scooping up his empty pitcher and his ice bucket, she got Jason’s attention, and held up both items so that he would know where she was going. He covered the phone with his hand.

“Ask Deputy Black to go with you,” he said. “He’s right outside.”

She nodded and slipped out of the room. In the corridor, she saw Deputy Black in conversation with the two FBI agents at the far end of the hall. A new guard, whom Caroline didn’t recognize, sat outside the door.

“I’m just going to refill my father’s ice bucket,” she said to the guard.

He shrugged, as if it was no consequence to him what she did. Glancing at Deputy Black, she hesitated. The guard clearly didn’t care if she stepped down the hallway to where the ice machine stood, and with so many law enforcement personnel in the hallway, Caroline couldn’t imagine a safer place for her to be. Unwilling to disturb the deputy for such a small errand, she walked in the opposite direction, away from the room.

She wasn’t as familiar with the layout of this floor as she had been with the ICU, and when she reached the end of the corridor without seeing the ice machine, she paused for a moment to get her bearings.

“The ice machine is to your right, honey,” said a passing nurse. She indicated the adjacent corridor. “Halfway down, on your left, next to the ladies’ room.”

“Thank you.”

Caroline walked swiftly in the direction that the nurse had indicated. Halfway down the hallway, she located the machine and paused to fill the bucket. While she waited for the ice to dispense, a movement caught her eye, and she looked to her right to see a man carrying a large bouquet of flowers. He had paused almost directly beside her to study a hospital directory that hung on the wall.

Caroline watched him covertly. She guessed him to be in his thirties, and he was distinctly Latino. He was dressed in baggy jeans and heavy work boots, and he wore a bulky jacket over his large frame, despite the warm temperature outside. A baseball cap was pulled low over his eyes. As if sensing her scrutiny, he turned and looked directly at her.

Caroline panicked.

Jerking upright, she glanced swiftly back the way she had come. The corridor seemed ominously long and empty. The door to the ladies’ room was right next to her, and without thinking she pushed her way inside. With her heart hammering, she stood inside the door and waited, the ice bucket raised in one hand, but nobody followed her. After a moment, she lowered the bucket, aware that her heart was still slamming against her ribs.

Once she realized she wasn’t in danger, the adrenaline rush ended, leaving her weak and shaking. She dragged in a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. Disgusted by her own fearfulness, she walked over to the bank of sinks and set the bucket down. She braced her hands on the counter, willing her heart to slow its frantic pace.

After a moment, she gave a feeble laugh. She was in a hospital, for Pete’s sake, with half a dozen police, FBI agents and deputy marshals within shouting distance. No one was going to hurt her, and even if they tried, one scream from her would bring them all running.

Now that her panic had subsided, Caroline realized she really did need to use the bathroom, and she stepped into one of the stalls. She had no sooner sat down then she heard the bathroom door open and footsteps entering. For one wild, petrifying instant, she thought it was the man with the flowers, and that he’d come in to kill her. She was halfway to her feet, when the person entered the stall beside her own. Beneath the divider, Caroline could see a woman’s feet, encased in a pair of white service shoes. She relaxed.

Not a man. Not a killer.

A nurse.

The nurse lowered a pocketbook to the floor of the stall, and Caroline raised her eyebrows. Didn’t the woman know there was a hook on the back of the door? There was no way she’d ever let her own pocketbook come in contact with a bathroom floor, no matter how clean and hygienic it appeared. Her eyes narrowed briefly on the handbag, thinking it seemed vaguely familiar, before she brushed the thought away.

She left the stall a moment later and moved to the sink to wash her hands. Bending over, she splashed cool water against her face. She heard the flush, and then the stall door opened. Caroline straightened, reaching for the paper towels, when her eyes met those of the other woman.

With a swift gasp, she spun around. Not a nurse, but the housekeeper from next door to where her father lived. What had the police officer said her name was? Marisola Perez?

“What are you doing here?” she managed, but she thought she already knew.

Marisola’s features were twisted in grief and hatred, and tears filled her dark eyes. Holding her purse in one hand, she reached into the bag and withdrew a gun. Letting the handbag drop to the floor, she advanced on Caroline, who was too stunned to move, never mind scream.

“An eye for an eye,” she said brokenly. “A child for a child. I lost my daughter, and your father did nothing. My daughter came to this very hospital for an appendix operation. A simple procedure, the doctors said. But she died.” A sob escaped her, and she pressed her free hand to her mouth. “She came out of the surgery with such severe brain damage that she never woke up again. I had to pull the plug that kept her alive. No mother should ever have to do that!”

Her voice had risen, and Caroline could see the woman was shaking. Caroline gripped the edge of the sink, her eyes on the gun. “I know your story,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry for what happened to you. For what you went through.”

“I have had to live without my daughter,” Marisola cried. “I wanted justice, but your father denied me that. I’m glad now that he didn’t die when I shot him. I’ve had to suffer life without my child. Now he will know that same pain!”

With a hoarse cry, she raised the gun. Without conscious thought, Caroline grabbed the ice bucket and flung it at the woman. Ice and water flew everywhere, and Marisola flinched as ice cubes struck her in the face. There was a sharp retort as the gun discharged, and Caroline felt the air stir near her face before the mirror exploded behind her.