Secure Location (3 page)

She let out an audible sigh. “Let’s just get this over with.”

How could he have forgotten? She liked ending things. Quickly. “I guess I made an assumption that sleeping with you for six years entitled me to a little familiarity.”

Pink blotches suddenly appeared on her fair skin, just above the collar of her gray blouse, proving that some things never did change. When Meg was frustrated or angry, she didn’t hide it well. They used to joke about it, saying that she’d make a lousy undercover detective.

Was she remembering all the times they’d been more than a
little
familiar? How they made love in the park, with oblivious strangers just feet away? Or perhaps the weekend they moved into their house? Eighteen hours. Every damn room. “Meg?” he said, his voice cracking.

She shook her head. “Just forget it. Please. Go do your thing. All I want is to be able to go inside my house and forget about the last three hours.” She tossed the keys in his lap. “Unit Six. The number is next to the door.”

He pointed at the car keys in the ignition. “It’s too hot to sit out here without the air on. Keep the car running. If you see or hear anything that looks weird, get the hell out of here. Call 911 on the way.”

She reached out a hand but pulled back before she touched him. “Cruz...be careful, okay?”

He nodded, not trusting his own voice. It was the same thing she’d said to him every morning for six years. Of course, the morning he’d been shot, she’d already been gone for six months.

When he’d woken up in the hospital hours later and she’d been there, the damn pain in his leg had suddenly seemed worth it. She was back.

And then she’d left again. And no amount of pain medication had been able to take that hurt away.

“Yeah, right,” he said. He closed the car door softly and walked toward her condo. When he got to her door, it looked like all the other doors. Almost.

It was ajar. Just inches. But enough that when he looked inside and saw the damage, he knew the truth.

Meg was in trouble. Big trouble.

Chapter Two

When Cruz opened the car door and slid inside, the edges of his dark hair were damp with sweat. He flipped the air on high, and turned to face Meg. “We’ve got a little bit of a situation here,” he said.

Meg’s stomach clenched. Cruz’s voice was soft, not giving anything away. But he wasn’t able to control the emotion in his eyes, as well. He was pissed.

“What?”

He put his hand on her arm. “Somebody was in your condo and they did a real job on it. I called Myers and he and his people are on the way. I want you to stay here until they work the scene.”

In her condo. A real job.
She let out a deep breath and sank back into the seat. Cruz dropped his arm, giving Meg the chance she needed to wrench open the door and bolt across the street. He didn’t catch her until she was at the steps.

“Meg, damn it,” he said. “It’s bad.”

“I have to know,” she said. “Please.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. But please don’t touch anything.”

The cupboard doors were open but the shelves were empty, save one lone cup that was so far back that it had escaped attention. Shards of new blue Crate and Barrel plates strewn from one end of the ceramic countertop to the other made a crazy kind of confetti when mixed with the remnants of the sturdy brown stoneware that she’d had since college. The refrigerator door was also open, wrenched so hard that it now hung crookedly. On the top shelf, a plastic pitcher lay on its side, the orange juice pooled around it, contained by the upturned edge of the shelf. The eggs she’d bought two days ago had been thrown at the stove and yolk and shell and slimy egg white had dried on the black front.

On the small table that separated her kitchen from the living room, the plant had been upturned, sending potting soil flying. What she could see of the living room didn’t encourage her to look further. The cushions were still on the couch but each had a haphazard slice in the fabric. The entertainment center had been pushed over and the television was facedown on the carpet. It looked as if someone had hacked the back of it with an ax.

“I...I’ve been...wanting a flat screen,” she said. She forced a smile at Cruz and knew she’d failed when his mouth tightened even more.

“Well, then,” he said. He paused. “It’s gonna be okay, Meg. I promise.”

Her chest felt tight and it was hard to breathe. What if she’d been home? What if she’d been sleeping and had awakened to find this kind of madness looming over her?

Would she be dead?

Cruz stepped in front of her, maybe to get her attention, maybe just to block the room. “And you still have no idea who might do this?” he asked.

“Of course not,” she said. This was so destructive, maybe even hateful. No one hated her.

Did they? Someone had, but it had been years ago. Twenty, in fact. Margaret Mae Gunderson had let everyone down. And there had been hate.

But how could anyone believe that the price she’d paid had not been dear enough?

A car door slammed. Then two more in quick succession. Cruz was already at the front door. “Myers and his team.”

It took them over two hours to work their way through the mess. Meg followed them from the living room back to the bedrooms. The spare room, which served as her office, had the least damage. The carpet was wet and her books sat in a sodden pile in the middle. The bucket the intruder had used to carry water had been tossed in the corner.

“Your bucket?” Detective Myers asked.

“Yes. From under my kitchen sink.”

“Tag it and bag it,” he said to the female officer.

The damage in her bedroom was much worse. Her clothes had been pulled from both her closet and drawers and sprayed with the horrible red paint. The bedcovers had been pulled off and her mattress had been sliced multiple times. The mirror above her dresser was cracked.

When she entered the bathroom, the smell almost knocked her back. Perfume bottles had been smashed in the sink. On top of the shards of glass lay more rotted fish. The mirror was cracked and across it, written in red paint, was
BITCH.

Her knees felt weak and her vision narrowed.

Cruz grabbed her elbow and pulled her back. “She’s seen enough,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Detective Myers. He gently prodded her back to the kitchen and sat her down on the chair. “Put your head between your knees,” he said.

She waved him away. “I’m fine. I just need a minute.”

Detective Myers gave her three minutes before he followed her. “It’s probably hard to tell but do you know if anything is missing?” he asked.

“I...” She licked her lips and wished she had water. “I don’t think so.”

The man nodded. “To do this kind of damage, the intruder was here for a while. Maybe one of the neighbors saw something. My team will canvas the area. We’ll check the street cameras, too, and maybe we’ll get lucky there.”

“Thank you,” she said. He seemed like a good cop. Straightforward. She was going to have to tell him everything. Just in case. But not with Cruz standing there. Not with him in the same town. Even if Detective Myers swore to keep her secret, she knew Cruz’s ability to compel even the most reluctant of witnesses to speak up. Could she gamble that he wouldn’t prod and needle Detective Myers until the man surrendered the information?

“We dusted everything for prints,” Detective Myers said. “I’ll need yours and whoever else has been in your apartment for the last several months to rule them out.”

“I’ll get you the names,” she said. She’d had Charlotte and her mother over for dinner a month ago. That was it.

Detective Myers turned his attention toward Cruz. “I suppose you can account for your whereabouts since seven this morning?”

Cruz pulled his travel itinerary out of his shorts pocket and handed it to the older man. “Arrived at the airport, rented a car, drove I-95 to the River Walk. No stops in between.”

Detective Myers nodded, tucked the itinerary into his notebook, and put his pen in his shirt pocket. Meg had no doubt the guy was going to check it out, maybe look at a few more street cameras along Cruz’s route. “I’ll be in touch,” the man said to Meg. “I’ll let you know when you can start cleaning this up. Where will you be staying until then?”

“I...uh...guess I’ll stay at the hotel. In the summer we’re not as full as usual so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

The detective turned toward Cruz. “And what about you, Mr. Montoya?”

He needed to point the nose of his rental car toward Chicago and not stop until he ran into Lake Michigan.

“I’ll be at the hotel, too,” he said.

Meg whipped her head in his direction. “That’s not necessary,” she said.

He waved away her argument, clearly not wanting to discuss it in front of Detective Myers. The older man looked at Cruz, then at her, speculation in his eyes. Evidently not seeing too much that disturbed him, he motioned for them to leave. “We’ll finish up here. I’ll be in touch.”

When they were back in the car, the seat was so hot that it burned skin. Meg tucked her skirt under her legs and gingerly reached for the metal clasp of her seat belt.

Cruz started the car and cranked up the air-conditioning. He didn’t pull out. Just sat in the driver’s seat, looking forward. Finally he turned toward her.

“Your car. This. You know I had nothing to do with it, right?” His voice cracked at the end.

She stared at him and wanted to tell him that of all the people in the world, he was the person she trusted the most.

Instead, she turned and faced out the window. Two beat cops were stringing up yellow crime scene tape across her door. “Of course not. I mean, it’s been a year,” she added, still staring at her condo. “And it’s not like our divorce was a nasty one.”

No. It had been very civilized. Probably because she’d insisted the two of them only communicate through their respective attorneys. Once the house had been sold, they’d split the proceeds and that had been the end of it. Very, very civilized. A perfect divorce, really.

“Look,” she said, turning partway back but not quite enough to meet his eyes. “It’s nice of you to offer to stay for a few days. But I’m sure it’s hard to get the time off. I’ll be fine, really. I just need to be a little more careful until they catch the person responsible for this.”

“I’m staying,” he said.

“No.”

He shook his head. “Last time I checked, you weren’t in charge of who gets to vacation in Texas.”

She pressed her lips together. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m looking forward to visiting Elsa and her family. They built a new house about forty miles north of San Antonio.”

“They finally did it, huh?” she asked before she could think better of it. His sister Elsa had been the sister that Meg had never had. And always wanted. Her husband had been transferred from Chicago to Texas a few years after Meg and Cruz had married. “You know, I thought about calling your sister after I moved here. But I wasn’t sure anybody in your family wanted to hear from me,” she admitted.

Cruz shrugged. “The two of you were friends. Just because we’re no longer married, that doesn’t have to change.”

He was wrong. Everything changed when you got divorced. Family banded together and friends had to pick sides. At least she hadn’t stayed in the same town. Their friends hadn’t had to choose whether it would be him or her that got invited to the next dinner party.

She wondered how many invitations he’d accepted. He was too good-looking, too nice, to be alone for long.

“Really, Cruz,” she said, her voice sounding loud in the small car. “I insist. It’s too much for me to ask. You should go home.”

“I’m staying,” he repeated.

He’s staying.
Part of her wanted to get down and kiss the hard, sunbaked ground. Cruz was a good cop. Even when he’d been young and fresh out of the academy and his friends were still idiots on Friday nights, he’d taken his responsibilities to serve and protect seriously.

Don’t you dare lie to me.
His buddies on the force used to tease him after a few beers. It was well-known that whenever Cruz interrogated a witness or a suspect and hissed those words, that he was dead serious. The man hated being lied to. And given that her entire life was one big lie, she was the absolute worst person for him to fall in love with.

She’d loved him since their third date. He’d taken her to Wrigley Field, bought her hot dogs and cold beer, and broken the third finger on his left hand protecting her face from a fly ball. They spent an hour in the emergency room and another twelve in his bed. She’d married him that Christmas and six years later they were still on the road to happily ever after. She’d actually begun to believe that her past didn’t matter, that maybe it was possible to put it all behind her.

He didn’t want children. She’d assumed it had something to do with growing up poor and having had the responsibility of helping raise his younger brothers and sisters. He told her on their second date that he’d changed all the dirty diapers he intended to ever change. No procreation for him.

It was perfect. And it stayed that way for a long time.

Then his brother’s wife had gotten pregnant. Then his sister. Another sister-in-law. It was an avalanche of babies. And he’d suddenly started hinting around that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they had a little Montoya of their own.

She’d had no alternative but to leave. She couldn’t tell him the truth. She’d spent a lifetime weaving a series of lies so tight that no one would have ever guessed the havoc she’d wreaked. It had been a wide path of destruction. Broken marriages, families fleeing their houses in the dark of the night and a thing so horrible she never said the words out loud.

If he knew the truth, he’d have never trusted her with any child and definitely not his child.

“What are you going to do about clothes?” he asked, whipping her back to the present. “I don’t think there was much in your closet that wasn’t sprayed with paint.”

“I guess it’s a good thing I’ve got some suits at the dry cleaners. I keep an extra pair of shoes at work, too. I can pick up the rest of what I’ll need in the short-term.”