Stronger Than Sin (7 page)

When he zeroed in on a second taco, she slapped his hand playfully. “Wait your turn,
primo.
”

He smiled and waved at the plate. “After you, ladies,
but make it quick. I have to be back at the stationhouse in about forty minutes.”

Liliana’s mother returned to the table, this time with an assortment of drinks for them. “Can I get you anything else?” she
asked.

Liliana glanced around the restaurant. It was late in the afternoon. Too late for lunch and too early for dinner, which meant
there was only a couple in the far corner. “Why don’t you join us,
mami?
”

Her mother smiled and shook her head. “I’d love to,
mi’ja
, but I’ve got to make sure your father finishes making the tortillas for tonight’s dinner rush.”

Dropping a kiss on Liliana’s cheek, her mother waddled away, painfully favoring one leg. For over a year Liliana had been
trying to convince her to go for a knee replacement, but her mother insisted that money was too scarce for the operation.

Having to move out of the condo with her fiancé and into a new place had unfortunately eaten up some of the money Liliana
had been setting aside to help pay for the procedure.

Ramon must have noticed the focus of her attention, since he smothered her hand with his comforting touch. In low tones he
said, “Don’t worry,
chica.
She’s going to be fine.”

“Seriously, Lil. Your
mami
will agree to have the operation eventually. Don’t let it wear you down,” Carmen added, because her friend understood, maybe
better than most, just how much Liliana hated to see anyone in pain.

Which brought back memories of Jesse Bradford.

He had been seriously hurting earlier that day thanks to Whittaker and his men. She couldn’t understand how
anyone would treat a witness like that—as if he was a prisoner. Which made her wonder what kinds of rules they had about handling
detainees.

“Have you ever Tasered someone?” she asked her cousin.

He paused with a taco halfway to his mouth and then put it back down. With a shrug, he said, “On occasion. If I’ve got someone
who’s an emotionally disturbed person and I can’t control them…”

“You stun-gun them—”

“Rather than shoot them or have one of my men injured. Yes. I know it sounds harsh, but it beats the alternatives,” Ramon
finished for her.

His explanation wasn’t far from Whittaker’s, and yet… There was something about what Jesse had said. That all he had wanted
to do was see his family. She wondered how it had gone from that to requiring the use of a Taser.

“Something wrong, Lil?” Carmen prompted, picking up on her distress.

Unfortunately, her earlier negative vibes about Whittaker were only growing.

She shook her head and reached for one of the tacos before Ramon finished devouring them. As she brought it to her mouth,
her gaze connected with her cousin’s and she knew that he, too, had sensed her concern.

“If you need me for anything, you know you can count on me,” he reiterated.

Liliana had no doubt about that. And because Mick and Caterina already had too much upset in their lives, Ramon would be her
go-to-guy with any concerns. Like the ones she was having right now.

“Could you find out if anyone reported anything
unusual? Like someone being abducted in the area?” she asked. Beside her, Carmen sat up straighter, clearly surprised, although
she remained silent.

Ramon’s dark gaze settled on her face, inquisitive, but he seemed to understand there was a limit to how much she could tell
him. So instead he said, “Any particular area?”

Liliana thought of Jesse’s words about wanting to see his family. She wondered just how close he had gotten to them. “Lake
Como. Belmar. That area.”

“Will do,” Ramon confirmed, and because all of them comprehended that further discussion was out of the question, they turned
their attention to the meal Liliana’s mother and father had made for them.

Carmen had prepped the blood from the day before for a more detailed analysis. As with the earlier samples, there was a decided
difference in the rate of replication in the gene fragments that had been introduced into Bradford from those in Caterina’s
system.

Liliana sat beside Carmen at her workstation, reviewing what little they knew so far.
Little
being the operative word. They still had yet to discover an explanation for what the x-rays and her gross examination of
Bradford’s body had shown.

“So you say his body was hard, as in—”

“Rigid. Like nothing I’ve felt before. Granted, his muscles were more developed than most I’ve encountered—”

“Hence the expression ‘rock hard,’ ” Carmen reminded.

Liliana thought back to the roughness on the tops of Bradford’s hands and the dense feel of his arms beneath
her palms. Was her imagination running away from her? Was it possible the patches on his hands were nothing other than the
calluses of someone who used their hands often? And that those ripped muscles were just more defined than any she had ever
felt before?

Unlikely, given that she regularly examined athletes in her line of work. And how would someone get calluses on the
back
of his hands?

“If I get a skin sample later, would you have time to analyze it?”

Carmen nodded. “Sure. In the meantime, I’ll keep on working on the blood samples you’ve brought. There’s something funky about
them, but I can’t put my finger on it yet.”

Liliana shot a glance at her watch. Barely nine in the morning. She had planned on returning to Bradford’s home to see how
he had passed the night, but first she wanted to speak to his family to develop a medical history that might assist with their
investigations.

“I have some running around to do but may be back in time for lunch. Do you want to grab a bite together?”

A light flush of pink blossomed across Carmen’s cheeks. “Actually, I have a date to go eat lunch with Ramon.”

Based on the blush, Liliana suspected there was more going on than just lunch but was glad for her friend, as well as for
her cousin. They would be good together.

“Then maybe I’ll see you later,” she said and headed to her office.

At her desk, she logged on to the hospital network to review Bradford’s earlier hospital files to get more
information, since the Wardwell files had lacked certain details. As was standard procedure, the hospital records for Jesse’s
earlier visit had all of Bradford’s personal information, including whom to contact in the event of an emergency.

His family lived nearby, just a few miles away on the other side of the tracks, which would make it easy for her to pay a
visit. The one problem with that was Whittaker’s instruction that all information about this project be confidential and that
Jesse’s recovery be kept secret.

It would make it harder to speak with his family, but she had to do it if they were going to figure out what might be causing
Jesse’s bone problems and how to deal with whatever Wardwell had done to him.

She picked up the phone and dialed the number, and a woman answered.

“Mrs. Bradford?” she asked, and the woman confirmed it, a dull, almost tired cadence to her voice.

“I’m calling about your son.”

“You’ve found Jesse. Sweet Lord, you’ve found Jesse,” she said excitedly and with such hope that it almost hurt Liliana to
dash that expectation.

“I’m sorry, but that’s not why I’m calling,” she said, wishing she could tell his mother the truth.

The earlier excitement fled, replaced by disappointment. “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just that… I keep on praying Jesse will come
home.”

He almost did, she thought, recalling the punishment he had received because of his desire to see his family. Trying to comfort
the other woman, she said, “I’m sure Jesse would if he could. When he’s found…”

Liliana stopped and sucked in a deep breath, hating
the lies she was spewing, even if they were necessary. When she had regained control, she continued. “I’m with a team dealing
with another of the Wardwell patients—Caterina Shaw. We’re gathering medical histories of all the patients participating in
the experiments so that we’ll be ready to treat them when they’re found. I was hoping you could spare some time to meet with
me about Jesse’s condition.”

“Anything I can do to help, I will. When would you like to chat?”

It would take her only about fifteen minutes to get to the Bradford family home. It wasn’t far from the lab or from Jesse’s
home in Spring Lake, making her wonder if that’s why he had bought the large colonial along the oceanfront. If that home had
been intended not just for him, but for the family he seemed to care so much about—something else she hadn’t expected from
what she knew of him from the tabloids.

“Will ten be too soon?” she asked.

“No, not at all,” the woman replied and rattled off her address. The same one in the hospital file.

“See you then,” Liliana confirmed and hung up.

She turned her attention back to the remaining Wardwell papers on Jesse and continued adding notes to those she had previously
gotten from the other volumes. Nothing in them, however, gave her a clue as to how Jesse had gotten in their program or whether
Edwards or Morales had discovered the reason for Jesse’s unexplained bone loss.

Odd, but then again, Morales and Edwards, the ones responsible for the illegal experimentation, had clearly not been interested
in helping their patients.

At least, not at the end.

But Liliana was committed to helping Caterina and Jesse or any of the other patients that the FBI might soon find.

Tucking her spiral-bound journal into her purse, she grabbed her keys and left the office for her meeting with the Bradfords.

The Bradford family home was a small ranch house on a postage-stamp-sized yard west of the railroad tracks. It looked like
it had been recently renovated and landscaped, as did many of the nearby homes on the narrow street. Many of the houses and
cars along the road boasted Mauraders flags and emblems. A tribute to their hometown hero, Liliana guessed.

Overall, the working-class homes on the block were in much better condition than those on the surrounding streets.

She parked her car in front of the home and walked up the curving cement walkway. She gave the doorbell a quick push and heard
it resonate within. Barely a few seconds passed before the door opened.

A tall, lean woman stood there, her sandy blond hair streaked with white. Her cornflower blue eyes—eyes so much like Jesse’s—intently
traveled over Liliana’s face as the woman waited behind the protection of a storm door.

“Mrs. Bradford?” she asked and, at the woman’s nod, identified herself. “I’m Dr. Carrera. I spoke with you earlier.”

“Mary Bradford. Please come in.” She opened the door and held out her hand to invite Liliana in. As Liliana
entered, she noticed the careful arrangement of photos along the top of an old upright piano. There wasn’t a single picture
of Jesse, although the young woman in the photos bore a strong resemblance to him.

A cough alerted her to the presence of someone else in the room.

A man sat on the sofa in the space. He rose and gave a polite dip of his head as he said, “My wife tells me you want to talk
about Jesse.”

She held out her hand and said, “I assume you’re Jesse’s dad. I’m Dr. Carrera. Liliana, if you’d prefer.”

The man didn’t shake her hand. Instead he motioned her to a nearby chair and sat back down as his wife joined them. She hovered
nearby, nervously wringing her hands until her husband said, “Mary, please sit down.”

The “please” in the sentence did nothing to eliminate the command in the words, making Liliana wonder about Jesse’s father.

He sat across from her, body militarily straight. The strong line of his jaw and nose much like Jesse’s, although Jesse seemed
to favor his mother more.

Jesse’s father had on worn, but clean and precisely pressed, dark slacks with a starched white shirt that was open at the
neck. The pants were shiny from the iron, and the tip of one collar was slightly threadbare.

His hands rested on his knees. Large hands bearing the nicks and scars of a man who used them to earn a living. What, then,
was he doing at home during the day?

“I’m sorry to take you away from work—”

“I’m retired now. Spend my days puttering around the house,” he said and gripped his knees with his hands as if uncomfortable
with that statement. Maybe because he
seemed too young to be retired. Late fifties at best, Liliana thought and began the discussion once more.

“As I mentioned to Mary, I’m dealing with another Wardwell patient and would like to talk to you about Jesse’s medical condition.”

“No condition, Dr. Carrera. It was God’s punishment for my son’s sinful ways.”

“Sinful ways?” she asked, curious about what he meant.

“Drinking. Whoring. Forgetting the values we instilled in him at home,” Mr. Bradford replied sharply and drummed the fingers
of one hand against his knee.

His wife reached out and stopped the angry motion, her touch gentling. “Jesse’s not a bad boy, John. He just lost his way.”

Liliana recalled the brawls, different daily girlfriends, and assorted gossip about Jesse in the supermarket magazines. As
she glanced back at his parents, she noted the ornate crucifix on a far wall of the room beside a needle-pointed Lord’s Prayer
with an Irish flag stitched beneath. If they were as zealous as they seemed, she could understand their reluctance to condone
Jesse’s actions.

“I’m not here to judge Jesse—”

“God has already judged my son,” his father intoned, his voice rising as if he was getting ready to launch into a sermon.

Liliana fought back unexpected emotions as a mix of pity and anger awoke within her. Mustering patience, a trait she possessed
in very short supply, she said, “Did anyone in your family ever have any signs of a bone- or joint-related disease? Arthritis?
Osteoporosis? Anything like that?”

“Nothing. It’s why Jesse’s disease was so odd,” Mary quickly replied.