Sweet Dreams Boxed Set (192 page)

In the way that physicians do by reflex, Frankie assessed the damages to her body with a clinical coolness, even while the sharp, hot pain of broken bones and bruised flesh seized her mind.

Serious damage, likely not fatal
.

Hearing the screech of tires peeling out of the parking lot, emergency room personnel rushed outside, and quickly attended to Frankie. They staunched the bleeding and loaded her on a gurney while a room was prepared. Thankfully, Frankie had lost consciousness soon after her head hit the asphalt and was relieved of the knowledge of her condition.

Chapter 62

“I shouldn’t have left her,” Cruz said, waiting outside the emergency room while Frankie’s ribs were taped and her abrasions attended to. “After the first two attacks, I should’ve been more cautious.”

“Horseshit,” Slater said, not unkindly. “We couldn’t have anticipated this.”

“I should’ve.” Cruz stared at his hands, fixed on the long brown fingers. “Maybe it was a simple hit and run – nothing else.”

“Maybe, but stop beating yourself up,” Slater advised. “Won’t do Frankie any good now.”

Cruz shook his head in frustration. “I don’t know what else to do. I feel so – ”

The emergency room doctor interrupted him. “Good news, moderate concussion, a few broken ribs, bumps, bruises and abrasions, but she’ll be fine.”

In his relief Cruz staggered a half-step back before he righted himself.
Thank God.

“We’ll keep her overnight just to be sure,” the doctor added, looking down at the patient chart. “You can see her now before they wheel her up to her room.”

Frankie looked pale, but far better than Angie Hunt had. She smiled wanly when she saw Slater and Cruz peek around the curtain. “I know, I know, it was a stupid move, going out on my own.”

“Damn straight,” Cruz growled as he reached for her hand.

For a long moment they looked into each other’s eyes, each afraid of what they’d see – or not see – reflected there.

“You missed all the action,” Slater announced. “We caught our killer.”

The fragile moment between Frankie and Cruz passed.

“Who was it?” Frankie said.

“Officer Jeff Rawley, a RPD beat cop, notorious for harassing and abusing street people. Angie identified him. And Sergei Petrovich picked him out of a lineup.”

“And the car that hit me?”

Cruz squeezed her hand. “No luck.”

“So Anson Stark or some gang member is still after me,” Frankie whispered.

“Maybe not, but I’ll put a deputy on your door tonight,” Slater promised, his eyes not quite meeting hers. “And when you’re discharged, you can come back to the ranch.”

He didn’t add, where you should’ve stayed in the first place, but Frankie saw the reproof in his expression.

When the attendant came with a wheelchair, Cruz leaned over and kissed her softly on the forehead. “You scared the hell out of me,” he whispered against her cool flesh.

Then, regardless of the audience, Frankie held his face in both her hands and pulled his face toward her. Her lips were soft and firm and full of promise. “Me, too.”

Cruz might be crazy, but he figured he had a day while Frankie was in the hospital, to do some investigating on his own. He knew she had secrets, some about her work at Pelican Bay, more about her father who’d been moved out of ICU to a regular ward at Sutter General in Sacramento.

“First thing tomorrow I’m going to make a trip to Pelican Bay to speak with Visitation Officer Walt Steiner,” he told Slater when they returned to the ranch to check on Cole.

Standing at the kitchen counter, Slater drank deeply from his coffee. “Why’s that?”

“He’s the man Frankie went to Crescent City to be near. She trusts – trusted – him. I’d like to check him out. He might give us some answers.”

“Maybe,” Slater said doubtfully.

“He’s known Frankie since her father went to prison. If nothing else, he can tell us about Roger Milano’s case and the trial.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Long as there’s a guard on Frankie’s door,” Cruz warned, and left for his apartment to pack an overnight bag.

Walt Steiner greeted them at check-in, and after surrendering their weapons and badges, Cruz and Slater followed the visitation officer to a shoebox of an office.

“You didn’t give me much information on the phone,” Steiner began, suspicion darkening his hazel eyes. “If I wasn’t so worried about Frankie, I wouldn’t have agreed to this meet.”

“I understand, sir,” Cruz began, only to be interrupted.

“Don’t bother with excuses, just get to the point.” Steiner was a beefy man, average height and broad, with weathered skin and a military-cut hair style. “Is she all right?”

Cruz and Slater exchanged glances. On the long drive to Crescent City, they’d discussed how much to tell Steiner about Frankie and the events in Rosedale.

“Yes,” Cruz replied. “Frankie was, ah, injured in a car accident, but she’s recovering and we have a guard on her hospital room.”

Steiner sat in his chair, leaned against the too-small desk, his thick arms covering the pad. “What happened? Wasn’t she in the Rosedale house?”

Cruz took the plastic chair opposite Steiner’s desk, although the man hadn’t asked them to sit down. “She was attacked in her father’s home.”

“She wasn’t injured,” Slater added quickly, “but we moved her to another place.”

“What?” Steiner jumped to his feet, like a boxer ready to face an opponent. “Nobody knows about that house. She’s changed her last name. The house is in her father’s name. No one knows that.”

“Her name?” Puzzlement crossed Cruz’s face. “What are you talking about?”

Steiner collapsed into his chair, sighing. “She didn’t tell you?”

Cruz shook his head.

“It’s not my place to reveal her secrets,” Steiner began. “Let’s just say that Frankie changed her last name about a dozen years ago.”

“Why?”

“Actually, it was her father’s idea. To protect her against anyone wanting retaliation and using Frankie to get it. He didn’t want her associated with him.”

Cruz kept shaking his head like an idiot. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to, young man,” the grizzly older officer snapped. “You just have to keep her safe.”

“I’m trying,” Cruz snapped back, feeling the sting of Steiner’s words.

“Frankie can tell you what she wants you to know,” Slater advised Cruz trying to cool down the heated conversation.

He addressed Steiner directly. “We’re also here about another matter – the
Lords of Death.”

If Steiner was puzzled by this statement, nothing showed on his face. “What about them?”

“We figure they’re into some kind of new – let’s just call it – enterprise. Something to do with a loyalty ritual for incoming gang members. ‘Blood in and blood out?’ We want to know who’s in bed with them.”

“You figure this has something to do with Frankie’s attack?”

Cruz decided Steiner wouldn’t help them if they didn’t tell him everything – well, almost everything. “Frankie was attacked and threatened in the prison parking lot, right here, before she fled to Rosedale.”

“Ah hell, I knew it was something bad.”

“Then why didn’t you go to her, check up on her?” Cruz accused the older man.

The man shifted on his chair, his eyes hooded. “I told her where to go, but then I – I got tied up with something.”

“Well, she’s had two attacks on her, not counting the one that’s landed her in the hospital right now.” Cruz wondered belatedly if he should be so frank with the man.

“We think it has something to do with an investigation she was making into the medical records of inmates who were members of the
Lords of Death,”
Slater continued.

Walt frowned in confusion. “She told me nothing about that. What trouble has she gotten into?”

“You’ve got some C.O.’s on the take, Steiner,” Slater warned. “And it’s related to two homicides in my county, maybe a third one.”

After a long moment Walt stood, clearly dismissing them. “I can’t help you. We have confidentiality issues here at Pelican Bay.”

“My ass,” Slater said, as they left. “He’s covering for something.”

“Or someone,” Cruz added, thinking they’d might never know who.

Chapter 63

November, Present Day

Frankie Jones became the worst kind of recalcitrant patient – a medical doctor forced to become dependent on others.

Slater insisted she recuperate with him at his ranch home at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Tending Cole Hansen as he gradually mended filled the short, winter days.

Cruz visited Frankie nearly every day – she insisted he kept her sane.

He
insisted Dr. Frankie Jones was distracting.
Very distracting.

“I’m thinking about moving back into my father’s house,” Frankie declared one day when the snow fell lightly on the distant mountains. “Do you think I should?”

Cruz thought she looked lovely in the early evening light, in spite of the weight she’d lost. “Would you feel safe there, after what’s happened?”

She shrugged and abandoned the topic. “What’s going to happen to Cole now that he’s nearly well? Will
he
be safe out there?” She gestured vaguely in a southward direction.

“As much as anywhere,” Cruz answered. “He can’t hide out at Slater’s house forever. I’m working on finding him a transitional house, and Slater has a job lined up for him.”

“Good.”

His glance dropped to her mouth. He was thinking about kisses – getting distracted again.

“I’ve given notice at Pelican Bay,” Frankie continued. “Put the Crescent City house up for sale.”

“Oh?”

“I can’t go back there,” she insisted. “There’s too much of the story that hasn’t been written yet, and I – well, I want to be near my father.”

Frankie wasn’t ready to reveal her father’s connection to the man his gang members called the Professor, but she wanted to be honest with Cruz. “I need to find out what really happened when my mother died.”

She had shared what little she knew of her mother’s death, her father’s conviction for her murder, and his sentence of fifteen-to-life for second-degree murder. Cruz tried to imagine the strain of that event on a seventeen-year-old girl, but he couldn’t. “Where did you go after it happened?”

“My mother’s sister – Aunt Elaine,” she replied shortly. “Of course, she was completely convinced – still is – that Dad killed Mom. She didn’t make life easy for me.” She turned away from his steady, dark eyes and gazed out the window to the lightly snow-dusted trees surrounding Slater’s property.

Cruz got up to make cups of hot cocoa. When they’d settled down again, he asked thoughtfully, “Do you think Stark had anything to do with your mother’s death? Is that even possible?”

“I don’t know. It happened so long ago. What reason would Stark have to harm her? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe not to you when you were seventeen, but we might be able to uncover reasons from an adult perspective,” Cruz argued.

Frankie leaned forward and took one of his hands in both hers. She liked his saying “we,” as if they were a team. “We’ve got more – more pressing concerns.”

He returned the pressure, bumped knees with her. He enjoyed the contact, however slight.

So far there had been no more deaths in Bigler County or the surrounding ones.

She shook her head thoughtfully. “They’re pinning everything on Jeffrey Rawley, but I keep thinking about those organs. The skill and precision it took to remove them. I can’t see Rawley doing that.”

“We’ve got our killer,” Cruz assured her. “We know Rawley killed Dickey Hinchey because we have physical evidence from his apartment. Angie ID’ed him as her kidnapper.”

However, Frankie was convinced Jeffrey Rawley hadn’t committed all three murders. Maybe he was responsible for the kidnapping of Angie Hunt and the death of Dickey Hinchey, but she didn’t believe he killed the Hightower girl or the Sacramento woman.

“The District Attorney isn’t going to pursue another line of investigation,” Cruz continued. “He doesn’t want to damage the case against Rawley.”

“So any further work on the case will have to be done by the three of us,” she declared.

He laughed. “Good luck with getting Slater on board. Rogue agents in a civilian capacity?” He rose, took Frankie by one hand and tugged her to her feet. “Let’s take a walk.”

They wrapped themselves in coats and scarves, even though the temperature was mild despite the snowfall. They followed a well-trodden path into the woods, Cruz still holding her hand. He wasn’t going to let go.

Not right away. Not any time soon.

“I need to feel settled somewhere – not here,” Frankie confessed. “Here I feel so ... unanchored.” She ran her fingers through her loose hair. “I can’t let Anson Stark control my entire life. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder, afraid all the time.”

“You know, Slater would be all right with you staying here indefinitely.”

“I know, but I – ”

“Or you could stay with me,” Cruz interrupted. He leaned close to her, their legs touching now, his hands resting on her shoulders. “Even though my apartment is the size of a postage stamp.”

When she didn’t pull back, he tipped his head to one side. His breath was warm and sweet on her face, his mouth inches from hers. She understood he was waiting for a signal from her.
A yes.

His lips grazed hers and he pulled back, looking into gray eyes, usually calm and clear, now stormy and filled with an emotion Cruz hadn’t seen before, but recognized as passion. “My place is small,” he added inanely, “but no one would ever suspect you were living there.”

Frankie wrapped her arms around his waist, smoothed her hands up his broad back, and tilted her head, pulled him closer. “Or – or maybe we could find a place together. You could protect me there.”

He laughed softly. “Or
you
could protect
me.”

Their breaths mingled and became a whirlwind she lost herself in. This was crazy – too soon, too impetuous – all things, as a doctor and a scientist, she wasn’t.