The Promise He Made Her (21 page)

“Can you tell me about it?” she asked. If the in-laws had that baby...

She had to get Heather to talk. To get Sam whatever information he might need...

When the teenager looked up at her Bloom's stomach felt like lead. Once a pretty blonde, Heather looked...horrible. Pale. Sick.

“I killed them.”

Whatever she'd been expecting it wasn't that.

“What?”

“They went to court yesterday, to file for custody of my baby,” she said. “They have more money than I do. They have a home. I don't even have a job yet. I quit high school to have him, thinking my husband would support us, and I can't even get insurance money because he killed himself and...”

Her mouth was thick with saliva as she spoke, her eyes blurred with tears.

Bloom also noticed for the first time that Heather's hands were dirty. Like she'd been playing in the dirt.

“I've never had anyone, Dr. Freelander. All my life I've been alone, and then I met Omar and he was so sweet to me. When I got pregnant and he wanted to marry me...I finally started to believe that I could be like everyone else. That I could have a family of my own. But his parents hated me. They said I got pregnant deliberately to trap him. They didn't want him to quit college to work. They didn't want him to marry me. They were on him all the time. Every day. It wasn't his fault that he was taking it out on me. Who else did he have? I got that. But when he threw our baby...

“Do you know what could have happened if the baby hadn't landed on the cushion? His neck could have broken... He could have died.”

“Tell me what happened with your in-laws.” Bloom was calm. In control. Caring for the young girl, and aware of her professional responsibilities, as well. Anything Heather told her would be in complete confidence.

“I know the police were looking for them. I was, too,” Heather said, her tears subsiding for a moment. “I was scared it was them threatening you and Ms. McDaniel and hurting those guards after the detective showed me that photo, but it wasn't them. I found out they were in Los Angeles, staying with friends while they saw a lawyer and filed papers to take my son away from me. They'd left their cell phones at home and didn't want anyone to know what they were doing until they knew for sure they could and should do it. Their friend is some kind of counselor, I guess. Mrs. Ramirez called me last night and told me what they were doing. She wanted me to understand, she said, and said that if I'd just cooperate and let them raise my baby, they'd let me see him whenever I wanted. She told me all the things they could do for him that I couldn't. And said what a better life he'd have with them, and I knew that when they told the judge those things I was going to lose my baby.”

“So what did you do?”

Heather was there because she needed to talk. She'd have run if that had been her intention.

“I told Mrs. Ramirez I'd come over to talk but I wasn't bringing the baby with me. Then I called Maddie, you know, the child care worker at the Stand, and asked her to stay with him. I went to the Ramirezes'. They were being all nice because they thought I was going to give them my baby. I asked if I could see Omar's room. I knew he used to have a gun there and I told myself if it was still there, it was a sign that I should use it.”

Bloom felt sick. Physically nauseous. Despair was more lethal than anthrax.

“The gun was there. So I used it.”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

S
AM
REALLY
HATED
it when things didn't go according to his plan. Almost as much as he hated it when his hunch was wrong.

The Ramirezes weren't his perps in Santa Raquel. They hadn't taken Gomez down, hadn't knocked out the guard at The Lemonade Stand, vandalized Lila McDaniel's car or broken into Bloom's house and slashed her paintings.

They'd been in LA, seeking counsel, both legal and otherwise. And then they'd filed for custody of their grandson. They'd been upright citizens, trying to deal with a devastating situation in the best way possible.

He'd liked them for criminals.

And now they were dead.

He wasn't lead on the case. He wasn't really on the case at all, though he'd been called.

Forensics would process the scene.

But the suspect had confessed and was in custody. Her young son would be put in the system. He was young enough that his chances of adoption were good.

Sam had one hell of a headache, from lack of sleep, he was telling himself. He was bothered that Bloom had had a murderer in her office that day—and bothered that she would have been upset by the experience, too.

Mostly, he was angry that he had no leads on who had attacked two armed guards, slashed paintings and vandalized a car.

What was he missing?

He spent the rest of Tuesday and into the evening looking. He'd have stayed at his desk all night if not for the fact that Chantel expected him at the cottage to relieve her at eleven.

At ten to eleven he shut down his system and went home.

He greeted an exuberant Lucy, and spent a few minutes in the yard with her just because it felt good to do so. Felt normal. He thought about a beer and decided against it. Thought about throwing in a load of laundry. Decided against that, too, and went to bed.

He didn't so much as look at the closed bedroom door across the hall. Other than a brief greeting at their cars that morning, he hadn't spoken to Bloom since the night before. They'd texted.

When Heather Ramirez had been ready to turn herself in, Bloom had called Chantel.

He knew that she was living by their agreement the night before. They'd conducted an experiment purely for her personal knowledge base. She was showing him that nothing had changed between them.

And expected him to show her the same.

Only problem was, as he lay on the top of his covers in sweats and T-shirt, hard as hell and aching in every bone in his body, he knew that he was lying.

Somehow, in the space of a few hours, everything had changed.

It was up to him to see that it changed back.

* * *

B
LOOM
WASN
'
T
CHANGING
her mind. Not even thinking about it. She didn't want to change her mind. She and Sam had conducted an experiment. They had not started a relationship. She didn't want a relationship with him.

She just wanted to watch the movie one more time.

To make sure that she caught every aspect of it. Learned fully from it. She wanted to know if it had been a fluke, how much she'd liked sex with him the first time around. The first time she'd ever liked sex.

She listened as Sam settled in for the night.

And then she got up.

Her choice was well considered. She'd spent all evening on it. And had counter choices ready depending on which of the various responses she'd anticipated actually happened.

And a wild card abort plan, too, in the eventuality that she received an unanticipated response.

She concentrated on the plan, the thoughts, rather than on the hormonal cocktail shooting through her veins as she crossed the hall.

Sam slept with his door open so he could hear her or anyone in the rest of the house. She'd known that from the first night. Because he'd prepared her in the event she wanted to make a kitchen run in the middle of the night.

He'd neglected to say that he slept fully dressed—albeit in more comfortable clothes than the pants and tie he'd had on the night before.

Thoughts of that tie sent another ripple of cocktail through her. He'd worn that tie all night.

It had given her the ability to look at him in a whole new light every single time she saw him dressed for work.

And that way of thinking had no valid point. Or purpose.

Lucy lifted her head as Bloom drew close to the bed. Sam didn't. But he was watching her with his eyes wide open.

Of course he would be.

He was there to protect her from intruders. What good would he be if he didn't know someone was intruding on his own bed?

She lay down. Lucy jumped off the bed.

“This doesn't change anything,” she whispered.

He didn't. “Understood.”

She found out that the movie was even better the second time around. There were things she'd missed...

Bloom lost herself in the ecstasy. For one more hour.

Then she went back to bed.

* * *

A
S
SOON
AS
Sam followed Bloom to work Monday morning, saw her safely inside with Gomez at the door, he entered the freeway and headed to LA.

Chantel was going to be looking over all of their Santa Raquel files, The Lemonade Stand files, comparing histories to those from Bloom's client files. She was looking again at the three abusers who'd appeared to have alibis. He'd missed something.

Probably because he'd been so tuned into Freelander.

The first place Sam went, without calling beforehand, was the state prison. He shown his identity and named the man he wanted to visit. Because he was who he was, his request was granted. As he'd known it would be.

“I swear to you, Detective,” Shaq Dunning said. “I told you the truth.” Dunning, a man who'd been present when a drug deal went bad resulting in the deaths of two men, was in prison for life. He hadn't committed murder, but he'd been selling the drugs. To pay for his infant daughter's heart surgery. After the surgery, Sam had helped relocate Mrs. Dunning and her two young children to Santa Raquel. He watched out for them as necessary in exchange for Dunning's inside information—as necessary.

“You better not be jerking me, Dunning,” he said now, more serious than he'd ever been. “If what you told me about Freelander unloading those drugs is false...”

“No, sir, it's true. You know I'd give you names if I could, but I do that and I'll be dead in here by tonight.”

“And you're certain he threatened to go after his wife when he got out?”

“Yes, sir. It's all the bastard talked about. Getting her back or making her pay. One or the other. Some days it was hard to figure out which he wanted worse.”

Sam wanted to ask if Cordoba was a name Dunning recognized. He wanted to name the gang. But he wasn't going to have another man's death on his conscience. Not when, if he did his job right, he could get the answer without Dunning.

And in the meantime, he'd just continue to do what he was doing. Going after Freelander. And keeping Bloom safe.

The other...her little experiment...well, they'd wrapped that one up. Parts of him wished it had taken a little longer.

* * *

S
AM
WAS
HALFWAY
to his car when he turned around, gave up his gun one more time and headed back inside. To records. He wanted to know if Freelander had had any visits while he was in prison. Any regular visitors.

Bloom had said she'd only spoken with him once. But there could have been someone else. He should have thought of it before.

Maybe would have if he'd known about Freelander's penchant for young coeds earlier than the previous week. The professor had been so obsessed with Bloom and, from the sounds of things had, spent all of his free time with her, that Sam hadn't even thought to see if there'd been someone else in the man's life during the time he'd been married to Bloom—some other reason he was keeping his wife on medication that would slow down her reasoning abilities.

The man's attorney had visited him. Which was to be expected. And every single week he'd been inside, he'd had one other visitor. A woman. By the name of...Barb Miller?

Of course, there were many Barb Millers in the world. But the name didn't ring true to Sam. It was the type of name someone would choose if they didn't want to be found out.

With instincts back on track, talking loud and clear, he collected his gear and headed out into the California sunshine.

* * *

C
ORDOBA
WAS
THE
next man on his list of people to visit during his day in the city. Back in the East Side, he parked a few blocks from the bowling alley, in the parking lot of a doctor's office. And walked to a bar he knew was a regular hangout for members of the East Side gang.

He wasn't all that surprised when Juan Cordoba stood up as soon as he walked in the door. Introduced himself and invited Sam to have a seat.

The kids would have told the man a white dude was asking for him. Probably told him they thought he was the professor, too.

Sam had counted on that part. He was more interested in knowing what Cordoba was going to do now.

Not kill him. He knew that much. The boys wouldn't want the death of a cop on their hands. Not good for business. They'd know that other cops would know where he was. And with who.

And they did. Everyone on his floor knew where he was and why. And officers in the LA neighborhood he was sitting in knew, too. It was how the game was played and everyone knew the rules.

Except maybe the ten-year-old kids he'd lucked upon the other day.

“You been asking for me,” Cordoba said.

“It's not really you I want.” Sam stared the man in the eye. He did want him. For the drugs. But he wasn't going to get ahead of himself again.

One thing at a time. He'd worn his regular pants and tie, figuring his target already knew by now that he was a cop, and sat back, so the gun beneath his jacket and the badge clipped to his belt were in plain view.

“Who you want?”

“A relative of yours. Jean?” He pronounced it as though it was a girl's name. He was going on a hunch. But he really wanted Jean Cordoba to be Barb Miller.

In the worst way.

“My sister? What you want with her?”

“Just to talk to her,” Sam said. He stood. Pulled a card out of his wallet.

“What you think she did?”

“It's not what she did, it's who she knows. Have her call me.”

He dropped his card on the table and walked out. But not before he'd seen a younger man, maybe sixteen or seventeen, slink back into the corner as he passed. Another gang member, he was certain. Someone on the side. Just in case.

Sam wanted to know why.

But didn't stick around to ask. He'd already outworn his welcome for one day.

* * *

A
FTER
STOPPING
AT
the university to ask around, Sam considered a visit to Freelander, just to give the guy a very serious warning—along the lines of, if he thought he was going to get at Bloom he was going to die trying—but he thought better of it.

As soon as he did something asinine like that, Freelander would be the victim. And Bloom would pay the price.

He was halfway back to Santa Raquel, thinking about dinner and a beer at the pub, when his phone rang. He didn't recognize the number—a good sign.

It was Jean Cordoba. She was willing to talk to him. But only if he could get to her within the next hour. She was on a break from work—a free clinic not far from the bar he'd been at earlier. He was supposed to meet her at the back door of the clinic and she'd show him into the break room.

Putting on his lights as he did an illegal U-turn, Sam sped back to the East Side of LA to meet with a senior psychology student turned nurse's aide.