The Promise He Made Her (22 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

B
LOOM
LEFT
WORK
just before five that evening. Her six o'clock had cancelled and she was tired. Days were longer now as the sun set later and she needed some time down at the beach in order to process the day before—the eighteen-year-old she hadn't helped enough.

She'd run from the situation the night before—straight to Sam's bed. She couldn't keep running.

Chantel was waiting for her as she wished Gomez a good night and left the building. And the female detective also waited while Bloom changed out of her suit into sweats and tennis shoes for a trek down to the beach. Chantel, still in uniform with the black boots she always seemed to wear—what was it with Santa Raquel cops and their footwear?—seemed eager enough to accompany her down the hill.

Lucy was ecstatic about her adventure and bounded down in front of them, as though showing them the way. Bloom had intended to walk—as far as the cliff face would allow before it swung around to meet the ocean and block off beach access. Instead, she sat where she and Sam had sat the night they'd come down.

Chantel dropped down beside her.

“Rough couple of days, huh?”

They'd talked some the night before. Chantel had been open to conversation. Bloom hadn't been.

“I just keep thinking there's more I could have done for Heather,” she said now. “I was counseling her. I keep trying to figure out what I missed.”

“Who says you missed anything? Maybe it's just like she said, the thought of losing her son was her cracking point.”

“She didn't know she was going to lose him.”

“She believed she would, and that's what mattered here.” Chantel's pragmatism made everything sound so...plausible.

And right.

“I read through her file again today,” Bloom confessed. “Looking for anything I might have missed. Any sign that she was in dangerous emotional territory—beyond what any young girl who'd been abused and was living in a shelter would be.”

“I think the key is all of those things you listed. Heather had a rough life. Everything stacked up against her. And none of those circumstances were things you could have prevented.”

“Of course not, but—”

“You remind me of Sam.”

Bloom's heart, which had been open, filled with compassion for the teenager who was going to be spending the rest of her life in prison, was now suddenly closed up tight.

“How so?” She and Sam were good. They had their understandings. And would move on with their lives—separate and apart—just fine. He'd had his life right where he wanted it before Kenneth's release from prison. So had she. Those lives were waiting for both of them as soon as all of this was over.

“He blames himself for his father's death and yet there was nothing he could have done to prevent it. His sergeant was caught unaware, too. It was circumstances. Sam did his job exactly right and yet tragedy happened.”

That was different.

How so?

The intrusion of her inner voice was only confusing her. Not helping.

“It's like both of you, as nice and hardworking and ethical as you are, are also filled with this huge sense of self.”

The skin around her hairline grew tight. It wasn't like Chantel to be mean. What was going on?

“Don't get me wrong,” the other woman continued, her voice slightly raised over the sound of the waves.

Bloom watched Lucy pouncing on the beach. After sand crabs Sam had said.

“I am really fond of both of you. Well, I respect you both a great deal, and have grown really fond of you,” she clarified, and Bloom felt a measure of peace return.

For a second there her feelings had been hurt. It wasn't like her to be so sensitive.

But then having a patient turn to murder while under her care wasn't like her, either.

Neither was being truly intimate with another person.

She just needed to get home. Back to the life she'd built. The one that served her purposes. The one where she was happy.

“All I'm saying is that you both take on too much responsibility. How can all of the things that transpired against Heather, how can her emotional makeup, be your responsibility? All you could do to affect that situation was try to give her ways to deal with the cards she'd been dealt. You tried. You worked with her. You did your job well. And then it's out of your hands.”

Peace was a wonderful thing. Over the past two years, Bloom had grown to recognize it and love it.

“Thank you,” she said softly, not sure Chantel had even heard her over the sound of the surf.

The detective reached over, squeezed Bloom's fingers, and Bloom knew she'd heard.

* * *

E
VEN
IN
LOOSE
-
FITTING
scrubs with her hair tied back, the young woman was exceptional to look at. The combination of loosely contained blond hair, blue eyes and dark skin was quite striking. As was the perfect shape of her young body, the grace with which she moved.

Juan Cordoba had dark hair, dark eyes. “You don't look much like your brother,” Sam said as they settled in a conference room down a quiet hallway filled with what looked like labs in the back of the clinic.

“I got permission to use this room so we won't be disturbed,” the woman said, closing the door and motioning Sam toward the table.

“And Juan's my half brother,” she told him, taking a seat across from him and folding her hands on the table. “We have different mothers.”

He wondered if they'd been raised together. Were close enough for the sister to arrange a drug deal for her brother. For the sister to have ties to the East Side gang her brother ran.

Or if Sam was heading toward another dead end.

“Juan said you wanted to speak with me.”

“That's right. It didn't take him long to find you. You two close?”

“He watches out for me,” was all she said. But Sam started to feel better. Enough so that he listened to his instincts and took a chance.

“Tell me about you and Kenneth Freelander.”

He had to hand it to her. She showed no fear. No fidgeting. She just looked...sad.

“What do you want to know?”

I was right. I've got him.
Sam didn't let his relief get away with him. Didn't take his piercing stare away from his subject even for a split second.

“When your affair began, for starters. How long it lasted.” Reading her, he played to the sadness.

“Kenneth and I didn't have an
affair
. We were going to be married.”

“You were lovers up until two years ago, when he was sent to prison. Lovers while he was still teaching, right? That's how the two of you met. In class.” He was winging it. But it made too much sense to be wrong. He'd been over every step Freelander took on that campus and Bloom had filled in the blanks for their time together at home. Jean had to be the gang connection...

“I met him at a lecture he was giving,” the woman said. “Some guys were bothering me and he told them to get lost. We fell in love my junior year. He's the one who told me to take his class. So we could see each other every day. Have more excuses to be seen together. He said he loved me and wanted to marry me.”

She could be faking the hurt in her voice, but he didn't think so. And he wondered how Juan felt about Freelander breaking his little sister's heart.

Or if she'd been a necessary casualty for a bigger, more profitable cause. If maybe Freelander, whose medical license was legal now that the revocation of it had been revoked, was still providing drugs to Cordoba and his guys...

He couldn't get ahead of himself.

“You do realize he was already married, right?” he asked.

“He was going to divorce her. He was just waiting for the right time...”

Waiting for Bloom to be so drugged she wouldn't fight him? Sam didn't think so. Freelander had just been playing the girl. Like he played everyone...

“You said you
were
going to be married. What changed?”

She shrugged.

“Did you change your mind when he went to prison?”

Her gaze shot up. “Of course not! I loved him.”

What was it about the bastard that earned such loyalty? From Bloom. Jean. And who knew how many others?

“Why did you choose the name Barb Miller?”

If he had to, he could pull prison videos to verify that he had his woman. But it would take a subpoena. And time.

Her chin jutted forward. “You don't know that was me.”

She'd just told him it was with that statement. “What was you?”

Her hands flew up and landed with a splat on the table. “Okay, so I used a different name when I went to see him. I didn't know who all heard about that sign-in sheet and I didn't want Juan to...”

She broke off. “Your brother didn't know you were still seeing Freelander?”

“He didn't know I ever saw him. He wouldn't be into me and an old man. I didn't want him to find out.”

“You introduced Freelander to Juan without telling your brother you were seeing him?”

“I didn't introduce them.”

“But the professor knew who your brother was. That he heads up the East Side gang.”

“No way. And Juan's not like that, anyway. He has some guys, but...”

Either she was lying or she didn't know her brother very well. Sam wasn't sure how much time she had. He could come back to that.

“What do you know about Freelander's feelings for his ex-wife?”

“I know he wanted her to pay for putting him in prison for something he didn't do.”

“Pay how?”

“He was going to...you know...show her that she couldn't get away with what she did.”

“Show her how?”

She shrugged. “He used to...you know...talk about how he knew just how to play with her head. He'd keep at her, scaring her, making her worry, until she'd admit what she did. Then he was going to take back all of his money and marry me.”

“So what happened?”

She shrugged.

“I'll tell you what happened. He got out of prison and found himself another coed, didn't he?”

“He didn't even come see me!” She sat upright, her face red with anger. “All that time I visited him and I'm sitting here waiting for a phone call that he's free. I'm thinking he's still in prison that he got held up or something...”

“How'd you find out he was at that hotel with a couple of beauties?”

Her face dropped. “He was what?”

“You didn't know?”

“Hell, no, I didn't know. All I know is that he didn't call, and then a couple of days later he finally did. To tell me he's met someone else. Some girl who goes to Cal State...”

If Jean had still held any loyalty at all for Freelander, it had just switched to Sam.

“Do you know if he's acted on any of those plans to go after his ex-wife?” he asked while his having her was still fresh.

“Yeah. I know he did.”

Bingo.

“Tell me about it.”

She shrugged. “He had this plan to intimidate her. To show up at her work. Her house. Things like that. He was going to have some guys mess up a car at that shelter that turned her against him in the first place. He was not happy with them. Said if she didn't have them feeding her shit and giving her a false sense of strength she'd still be his.”

“What guys?”

She looked away. Stared down at her fingers. “I don't know. Someone he met in prison knew someone was all he said...”

She was hiding something. Protecting her brother? Sam wasn't sure.

“You said you
knew
he'd done something...”

“I...kinda...followed him one night last week. I thought he was going to see this new bitch and I wanted to know who she was...but instead he drives to Santa Raquel. He goes to his old house. I'm thinking he lied to me about ditching his wife, too, so I follow him in. No one's home and I think he's going to leave, but he lets out this, like, growl sound and goes berserk. He takes out a knife from the kitchen and starts slashing all of the paintings in the place. Made no sense to me. But it sure cured me of wanting to be with him.”

She still wasn't looking at him. And Sam had a feeling the woman still cared about Freelander.

Funny how the heart didn't always follow what the head knew it should...

A thought for another time.

Or not.

“You saw him slash the paintings.”

“Yeah. I was hiding in the laundry room and could see through the crack where the hinges go.”

“What did he do with the knife when he was through?”

“Put it back in the drawer.”

Slashed paintings hadn't been enough to warrant forensic testing of possible weapons. But if he knew where the weapon was, he could get an order for tests.

Freelander, you're mine.

He'd lock the bastard up for breaking and entering and destruction of property, and go from there.

He wasn't stopping until he'd kept his promise to Bloom. She was never going to have to worry about her ex-husband again.

Jean's thumb rapidly moved back and forth on the table. “You know anything about a security guard or cop uniform?” he asked, on another hunch. Did Jean know more than she was saying?

Had she been in that house to help Freelander, not to spy on him? And had she been with him other times, too? Like at Bloom's office?

“I know while Ken was in prison he got this uniform fetish,” she said. “He kept talking to me about how he'd lie awake at night and fantasize about me in one of the guard's uniforms.”

“And you didn't think that was...” He stopped. It wasn't for him to judge.

“I thought it was a sign that he really loved me,” Jean said, looking him in the eye again. “He was fantasizing about me. And wished that I was the one in charge of him. So to speak.”