The Promise He Made Her (25 page)

“Of course it's dark. Look at me.”

He pictured the nurse's aide. The blond hair that had been parted down the middle. It had looked natural. But...

“When I saw her the other day it was blond.”

“She admits to me today that when Freelander got out and took up with one of his own kind she had some fool idea that if she dyed her hair right and got some of those lenses that change eye color he'd look her way again.”

The photo he'd passed around. The woman who'd posed as a guard in Bloom's office...same profile. Same point to the chin.

“Jean, is she your half sister?” The man was wearing her picture around his neck.

“No, man! She my full blood sister. She all I got left in the world.”

Jean had lied to him. Which, to Sam, meant she had something to hide.

“Get me that pad,” he said, hardly able to stay put long enough to get the proof he needed.

He was on his phone to Chantel before he was in his car.

“Get to Bloom. Make sure she's safe. Freelander was telling the truth. He didn't have anything to do with the attack on Gomez. Or The Lemonade Stand. His current coed is telling the truth, too. She only used that uniform for sex, like she said. We've got the wrong girl.”

“Sam? I don't know what you're talking about. We just got word back on the knives. One tested positive for canvas residue. It had Freelander's prints all over it.”

He had to think. And drive. And get the hell back to Santa Raquel. Putting his bubble out, he entered the freeway at Mach speed. Gave Chantel a staccato version of what he knew, and what he was sure of even though he had no proof. And then said, “Just get to her, Chantel. Keep her safe until I get there.”

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

A
S
SOON
AS
he hung up, Sam called Bloom. He got her voice mail. She never picked up when she was with clients.

He told her to call him before she left her office.

His next call was to Gomez. And then to the captain. He wanted a “be on the lookout” out for Jean Cordoba—blond or dark-haired. He wanted people sent to Bloom's office and house. He wanted a call back as soon as someone knew she was safe.

He was stepping way over his boundaries.

Captain Salyers assured him it would all be done immediately and to drive safely.

Salyers hadn't acted surprised.

Did everyone know he'd fallen for his victim?

Or was he just seeing things that weren't there?

One thing was for certain, this whole love thing wasn't something he'd choose if he had the choice.

And if he got Bloom out of this safely—when he got her out of it safely—he was going to have a talk with her.

He understood that she needed to be alone. To heal. He got the irony in the fact that when his ex-wife had loved him desperately and needed him to love her in return, his driving need had been his job. And now here he was, needing Bloom to love him, and her driving need was to be on her own. Doing her job.

Still, he was going to be honest with her. Because the last man she'd slept with had done nothing but lie to her. Hide from her. Betray her. She deserved to know she was loved.

And then maybe he'd think about moving. He'd never lived anywhere but Santa Raquel. Maybe he should head down the coast a bit. See what kind of crimes they had to solve down there.

He wasn't even halfway to his exit when his phone rang.

Chantel. Not Bloom.

“Sam? She's not home.”

“She's at the office. She never answers when she's with a client.”

“We tried there, too. We've also been calling her. She's not picking up.”

He started to panic. Something he hadn't done on the job since his father was killed. “She's shopping,” he blurted out. “You know where she goes, you've been with her. Go there.”

“I've already got someone headed that way,” Chantel told him. And the tone in her voice finally registered with him.

She knew more.

And it wasn't good.

“What's going on?”

“We've got Jean Cordoba, Sam.”

So why did she sound like she had something bad to tell him?

Unless...

No, she'd said she was sending someone to the store where Bloom shopped.

That meant they didn't know for sure...

“She's out of her head, Sam. On something. She just keeps saying that she had to do it. For Ken. So he'd love her again. Said she wasn't worried about the bimbo. That was just a fling. Her real problem was Bloom. Freelander just couldn't stop talking about Bloom. About making her pay. Jean figured if she did it for him he'd love her again.”

“Where'd you find her?”

“A couple of blocks from Bloom's. There was blood on her hands.”

“And Bloom's place?”

“The painting over the fireplace was slashed. There was some blood on the mantle.”

Everything inside of him went blank.

“Bloom's car was in the garage, Sam. We have no idea what Jean was driving or how she got to Santa Raquel. She was walking when we found her. It looks like she might have done something with Bloom, Sam. But we can't get her to tell us where she is.”

His whole life sat in that moment. In the balance. Without Bloom it meant nothing.

* * *

“G
O
HOME
, S
AM
.”

Hearing Salyers's words as he left the interrogation room, Sam had to clamp down on his jaw to keep from letting his captain know, in very clear terms, what he could do with that command.

“I mean it.” Salyers, who knew him well, followed him down the hall to the break room where he was going to get a cup of coffee for himself and a glass of ice water to dump over Jean Cordoba's head.

He didn't care what she had in her system. She was not passing out until he found out where Bloom was.

Salyers stood over him as he poured stale coffee into a foam cup. Chantel, with a cup of her own, watched from the table. “You are not going back in there right now.”

After more than six hours of interrogating the girl, Sam still had no idea where Bloom was.

He knew that Jean had talked some of her brother's guys into helping her get Gomez out of the way. And that she'd been planning to use the gun they'd also given her to scare Bloom that night she'd come out of her office. She hadn't been going to hurt her. She'd just hoped that by scaring her, like Kenneth had been saying he wanted to do, she'd get the professor's attention again. If he could see what a great partner she'd be, seeing to his needs, he'd marry her. He was out of prison. Divorced. She just had to remind him how good she was for him.

The news had come in disjointed spurts. But it had all been there.

She'd been responsible for the guard down at The Lemonade Stand, too. But Freelander had ordered the hit on Lila's car, separate and apart from Jean. The guys had told her about it and Jean had just gone along as insurance that the job got done right. To show him what a good team they made.

The young men who'd helped her had thought they'd be earning points with her brother. Instead, they'd ended up hurt worse than either guard had been. Juan hadn't been pleased that they'd acted without his say-so.

Freelander hadn't been angry with Jean, though. He'd had sex with her to show his gratitude. She'd worn the uniform she'd ordered to surprise him—the same one she'd worn on the jobs. She'd thought she'd won him back. But then he was gone again.

He'd been the one to slash the paintings. That had happened just as she'd said.

After Sam came looking for her, she'd told her brother about being in love with Freelander. He'd been really pissed, but he'd told her he'd take care of her. He'd told her what to say—and what not to say—when she'd talked to Sam the first time.

But he didn't understand how much she loved Kenneth. Or believe how much Kenneth loved her. But she knew. He'd used his one phone call from jail to call her...

It all rattled around in Sam's brain. All of it. He was missing something. Hadn't gotten far enough in someone's brain.

“I have to get back in there,” he said. And ran into Salyers. The man had stepped right in front of him.

“Captain...” He sidestepped, trying to get past him. So did Salyers, his arms crossed.

“He's right, Sam. You need to go home. At least take a shower. Change your clothes. I'll keep at her. We'll find Bloom.” Chantel's voice reached him. It didn't change his mind.

“And the blood? While I'm driving home and taking a shower, Bloom Freelander could be bleeding to death.”

“Maybe Jean's telling the truth. Maybe all that blood really did come from that cut on her hand. Maybe it really was from the knife she'd had in her hand when she'd slipped climbing up on the mantle...”

Blood samples had been sent to the lab for testing. It could be twenty-four hours or more before they'd hear back.

He looked at her. “Do you believe that?”

She looked down at her coffee.

“And you?” he asked Salyers. “Do you?”

“What I believe is that you aren't effective here right now. If you want to find Dr. Freelander, you need to go home and shower and let someone else have a chance with Jean Cordoba.”

He'd never been spoken to in such a tone.

“Just grab a shower, Sam,” Chantel said. “Come right back. I'll call you if she gives us any clue...”

* * *

O
NE
THING
GOT
through to Sam. He was ineffective. He'd managed to get a hell of a lot out of the girl. She'd turned on her lover. On her brother. He had enough testimony to prove that Freelander had purchased illegal drugs with the intent to harm. That he'd sold them. And that he'd continued to write illegal scripts because when he'd been released from prison and had tried to wipe the East Side gang out of his life—even going so far as to end his relationship with Cordoba's sister—he'd found that the gang owned him.

He had everything but Bloom.

Yeah, he was ineffective. How had he managed to turn the girl on everyone she loved, and still not get her to give him the only thing he wanted at the moment—Bloom?

The woman he loved.

He drove home with his bubble going, wiping tears from his eyes as he pulled through his gate. He had to find her.

Life was nothing without Bloom in it. Even from afar.

He'd settle for from afar.

He just had to find her.

Lucy must have sensed that all was not well. She didn't jump up on him exuberantly the minute he opened the door, though she'd been alone for more than twelve hours.

There were no messes on the floor, either.

“Good girl,” he told her, letting her out and then heading straight back to the shower. By the time he was done, she'd be done, and he'd be out of there.

He'd stripped his tie off in the car. Threw his coat and shirt at the bedroom wall as hard as he could, stepping out of his shoes as he did so.

“Sam?”

He froze. Salyers and Chantel were right. He was losing it. He'd just heard...

“Sam? What's going on?”

Afraid of seeing an empty space, Sam spun around.

Bloom stood there, in bare feet, and with tousled hair, but otherwise looking as though she'd come from work.

But her car was at home.

“Are you okay?” He stared. And then moved closer, studying every inch of her. Without touching.

He saw no blood. Not on her skin. Or her clothes.

“I'm fine,” she said. And then gave a nervous chuckle. “Other than the fact that I think I'm losing my mind. Half the time that is. The other half I think I'm finally seeing clearly...”

He didn't get anything she'd just said.

“Sam? Are you angry with me for being here? I took a chance...”

She turned. “Maybe I should go.”

“No!” He lunged and grabbed her arm.

When he noticed her looking at his grip on her, he loosened it but didn't let go.

“How long have you been here?”

“I have no idea what time it is,” she said, glancing around. “I fell asleep in your bed. Well, the bed that was yours when I was here...”

She glanced behind her toward the spare room.

He stared at her, trying to make sense out of a nonsensical situation.

“I only had a couple of appointments this morning and came here straight from work. I...I've been doing a lot of thinking, Sam, and when I was in my office, counseling others...I knew what I had to do. We teach what we most need to learn, did you know that?”

He shook his head. Held her arm. And continued to watch her.

“I knew if I didn't come straight here I'd talk myself out of it. I find that I'm a little too good at the cerebral thing and that I need to get better at being willing to take on the pain so that I can feel the joy.”

He caught the cerebral part of it. Wished she'd hurry up and get on past it.

“I still had your gate remote and the house key,” she said. “I haven't seen you since I picked up my stuff earlier in the week and...”

She'd made that sound like an accusation. Like he was supposed to be in touch with her. Had she been waiting for him to ask for his key back?

“You came to return my key?”

“No. I came to talk to you.”

Oh. “You could have called.”

“I know. And I thought about it, of course, because I think about everything, but I needed to talk to you without you having a chance to try to figure me out or think about what I might say and what you might say and...”

“You didn't want to be manipulated.”

“Maybe. I don't know. I just wanted to...surprise you.”

“To see if I was happy to see you.” Understanding was like a warm river cradling a freezing man.

“Yes.”

She had no idea how happy he was to see her.

“Your car is in your garage.”

“My battery was dead this morning. I didn't have time to wait for a new one to be delivered so I called a cab. And then had one drop me here. Outside the gate, of course. I didn't open the gate until he was gone.”

She'd been in a cab. One she'd called. And then in his house.

“So what did you come to tell me?”

“Are you okay?” she asked again. “You look awful.”

Her honesty beguiled him. Or maybe just the fact that she was alive did that.

“I've been working on a tough case...”

“All day?”

His throat clogged, preventing speech, so he nodded.

“I figured it was something like that, which was why, when I started to get tired of waiting, I took a nap. I knew I might not have the guts to try this a second time.”

“Try what?”

“To tell you that I love you.” The words came in such a rush they made him dizzy. “Now, don't get all uptight or anything.” She held up a hand, still spewing words almost faster than her mouth could pronounce them. “I'm not putting anything on you or expecting anything. I'm not going back on our agreement. I just had to tell you. As part of my therapy. I'm accepting the pain so I can...”

She paused. Tears filled her eyes, and Sam thought he might die from the sight.

“I just... I've been... Madge...and then Lucy and...you...”

She was making less sense than Jean had all day. Only this time, it made perfect sense.

He didn't say anything. There was no way to make her past easier. No way to help the little girl she'd been. But he could help her now.