Moral Defense (Samantha Brinkman Book 2)

by Marcia Clark

  I told her it was my pleasure and wished her good luck. I walked out to the parking lot.

  I didn’t know why Cassie was stonewalling me about the boyfriend. It made no sense.

  But I couldn’t wait around for her to wake up and smell the prison coffee. I had to figure out a way to find this guy.

  THIRTY-SIX

  When I got back to the office, Michelle said Alex needed to talk to me. I dropped my briefcase and purse in my office and was about to go see him when he showed up in my doorway. I took in his dark expression. “What’s wrong?”

  He sank down onto the couch, his hands on his knees, chest concave, totally deflated. “Dale just called. Sanborn’s dead.”

  I closed my eyes. “Shit.” Getting Sanborn to turn had been our best hope of nailing Hausch.

  I flopped down on the other end of the couch. “Did Dale tell you how and when Sanborn died?” I wondered whether the MS-13 had decided he was dispensable.

  “Drunk driving accident about two months ago. He got shit-faced and drove into a pylon. There’s no indication of foul play.”

  And if Sanborn had pissed off the MS-13, they wouldn’t have bothered to cover it up by making it look like an accident. They preferred to send messages. I had another idea. “Maybe Dale can get some of the other cops at Nogales PD to talk?” We already knew that there was nothing official in either Sanborn’s or Hausch’s file showing a connection to the MS-13, but like in any office, there were bound to be rumors and gossip. Some of it might prove to be a real lead.

  But Alex was shaking his head. “Dale thought of that. He actually went to Nogales and got one of the cops to talk. She did remember Sanborn hanging around with Hausch now and then, but she actually laughed when Dale asked whether Sanborn might have gotten a little too friendly with the MS-13. She said Sanborn never handled a case heavy enough to put him in contact with the gang, called him a ‘lazy pussy.’”

  “Doesn’t mean he wasn’t in bed with them. Did she know anything about Hausch?” Alex shook his head. Damn. The Sanborn angle was vapor. Now the only way we’d get Hausch was if Alex turned up Julio’s sister or someone else who’d been trafficked and escaped—and was willing to testify against Hausch. I almost didn’t want to do it, but I had to ask the question. “Any luck with your search?”

  Alex shook his head. “I’m not giving up yet, but it’s not looking good.”

  We were hosed. We sat in glum silence for a moment, then Alex got up and went back to his office. Alone with my frustrated, miserable thoughts, my other problem came rushing back to mind. Deshawn. He’d left me another message saying that he couldn’t spend another “damn minute” in that “fuckin’ dump of a motel” and that “boring-ass town.” The good news was, he was still alive. The bad news was, if he lost all patience and came back down to LA, he wouldn’t be for long. And I still had no clue how I was going to bail him out.

  Depressed, I threw myself into my other cases, then went over the reports on Cassie’s case again to make sure there was nothing I’d missed. At seven thirty, Michelle stopped by to say she was leaving. I barely looked up to say good night. When Alex came to my door at nine o’clock and said I should pack it in, I waved him off.

  When I was starting to see double and couldn’t come up with coherent sentences anymore, I looked at the clock and saw that it was past midnight. Time to get my sorry ass home. My emotions were in a mad kind of swirl when I got into my car. The frustration at losing our last shot at Hausch, the fear for Deshawn’s safety, and the awful memories being dredged up by Cassie’s case all blended together and spun in a frenzied circle.

  I don’t know how it happened—I must’ve been driving on autopilot—but somehow, I wound up in Bel Air, parked outside the wrought-iron gates in front of the mansion where I’d been put through hell when I was thirteen. I stared at the upper-floor windows that peeked through the majestic oak trees circling the property. All the bedrooms were on that upper floor, but I couldn’t see my room—or as I’d called it back then, my torture chamber—from the street. Sebastian had given me a room at the back of the house, where I’d have no chance of being heard if I screamed out the window.

  I don’t know how long I sat there staring, reliving those horrible nights when I wished I were dead and thinking of the day when I’d get the chance to make him pay. I only know that I caught a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye, just inches from the driver’s-side window. I yelped, sure it was Sebastian. My heart pounding like a jackhammer, I glanced out my window as I fumbled for the ignition key.

  But it wasn’t Sebastian. It was Dale. I stared at him, frozen for a long moment, as he motioned for me to open my window. How had he known I was here? I rolled down the window, and he bent down and looked at me, his expression worried. I asked, “How?”

  Dale watched me closely as he answered. “A friend in dispatch heard the patrol unit call in your license plate as a suspicious vehicle and gave me the heads up.”

  A numbness washed over me. I turned and stared through the windshield.

  Dale spoke quietly. “Sam, you can’t stay here. The patrol unit’s gonna be back any minute. What are you doing?”

  I had no rational answer to that question. “I don’t know.” I continued to stare through my windshield.

  “If the patrol unit comes back and finds you here, it’ll be trouble.” Dale paused, then continued. “Sam, he’s done enough damage. Don’t give him this, too.”

  All of a sudden, I was very, very tired. I leaned forward and lay my head on the steering wheel. My voice was ragged as I answered. “Sometimes I can’t stand it. I just . . . can’t.”

  Dale’s voice was hoarse. “Let me handle this, Sam. I promise, I’ll find a way. He’s not gonna get away with it forever. But please, don’t let them find you here.”

  I sat up, the numbness now gone. Dale was right; I needed to get out of there. I started my car and tried to smile, but my lips trembled and fell. “Thanks, Dale.”

  Sadness mixed with anger in his face, but his voice was soft. “De nada.” He glanced up and down the street. “You’d better get going.”

  He patted the roof and stepped back, and I pulled away.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I woke up late the next morning. It’d taken me a while to get to sleep. I tried to figure out what had made me go to Sebastian’s house, but I couldn’t. It was crazy. And I appreciated Dale’s saving me from the humiliation of getting caught there. But I wasn’t going to let him take care of my Sebastian problem. I’d been dreaming of the day when I could make that monster suffer for what he’d done to me, and I wasn’t about to let anyone rob me of the satisfaction. Now more than ever, the thought of all the other little girls he might’ve gotten his hands on—might still be getting his hands on—was eating at me. If I could stop him from destroying even one girl’s life, I was damn well gonna do it. I didn’t know how or when. It wasn’t easy to get close to someone like Sebastian. But I’d find a way.

  I wasn’t in denial about the fact that Cassie’s case was weighing on me. But other than last night, I was handling it. I was fine.

  I didn’t get to the office until after ten, and Alex was waiting for me when I walked in, with his iPad and a sheaf of papers.

  I stifled a yawn. I hadn’t had nearly enough coffee. “What’s all that?”

  “Cell tower records for Cassie’s calls.” He held up the papers. “To that burner.”

  Alex had been trying to get them for a while, and the DA still didn’t have them. “How’d you do it?”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “You really want to know?”

  Of course not. I nodded toward my office. “Tell me what we’ve got.”

  He sat on the couch and tapped his iPad. “The burner seemed to be either near the school or in Atwater.”

  “Atwater? Where’s that?”

  “Between Griffith Park and Glendale. About fifteen minutes from Cassie’s house.”

  “Near the school. Would a kid who lives in Atwater
go to Cassie’s school?”

  “No. I checked that out. He’d go to John Marshall in Los Feliz. So I’d guess that when the burner was around Cassie’s school, they were hanging out.”

  This was a lot less helpful than I’d thought it would be. “Great.” My voice was sarcastic. “We’re almost there. How many people live in Atwater? A million?”

  “Around fifteen thousand. Largely Hispanic.”

  “Beautiful. That nails it right down. All we have to do is ask whether anyone saw Cassie hanging around with a Hispanic guy. She couldn’t possibly know more than one.”

  Alex sighed and spread his hands. “The records are what they are.” He gathered the pages and his iPad and stood up. “They’re not a game ender right now, but I bet they’ll come in handy when we know more.”

  “Should that day ever come.” Which seemed unlikely. “But thanks, Alex. You did great. Any luck with the missing deportees?”

  A stubborn look crossed his face. “Not yet. But I’m working through the list. Someone will talk.”

  I wasn’t so sure, but I’d rained on his parade enough for one day. I worked until noon, then packed up and got ready for court. I had my eighteen-count robbery case set for the afternoon calendar. I stopped at Michelle’s desk. “Okay, wish me luck.”

  She raised an arm. “May the guilty plea force be with you.”

  I tried not to feel confident as I walked into court. The gods of guilty pleas punish you for being too cocky. But they didn’t punish me today. We took the plea, my client looked as happy as anyone facing twenty years in prison can look, and I got back on the road.

  Traffic was so bad I was sure there had to be a ten-car pileup somewhere. But other than a guy who’d pulled to the shoulder to fix a flat and a cop who was writing some poor schlub a ticket—which for some reason makes everyone stop and look, as though it were some rare, exotic event—there was no reason. Just too many people.

  By the time I got off the freeway, it was almost five o’clock, and I saw that Beulah was starving. She was not the sort you could push to the very last drop. It took at least a gallon for her to coast three feet. I stopped at a gas station near my office, put the nozzle in her tank, and watched as the price meter flew through my bank account.

  I’d just reholstered the nozzle and screwed in Beulah’s gas cap when a familiar voice called out, “Sam? That you?”

  I turned and saw Deshawn hunkered down over the steering wheel of a late-model red Mercedes. This was exactly what I’d been afraid of when I got his last message. He’d bailed on Oxnard and come back to town. And where on earth did he keep getting these cars? I knew this couldn’t be good news—I was supposed to deliver that. I walked over to him. “What’re you doing here?” He was wearing huge dark sunglasses and a watch cap pulled down to his eyebrows.

  He scanned the area around us with a furtive look. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I was goin’ nuts up there.” He saw my incredulous look. “Chillax. I got homies down here can keep me safe for a bit. ’Sides, this way you don’ gotta pay for the hotel.”

  I glanced around. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  “We gotta talk.” He pointed to the parking spaces near the air pump. “Put your car over there and get in.”

  Deshawn followed as I backed Beulah into a parking space. When I got into the Mercedes, he gestured for me to sit lower. I slid down a few inches.

  He shook his head. “No, I mean get down. Get your head out da way.”

  “Out of the way of what?” I slid down till the top of my head was barely visible above the window. I raised an eyebrow—not easy to do with my chin in my chest. “Isn’t this a little much?”

  “No.” Deshawn hugged the steering wheel as he pulled out of the gas station. He drove to a quiet street a few blocks away and pulled to the curb, but he left the engine running.

  “Can I sit up now?” I was curled up like a comma, not the most comfortable position.

  Deshawn looked out the window, swiveling his head from left to right. Finally, he nodded. “Just keep your eyes open. It ain’t safe.”

  We were in a fairly decent residential neighborhood in West Hollywood. Hardly what you’d call the mean streets of Juarez. I sat up and rolled my shoulders to get the kinks out. “No one’s going to try and take you down here.”

  He took off his sunglasses. His eyes darted everywhere as they circled all around us. “’Member I told you about the guy who fronted the dope to my play cousin?” I nodded. “’Member I told you how my play cousin ain’t ezactly Braveheart?”

  Uh-oh. I knew where this was going. “Your play cousin dumped you out?”

  “Like I was last night’s ho.”

  So now Scarface knew the dope landed with Deshawn, and he was coming after him. “Did your cousin tell him where you live?”

  Deshawn looked at me like I was a half-wit. “’Course he told him.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “You don’t need to know.” Deshawn scanned the area again. When his eyes circled back to me, I could see he was panicked. “I got to have the money right now, Sam. This dude don’t play. He catches up with me, I’ll be lucky if all he do is kill me.”

  I could feel my scalp sweating. “I don’t have the money yet.”

  “Then get me the dope. You gotta do something, and you gotta do it now. I can’t wait no more. You can’t do the money, do the dope. That’ll work. If it’s good.”

  I’d never be able to manage that. “No way I’ll ever get my hands on that kind of pure.” Deshawn looked like he wanted to jump out of his skin. “Can you just buy a little more time? I’ll get you the money. I swear.” The idea of having Alex hack into someone’s bank account was starting to seem like the perfect—well, to be precise, the only—solution.

  Deshawn started to answer, but something in the rearview mirror caught his attention. “Oh, hell no.” He slid low in his seat. “Get down!”

  I got back into my curled-up position and hung on to the sides of my seat as Deshawn stomped on the gas. My head flew back as the car leaped out into the street. “Jeez!” I was about to say “Paranoid much?” when I heard a car roar up behind us. Shit! I slid farther down, my ass almost on the passenger-side floor. As Deshawn neared the intersection, I heard something hit the rear window, a crackling sound. I twisted around to see what it was. Three neat little spiderwebs. “You’ve gotta be kidding! They’re fucking shooting at us?”

  Deshawn hung a left on two wheels and gunned it down the street. “Didja think I been lyin’ to you about this shit?!”

  I’d never thought he was lying. I just never expected them to be crazy enough to try and take us out in the middle of a residential neighborhood in broad daylight. Then it occurred to me that I’d only heard a spitting sound when the bullets hit the glass. Must be using a silencer. But why hadn’t the bullets penetrated the window? “Is this thing bulletproof?”

  “Not if they got AKs.”

  AKs??? I tried to get a look at the car in the side-view mirror. It was a white Honda Civic. Not exactly the death mobile I’d expected. But it was smart. They could hide in plain sight, blend in with traffic. Unlike the neon sign Deshawn was driving that practically screamed “Shoot me!” Deshawn hung a fast right that threw me against the door. I tried to grab on to the seat, but my palms were so sweaty they slid right off. My heart hammered against my rib cage. “Go to the sheriff’s station!”

  He was hunched down, his eyes barely above the steering wheel. His voice was tense and low. “And then what? We can’t stay there. He just wait till we got to go. And then I look like a snitch. Be in even worse trouble.” We reached another intersection, where the car ahead of us was waiting to make a left. Deshawn was barreling so fast there was no way he could brake in time.

  I stretched my hands toward the windshield and screamed, “Look out!” At the very last second, he swerved around the car, the passenger-side tires jumping up and over the sidewalk. But just as we leaped into the intersection, I
saw that a car coming from the other direction was about to turn left in front of us. I screamed again. “Deshawn, look out!”

  He swerved to the right, missing it by inches, as the driver leaned on his horn. I sank down to the floor as a wave of nausea left me in a cold sweat. I racked my brain, trying to think where we could go. We hit a bump in the road so hard we caught air, and my head banged into the glove compartment as we landed. It hurt like hell, but it made me forget about throwing up. I reached into my purse and pulled out my cell phone.

  Deshawn saw me out of the corner of his eye. “What you doin’? I know you ain’t callin’ the cops.”

  “Why not? I’ll just say someone’s firing shots on the road.”

  Deshawn blew out an exasperated breath. “You’ll get us busted, too! You think the cops not gonna look at the car they’re chasin’? Put that shit away!”

  He had a point. The minute the cops spotted the other car, they’d spot us, too—and wonder why we were getting shot at. Then they’d run Deshawn’s record. I slid my cell phone back into my purse.

  Crack, crack! Two more shots! One hit the driver’s-side mirror. Shit! If there was no place to hide, we’d have to outrun them. But actually, in Deshawn’s ride, we might be able to. I had an idea. “Go left at the next intersection and head for La Cienega.”

  Deshawn floored it and took the turn so fast we fishtailed. I fell into the passenger-side door, bumping my head again. If I got out of this alive, I’d probably have brain damage. As Deshawn neared La Cienega, I heard the ping of something hitting metal on my side. A second later, there were three more. Ping, ping, ping. Shit! “Are they aiming for the gas tank?!”

  Deshawn croaked, “Goddamn!” I could see sweat rolling down the side of his face. The light was red at the intersection, but Deshawn blew through it and turned right onto La Cienega, the tires screeching. Horns blared behind us. “Where we goin’?”