by Неизвестный
His veins ran cold. “I know where she went.”
His phone rang. It was an unknown number. Angel’s burner phone? He answered.
There was nothing but silence.
Chapter Twelve
Angel didn’t think about what she was doing. If she thought too much, she’d realize it was a stupid, deadly idea. But the last thing she wanted was to ruin Jake’s life. He’d been amazingly understanding, but she’d gotten him into this mess. She didn’t want to complicate his life anymore.
She’d been taking care of herself for a long time. She’d just continue to do it. Alone. Besides, who was going to take care of her mother when Gina got out of detox? Would the gang go after her? When was it all going to end?
While telling Maddie and the camera everything, Angel remembered what Friday and Martinez said in the car. The transfer order had come from the DA’s office. Maddie had thought that was strange, Angel could tell by her expression, even though she didn’t say specifically why it had been unusual.
Angel hadn’t thought about it then, because it didn’t seem important. But now? Coupled with everything else she knew? Kristina Larson, the ADA herself, had told the G-5 gang where she was. It was the only logical explanation.
Angel remembered the ADA’s address from when Jake had written it on his hand. It wasn’t far from the house in Los Feliz, and she hotwired a car around the corner because she knew that as soon as Jake figured out she was gone, he’d come looking for her. She drove the winding roads up the mountain, until she was almost at the top.
Kristina Larson lived in a large, two-story hillside mansion with a view of downtown L.A. Being a lawyer must pay really well. Though it was midnight, the lights were on in the house.
Angel checked the wire she’d taped to her stomach. She’d get one chance. Lucky had shown her how to hook up the cell phone to the recorder to create a one-way transmission. In case she was killed, she wanted Kristina Larson to go to prison for the rest of her life.
She got out of the car and walked around to the back of the house. It was on a slope, with a large reinforced deck that seemed to be suspended in air. Angel wouldn’t want to be here during an earthquake.
Angel hid in the shadows. Curtains covered the large plate glass windows, but the blinds hadn’t been pulled over the sliding glass door. She saw Larson pacing the living room, talking on her phone. Angel couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she was mad.
The ADA suddenly threw her phone across the room. Angel jumped, then took a deep breath.
Now or never, A.
She knocked on the sliding glass door. If Kristina called the police, that would prove she wasn’t involved with the gangs. Angel hoped. If she opened the door, she was one of them — or working for them. At least, that was Angel’s working theory.
“Jake, if you can hear this,” she said, talking quietly, “thanks for having faith in me.”
Kristina cautiously approached the door. Angel stepped out of the shadows and the ADA stopped, disbelief crossing her face. Then she unlocked the door and slid it open. “Angel! Are you okay?”
“I’ve been better,” she said.
God, that sounded so cliché.
“I need help,” Angel said.
“How do you know where I live?”
Angel shrugged. “I have a friend who can get any address or number I want.”
“Your father?”
Angel was surprised Kristina knew about Jake. Or did that confirm that she’d told the Garcias where to find them? “N-no.” Normally, she could lie smoothly, but Kristina caught her off-guard.
“It’s okay. I know he’s been helping you.” Larson cautiously peered over Angel’s shoulder and scanned the deck. “Is he here?”
“I ditched him earlier tonight. I’ve been walking around, trying to figure out what to do, and you’re the only person who can help me.”
Kristina said, “Come in.” She closed and locked the door. “Actually, Angel, you can help me.”
“How?”
Kristina said, “Have you eaten?”
“I’m not hungry,” she said. She glanced around. “You have a real nice place.”
“Thank you. How about water?” She turned toward the kitchen.
“Okay,” Angel said slowly. She followed Kristina. She wished she had a better plan. What had she expected?
She blurted out, “Marisa’s dead.”
Kristina whirled around, eyes wide. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I read it in the newspaper. Her body hasn’t been identified, but I know it’s her.”
“That’s awful.” Kristina retrieved a water bottle from the refrigerator and put it on the counter between them. “But she was playing a dangerous game. And so are you.”
Kristina pulled a gun from under the kitchen counter and held it on Angel.
Angel put her hands up. “I don’t have a gun. I don’t have anything. I just need your help.”
“You’ve been my fucking nightmare this week. Do you see these bags under my eyes?” She used her free hand to point to her face. “These are because of you. Why couldn’t you just have rolled over and taken it?”
“What did I do?”
“Don’t tell me you’re that stupid. You must have figured it out by now. When the Garcias found out that you and your friend came to talk to me, I had to give you guys up. Marisa was much easier than you. But when the cops finally found you Saturday, it was the answer to my prayers. I arranged for the transfer, told Garcia where you’d be, and it should have been easy. Do you know how hard it is to be under their fucking thumb? And then you get away and they blame me because their fucking boys can’t shoot straight?”
Kristina pulled a phone from a drawer, different than the phone she’d tossed across the room. “Now, we’ll be done with this and I can get my life back.”
Angel had thought the ADA had set her up, but thinking and knowing it were completely different.
She regained her attitude. This woman had had Marisa killed. She was just as guilty as the Garcias. Maybe even more because they’d trusted her. “You fucking bitch.”
Kristina laughed. “Really, that’s all you have? LAPD is looking for you, and believe me, they don’t like cop killers.”
“You did it. You killed those cops.”
“Hardly.” She dialed a number. A moment later she said, “I found her. I’ll bring her to the butterfly garden at Griffith Park … no, no, there are security cameras at the observatory and the zoo… . I don’t care, look it up on a fucking map!” She hung up the phone. Her hands were shaking. “You don’t think they’ll kill me, too?”
“Why are you doing this?”
Kristina gestured with her gun toward a door on the far side of the great room. “We’re going in my car. You’re driving.”
“They must know something about you that’s pretty bad, bad enough to lose your job if it got out.” Angel ran through a bunch of ideas — how did a gorgeous, white prosecutor get in bed with a violent Mexican gang?
She glanced around the huge house, with all the furniture and glass and plush carpets.
Was this all about money?
Kristina wasn’t talking. At gunpoint, she ordered Angel to get behind the wheel of a BMW. She’d never been in a car this nice, let alone driven one.
“You’re going to have to shoot me,” Angel said. “I’m not going to let you turn me over to them. I told you what they did to those girls.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“You can’t kill me because then you’d have a lot of explaining to do, but if Garcia kills me, you can brush it all off as gang violence.”
“I knew you were smart.”
“I’m not going.” Angel took her hands off the wheel. Had Jake found her yet? Did the recording work? Could he hear what’s going on? She couldn’t tell him, because he’d never let her do this, but if she didn’t do this, then they’d be on the run the rest of their lives. This week had nearly killed her; she co
uldn’t do this for the rest of her life.
Kristina leaned over and said, “If you don’t go, I’ll send your father back to prison.”
“You can’t do that.”
She laughed. “Really? I’m a fucking assistant district attorney. I know exactly how to jam him up, and I’ll make sure this time it isn’t in a minimum security federal pen. I’ll send him up north to Folsom and they’ll smell cop all over him.”
Angel spit in Kristina’s face. The ADA hit her with the gun and Angel’s head went into the steering wheel. Blood dripped down her nose.
“Go. Now. Do not test me.”
Angel pulled out of the garage. Kristina directed her where to drive.
Angel had to run. She had Kristina on tape (she hoped); now she had to find a way to escape.
Not a good idea with a gun at your side.
They would most likely arrive at the butterfly garden before Garcia’s boys. How good of a shot was the ADA? This close, Angel would be dead. But if she could put distance between them, she had a chance.
They arrived far quicker than Angel expected. There were no lights, the parking lot was completely dark. Weren’t there patrols or something? Was this mountaintop so isolated, even in the middle of the largest city in California, that they wouldn’t be disturbed?
Angel started to open the door and Kristina said, “Don’t.” She frowned and her eyes scanned the area. “Turn off the lights,” she ordered.
“Now what?”
“We wait.”
Angel wiped the blood off her face. “Do you have a tissue or something?”
“I think your nose is the least of your worries, Angel.”
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
Kristina didn’t answer her. She was watching the entry to the parking lot carefully.
There was nothing here. Maybe the butterflies hung around during the day but right now they were sitting in a lot, surrounded by bushes and trees so dark that Angel couldn’t make out more than the general shape. The overcast sky blocked any moonlight, and from their angle, Angel couldn’t see the city lights at the bottom of the mountain.
“They should be here,” Kristina muttered a few minutes later.
“Why don’t we try again tomorrow?” Angel suggested.
“Shut. Up.”
The ADA was nervous. She had to know that someone would figure all this out. Jake knew the truth. There was the video recording … and the longer Angel sat here, waiting for the Garcias to come and kill her, the less chance she had of surviving.
“You know, Kristina,” Angel said, “I recorded what happened at the warehouse, how the G-5 gang raped and killed those two hookers.”
“What?!?”
She’d meant to say that she’d recorded her statement, but it came out wrong. But maybe the white lie was exactly what she needed to buy her time.
“On my cell phone.”
“Where’s your fucking phone?”
“I gave it to Jake. My dad.” That sounded strange on her tongue. Dad. “He said he knew who to give it to.”
“You liar.” But her tone was uncertain.
“I’m not lying. I was there. And you’re helping a killer.”
“You could never understand.”
“You’re right. I can’t understand how someone like you would help violent assholes like Raul Garcia.”
“They were just a couple of whores,” Kristina muttered. “I’m not going to lose everything because of people like them.” She turned to Angel. “Because of worthless kids like you.”
Kristina took out her phone and hit redial. A minute later she snapped it shut. “Dammit! Where the hell are they?”
Lights cut across the parking lot, then went dark. A van rolled into the small lot, then stopped. The back door opened, but Angel didn’t see anyone.
“Now, you can get out,” Kristina said.
Angel hesitated. “Jake knows that I told you everything. They’re going to know you’re involved.”
“I already have everything taken care of. Even if you really did record the killings, that doesn’t mean that I knew anything about it. Now, get the fuck out of my car.”
Angel opened the door and got out. Kristina slid over to the driver’s seat. Her gun was still aimed at Angel. “I’d say sorry, but you fucked with me, and I hope it hurts.”
Angel started toward the van. She didn’t see anyone inside. Now was the time to run.
She turned left and sprinted toward the trees. She heard Kristina scream behind her and a gunshot went off. Angel kept running, but a sudden explosion of light surrounded her. She stumbled and fell, her ankle cracking loud enough to hear over her thudding heart and commotion behind her. She tried to get back up, but the pain shot through her leg and she fell back down.
“LAPD. Throw your weapon out of the vehicle. Get out of the car with your hands in plain sight.”
The cops? The cops were here?
Someone was running toward her, but in the bright lights she only saw a dark figure carrying a large gun. She was going to be caught in the crossfire, between LAPD and the G-5 gang. She started to crawl away, aiming for bushes. Anyplace but where she was.
“Angel!”
She heard her name at the same time as a helicopter flew in and hovered over the site, its searchlight on Kristina’s car.
“Angel, it’s Jake.”
He helped her up. “Put your weight on me,” he said. He half carried her over to the far side of the lot. More men were in the bushes. “Are you bleeding?”
“I — I think I broke my ankle.”
“You’re sure you weren’t shot?”
“I don’t think so.”
Still, he checked her out. He found the recorder and phone she’d strapped to her stomach. “We heard everything,” he said. He took off the equipment and Angel winced. “Sorry,” he muttered. He handed the recording to someone else, who put it in a plastic bag and walked away.
“Watch.” He pointed to where Kristina Larson was getting out of her car, her hands on her head. Six cops swarmed down on her, cuffed and searched her, then took her to a cop car that pulled in behind the van.
“I don’t understand. Where’s Raul Garcia?”
“We detained them coming up the hill. Took the van because we knew she had a gun on you. We needed her to let you go.” He held her face in his hands. “That was stupid, Angel. Stupid.” He kissed her forehead. “Far too dangerous. This could have ended so very badly.”
“I’m sorry.”
“But we got her on tape. The whole thing. That was smart, setting up your phone to the recorder.”
“Lucky showed me how.”
“I don’t know whether to hit him or kiss him.”
She hugged him. Her whole body was shaking, but he made her feel safe and secure. Maybe even a little loved.
Jake hugged her back. “Angel, we have a motto in the Marines. Leave no man behind. I’m not leaving you again.”
“You don’t have to say that,” she said. “It’s okay — I understand.”
“What do you understand?” He held her by the shoulders and looked at her. The pain and fear on his face was real. He cared. “I’m your father. I fucked up when I stayed out of your life. I didn’t think you needed or wanted me. I’m not the same person. I need you as much as you need me.”
“It’s not going to be easy,” she said. “My mom, this whole mess — ”
“Life is fucking messy. We’ll clean it up, together.”
Angel hugged Jake and breathed easier than she had in weeks. Maybe in her whole life. “I think I can live with that, Dad.”
Facing the Mirror by Dianne Despain
From the day Dianne’s first poetic masterpiece hit the family fridge until her first nonfiction article hit Woman’s Day magazine, there was no doubt she wanted to write. But what? Romantic fiction! She had an instant love affair with it the first time she read a Harlequin Romance. But the glitz of magazine journalism lured her away from her lov
e for a while, and she became a regular writer for such publications as Ladies’ Home Journal, Better Homes & Gardens, Family Circle, Parenting and Seventeen. Then, in 2001, after writing seven successful nonfiction books, including an Antiques Roadshow companion book, Dianne’s first novel, The Doctor Dilemma, was published by Harlequin. True love had lured her back where she belonged. Now, forty books later, she’s thrilled to be writing medical romance for Harlequin Mills & Boon, Entangled Publishing, and Constable & Robinson. When she’s not writing, though, she’s either gardening, or tending to her three dogs and three cats.
After I was diagnosed with cancer, I went through many different manifestations, one of them being that I couldn’t look in the mirror. Back in the days when I was a nurse and worked with cancer patients, I would look into their eyes and see such sadness or fear, and I didn’t want to see that in myself because I feared if I saw that too often it would become what I was about. So, I avoided the mirror as much as I could because, quite honestly, I was afraid of what I would see looking back at me. Then one day, after my doctor pronounced me cured, I stood in front of the mirror and just stared at my face, maybe looking for visible changes of what I’d gone through, or maybe just trying to remember who’d I’d been before I was diagnosed with cancer. What I saw was simply me, which, in a way, surprised me. I’m not really sure what I expected, but it wasn’t the same person in the mirror prior to my diagnosis. Quite literally, I never thought I’d see “me” again, but I was wrong. I was there the whole time.
Chapter One
Her diagnosis was unexpected, but most people don’t expect the bad news. Not really. Oh, they might have a thought of it in the back of their mind, an inkling that it’s coming, a hint that it’s a real possibility. But to actually hear it spoken out loud, to have the doctor force out that very well-practiced look of sympathy, squeeze you on the arm and say, “I’m sorry, but you’ve got cancer,” no one really expects to hear that. So it was no wonder the first few minutes after her diagnosis, she was numb. You’ve got cancer … cancer … cancer …
“Can you tell me exactly what that means?” she asked the older of the two doctors, the one in the yellow and pink party dress and five inch spike heels who hadn’t expected to spend her afternoon in the ER, and was making it clear she didn’t want to be there.