It felt good to hear both men laughing.
Chapter Fifteen
Monday morning, Loren and Tilly were still at home and getting Katie ready for the trip to the office.
“Do you think Ross would let me hire you to be me for me?” Tilly asked.
“I actually understood what you meant,” Loren said. “I don’t know if that should worry or amuse me.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’ll get through this, sweetie.” Loren zipped up the diaper bag. “This is an adjustment, that’s all. Once you get your feet back under you and get a routine going, you’ll be balls-to-the-wall again.”
“Is that what this is? My routine’s off?”
Loren snorted. “Seriously? You’re asking me that? You are a creature of habit. It took me and Ross just a couple of days of you living with us to realize that. How do you think we were able to stabilize you so quickly and get you back on your feet? We matched our routine to yours.”
“Really?”
“Really. You’re a stubborn Taurus, honey. Routines-R-Us.”
Tilly sank into one of the kitchen chairs and thought about it. “Son of a bitch.”
“Language.”
“Oh, seriously. She’ll be swearing by the time she’s five.”
“That’s not a good thing, usually.”
“You’re right. About the routine. How did I never realize that before?”
“Because you didn’t need to realize it. You just did it.”
The doorbell rang.
“Who’s that?” Loren asked.
“Do I look like I have super powers?” Tilly got up and headed to the living room. When she looked through the viewfinder, she found two men standing there, one a uniformed police officer, and the other she suspected was a detective.
Just to be sure, she called out, “Can I help you?”
The man she thought was a detective held up an official photo ID in a badge holder. “My name is Detective Rogers. I’m looking for Cris Guerrero.”
She opened the door as Loren walked up behind her. “I’m his…partner. What’s going on?”
He consulted a notepad. “Your name, ma’am?”
“Tilly LaCroux. What’s this about?”
“May we come in?”
Tilly looked at Loren, who nodded. Tilly opened the door wider and let them in.
A bad feeling settled over her, a certainty. “Is this about Landry? Is he okay?”
“Ma’am, can you sit down, please?”
“Why?” Panic started setting in. She felt Loren easing her over to the couch. “Don’t tell me something happened to Lan or Cris!”
“No, ma’am. I’m here about Sofia Guerrero.”
“What? She’s in jail. Her probation officer revoked her. She’s got a hearing next Wednesday. Cris is her cousin.”
Loren grabbed her hand and held on tight. “Honey, be quiet. I think he’s trying to tell you something.”
The detective nodded. “I’m sorry, but there’s no easy way to break this news to you. Sofia Guerrero died this morning.”
“What?”
“There was an incident at breakfast. The details are still being sorted out.”
“Dead?”
“Someone attacked her.”
“Oh, shit,” Loren breathed. “I’ll call Landry.”
Tilly was barely aware of Loren letting go of her hand and hurrying from the room.
Tilly looked from one man to the other. “This is some really bad joke, right? Or like a bad investigation ploy to throw people off the trail? She can’t be dead. She was in jail.”
“It’s still an ongoing investigation. We suspect someone in the same gang as her ex-boyfriend might have done it. We’re reviewing film footage.”
It felt hard to breathe. Tilly remembered this sensation. The last time she’d felt it had been when she discovered Cris had left.
Before that, when she found out her mom died.
She stared at her lap. “What?”
“Is there someone we can call for you? Would you like me to call Mr. Guerrero? You and your husband and Mr. Guerrero were all listed as next of kin on her forms.”
Tilly focused on breathing. She suspected she wasn’t far from passing out, from the way her blood rushed in her ears.
“Dead? Are…are you sure? Are you sure it’s her?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but yes. We are.”
Somewhere in the kitchen, she heard Loren talking, fast, low tones that brooked zero resistance, before she was at Tilly’s side again.
“Landry and Cris are turning around and coming back. They said they’ll be here in about twenty minutes.”
When Katie let out a little fussy cry, again Loren came to the rescue. “I’ve got her. You, stay.”
Tilly relaxed back into the couch and tried to process this.
Normally, Tilly was the one everyone came to in a crisis. The one everyone relied on. It was mostly her nursing training in those cases, a calm detachment she could hold on to because while she loved her friends, it wasn’t technically her crisis. She could deal with it because she had to.
This was her crisis.
A crisis almost of her own making.
“Why would someone attack her?” she finally asked.
“We don’t know for sure yet.” Detective Rogers wore a practiced sympathetic expression Tilly wanted to smack off his face.
Instead, she balled her hands into fists, her fingernails digging into her palms, and held on tight.
“We think,” he continued, “it had something to do with our investigation into Monroe Cord. He and his brothers are in a gang. Her testimony was going to prove vital in making sure they were finally put away for good. We were building a solid drug trafficking case against them and others in the gang. Including fingering individuals we didn’t have info on before now.”
“You used her,” Tilly whispered, horrified as the realization sank in. “You probably promised her you’d put in a good word with the judge to recommend her release in exchange for her testimony, didn’t you?”
“I can’t comment on an ongo—”
“Didn’t you!” she screamed.
Only the sound of Katie letting out a wail filled the condo. The uniformed officer shifted position, as if to make sure he was between Tilly and the detective, but he didn’t speak.
The detective looked very uncomfortable. “We made her certain assurances in exchange for her full and ongoing cooperation, yes.”
Tilly slumped back against the couch. “Son of a bitch,” she whispered. “You were going to strong-arm her, which wasn’t necessary in the first place because she wanted to set things right to get back to her baby. You strong-armed her, and now she’s dead because you couldn’t fucking protect her!”
The detective had gone from looking very uncomfortable to looking like he wanted to be anywhere but right there. “She was supposed to have been housed alone in a cell in a more secure unit until her hearing next week,” he said. “Apparently over the weekend there was a mistake made and she was put in a lower-security section due to a shortage of bed space.”
“Where someone from the gang recognized her as a snitch and took her out.”
He didn’t answer.
He didn’t have to.
Tilly closed her eyes. “Fuck.”
Loren walked out, the baby in her arms. “Honey, why don’t you take Katie back to your bedroom for a little while, okay? I’ll talk to them and wait here until Cris and Landry get back.”
Tilly sat there, her mind whirling, her anger seething.
Her guilt boiling over.
“Tilly,” Loren sharply snapped, bringing Tilly’s attention to focus on her friend. “Honey, get up, and take the baby. Go back to your bedroom.”
Automatically, Tilly found herself standing and heading over to Loren, where she handed Katie off to her. Tilly cradled the baby against her as she slowly made her way to the bedroom and closed the door behind her.
Staring down into
Katie’s face, Tilly realized something else.
She wasn’t sure how she could face this little girl when she was older and explain this to her. How could she live with the guilt of the things she’d thought about Sofia?
Sofia could have turned her life around once she was released. Could have gotten an education.
Could have been there for her daughter.
Tilly didn’t even have any pictures of Sofia she could give to Katie when she was older. None she’d want the girl to see. Only pictures of Sofia looking beaten and half-dead from her bruises and injuries.
Not even a video with her mom’s voice on it.
Tilly stretched out on the bed, the baby already soothed by her touch.
That’s when Tilly closed her eyes and wept.
* * * *
Landry knew fear. He’d faced it head-on—literally—when he’d tried to kill himself. A lesser version of it during his cancer treatments, both times, when he realized he had so much to live for and didn’t want to die.
That paled in comparison to the fear that crawled through his gut when he heard the tone of Loren’s voice when she ordered them back to the condo.
Immediately.
The only thing she’d said was that Tilly and Katie were all right, that it wasn’t about them.
From the grim set to Cris’ jaw, he suspected the other man’s mental speculation had immediately jumped to the same conclusion, that it involved Sofia.
That Loren refused to reveal anything else over the phone only further confirmed it, as far as Landry was concerned.
They didn’t discuss it on the way, didn’t bandy possibilities.
They’d find out soon enough, and all he wanted to do was get to Tilly and Katie and hold them and ease himself through his fears, the fear that had hammered and pounded his heart before Loren’s clarification that it wasn’t about them.
But wasn’t it?
Once they were parked, they both ran from the car for the elevator, and then jogged down the hallway to their door. He’d started fitting his key in the lock when it opened.
Loren stood there, looking somber.
And he knew.
The detective and uniformed officer who stood at their arrival also confirmed it, but he knew they had to hear it.
“What’s going on?” Landry asked.
The plainclothes detective stepped forward, hand extended. “Detective Rogers,” he said. “Are you—”
“Landry Renee LaCroux,” he said. “And Cristo Guerrero,” he said, pointing at the man. “Just say it. I think I already know what you’re here to say, but please, just say it.”
Cris and Landry ended up sitting on the couch as the detective went through what happened. Loren hovered to the side, attentive, waiting.
Landry draped an arm over Cris’ shoulders as the man sat there, elbows on his knees, head hanging.
“We were going to help her get her life together,” Cris said. “She was finally ready. She gave us custody of the baby until all this was settled. We were going to move her to Florida with us, put her through school…”
From the way his shoulders shook, Landry knew Cris was crying.
“You’ll find who did this, won’t you?” Landry asked.
“We should, yes,” the detective said. “We’re still going through the surveillance videos. There were several angles, but we should be able to figure it out.”
“I’m going to go check on Tilly,” Loren said, leaving the room.
Landry felt helpless again.
Dammit, how he despised that.
“Where is she now?” Landry asked. “Do we need to identify her?”
“No, sir,” Detective Rogers said. “We have a positive ID on her from one of her tattoos. She’ll be taken for an autopsy and then released to whatever funeral home you choose.”
“We’re going to take her to Florida,” Cris hoarsely said. “I want her cremated, and we’ll take her ashes to Florida. I want her to at least get there one way or another.”
Landry worried about the man. Cris had stalwartly held up under all the stresses of caring for him following his accident and cancer treatments, all while taking over the business again. And while under the heartbreak of having walked away from Tilly, even though Landry hadn’t known that at the time.
This man sounded broken, hollow. In a way Landry had never heard him sound before.
“When can we get her?” Landry asked.
The detective scribbled a phone number and a case number on the back of one of his business cards and handed it to Landry. “They can contact the county morgue at that number to make the arrangements. It’ll be at least a day or so.”
“Thank you.”
“Did they even try to save her?” Cris asked, that same hoarse, hollow tone to his voice. He finally looked up. “Did they even try to keep her alive, or was it easier for them to let her die right there?”
Landry took grim sadistic satisfaction in the discomfort on the detective’s face. “Her injuries were too…extensive. By the time staff and guards were able to get in and control the situation, she was already gone. I’m sorry.”
“I hope her testimony was worth it, detective,” Landry drawled. “I hope it was worth her life. I hope playing her, when she was already willing to cooperate, is worth her daughter now growing up without a mother.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. LaCroux. We never—”
“Was it you who asked the probation officer to revoke her, hmm? Be honest. Ms. Nerzino wasn’t going to revoke her, was she? It was after she contacted you all and you found out there was another witness, you asked for Sofia’s probation to be revoked, didn’t you? You had her brought in so you could, what’s it called, sweat her, right?”
“I—”
“Do not lie to me,” Landry said. “You bloody bastards. She wasn’t just some gang whore. She was a new mother desperate for a new start, a new life. She reached out to us for help. And by doing so, we basically became unwitting accomplices in you getting her killed. She trusted us, because we trusted the system to do right by her, and you failed her.”
“She wasn’t supposed to be in that wing. She was supposed to be in a cell of her own but the orders got messed up somehow and the weekend staff—”
Landry cut him off. “I don’t want your fucking excuses. I want to know how we’re supposed to explain to her daughter when she’s older that a paperwork snafu got her mother killed. Did you need this case to further your career, detective? Was it going to be a feather in your cap?”
“I’m sorry. I know how traumatic this is—”
“You know nothing, sir,” Landry said. “We promised her we’d help her. We promised her a chance for a new life. Now she’s dead and will never get to see her daughter grow up. Her infant daughter. Not even three weeks old. Do you have children, detective? She wanted her daughter to have a good life so she reached out to us for help, desperate to break free of her old life. She wasn’t some drugged out prostitute. She’d done the best she could under the circumstances. She was forced into crime by her boyfriend at the time, and ended up arrested for it. All her life she basically bounced around, feeling helpless. Well, the first time she finally finds agency, takes control of her life, it gets her killed. Great job serving and protecting.”
The detective took a step back. “If you don’t have any more questions—”
“Oh, I have plenty, but our attorney will be asking them of you on a witness stand when we sue you and the department of corrections for her death. Had you simply left her in our care, not only would she have helped you with your case and cooperated completely, she would still be alive. Well, now your case likely has been impacted, and she’s dead. Again, great job. You may show yourselves out.”
The men left.
Landry pulled Cris into his arms. Cris silently sobbed against him.
Landry rested his head against Cris’. “It’s all right, love. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
Cris’ low, keening wail took Land
ry off-guard, gutted him. Drew tears from even his stony heart.
“She wanted my help,” Cris whispered. “I promised to help her.”
“I know, love. I know.” Landry stroked his hair.
“We promised her a new life. A better life.”
“I know.”
“She trusted us.”
“We trusted the system.”
After a couple of minutes, Cris sat up. “Tilly.” He stood, but Landry caught his hand.
“Loren’s with her. I’ll go to her. You wash up first.”
“Fuck,” he whispered. “What’s this going to do to her? She’s going to feel guilty as hell.”
“I’m afraid we’re about to find out.”
Chapter Sixteen
For a sickening moment, time warped and folded and Tilly was lying there in Loren’s arms, crying over Cris. Reality set in and the baby cradled against her grounded Tilly to the present.
Cris was not the Guerrero for whom she mourned.
Not this time.
The door opened and she didn’t even look to see who it was, although she suspected Landry. This was confirmed when he climbed into bed on her other side and wrapped his arms around her and Loren.
And Katie.
He pressed his lips against the top of her head. “I’m so sorry, love.”
“This is my fault,” Tilly groaned. “All my fault.”
“No, it’s not,” Loren said. “You were trying to help her.”
“I wanted her to stay in jail,” Tilly said, the words almost physically painful to speak aloud. “I wanted Katie all to myself. I didn’t want Sofia to get out. I wanted her to be punished for what happened to Katie.”
“Love, if you ascribe blame in that way,” Landry said, “then I am just as culpable as you are. I wished for her to face punishment, too.”
“You did?”
“Yes. I wanted her to learn a hard lesson so she wouldn’t repeat it. This is not our fault. This is the fault of the system, and we shall make them pay for it.”
“Her parents,” Tilly said. “Her brothers. We need to locate them and tell them.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
Cris came in and sat on the end of the bed. He looked as gutted as she felt. “I’m sorry, Redbird.”
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