He didn’t ask what was the just-in-case prior to the last two weeks. He wasn’t sure he could handle knowing right now.
With her left arm dry, he slid the splint in place just as the ER nurse had and secured the Velcro fasteners. “Feel okay?”
She nodded.
“While you finish up here, I’m going by your house to pick up Poppy. I don’t imagine she expected you to be gone this long.” He might run all the way there, leave the dog’s leash behind and do a loop around the city while holding on to her collar, just to burn off some of the excess energy inside him. “Is there anything she needs besides food?”
“No, that’s it.” She hesitated, biting her lower lip. “I... I would be okay at home, don’t you think?” The bravado she was going for lost out to the uncertainty both in her voice and in her eyes with those last words.
“We talked about this, Mila. He tried to drown you. He knows where you live.”
“I know, but...” Subconsciously, he thought, she raised her left arm to her chest in a protective manner. “I can’t let him scare me out of my house.”
“Why not?”
She didn’t expect his question. It knitted her brows together, giving her a look of surprise. “It’s my home.”
“It’s a place where you live. You like it, you feel safe and comfortable there, though probably not so much in the last few days as before. But it’s just a place, Mila. I know you’ve lived a number of places, and you might have missed some, and you may have been happy to leave others, but in the end they’re all just places. They’re not worth putting yourself in danger.”
“You’re right.” She gave up quickly enough that it confirmed what he suspected: her attachment wasn’t to the house so much as the independence it represented. Whatever had happened in the past had given her a need to be brave and self-reliant, to stand alone in her world except for Jessica and to keep everyone else at bay. “Can you get me some clothes while you’re there? They’re mostly—”
“In the hall closet.” He grinned. “I listen. Anything else? Books, magazines, crochet, needlepoint, knitting?”
She feigned looking cross, then nodded to the door. “The towel’s coming off in five...four...three...”
“Not an incentive to leave,” he said with a laugh before ducking into the hall. He imagined he heard the damp cloth hit the floor the instant the door closed, and then he stopped imagining anything, because the last thing he wanted was to face her grandmother with a hard-on.
Jessica was fussing in the kitchen, wearing a pink-and-turquoise plaid outfit that could catch the attention of a blind man. He told her where he was going, and she handed over Mila’s keys. When he left the apartment, the door across the hall cracked open an inch before swinging wide.
“What happened to Jessica’s granddaughter?” Wynona asked, wearing her customary scowl.
“She was assaulted at Cedar Creek.”
“People shouldn’t be swimming in the creek. There’s a pool over by the high school, for heaven’s sake.”
“Aw, Miz Wynona, I know you used to swim in the creek. In fact, I heard you used to skinny-dip there and that’s how you met your husband.”
Her face turned as hot pink as Jessica’s outfit, and she sputtered for words before settling on slamming the door instead. Sam’s grin carried him down four flights of stairs and to the rear residents’ entrance.
“Chief.” Liam Bartlett, one of his most reliable officers, had pulled a chair from the building lobby to a point where he could easily see both entrances, the stairs and the elevator. He had a book open in his lap—The Unlucky Ones—held with his finger marking his place.
“Liam. How’s the book?”
“Scary.”
“You think it’s true?”
“My gut says yes. Scary either way, though, because if she didn’t live through it, then she thought of it to write down. You read it?”
“I have a copy. Haven’t started it yet. I may wait until things settle down around here,” he added drily. “I’ll be back soon. Want me to bring you anything?”
“I’m fine, Chief. Mrs. Ramirez brought me some coffee and brownies.” He nodded to the wastebasket upended beside him for a makeshift table.
“Enjoy the brownies. They’re good.” Sam went through the back door and into the parking lot, where his pickup dwarfed Jessica’s Bug. The heat was like a slap across the face, leaching the coolness from his skin, hitching his breath. Even with its tinted windows, the interior of the truck was probably near 140 degrees, enough to make sweat pop out on his forehead.
With the windows rolled down and the air conditioner blasting, he drove the short distance to Mila’s house, parked out front and heaved a sigh as he crossed the front garden to the porch.
He was digging her keys from his pocket when he was struck by the quiet. No frantic barking came from inside, no scrabbling of claws on wood as Poppy tried to get through the door. Maybe she was asleep, but... No. She was far too excitable to miss the sound of footsteps on the porch. Oh, God, if the bastard had done something to Poppy...
With the hairs on his neck standing on end and a chill sweeping over him, Sam drew his gun, gingerly touched the knob with two fingers and twisted it.
The door swung open.
The house was eerily still. Remaining in the doorway, he pulled out his cell phone and punched in 911. “Hey, Morwenna, it’s Sam. Get hold of Daniel and tell him to meet me at Mila Ramirez’s house. Send a couple of uniforms, too.”
Without waiting for her response, he put the phone away and took one cautious step inside, his gaze sweeping the room. Nothing was missing, except the eighty pounds of happy dog bouncing off the walls. He listened for a whine, a whimper, a snuffle, anything to indicate Poppy was in one of the rooms, maybe injured, maybe restrained by the man who had tried to kill Mila. He heard nothing beyond the rapid pounding of his own heart.
Small cities were great in one respect: a police officer on an emergency call could get anywhere quickly. He hadn’t yet reached the dining room when he heard sirens drawing near, had just checked the kitchen when footsteps thudded on the porch.
“Chief?”
He gestured the officers, both with guns drawn, into the house. “Mila Ramirez lives here. You know someone tried to kill her this morning. They also broke in here. Her dog, Poppy, was home alone, and I haven’t found her yet. Brady, check the backyard. Carla, come with me.”
He took the lead, moving into the hallway, taking a glance in the bedroom, just enough to see broken glass and no big furry yellow body. While Carla took a closer look, he turned to the left, checked the bathroom, then approached the door to the front bedroom. When he’d been here Thursday night, that door had been closed, and the hall light had glinted off a relatively new-looking dead bolt. Now it stood halfway open.
He eased it open with his foot, but the door stuck partway. A person hiding back there? Poppy, in no condition to greet him?
His stomach roiling, he ducked around the door, leading with his pistol. Relief washed over him. Nothing was blocking the door but the bed. Small as it was, it filled the tiny room.
Thank God Poppy wasn’t here dead, but where the hell was she?
The only way Mila’s attacker could have struck her in a more vulnerable place was by going after Jessica. That silly, goofy dog meant the world to Mila, and Sam would break in half anyone evil enough to hurt the animal.
“Chief, there’s no dog here,” Carla said from the hallway, and behind her Brady shook his head. “No blood, no signs of a struggle. Just that broken window.”
“Talk to the neighbors, find out if anyone has seen Poppy today, if they saw someone over here, if they heard anything. She’s a big yellow Lab mix, about two years old.”
As they left, he turned back to the second bedroom. It was as sparsely furnished as the rest of the house. He figured no one
but Jessica had ever spent the night there, unless Mila used it for an occasional retreat. The dead bolt indicated a security issue, but there was nothing of obvious value unless...
He opened the closet. She used it for storage: a couple of boxes, some file folders, a pile of loose papers, notebooks, a photo album. The hard-copy stuff that everyone had to deal with in life.
His fingers itched to pick up the photo album. It was old, worn, its pages stuffed so full that they strained at their binding. It leaned against the wall, a depression in the carpet showing it had stood there a long time. Maybe that was her treasure, the valuable thing that made her lock an unused room.
But the intruder hadn’t cared enough to take it. It didn’t look as if it had been touched in ages. Unless Sam had a cop-ly reason for thumbing through it, it would be a violation of her privacy and the trust that she found so hard to give.
“Chief?” The call came from the living room, Daniel’s voice. Sam met him in the dining room, where he stood sweaty, dirty, his hair on end, his jeans muddy and ripped.
“You look like you’ve been traipsing through the woods and fallen a few times.”
Daniel’s look was flat and unamused. “My dad kept telling me I could make better money in LA, and I wouldn’t be combing creek banks. So this son of a bitch tried to kill Mila, then came here and stole her dog.”
“Maybe stole. Maybe just turned her loose.” God, Sam hoped that was the case. Even though it meant Poppy would be at risk from traffic, getting permanently lost, mean animals and meaner people.
“There’s a special place in hell for people who mess with pets,” Daniel muttered. “So we need to get the window fixed, secure this place and get some people out looking for the dog. You want me to take over here so you can get back to Mila?”
The thought soured Sam’s stomach. How was he going to tell her Poppy was missing? It would break her heart, and Gramma’s, and his own. “Yeah. I, uh... Yeah. Here’s her keys.”
“I don’t envy you.” Daniel took the keys on his way to the bedroom.
No, this was going to rank at the top of Sam’s worst-moments-on-the-job list.
Chapter 8
My scream—our scream—was still reverberating in the air when a new voice broke into the torment. It came from behind me, from the open barn door, from the center of nature’s fury and rage, and it struck a chord hidden deep inside me, buried in years of sorrow and fear. It was my grandmother, red hair and clothes plastered to her skin by the rain. Backlit by car headlights and near-constant flashes of lightning, to me she looked ten feet tall, stronger and braver than any superhero ever imagined. Her name was Anna, and I called her Gramma, and she was an avenging angel come to rescue me.
“Oh, my God. Oh, my dear God in heaven!” She clamped her hands to her mouth as if to keep in her own scream, and for a moment, I thought the horror and shock would drop her to her knees.
Oh, I loved that voice! I hadn’t heard it in years, but it was woven into my brain and heart. It was the only voice that had ever sung to me, laughed with me, told me sweet stories about bunnies and puppies and happily-ever-afters. It was the only voice that had ever said, “I love you,” and when my parents made it disappear from our lives when I was little, I lost the only light and hope I’d ever known.
My mother whirled to face her, rage making her ugly. “What the hell are you doing here, bitch?” she shrieked. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”
“Dear Lord, Lin.” Gramma’s voice sounded broken, scraped raw. “What are you—what have you—” Her words trailed off into a wail like a wounded animal.
My mother looked around wildly. I’d seen her do it a hundred times. She was looking for a weapon, something that would cause more pain than her bare hands alone. I wanted to warn Gramma, but my earlier attempt at that had gone so badly. I stood petrified, trying to shrink, to become invisible.
Unable to find anything else, my mother grabbed one of the oil lanterns and flung it at Gramma. It wasn’t the first time she’d thrown things at her mother, and Gramma easily sidestepped it, coming a few precious steps closer to me. More than anything I wanted to run to her arms, but I couldn’t move.
The lantern shattered, burning oil spreading in a pool that sizzled and sputtered on the wet ground. My mother was looking for something else, my father was just enjoying the show, and his victim hung limply, blood flowing from her wounds.
Gramma didn’t take her gaze from my mother. “Sweetie,” she said, sending a ripple of hope down my spine. She knew my parents had kept changing our names, though she didn’t know why, so that was what she’d mostly called me. “Sweetie, go get in my car.”
“No!” With an unholy scream, my mother charged across the barn, the movement so sudden that it seemed blurred.
The shock of it propelled both Gramma and me into motion. “Now!” she screamed, and I lunged to her. We grabbed hands and ran together, out of the barn, into the storm, sliding through the mud and puddles to her car where the engine was still running. She shoved me in the driver’s door, and I scrambled across the center to the passenger seat. By the time I sat down, she’d jerked the car into gear, the tires spinning before finding the traction of hard ground, and we were racing down the driveway.
I was saved. Safe. My dearest wish had come true.
And I was so numbed that I couldn’t even cry.
—Excerpt, The Unlucky Ones by Jane Gama
Mila’s pulse jumped when she heard voices in the hallway, but the guests knocked at Wynona’s door, then went inside. She stiffened when a car door sounded on the street below and left her chair to look out the window, hoping to see Sam’s pickup. It was just a silver car instead.
“You sure you won’t eat something?” Gramma asked from the kitchen.
“I had an apple.”
“You know apples aren’t eaten by themselves in this house. They go in pies or cakes or you dip them in caramel and chocolate and pecans.”
That was Jessica’s opinion for most fruits. Oranges were for juice, peaches for ice cream, bananas for nut bread, strawberries for angel food cake, cherries for pies. When Mila had first come to live with her grandmother, she had been fascinated by the fresh fruit on the counter. She had seen fruit before—had heard about it, but she’d never had a piece that she could remember, and one night she’d sneaked into the kitchen and eaten until she was sick. Gramma had found her, holding her belly and surrounded by cores, pits and skins, and laughed and then cried, and she’d come home the next day with more fruit than ten kids could eat.
A car passed on the street, and Mila couldn’t help turning to look. Sam had been gone an hour, far longer than necessary to pick up Poppy and some clothes. Maybe he’d made a few stops along the way. Maybe he’d needed to check in at the office. Maybe Detective Harper or Detective Little Bear had needed to share something with him. Maybe—
Maybe something had happened.
“Sam is okay.”
She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Gramma responded. She came across the room and wrapped her arm tightly about Mila’s shoulders. “He’ll be back soon. He’s probably just clearing the decks so he can be your twenty-four-hour bodyguard. He likes you a lot.” Her clear gaze studied Mila, and a smile softened her face. “You like him a lot, too.”
“I—I do.”
Gramma danced her around in a little circle. “Thank you, Jesus. I’ve been praying for this day.”
She was so happy. Would it hurt to let her hold on to it awhile longer? To keep the concerns and worries to herself? The Sam-being-a-cop and Mila-being-a-fraud stuff? The whole ugly story of her past that she hadn’t trusted him with? The This is who I am and what I did and what I bring to the family table?
Her heart fluttered. Oh. She’d never allowed herself to think seriously about babies, about love, about marriage. Normal life had been such a struggle that she’d thought sh
e would always live on the outskirts of it, almost there but not quite. She’d never imagined a man like Sam taking the time to get to know her. Liking her. Wanting her. Worrying about her. Those things had happened, though. Could he want to stay with her? Have a family with her? Make a life with her?
The very idea made her light-headed. Clinging to Gramma with her good hand, she was returning to her chair when a knock sounded. Gramma went to answer, and Mila knew she should sit down before Poppy barreled in and knocked her down, but her muscles didn’t want to work. They’d frozen, leaving her suspended in a moment of breathlessness. Fear.
When Gramma opened the door, her cheerful greeting died unspoken. “Sam, where’s Poppy?”
The stone-cold anger on his face would have made Mila’s legs give way if they hadn’t frozen. He stabbed his fingers through his hair, squeezed his eyes tightly shut for an instant, then spoke in a voice that was as cold and hard as his expression. “She’s...missing. He broke into the house and—and let her out or—or took her. We don’t know... We’re looking... I’m sorry, Mila.”
Poppy. Missing. The words sounded so foreign together. Poppy couldn’t be missing. She’d been asleep on the sofa when Mila left this morning. She’d opened one eye, given a huge yawn and started snoring loudly before Mila got off the porch. She couldn’t be missing. She couldn’t be running loose. She was the best dog in the world, but she didn’t do well on a leash with Mila hanging on to provide some control. She was too excitable, too silly, too careless...oh, dear God, too important to be missing.
Tears filled her eyes, and her muscles unlocked only to start trembling. “I have to go find her. I have to...she doesn’t always come when called, and I’ve always kept her away from strangers. I don’t know if she would trust someone she didn’t know. And she doesn’t look before she crosses the street. That’s my job. It’s my...”
A sob choked off the words and propelled her into motion, weaving around the furniture, heading for the door. Gramma tried to stop her, but she pulled free. At the door, Sam caught her around the waist, and she tried to pull away from him, too, but he was too strong. She pushed him; he didn’t budge. She kicked him; he lifted her off her feet, spun her around and set her back down inside the apartment, pushing the door shut with his elbow.
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