Where was the property guard?
He’d noticed the opened front door the second he’d seen the cottage come into view. And had seen a head pass by the front window in the next second. There were no cars in the yard, but he quickly circled around to the back, which would be reached first coming from the road.
The cottage faced the ocean. Not the road.
It was clear, as well. Closer to the building itself now, he thought he heard his name being called in a male voice he recognized. Tom Sherman, one of his previous partners, was taking some of the night duty shifts as a favor to Sam while his wife and kids were visiting her mother in Wisconsin.
Night shift didn’t start until eleven.
Was it that late? He and Bloom had been down at the beach so long there’d been a change of guards?
Where was Tom? Was he in trouble?
Thinking of the property between him and the road, he knew he had to leave Tom down there to fend for himself while he found out what was going on in the house. Bloom was out there by herself. His first duty was to her.
He saw a shadow of light in the spare bedroom window. From the beach path he’d seen a head in the front room. So were there two of them? More?
“Sam?”
He heard his name again. Clearer. Was Tom coming closer? Or not in the woods at all?
Hurrying around to the front of the cottage, keeping his back to the wall of the house, he sought out the head of the path. All seemed calm. Lucy sat, ears perked, right where he’d left her.
He had to go in.
“Sam?” The call came again just as the front door of the cottage opened. “Sam!” His ex-partner said, rushing down the steps toward him. “My God, man, what the hell are you doing? You’re supposed to be in the house. With the woman. Where’s the woman?”
Tom’s urgent tone didn’t calm him much.
“She’s safe for now. What’s going on? Where’s Williams?”
“Down by the road. Keeping watch. I got a call from one of the uniforms on night duty,” he said. “As you know, I’m down as night watch contact tonight so they called me instead of you.”
So Sam could rest. As well as a guy rested when he had a person in possible danger sleeping in the next room.
“As soon as I heard what was going on, I came straight here, told Williams to stay put and came up. Where the hell were you?”
“At the beach.”
“At this time of night? You never go down after dark.”
“I was already down there,” he said, impatient now. “What’s going on?”
“Ricardo Gomez called me,” Tom said. “He’s been roughed up. Came to in a Dumpster less than an hour ago.”
* * *
BLOOM LIKED TOM SHERMAN. He was younger than Sam, but not by much. A little less lean. Reminded her of a big teddy bear. With a gun.
She liked being back in Sam’s cottage, sitting on the couch with Lucy next to her. Her palm against the dog’s fur was the only sensation she could focus on. Lucy laid her head on Bloom’s thigh. She liked that, too.
She didn’t like anything else about the turn the evening had taken.
No one had talked to her yet, other than Tom’s brief introduction to her as he and Sam came to get her from her hiding place and walk her up, one on either side of her, to the cottage. Sam had been on the phone. Tom had been focused on him and watching the yard.
She’d gleaned that Tom had come to find Sam, to discuss how they wanted to handle a situation. And to be on hand if Sam wanted to leave or needed more coverage. And that a uniformed police officer was at the hospital waiting to talk to Ricardo Gomez, the young man who’d been watching out for her all week.
The young man who’d been absent when she’d left work that evening.
Poor guy. His one night off and he ends up in the hospital.
Sam had just hung up from him.
“The uniform is just getting in to speak with Gomez,” he said. “He’ll call back with a report as soon as he has one.”
He stood by the wall of movies, looking underdressed in his jeans and boat shoes. Tom sat at the kitchen table, between Bloom and the door, hands on his uniformed thighs, just inches from the belt that held his holster.
He had a radio on that belt, too, and it had just crackled as Brad Williams checked in with an “all clear.”
Something more than she knew was going on. She had to deal with it. But didn’t want to.
“Did you notice anything odd about Gomez when you left this evening?” Sam spoke to her directly for the first time since he’d come back to get her. He got preoccupied when he was working. She’d seen him in action in the past.
“Gomez didn’t work tonight,” she said. “He had the night off.” Surely he’d have known that. It was her understanding that he had a list of who was working and when on her case. Chantel had said, and he’d probably told her, too, that he was in charge of arranging the guard detail.
“What do you mean he had the night off?” Sam bit out. “Of course he didn’t have the night off.”
“He wasn’t there when I left.”
“And you didn’t think it important to tell me that?” He didn’t move closer. Didn’t even sound menacing.
But she knew he was more than a little upset. Things were not going according to his plan. It was a control thing.
“He’d sent a replacement, Sam. Or rather, I assumed you had.”
He straightened. Came over to sit on the edge of the couch, forearms on his knees. As though he was trying to look relaxed. She felt more like he was ready to pounce.
“What did the guy look like?” She recognized the tone from the past. She’d been sitting up in bed in a little cubicle in the emergency room, having just been told that she had prescription medication in her system without a prescription, and he’d been sitting in a chair, leaning forward in almost the same way, asking her where she’d gotten the drugs.
“It wasn’t a guy, Sam. It was a woman. She told me good-night just like Gomez always does. Held the door open for me and stood there while I headed to my car. You were in the parking lot. You watched it all happen.”
“I saw the beige shirt on the arm that opened the door. I didn’t actually see the guard. I was watching...”
He shook his head. Definitely angry. But not at her.
“Can you describe her?” Tom asked, an odd look on his face as he glanced between Sam and Bloom.
“She was my height. Not overweight, but not model skinny. Dark hair. Long, but she had it pulled back tight. Hispanic, I think. She didn’t really say much. Just good-night, as I recall,” Bloom told them. Lucy lifted her head. Sensing Bloom’s agitation? She stroked the dog slowly. Letting her know everything was fine and she could go back to sleep.
But was everything fine?
Ken was likely going to petition to reopen their divorce case. She could be back to square one, facing the possibility of losing a lot of her security. And with Ken out of work...could she be made to pay alimony?
He was doing just what she’d known he’d try to do—show his power over her. Make her afraid. She’d been prepared for that, and he was still finding a way to beat her.
And now something had happened to Gomez and... Could that really have something to do with her?
“Chantel’s highly intelligent,” she said, trying to clear her mind. “She speaks with intelligence. But she still has a tone about her...a command that comes through when she speaks...”
“The streets have a tendency to roughen up anyone regardless of intelligence or social stature,” Tom said.
“Right.” Bloom looked at Sam. “This woman didn’t have that...tone. Is it possible she wasn’t a cop at all?”
“Other than Chantel, there is no female on my list,” he told her. And looked a
t Tom, whose expression clearly answered some unspoken question between them.
“What?” Bloom asked, looking at Tom briefly, but then pinned Sam with an unyielding stare. “I’m an adult, Sam. If this has something to do with me, you need to let me know.”
“We have no idea what’s going until we hear back from the hospital,” Tom started.
“Sam?”
“Someone who isn’t supposed to be there has taken Gomez’s place, then he turns up hurt. It’s pretty obvious that this has to do with you,” Sam said. “Freelander might be planning to go after you in divorce court, but he probably intends to see you suffer in other ways. He’s joined a new league since you were married to him, Bloom. He’s got thugs who are willing to do him favors. If terrorizing you gives him pleasure, we can assume he has the means to do it. The tip I got implied that he was going to make you hurt physically.”
Things he’d been about to tell her when she’d made her bold statement that she was going home? Before they’d been interrupted by their “intruder”?
His phone rang then, interrupting them. Like Tom, Bloom watched Sam as he took the call. Listening to his terse questions. Trying to glean the parts of the conversation that were unheard to them.
“It appears Gomez was hit on the back of the head, had a rag soaked with chloroform put over his nose and mouth and then at some point was thrown in the Dumpster. He doesn’t know how or by who. He’d been walking down the hall, checking alcoves after everyone had left for the day when it happened. He’s bruised, has a concussion, but doesn’t appear to be seriously hurt.”
“It’s a warning.” Tom was standing now, too.
“Gomez is a big guy,” Bloom pointed out. “The woman who was there, posing as the guard, even if she could have somehow knocked him out and gotten him to the Dumpster, there’s no way she could have lifted him by herself.”
Sam was nodding. “Which is how we know we’re dealing with a group here. Whoever they are, they’re working at the behest of your ex-husband. It’s too much of a coincidence to think that someone is suddenly out to get you the week that Freelander gets out of jail. And you are the only reason Gomez was in the building.”
She was a grown woman who’d learned how to wear big girl panties all by herself. She would stand up to this. “You really believe he’s going to make good on his supposed threat to come after me?”
“I think that seems pretty obviously the case.”
“I agree,” Tom told her, still maintaining a position close to the front door.
“What do we do?” She already had three of Santa Raquel’s finest right there guarding her. There was a whole city to protect.
“Exactly what we are doing,” Sam told her. “While I didn’t see the thing with Gomez coming, we’re all in place because we expected Freelander to come after you...”
True. But she’d thought it would be her he’d try to get. Not...
“Why didn’t the girl hurt me then? Why take out Gomez and then just hold the door open for me and let me walk out?”
But even as she asked the question, she knew the answer.
“He’s letting me know he’s in control.” She didn’t look at either man now. Ken played head games. It was like Sam said—Ken wanted to terrorize her.
“And that you’re vulnerable,” Sam added. “He wants you to know you’re safe only because he chose to let you be. He’s also trying to scare you into thinking that the guards you think you have protecting you are easily dealt with.”
Her head shot up. She stared at the detective she’d somehow begun to see as larger than life. Maybe this was more than just transference. Maybe she’d also seen him, at least a little, through the eyes of hero worship. Considering her odd upbringing, latent hero worship was a plausible diagnosis.
“He’s going to get me, isn’t he?”
“Hell, no!” Sam didn’t hesitate. “What happened to Gomez tonight...that works in our favor, Bloom.”
Now she was confused. Frowning, Bloom asked, “How?”
“You might be able to take a good cop by surprise once. You won’t be able to do it again. Freelander just wasted his one shot.”
She wanted to believe him. Prayed that she could believe him.
But Sam already caught her out with one promise he couldn’t possibly keep. She wasn’t going to let him do it to her again.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THEY’D HAD THEIR WARNING. He’d speak with Gomez himself in the morning. Pull surveillance camera tapes from Bloom’s office. Get BOLOs out.
Everyone was safe.
Business as usual. Except, “I’m calling in a second guard to be out there with you tonight,” he told Tom.
His old partner, and friend, nodded. “Williams said he’d stay as long as you need him. He’s on a four on, three off rotation just starting three off.”
“We’ll keep him them, but I’m still calling in a second pair of fresh eyes.” Just for the night. Until he had time to figure out how big a threat they were dealing with.
“There’s another possibility,” Bloom said.
Sam was trying hard not to notice her. He had a victim to protect. She could not also be a person of personal interest. And yet...she sat there calmly petting Lucy, her face showing no signs of the unrest she must be feeling.
He’d noticed that about her before, too. Bloom didn’t get caught up in her own drama. She was always aware of those around her. Even when she was hurting, as she’d been that first night he’d met her in the hospital. A nurse’s aide had had trouble finding a vein when Bloom had first come in and when the aide returned while Sam was there, she’d smiled at the young woman and told her that her veins had always been hard to poke.
But this wasn’t about Bloom the person.
It was about keeping a citizen safe.
“What other possibility could there be?” he asked her. If she thought for one second he was going to do as she’d suggested earlier and release her to her own home, she was mistaken. Period. He’d find an excuse to lock her up first.
And lose his job later if it came to that.
“My practice... I see mostly woman who’ve been victims of domestic violence. I help them to free themselves emotionally from the bonds that keep them in abusive situations. To recover and move on. Build new lives. Which leaves behind a lot of violent, abusive men, any of whom could logically blame me for their loss.”
She had a point.
“I’ll need a list of your current clients in the morning,” he told her.
“I can’t give you that, Sam. I’m bound under patient-doctor confidentiality.”
“You can release them if lives are in danger...”
She was already shaking her head.
“You can release them if they agree to have their names released to the police due to an investigation that could compromise their safety,” Tom suggested from beside the door.
Sam sent his partner a silent commendation. They’d made a good team. Too bad Tom had had no interest in a detective’s badge.
“I’m going to need you to make calls to your entire client base in the morning,” Sam told her. “Or have someone else do so. I need you to get those permissions and get me that list...”
Too late he remembered who he was talking to. And how important it was that she maintain a feeling of being in control of her own life. Her own choices.
“You think they could be in danger, too? If not from an abusive ex, then from Ken? Do you think he could go after them to show me that I’m harmful to my patients? That seeing me puts them in danger?”
He could almost see her mind at work.
“Anything’s possible,” he told her. Because it might get him those lists quicker. But also because...it was true.
“I’ll get you the list,” she told him
. “But I’m going to have one of the girls at the reception desk make the calls, too.”
He was asking her to sacrifice the one thing that gave her the most strength. Her business. He hoped it didn’t suffer from this.
But he’d rather it suffer, than she, or one of her patients, did.
“So if we’re done here, I’d like to get to work,” Tom said, reaching for the door.
“If Brad’s up for keeping watch at the road tonight, I’ll get someone to cover midrange and you stay up here on top,” Sam said.
Tom nodded. Then said, “I’ll get someone to cover midrange. You get some rest. I’m contact man tonight. I’ve got this.”
His look told Sam that he was noticing more than Sam wanted him to see. Which meant he was slipping.
And needed some rest.
Nodding, he silently agreed to let his friend have their backs until morning.
* * *
BLOOM INTENDED TO excuse herself to bed the minute that Tom locked the door behind himself.
It had been a long day. She had to be up early in the morning. Earlier now that she had to get a client list to Sam. Tom was organizing someone to take Gomez’s shift in the morning, though word was that the young man intended to be there.
Lucy’s head was still in her lap.
She glanced at the blank TV screen. There was a TV in the bedroom, too. Her tablet was connected to his Wi-Fi. There was no reason for her to remain in the living room.
Lucy and he went together. A pair. She couldn’t take the dog to bed with her.
“You want to watch a few more commercials?” she asked, remembering her first night in his home with him.
Chantel had put the DVD away. They’d watched a couple of movies since then. She didn’t want to watch a movie. Couldn’t stay up that long. Didn’t want to be that engaged. She didn’t want to feel. Just to...escape.
Sam watched her for what seemed like minutes but was probably only a few long seconds.
“Sure.” He cued up the DVD player, and grabbed them two bottles of water, without asking if she wanted one.
She did. The ocean air, coming off the salty water, had left her thirsty. She moved over to one end of the couch. He sat on the other. Lucy settled herself between them.
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