“I’M GOING OVER there with you.” Bloom’s words brooked no argument.
Sam stood at the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his T-shirt, facing a fully showered and dressed Bloom who stood across the galley kitchen from him, her arms also crossed.
She’d taken the news of the break-in well, hardly reacting at all. But she’d been a pain in his ass ever since.
He didn’t want her to see the place until he had a chance to assess the damage.
“I wasn’t planning to go,” he lied. He was going. Not because he didn’t trust his officers to process the crime scene just fine, but because he needed a feel for the place. To see the damage, not just hear about it.
Sometimes the way something was slashed was more telling than the slice itself.
He just hadn’t figured out his plan yet, with Chantel on her way to LA, he had to find someone to stay with Bloom without her feeling like...
“I have a right to go to my own home, Sam.”
“Not right now, you don’t,” he was happy to tell her. “It’s a crime scene. You can’t go until I release the scene after it’s been processed.”
He breathed a silent sigh of relief when that quieted her.
“A crime scene?” she said, seconds later. “How much damage was done?”
Hardly any. Which was part of the reason he wanted to see it. He had to know what Freelander had been thinking. To know every nuance of how that man thought.
Or to find out if he’d been looking for something.
And if he had, whether or not he’d found it.
Was it possible the man hadn’t disposed of the drugs to a gang in exchange for protection?
Could his intel have been wrong?
“You’ll need me to tell you if anything’s missing. I’ll wear something over my shoes if you need me to. And I won’t touch anything.”
She was right. Professionally, he needed her there. Which meant that his objection to taking her had been...unprofessional.
“I need to shower,” he said, not liking the taste that last thought had left in his mouth. “I’m doing so with my gun on the counter and the door open...”
He started to get hard just saying the words, but knew he’d be fine once under the cold spray.
“Freelander’s not the type to show up here unannounced, and we have no evidence that anyone knows where you’re staying...”
No indication that anyone had followed them from her office even once over the past two weeks.
“...the grounds are covered. But, humor me, stay away from the doors and windows for the ten minutes it’s going to take me.” He’d shave in the shower to save time.
She nodded.
“And scream if you even think you hear anything or if Lucy so much as gives a loud sigh.”
It was overkill.
Because he felt, so acutely, his broken promise every single time something else happened that had anything to do with Freelander. Because he’d failed professionally.
His attention to her might be more than necessary, his attraction inappropriate. But one thing he knew was that he was not going to fail her again. If anything he was going to keep her so safe she’d feel like a prisoner.
If she didn’t already.
“Go shower, Sam. I’ll sit anywhere you like and stay put until you’re done.”
Anywhere he liked?
No. He was not going to screw this up.
“The couch is fine,” he said. Turned his back. And prayed for icy water.
* * *
FROM THE OUTSIDE the house looked fine. So did Sam. In his coat and tie, he’d returned to the man she knew. The detective she knew she could hold at arm’s length. There was a belt and a holster between her and his whities.
And promises he made that he couldn’t possibly keep.
Bloom knew exactly why his underwear was on her mind that morning. She was substituting sexual feeling for fear, focusing on whatever it took to take her away from the panic.
“It doesn’t look like it was broken into,” she said as he turned off the ignition in her driveway, and she knew she was going to have to get out.
Or force him to take her somewhere else while he investigated. Because he certainly wasn’t going to let her sit alone in his car in her driveway.
She wanted to see the beach from her back porch. That view had seen her through some of her toughest moments. Bolstering her with hope.
“A back door was left ajar,” Sam told her. He hadn’t yet opened his door as though he wasn’t looking forward to the next minutes, either.
Or maybe he was sensing her hesitation. He’d most likely seen hundreds of crime scenes in his lifetime.
“Why would Kenneth leave the back door open?”
“My guess is someone left in a hurry.”
“But no one saw a car. You said no one saw a car. What would have spooked him with enough time to get away in a car without being seen?”
“He could have parked down the beach.” True.
Public parking was sparse during the day, but at night...
“He also could have pulled into the garage.” She should have changed the automatic door code; she just hadn’t thought about it. Not with him in prison. And then her leaving before he got out.
“There’s always the possibility it wasn’t Freelander.”
She knew that. But didn’t want to think about that possibility, either. “Whoever warned Lila and me doesn’t think we got the message,” she said aloud. “And knows where I live?” She was only suppositioning. Not sure which scenario she liked better. Kenneth, or a nameless creep?
“It’s possible,” he said.
“But you think it’s Kenneth?”
“I have a report of the damage.”
That didn’t answer her question at all.
She didn’t tell him so.
* * *
A PUNK OUT to give a warning messed things up. The whole warning thing. A few paintings slashed... What kind of warning was that?
Even if they were worth a lot of money—which they could have been, Sam acknowledged as he got his first real look at the colorful framed canvases hanging on the walls partially shredded—they were only paintings. Someone who was angry enough to break into a home was at least going to empty the contents of the refrigerator. He could have done a lot of damage with mustard and ketchup and a few other things that had been left in there.
He’d have slit the sofa, not just paintings.
Emptied drawers and thrown them upside down on the floor. Broken dishes. Mixed things up.
He’d have damaged electronics, if he’d left them there at all...
“It was Kenneth.”
Bloom hadn’t even walked through the house yet. Now that he had her there, he really needed her to do so but was loath to ask.
Any other victim and he’d talk them through it. Express his concern and understanding of how difficult it was. But he’d make them do it.
“How do you know?”
She was staring at the desecrated painting over the fireplace, her face expressionless.
Her tone lacked emotion as well as she said, “He called me. From prison. He was allowed to call, you know, as long as I was on his list. I was given the opportunity to refuse to speak with him, but I agreed. I’d hoped that he’d have some epiphanies sitting in that cell. That his knowledge would save him. Instead, it had only given him the psychological means to try to manipulate me in new ways. To remind me how much I loved and needed him...”
Sam’s jaw hurt as he grit his teeth together. What had the bastard said to her? And what had she ever done to anyone to deserve such contemptible treatment? After two weeks of living with Bloom in the midst of extreme tension, he knew for certain that she was the
kindest person he’d ever met.
Maybe a gift from parents who lived in a simpler world and had borne her into it?
“I kept things professional,” Bloom was saying.
Her electric-blue capris and vividly striped shirt didn’t belong in this formal setting. Or at least, he didn’t want them there.
“I spoke from a therapeutic point of view. Hoping he would understand and just...move...on. At that point I actually hoped maybe we could be friends. Pathetic, huh?”
“I don’t think it’s pathetic at all.” Her need pulled the words out of him.
She continued without looking at him or in any way acknowledging that she’d even heard him.
“He didn’t, of course. Understand, that is. Not any of it. No matter what I said, he had a rebuttal that turned the world on its axis and gave an entirely different meaning to the very same words. In the end, I grabbed at a solid piece of evidence that didn’t involve words. Or reasoning. Yet was still based in psychological theory.
“I told him about my paintings. About how they’d helped me access mental and emotional health from the inside out...” Her face was still upturned toward the fireplace, her long auburn hair hanging down her back.
Had she just said her paintings?
With a chest that felt as though it had been carrying a ton of bricks all morning, he stood there, looking at the walls, and saw the desecration in a new light. Hoping to God he was wrong about what he was thinking.
It was as though he could feel his shoulders shrinking within his coat. And he knew that he couldn’t allow that to happen.
“So you think he destroyed the art you two had purchased together as a way of letting you know what he thinks of the value of art?” He was winging it. But thought his theory held some merit.
She shook her head. “I don’t know why he came here last night,” she told him. “Maybe he thought I would be here. Maybe he just wanted to talk in person, without lawyers between us. He’d have been told Friday afternoon that my motion to move out the hearing had been granted.”
He had to give her top marks for calm. For clear thinking. He was seeing red. And not because of the brightly colored pieces of canvas dangling out from the frame.
“What I do know is why he left. He came in expecting to find me and I wasn’t here. That would have upset him. But then he saw that I’d replaced all of his carefully sought after and expensively purchased artwork with my amateur attempts...”
Shit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“I NEED YOU to look around. To see if anything’s missing.” They were the first words Sam had spoken since she’d stopped speaking.
Bloom nodded, thankful for his professionalism and for the space he was giving her to process the event, understand her feelings and then decide for herself what to do about it. Her task was to get through this. Just do. Not feel. In a way, Sam had taught her how to do that. She just had to be the professional she was.
“I’m certain that once he got inside, saw the pictures, he slashed them all to let me know that he wasn’t accepting the new me—meaning he wasn’t giving up—and then he left. That’s why the back door was open. He must have parked down the beach so he went out that way. He always said the beach calmed him. That’s why he insisted on living here. So he could come home to the beach every night...”
She was rambling. Professionals didn’t ramble.
“He didn’t leave in a hurry out of fear of discovery, or because he thought someone was coming. He left in a hurry because he couldn’t stand to be in this house with the paintings.”
She didn’t want to go in any other rooms. To see what he’d done to the rest of the pictures she’d come to cherish for what they portrayed of her, not for how they’d look to others.
“He couldn’t stand what he saw in them,” she said, drawing on professional observation, bolstering herself with facts as she entered the hall and saw the painting she’d done of the colorful vase, the one filled with orange and red roses with bright yellow daisies, hanging from its frame in shreds. “He doesn’t want to believe that I’ve healed. That I know what he did to me.”
The insight helped her move to the next room. And the next.
Without fail, Ken had taken a sharp object to every single one of her most personal, most intimate truths, damaging them beyond repair.
* * *
SHE WAS HOLDING up well. Was more healed than he’d realized. Or was less fragile than he’d feared. Sam wasn’t sure which, but, either way, Bloom’s mental and emotional health made his job easier.
“I need you to look inside things,” he told her. “See if anything’s been moved. If anything is missing. Look in your closet, look on shelves. Behind doors, in cupboards you don’t use much. Look where you store your Christmas decorations.”
Her detachment gave him detachment. Allowed him to do his job as he always did it, with complete focus.
Bloom pulled open drawers with him looking over her shoulder. He didn’t care what was in them. He cared if she noticed anything different inside them.
“Can you tell me what you’re looking for?” she asked after they’d been through her lingerie drawer.
If she’d turned around, she’d have seen him looking at the wall behind them on that one. He wasn’t up to that test.
“If you think he planted a camera or some listening device, you’re wrong. That’s not...”
“I don’t.”
“Well, he sure wouldn’t have left an explosive device...would he?”
The suddenly pale skin in the placid face threatened his detachment.
“I think he might have been looking for the drugs, Bloom,” he told her. “If my source is wrong and he didn’t trade them, they might have been hidden here all along. He could have come back for them.”
The drugs could have been Freelander’s hidden pleasure. Not Bloom at all.
Sam hadn’t believed in anything outside his own abilities in a long time, but he almost dared hope that he’d just been given a piece of divine inspiration.
Maybe Freelander wasn’t after Bloom at all, just her money and whatever the drugs could bring him.
* * *
BLOOM LOOKED EVERYWHERE. Went through everything. It took hours. The house was big and she’d been there a long time. And nothing was out of place. Or had been disturbed. She didn’t even have to go into the attic. She’d accidentally painted the entrance shut and the paint seal hadn’t been broken.
She also didn’t think about Sam seeing into every corner, every cupboard of her life. The detective, not the man, was there, seeing inside every one of her drawers, seeing how she folded her underwear. His phone rang while they were in the laundry room. When she’d finished with her therapy she’d stored her painting things in a corner cupboard that was difficult to access. She hadn’t expected to ever need to use them again but had been unable to part with them.
But then, she also hadn’t expected Ken to ever get out of prison. Sam Larson had promised her that if she testified she’d never have to deal with Ken again. Her testimony would grant her permanent safety...
“Are you sure?”
Standing with two metal tackle boxes, one filled with paints and the other with brushes, Bloom froze, staring at Sam as he spoke into his phone. There were several small canvases back there, too. She still had to get them.
Sam was staring at her. Eyes open wide.
“Okay. Thanks. Head back.”
He hung up.
Took a hold of her arm.
And Bloom didn’t want to know.
She’d had enough.
* * *
SAM HAD NO idea why he suddenly took the two metal boxes from Bloom’s fingers. Had no idea what was in them, or why she held them. Placing them quickly on the counter beside them, he
grabbed both of those lifeless hands.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. Smiled. “Of course, why?”
Her fingers were digging into his hands. The grip of someone holding on for dear life.
“Are we done here?” She’d said she’d purposely left the laundry room for last. Maybe because of the metal boxes? “We need to head out.”
“Tell me.” She wasn’t moving.
“Let’s get out of here. We can talk later. There’s nothing critical.” He was lying. Sometimes it was part of a cop’s job, to serve the greater good. Right then the greater good was getting Bloom into a different environment.
One that didn’t suck the life blood out of her.
“Wait.”
She pulled away from him and bent to the opened cupboard behind her, taking out several blank canvases, and he understood. He took them carefully. Grabbed both boxes as well, and followed her out of the house where she’d almost died.
If he had his way, she’d never be back.
* * *
“TELL ME.”
They were on the coastal road, taking the long way home. Bloom, with her head laid back against the rest on the passenger seat of Sam’s SUV, was watching what she could see out the front windshield.
Sort of.
Mostly all she could see was within.
“Kenneth Freelander was not at your house last night.”
She sat up, stared at him. “Of course he was. If someone’s talked to him, if he’s saying differently, he’s just lying, point-blank.”
“Chantel went to LA this morning, Bloom. She spoke with him.”
“He lied to her.” Chantel was great. From all accounts an incredible officer of the law, but she wasn’t perfect. “I’m a certified genius, Sam. And he fooled me.”
“She checked out his alibi. It’s rock solid.”
“So he’s convinced someone else to lie for him. Or to believe his truths. Either way it’s the same...”
“We’ve had extra patrols running by your house on a regular basis. All doors checked fine at midnight. The back door was discovered open at six.”
“So when his alibi was asleep, Kenneth left and made it back before she woke up.”
The Promise He Made Her Page 17