Bloom lost herself in the ecstasy. For one more hour.
Then she went back to bed.
* * *
AS SOON AS Sam followed Bloom to work Monday morning, saw her safely inside with Gomez at the door, he entered the freeway and headed to LA.
Chantel was going to be looking over all of their Santa Raquel files, The Lemonade Stand files, comparing histories to those from Bloom’s client files. She was looking again at the three abusers who’d appeared to have alibis. He’d missed something.
Probably because he’d been so tuned into Freelander.
The first place Sam went, without calling beforehand, was the state prison. He shown his identity and named the man he wanted to visit. Because he was who he was, his request was granted. As he’d known it would be.
“I swear to you, Detective,” Shaq Dunning said. “I told you the truth.” Dunning, a man who’d been present when a drug deal went bad resulting in the deaths of two men, was in prison for life. He hadn’t committed murder, but he’d been selling the drugs. To pay for his infant daughter’s heart surgery. After the surgery, Sam had helped relocate Mrs. Dunning and her two young children to Santa Raquel. He watched out for them as necessary in exchange for Dunning’s inside information—as necessary.
“You better not be jerking me, Dunning,” he said now, more serious than he’d ever been. “If what you told me about Freelander unloading those drugs is false...”
“No, sir, it’s true. You know I’d give you names if I could, but I do that and I’ll be dead in here by tonight.”
“And you’re certain he threatened to go after his wife when he got out?”
“Yes, sir. It’s all the bastard talked about. Getting her back or making her pay. One or the other. Some days it was hard to figure out which he wanted worse.”
Sam wanted to ask if Cordoba was a name Dunning recognized. He wanted to name the gang. But he wasn’t going to have another man’s death on his conscience. Not when, if he did his job right, he could get the answer without Dunning.
And in the meantime, he’d just continue to do what he was doing. Going after Freelander. And keeping Bloom safe.
The other...her little experiment...well, they’d wrapped that one up. Parts of him wished it had taken a little longer.
* * *
SAM WAS HALFWAY to his car when he turned around, gave up his gun one more time and headed back inside. To records. He wanted to know if Freelander had had any visits while he was in prison. Any regular visitors.
Bloom had said she’d only spoken with him once. But there could have been someone else. He should have thought of it before.
Maybe would have if he’d known about Freelander’s penchant for young coeds earlier than the previous week. The professor had been so obsessed with Bloom and, from the sounds of things had, spent all of his free time with her, that Sam hadn’t even thought to see if there’d been someone else in the man’s life during the time he’d been married to Bloom—some other reason he was keeping his wife on medication that would slow down her reasoning abilities.
The man’s attorney had visited him. Which was to be expected. And every single week he’d been inside, he’d had one other visitor. A woman. By the name of...Barb Miller?
Of course, there were many Barb Millers in the world. But the name didn’t ring true to Sam. It was the type of name someone would choose if they didn’t want to be found out.
With instincts back on track, talking loud and clear, he collected his gear and headed out into the California sunshine.
* * *
CORDOBA WAS THE next man on his list of people to visit during his day in the city. Back in the East Side, he parked a few blocks from the bowling alley, in the parking lot of a doctor’s office. And walked to a bar he knew was a regular hangout for members of the East Side gang.
He wasn’t all that surprised when Juan Cordoba stood up as soon as he walked in the door. Introduced himself and invited Sam to have a seat.
The kids would have told the man a white dude was asking for him. Probably told him they thought he was the professor, too.
Sam had counted on that part. He was more interested in knowing what Cordoba was going to do now.
Not kill him. He knew that much. The boys wouldn’t want the death of a cop on their hands. Not good for business. They’d know that other cops would know where he was. And with who.
And they did. Everyone on his floor knew where he was and why. And officers in the LA neighborhood he was sitting in knew, too. It was how the game was played and everyone knew the rules.
Except maybe the ten-year-old kids he’d lucked upon the other day.
“You been asking for me,” Cordoba said.
“It’s not really you I want.” Sam stared the man in the eye. He did want him. For the drugs. But he wasn’t going to get ahead of himself again.
One thing at a time. He’d worn his regular pants and tie, figuring his target already knew by now that he was a cop, and sat back, so the gun beneath his jacket and the badge clipped to his belt were in plain view.
“Who you want?”
“A relative of yours. Jean?” He pronounced it as though it was a girl’s name. He was going on a hunch. But he really wanted Jean Cordoba to be Barb Miller.
In the worst way.
“My sister? What you want with her?”
“Just to talk to her,” Sam said. He stood. Pulled a card out of his wallet.
“What you think she did?”
“It’s not what she did, it’s who she knows. Have her call me.”
He dropped his card on the table and walked out. But not before he’d seen a younger man, maybe sixteen or seventeen, slink back into the corner as he passed. Another gang member, he was certain. Someone on the side. Just in case.
Sam wanted to know why.
But didn’t stick around to ask. He’d already outworn his welcome for one day.
* * *
AFTER STOPPING AT the university to ask around, Sam considered a visit to Freelander, just to give the guy a very serious warning—along the lines of, if he thought he was going to get at Bloom he was going to die trying—but he thought better of it.
As soon as he did something asinine like that, Freelander would be the victim. And Bloom would pay the price.
He was halfway back to Santa Raquel, thinking about dinner and a beer at the pub, when his phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number—a good sign.
It was Jean Cordoba. She was willing to talk to him. But only if he could get to her within the next hour. She was on a break from work—a free clinic not far from the bar he’d been at earlier. He was supposed to meet her at the back door of the clinic and she’d show him into the break room.
Putting on his lights as he did an illegal U-turn, Sam sped back to the East Side of LA to meet with a senior psychology student turned nurse’s aide.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
BLOOM LEFT WORK just before five that evening. Her six o’clock had cancelled and she was tired. Days were longer now as the sun set later and she needed some time down at the beach in order to process the day before—the eighteen-year-old she hadn’t helped enough.
She’d run from the situation the night before—straight to Sam’s bed. She couldn’t keep running.
Chantel was waiting for her as she wished Gomez a good night and left the building. And the female detective also waited while Bloom changed out of her suit into sweats and tennis shoes for a trek down to the beach. Chantel, still in uniform with the black boots she always seemed to wear—what was it with Santa Raquel cops and their footwear?—seemed eager enough to accompany her down the hill.
Lucy was ecstatic about her adventure and bounded down in front of them, as though showing them the way. Bloom had intended to walk—as far as th
e cliff face would allow before it swung around to meet the ocean and block off beach access. Instead, she sat where she and Sam had sat the night they’d come down.
Chantel dropped down beside her.
“Rough couple of days, huh?”
They’d talked some the night before. Chantel had been open to conversation. Bloom hadn’t been.
“I just keep thinking there’s more I could have done for Heather,” she said now. “I was counseling her. I keep trying to figure out what I missed.”
“Who says you missed anything? Maybe it’s just like she said, the thought of losing her son was her cracking point.”
“She didn’t know she was going to lose him.”
“She believed she would, and that’s what mattered here.” Chantel’s pragmatism made everything sound so...plausible.
And right.
“I read through her file again today,” Bloom confessed. “Looking for anything I might have missed. Any sign that she was in dangerous emotional territory—beyond what any young girl who’d been abused and was living in a shelter would be.”
“I think the key is all of those things you listed. Heather had a rough life. Everything stacked up against her. And none of those circumstances were things you could have prevented.”
“Of course not, but—”
“You remind me of Sam.”
Bloom’s heart, which had been open, filled with compassion for the teenager who was going to be spending the rest of her life in prison, was now suddenly closed up tight.
“How so?” She and Sam were good. They had their understandings. And would move on with their lives—separate and apart—just fine. He’d had his life right where he wanted it before Kenneth’s release from prison. So had she. Those lives were waiting for both of them as soon as all of this was over.
“He blames himself for his father’s death and yet there was nothing he could have done to prevent it. His sergeant was caught unaware, too. It was circumstances. Sam did his job exactly right and yet tragedy happened.”
That was different.
How so?
The intrusion of her inner voice was only confusing her. Not helping.
“It’s like both of you, as nice and hardworking and ethical as you are, are also filled with this huge sense of self.”
The skin around her hairline grew tight. It wasn’t like Chantel to be mean. What was going on?
“Don’t get me wrong,” the other woman continued, her voice slightly raised over the sound of the waves.
Bloom watched Lucy pouncing on the beach. After sand crabs Sam had said.
“I am really fond of both of you. Well, I respect you both a great deal, and have grown really fond of you,” she clarified, and Bloom felt a measure of peace return.
For a second there her feelings had been hurt. It wasn’t like her to be so sensitive.
But then having a patient turn to murder while under her care wasn’t like her, either.
Neither was being truly intimate with another person.
She just needed to get home. Back to the life she’d built. The one that served her purposes. The one where she was happy.
“All I’m saying is that you both take on too much responsibility. How can all of the things that transpired against Heather, how can her emotional makeup, be your responsibility? All you could do to affect that situation was try to give her ways to deal with the cards she’d been dealt. You tried. You worked with her. You did your job well. And then it’s out of your hands.”
Peace was a wonderful thing. Over the past two years, Bloom had grown to recognize it and love it.
“Thank you,” she said softly, not sure Chantel had even heard her over the sound of the surf.
The detective reached over, squeezed Bloom’s fingers, and Bloom knew she’d heard.
* * *
EVEN IN LOOSE-FITTING scrubs with her hair tied back, the young woman was exceptional to look at. The combination of loosely contained blond hair, blue eyes and dark skin was quite striking. As was the perfect shape of her young body, the grace with which she moved.
Juan Cordoba had dark hair, dark eyes. “You don’t look much like your brother,” Sam said as they settled in a conference room down a quiet hallway filled with what looked like labs in the back of the clinic.
“I got permission to use this room so we won’t be disturbed,” the woman said, closing the door and motioning Sam toward the table.
“And Juan’s my half brother,” she told him, taking a seat across from him and folding her hands on the table. “We have different mothers.”
He wondered if they’d been raised together. Were close enough for the sister to arrange a drug deal for her brother. For the sister to have ties to the East Side gang her brother ran.
Or if Sam was heading toward another dead end.
“Juan said you wanted to speak with me.”
“That’s right. It didn’t take him long to find you. You two close?”
“He watches out for me,” was all she said. But Sam started to feel better. Enough so that he listened to his instincts and took a chance.
“Tell me about you and Kenneth Freelander.”
He had to hand it to her. She showed no fear. No fidgeting. She just looked...sad.
“What do you want to know?”
I was right. I’ve got him. Sam didn’t let his relief get away with him. Didn’t take his piercing stare away from his subject even for a split second.
“When your affair began, for starters. How long it lasted.” Reading her, he played to the sadness.
“Kenneth and I didn’t have an affair. We were going to be married.”
“You were lovers up until two years ago, when he was sent to prison. Lovers while he was still teaching, right? That’s how the two of you met. In class.” He was winging it. But it made too much sense to be wrong. He’d been over every step Freelander took on that campus and Bloom had filled in the blanks for their time together at home. Jean had to be the gang connection...
“I met him at a lecture he was giving,” the woman said. “Some guys were bothering me and he told them to get lost. We fell in love my junior year. He’s the one who told me to take his class. So we could see each other every day. Have more excuses to be seen together. He said he loved me and wanted to marry me.”
She could be faking the hurt in her voice, but he didn’t think so. And he wondered how Juan felt about Freelander breaking his little sister’s heart.
Or if she’d been a necessary casualty for a bigger, more profitable cause. If maybe Freelander, whose medical license was legal now that the revocation of it had been revoked, was still providing drugs to Cordoba and his guys...
He couldn’t get ahead of himself.
“You do realize he was already married, right?” he asked.
“He was going to divorce her. He was just waiting for the right time...”
Waiting for Bloom to be so drugged she wouldn’t fight him? Sam didn’t think so. Freelander had just been playing the girl. Like he played everyone...
“You said you were going to be married. What changed?”
She shrugged.
“Did you change your mind when he went to prison?”
Her gaze shot up. “Of course not! I loved him.”
What was it about the bastard that earned such loyalty? From Bloom. Jean. And who knew how many others?
“Why did you choose the name Barb Miller?”
If he had to, he could pull prison videos to verify that he had his woman. But it would take a subpoena. And time.
Her chin jutted forward. “You don’t know that was me.”
She’d just told him it was with that statement. “What was you?”
Her hands flew up and landed with a splat on
the table. “Okay, so I used a different name when I went to see him. I didn’t know who all heard about that sign-in sheet and I didn’t want Juan to...”
She broke off. “Your brother didn’t know you were still seeing Freelander?”
“He didn’t know I ever saw him. He wouldn’t be into me and an old man. I didn’t want him to find out.”
“You introduced Freelander to Juan without telling your brother you were seeing him?”
“I didn’t introduce them.”
“But the professor knew who your brother was. That he heads up the East Side gang.”
“No way. And Juan’s not like that, anyway. He has some guys, but...”
Either she was lying or she didn’t know her brother very well. Sam wasn’t sure how much time she had. He could come back to that.
“What do you know about Freelander’s feelings for his ex-wife?”
“I know he wanted her to pay for putting him in prison for something he didn’t do.”
“Pay how?”
“He was going to...you know...show her that she couldn’t get away with what she did.”
“Show her how?”
She shrugged. “He used to...you know...talk about how he knew just how to play with her head. He’d keep at her, scaring her, making her worry, until she’d admit what she did. Then he was going to take back all of his money and marry me.”
“So what happened?”
She shrugged.
“I’ll tell you what happened. He got out of prison and found himself another coed, didn’t he?”
“He didn’t even come see me!” She sat upright, her face red with anger. “All that time I visited him and I’m sitting here waiting for a phone call that he’s free. I’m thinking he’s still in prison that he got held up or something...”
“How’d you find out he was at that hotel with a couple of beauties?”
Her face dropped. “He was what?”
“You didn’t know?”
“Hell, no, I didn’t know. All I know is that he didn’t call, and then a couple of days later he finally did. To tell me he’s met someone else. Some girl who goes to Cal State...”
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