Sweet Dreams Boxed Set

by Brenda Novak

  “Barely. A farmer up Highway 50 found her at the bottom of a culvert, looks like she fell or was pushed down the hill.” He paused. “She’s in bad shape at Sutter Hospital in Rosedale. I’ve got an officer on the door.”

  “Someone you trust?”

  “Another one of my deputies, not Rosedale PD.” The unspoken suspicions of betrayal within the department filled their minds.

  “Deputy Weist contacted me at home,” Slater continued. “I have to leave Cole and Frankie for a few hours, but they’ll be okay. Apparently your prison doctor is familiar with firearms. She got into my locked gun safe.”

  “I’ll meet you at the hospital,” Cruz said, nearly choking. “And she’s not my prison doctor.”

  Cruz heard the laughter in Slater’s voice. “Whatever you say.”

  Slater and Cruz arrived at the Rosedale hospital at the same time, meeting in the parking lot. “Angie’s on the third floor, intensive care,” Slater informed him. “I don’t know if we can talk to her.”

  Deputy Waylon Higgins, a large black man taller and wider than Cruz, guarded the door to Angie’s hospital room. He looked alert and ready for any possible confrontation.

  Cruz and Slater looked at Angie through the glass windows of ICU. She was hooked up to several monitors. Her face was a mess of bruises and bloody contusions, her ribs and chest thickly bound. An IV tube fed her glucose and blood, and a breathing tube entered her nostrils. She lay as still as if she was dead while Cruz watched intently to catch the shallow rise and fall of her breathing.

  Slater flashed his badge at the doctor on call. “How is she?”

  The doctor shook his head. “Too early to tell. Surgery set the badly broken ribs, and sutures took care of the cuts. She’s unconscious, which is the best thing for her right now.” He looked down at the chart. “She couldn’t talk to you even if she was awake. Bastard nearly crushed her larynx.”

  He turned away. “We’ll know more by morning. The next twenty-four hours are critical. If she makes it that long, she might be out of the woods.”

  Frankie didn’t care about the strict rules Cruz and Sheriff Slater had given her. Her patient was recuperating nicely, his fever was normal, and his wound was healing with no redness or puffiness around the site of the stitches. He was no longer in any medical danger.

  As for the other kind of danger, well, she figured they were all at risk there. A killer was running rampant in the area – two killers in her mind. Sitting around Slater’s great room, they’d discussed at length the possibility of two distinct kinds of suspects in the violent deaths of three people, and the attack on Angie Hunt.

  The men had nixed the idea, but Frankie there could be one killer playing out his sick fantasies of sexual pleasure. And another one, practical and clear-minded, murdering innocent people to harvest their organs. Why else would some victims be missing organs and others not?

  Cruz had called to say Angie was in a coma under heavy guard at the hospital, so there were no answers forthcoming from that direction. Neither Slater nor Cruz had any idea who was behind the illegal organ trafficking. Possibly Anson Stark from his caged cell in prison, but also someone on the outside. A person who definitely had some kind of training in the rudiments of anatomy.

  Frankie knew that venturing out on the street was a foolish move, but how else to get answers? How else was she going to determine how seriously injured her father was, lying in ICU at Sutter General Hospital?

  She’d decided to leave, and because she didn’t want the hassle of dealing with the two strong-minded and stubborn men insisting on protecting her, she’d do it without telling them. Slater’s old Chevy truck was gone, as was Cruz’s jeep. That left a late-model Ford that Slater kept in the non-attached garage.

  She had no idea where the keys were, but searched briefly around the kitchen, inside the miscellaneous drawer that everyone kept for junk, in the utility room for a key peg, and in the garage itself. She found nothing.

  No matter. Along with teaching Frankie how to shoot a gun and defend herself against physical attack, her father has taught her how to hotwire a car. A skill her aunt had not appreciated when she learned that Frankie had been sneaking out at night, trying to find out who had really killed her mother.

  She was absolutely certain it hadn’t been her father. Just as certain as her aunt, her mother’s sister, had been of Roger’s guilt.

  Cole was sleeping when she entered his room, but roused with a light touch on his arm. “I have to go out, Cole, but I’ll be back soon.” She nodded toward the pitcher of water on the nightstand. She’d refreshed it and brought a clean glass, along with a sandwich wrapped in a zippy bag. “Here’s everything you’ll need. Water, food, Tylenol. Don’t get up except to use the bathroom.”

  She looked around the spacious room. “You’ll be safe here. If I don’t return when Officer Cruz comes back, tell him – tell him I had to finish up some business.” She patted his arm. “You’ll be okay.”

  After giving him another pain pill, she left.

  In the garage the Ford’s wires caught a charge and the engine hummed to life.

  Good girl.

  She backed out of the gravel turnabout onto the two-lane road that led down to Placer Hills and then farther southwest to Sacramento and Sutter Hospital.

  Chapter 58

  Frankie used her medical identification from Pelican Bay to gain access to the ICU at Sutter General. “I’m his only living relative,” she explained to the fresh-faced correctional officer on guard at the door to Roger Milano’s room.

  He eyed her badge suspiciously, but after a glance at the nursing station, empty at the moment, he nodded her in. “Just a few minutes,” he said. “He’s critical.”

  “Do you know what happened to him?”

  The guard stared at his boots, too young to form the right words to ease the grief of this pretty lady. “Knife stabs. Multiple.” He looked into her gray eyes. She didn’t look scared or repulsed. “He was attacked by a bunch of inmates, uh, I guess you know, at Folsom Prison.” He looked back down as if addressing his feet again. “I’m real sorry, ma’am.”

  Ma’am? Frankie guessed she was ancient compared to the young officer at the door. She gloved up and masked her face before entering the ICU room, not wanting to compromise her father’s health. She hadn’t seen her father in months what with her job at Pelican Bay, moving into the cottage in Crescent City, and tracking down the trouble at the prison.

  He looked frail, too thin for a man his age and size. Slowly she pulled back the sheet that draped him to the neck. She almost gasped aloud. She’d seen many knife fights in prison – serious wounds, fatal ones – but she’d never seen so many on one person who’d survived.

  His arms, shoulders and hands were riddled with superficial cuts, but his torso showed multiple deep lacerations, some of which must’ve entered, and critically damaged, vital organs. Even his groin, hips and legs weren’t spared the stabbing and cutting. Whatever this attack was about, it was meant either to kill him outright, or to be a severe warning.

  But what warning? And why? Roger’s incarceration at Folsom had been relatively quiet, few scuffles, no outright attacks. What had changed?

  Frankie couldn’t help believing it was about her. But only two people knew she was related to Roger Milano – Walt Steiner and the attorney John Wright. She couldn’t think of anyone else. Did the warden or any prison administrator or correctional officer know she was related to a convicted murderer serving time in Folsom State Prison?

  She replaced the sheet, and after pulling a hospital chair close to the bed, held her father’s hand. She stroked his face, ran her hand over his bruised knuckles. He’d fought back against his attackers. “Dad, can you hear me? It’s Frankie.”

  She sat with him for fifteen minutes before he moved restlessly, groaned, and opened his eyes. He stared at her as if he couldn’t believe she was real. With a glance at the doorway, he saw the officer on guard, turned to look back at her, a wry sm
ile on his face.

  “I – I was afraid I wouldn’t see you again.” He lifted his good hand as if to touch her face, but dropped it back on the blanket. “You can’t be here,” he said, turning away from her. “It’s dangerous for you. For me.”

  “I’m not leaving, Dad. Semper Fi, remember?”

  He scowled, tried to put anger in his weak voice. “Look at me. See what they did? If they’d do this to me, what do you think they’d do to you? There are people who can’t know you and I are related.”

  “I’m not worried about myself.” She examined his face critically with those cool gray eyes so much like her mother’s. Gently turned his jaw back and forth, probed the wound on his skull. Pulled down the sheet again and examined the deep wounds on his torso. “Did they hit anything vital?”

  “Nothing that won’t mend.” Roger groaned and tried to sit up.

  She eased him back by the shoulders. “Careful, Dad. You were seriously attacked and you need rest. That’s the best medicine.”

  She stood up, kissed him on the forehead, and started to leave.

  “No, don’t go yet.” He tugged at her fingers. “There are some things I have to tell you, why you’re not safe here. Why you have to get out of Pelican Bay, out of the state, maybe even the country.”

  “What are you talking about? I know all about Anson Stark and his white supremacist gang, about their illegal activities.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.” He clutched her hand harder and she was sure it cost him in pain when he winced. “It’s about more than the Professor’s gang activities and his control over the illegals.”

  She glanced at the door. “Dad, they won’t let me stay much longer.”

  “You’ve got to hear this, Frankie. It’s important. It’s related to your mother’s death.”

  Stunned, she collapsed into the visitor chair. “Mom? What about her?”

  Roger closed his eyes, looking drawn and exhausted. “Anson Stark – he – I – your mother and I – ”

  “Anson Stark! What are you talking about? The man tried to have me killed, Dad.” She loosened his grip on her hand. “How could you and Mom possibly be mixed up with a vicious man like him? It doesn’t make sense.”

  Roger’s voice grew hard. “I didn’t say he was a good man, Frankie. You’re right. He’s a vicious monster. Was one long before he murdered his wife and ended up in Pelican Bay.”

  “Yet you joined his gang,” she accused, addressing the ink on his fingers.

  He glanced down, colored. “I had to join a gang for safety and – and I wanted to find out what happened the night your mother died.”

  Chapter 59

  The ICU physician entered the room at that moment, stopped short when he saw Frankie. “He can’t have visitors,” he said abruptly.

  “I’m a medical doctor and he’s my father.” She looked him steadily in the eye, willing him to make an exception for her.

  The doctor didn’t answer, but checked Roger’s vitals, asked a few brief questions about how he felt, and made notes on his chart. When he finished, he turned to Frankie. “You can stay a few minutes longer, but he needs rest. As a physician, you should know that,” he chided as he left the room.

  Frankie returned immediately to the topic. “Daddy, what you said makes no sense. How did you even know the Starks? He was a professor and you were – ”

  “Right, I was a mechanic. But I also worked nights and weekends at the community college, janitorial services.” He lowered his eyes as if the admission shamed him.

  “I – I didn’t know that.” Sadness swept over Frankie. How could she have been so self-absorbed? “Were we ... poor? Did we need the money?”

  “Business was a bit slow then, but I wish now I’d never met the man. Anson Stark is cruel and dangerous, but I didn’t know it back then.”

  “What happened?”

  Her father snorted disgustedly. “What happened was he took an interest in your mother. An inappropriate interest in her.”

  Sergei had gnawed on his dilemma all night, whenever the vodka fog cleared his head a minute or two. Finally, by morning he’d decided he had no choice. He hated trusting cops, but now he had no choice. As in Russia, here it was a dog-eat-dog world. And Sergei didn’t care so much to be someone’s dinner.

  He hitched a ride to Placer Hills, and was waiting in the lobby when Sheriff Slater arrived at the courthouse which housed the Bigler County Sheriff’s Department. Rising on shaky legs from the liquor hangover, Sergei approached the Sheriff. “May I talk to you, please?” he asked, avoiding Slater’s eyes.

  The steady gray eyes made him uneasy although the Sheriff had always been good to the homeless, always a friendly word even to the drunkest of them. “I got important information,” he added, speaking to a spot above Slater’s head.

  Slater eyed the scruffy man, his torn and stinking clothes, his breath strong with alcohol. “What’s your name?”

  “Sergei, sir,” he answered. “Sergei Petrovich.”

  “What’s the information about?”

  Sergei glanced quickly around the waiting area. “Not here. Inside your office.” When Slater hesitated, he whispered. “Please, man, don’t turn me away. Is important.”

  Slater nodded, turned around, and entered his office. Sergei followed, but didn’t sit down even when the Sheriff indicated the guest chair opposite his desk.

  “So what’s this about?” Slater asked, folding his hands on the desk top.

  “Is about Angie, the woman at Jesus Sav – ”

  “I know who she is,” Slater interrupted. “What about her? Do you know something?”

  “I see the man who take her. I know this man.” Sergei looked over his shoulder again. “I need protection, man. You gotta protect me.”

  “First tell me what you know. Who was the man you saw take Angie Hunt?”

  “Is police,” Sergei answered, his lower lip trembling like a little kid. “Thas why I gotta be careful. Police, politsiya,” he repeated, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe it himself, and didn’t expect anyone else to.

  “Who? A deputy?”

  “No, no man, Rosedale Police. I don’t know name, but I know face real good.”

  The weight of dejection pressed down on Frankie like an anvil, heavy and weighty. Her father had given her answers – some answers – but not nearly enough. She would’ve stayed longer, insisted on details, but he was getting weaker by the moment. She could see he badly needed rest.

  He insisted again that he was innocent of her mother’s murder. She believed him. She’d always believed him, even when the family and the state and the jury said otherwise. Now she knew there was another factor involved in her mother’s death – some connection with the Lords of Death white prison gang and Anson Stark.

  What, though? Stark had organized his white supremacy gang nearly a decade after her mother’s death. What connection could there be?

  Frankie’s mind was confused and troubled as she left the hospital. Her father had never tried to lay the blame on anyone else. Never tried to explain where he was or what he’d been doing the night of her mother’s death. Frankie knew he’d danced with her at Homecoming – that much was proof. Scores of students and teachers had seen him lead Frankie onto the gym floor in the traditional dance.

  But that had been around 10:00 pm. The last she’d seen of her father was when he’d kissed her cheek and walked off through the decorated high school quad around 10:30 while she returned to mingle with her date and friends. The dance had ended at 11:00, but Frankie hadn’t gone home right away.

  She and her friends had attended an after-dance party at Colleen Chin’s house. They’d goofed around, played games, and watched videos until well after 2:00 am. She wasn’t worried about breaking her curfew. This was her special night, and her parents had extended curfew because she was so reliable and trustworthy.

  When her date dropped her off at 3:05 am, she had no idea what tragedy had occurred in the hours since s
he’d last seen her father. She had no idea her mother lay bleeding and dead from multiple knife wounds, and that Roger Franklin Milano was already in handcuffs and on his way to the police station.

  Chapter 60

  Angie Hunt woke from her coma much sooner than the medical staff had expected. Weak and barely able to speak from the trauma to her throat and body, she signaled for a pen and paper. I want Cruz, she wrote, and fell back on the pillow, exhausted from that small effort.

  Cruz and Slater came immediately. Detective Andrew Flood, still in charge of the investigation, was already in the hospital lobby, looking ominously disgruntled.

  “You know you can’t rely on the word of a recovering addict, supposedly recovering hooker, right?” He snapped at them as they stepped out of the elevator. “An unreliable eye witness.”

  “You pissed she asked for me and not you, Flood?” Cruz raised his voice, stepped closer to the shorter man.

  Slater stepped between them. “We’ve got another witness, Flood. If he corroborates what Angie says, that’s good enough for a warrant.”

  “Let’s just hope she’s well enough to communicate with us,” Cruz said. He worried that the feisty, but slight, woman had been seriously damaged.

  The on-call nurse allowed them five minutes with Angie. “No more,” she insisted. “She’s not out of the woods yet.”

  In her hospital bed, Angie was hooked up to a wild thatch of tubes and machines. She looked weak and ashy, but her dark eyes lighted up when she saw Cruz enter in front of Slater and Flood.

  “Get him outta here,” she muttered in a barely audible voice, nodding toward Flood. “I don’t like Detective Flood and he knows why.”

  Flood sputtered indignantly. “It’s my case, Slater. You’ve got no right – ”

  Slater put his arms around Flood and corralled him toward the door, speaking quietly but firmly. “We won’t get any information if she’s disturbed by your presence, Andy.”