But the idea sounded good. Really good.
“I figured I’d drive and you could drown your sorrows,” he said, as plain-voiced as if they were discussing which guard was on duty down below.
“She told you.”
Bloom wasn’t surprised. The detectives kept in constant report with each other when it came to Bloom. She’d expect as much.
“Yes.”
She was glad. She’d wanted him to know. And hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Chantel had saved her the trouble.
“Dinner out sounds great,” she said as they split to get in their respective cars. She was always in the lead these days, with a detective behind her.
Protecting her back.
Something she was trying desperately not to get used to.
* * *
THE PUB HE took her to was no place like anyplace she’d ever been before. There were a few scarred dark wooden tables, a long bar and pool tables.
The place was filled with people who obviously knew Sam. Many of them nodded when he came in. As they made their way past the bar and a couple of “Nice to see you here, sirs,” a group of two guys and a woman stood and let Sam and Bloom have their table.
“I didn’t even know a place like this existed in Santa Raquel,” she said. She hadn’t seen a name out front.
“It’s private. Law enforcement and their families and guests only. Run by a couple of retired cops.”
So this was where he came for that beer he’d been skipping lately? “Won’t they think it odd, you coming here with me?”
Wouldn’t it start gossip he’d neither want nor need?
Sam passed her the menu—a single laminated sheet.
“Most everyone here knows who you are,” he said. “A good many of them have been passing around the photo of the fake guard. They’re curious. This way they know who they’re watching out for without making a big deal about it.”
She supposed he made sense. Kind of. While she was a bit uncomfortable, as though she was on stage under lights, she also felt...welcome. And safe.
And that was when she figured out what he was doing.
“You want me to know that Ken’s not just going up against me. That I’m not fighting him alone this time.”
He motioned for the waitress. Nodded at someone behind her. He didn’t look at Bloom, nor did he reply.
* * *
“HE FILED A motion to vacate the decree. The hearing is his chance to show cause to do so. It’s also my chance to present my side to the judge. To convince him that there is no just cause for vacating.”
Sam heard every word she said, in spite of the raucous laughter and uninhibited conversation going on around them. He generally liked the noise, the feeling of letting go of the responsibility of watching out for others for a few hours with others who understood. And were doing the same.
Off-duty cops weren’t in public when they gathered together in that loud and sometimes smoky room at night. They could let go. Be themselves.
Until one of them brought someone who was not part of the brotherhood in to have dinner.
The room was loud. It was nothing compared to what it usually was at nine o’clock at night.
Not that anyone seemed to be complaining. More than the drinking, the letting loose, they had each other’s backs...
“Did you hear me?” She’d raised her voice a notch. He nodded.
He filed a motion to vacate the decree. The hearing is his chance to show cause to do so. It’s also my chance to present my side to the judge. To convince him that there is no just cause for vacating, she’d said.
He felt like he’d read her lips. Like he could hear her even when she was silent.
Impatient for the beer he’d ordered, and the wine she probably needed, he looked around for Bots, the woman who’d moved from the commissary kitchen at the station when Thornton and Wager had retired and opened the place.
He’d recommended the pulled pork. She’d ordered hers without the bun. And with coleslaw. His was coming fully dressed with fries.
Bloom’s hands left the table. He could tell the way her shoulders and body had moved that she was sitting on them. Or at least on her fingertips.
He’d brought her there to make her feel safe and cared for. Not uncomfortable.
He just didn’t know what to do to make the court hearing go her way. He wasn’t a lawyer.
“You need to hire an attorney,” he said, his words following his thoughts. And then realized how dumb that sounded. She had a divorce attorney.
“I’ve already talked to her.”
Of course she had.
He was beginning to feel like a junior officer trying to play with the big boys.
“She said that it would help if you came with me. If you testified.”
He liked the sound of that.
Finally, Bots arrived with their drinks. The soul of discretion, she delivered them with only an under-the-brow look at his companion and an “enjoy” before leaving them alone.
“Kenneth can’t be tried in criminal court, but we can present any evidence we have separate and apart from the prosecutor’s office in a civil case.” Bloom was frowning.
Her testimony had won the criminal case. That and the medical expert’s testimony. He’d come up short.
And the expert witness record had been expunged.
Even if they wanted to, there was no way to get such a testimony now, two years later. No time, either.
They could show her medical records...
“Without you it would be just my word against his. In divorce court where women accuse men of horrible things every day. And he’s quite convincing...”
“So are you.” His gaze was maybe a little too direct, but the point was critical.
She nodded.
“I’ll be there, Bloom. You know that. I’ll do anything I can.”
He wanted to take her hand.
And reached for his beer instead.
* * *
THEY’D TAKEN HIS SUV and Bloom would have liked to close her eyes on the way home. To fall asleep out there in no-man’s-land, on the move with Sam. She sat up, watching the sleepy streets of a town she loved, not wanting to miss a second of his company.
But only because he was one of the few people in her life who knew what was going on. She hadn’t told her friends in LA. A couple of them had been wives of Kenneth’s friends, too. And the others...sorority sisters...she wasn’t going to drag them into this mess.
Lila knew. And the people at The Lemonade Stand. Because she’d missed her weekly session there—she went as a survivor, not a counselor—and had opted not to put out her guard detail for an hour she could afford to miss.
And people at work knew. Because there was a guard in the building.
She supposed anyone who read the news carefully and figured out dates or looked up records might know. Banyon’s cases had been thrown out. It wasn’t impossible to figure out which cases those were.
No one had called her about it and none of her clients had mentioned it, thankfully. “You never talk about yourself,” she said as he made a turn and took the long way home, driving along the coast road rather than through town.
“I’m the detective on your case. Nothing else to tell.” His voice had changed. She detected a note of...defensiveness?
Because of his divorce? Because, due to his guilt, it was a sore spot with him?
Always the counselor, she wanted to know. To help.
You want to help because you care about him.
She did not appreciate the interruption. And was sure that for once her inner voice had it all wrong.
And, anyway, of course she cared. She cared about all of her patients. Only difference was...Sam wasn’t her patient.<
br />
CHAPTER NINETEEN
AS SOON AS they got home, Sam was going to say good-night, and she’d go to her room. He’d do whatever he did out in the house by himself at night. She’d listen to him moving around.
And then, when he went to bed, she’d lie in the dark and think of him lying in the dark, wondering if, even once, he’d lain awake thinking about her, wondering what she slept in.
Chances were that he didn’t think about her tighty-whities equivalent. He hadn’t seen her laundry.
“Thank you for cleaning up, by the way,” he said as they drove along the mostly deserted road. “I was planning to do it this weekend.”
She’d spent Tuesday evening dusting, cleaning bathrooms and floors. “When, Larson? You’re never home during the day. Though you certainly should be. If we don’t get a break soon, I should probably move home.” Even as she said the words, she knew they weren’t her smartest. She needed Sam and his people. At least until they knew who was behind the Gomez warning.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Doctor.”
Her gaze shot toward him at his use of her title. He’d been different all night. She couldn’t figure out how, exactly, and that unsettled her.
“Besides, it’s not you. I always live at the office when I’m on a case. Then I might have five days at home in a row when I’m not.”
She felt a little better but was still on edge.
“And before you think I noticed all the cleaning, I didn’t. Chantel told me about it.”
“She helped.”
“So she said.”
“She tell you you owe her one?”
“Something like that.”
Bloom envied them—Sam and Chantel. They hadn’t known each other well until recently, and yet, they were part of a whole that made them close. The “brotherhood” that included sisters sometimes, too.
Or maybe it was just Chantel being close to Sam that she envied. She had her own sisterhoods. At The Lemonade Stand. In LA. She didn’t need to envy them that part of it...
“You have parents around here, Larson?” It wasn’t like her, using his last name like that, even though she’d heard Chantel do it. But so much of what was going on wasn’t like her. She needed the distance.
“Nope.”
“You’re not from here?” Why she’d always assumed he was she didn’t know, but...
“I grew up a mile from the beach,” he told her. “In a white house with a big deck out back.”
“And your parents didn’t stay?”
“My mom left us when I was four,” he told her. “My father was killed the year after I graduated from the academy.”
Her professional instincts were right on task—telling her that he was masking. Hiding from the emotions that should have accompanied those words. And they were being interrupted by a heart that felt his pain for him.
“Killed how?” If he’d been murdered it would explain why Sam was so dedicated to the job—because he hadn’t been able to save the single parent who’d raised him.
“In the line of duty.”
She watched him in the darkness. “He was a policeman, too?”
“Yes.” He signaled a turn into his driveway and waved at the guard at the gate as he drove through.
He was calm. Normal.
“We’ll need to let Lucy out,” he said as he stopped his SUV next to her Jaguar.
The scene played itself out for her, as though she was her inner voice watching the whole thing. Or someplace outside herself watching.
They were a normal couple, coming home from a night out. Their dog needed to pee and poop. They had a routine. And they’d sleep. Because that was what nights were for.
Bloom got out of the car. She walked with him to the door and went inside.
But she wasn’t going to sleep. She needed...more.
Needed to know how his father had died.
If she knew that, she’d have...something. Something she’d been needing. She’d be...
More.
* * *
HE NEVER SHOULD have taken her to dinner. Sam had figured out the error of his ways ten steps inside the door.
From there it had only gotten worse.
While he didn’t doubt for one second his ability to keep Bloom Freelander safe from her ex-husband, he was beginning to really disappoint himself. He’d told her about his old man.
How could he do something so asinine?
He could just see the questions swirling around in that psychiatrist mind of hers. She’d want to pick him apart. Make a big deal out of something that happened a long time ago.
When he’d long ago let it go.
Lucy did her business at record speed. Probably wanting the treat she knew was waiting inside for her. He encouraged her to run in the yard for a few extra minutes instead. Bloom was supposed to have headed down the hall to bed, leaving him to his painful penis.
A terminal hard-on was better than delving into things that had happened more than a decade ago. Things that were already laid to rest.
One thing he’d learned over the years was that unless there was something forensically significant to be gained, it was wrong to dig up the dead.
He knew for certain there was nothing—forensically or otherwise—to be gained from bringing his old man’s last incident back to life.
Bloom wasn’t going to bed. He could see her in the living room. Sitting on the arm of the couch with a bottle of water in her hand. She’d left the door open for him.
In more ways than one.
He wasn’t heading into the house until she’d closed the bedroom—and any other—door behind her.
When his phone rang, he was almost relieved. It would be work. Maybe a question on an old case. Or a high-profile one they needed him for, in which case they’d send someone out to sit with Bloom for the night.
Not that he wanted bad news for anyone else, but he hoped it was the latter. He needed to get out of there.
At least for an hour or two.
To focus on the only thing that mattered to him personally. His job. Getting the bad guy. Protecting the community.
“Sam, it’s Chantel.”
He’d known as soon as he looked at his phone. And felt his jaw tighten even before he said, “What’s up?”
“Lila McDonald,” she said and he wasn’t sure at first why she’d called him. “The managing director of The Lemonade Stand. Someone knocked out one of the guards on the perimeter of the Stand tonight, around dusk. No one saw anything. But one of the residents reports seeing a guard she didn’t recognize standing not far from where their normal security detail should have been. She noticed her specifically because she had on a beige uniform. They wear green shirts at The Lemonade Stand.”
He stood still, watching Bloom on the couch and willing her to stay there, within his sight.
“The guard she saw was a female? She’s certain of it?”
“More than that, Sam. Baker and Oxley were the responding officers and they showed her our picture from last Friday. She’s certain it was the same woman.”
His mind raced over hundreds of reports—things he’d read over the past few days. “How many of Bloom’s clients are from The Lemonade Stand?”
He’d ask her himself. As soon as he got inside.
“More than half,” Chantel said.
“Those are the ones we need to focus on. Our perp is there.”
“But why use a female guard? How does she play into all of this?”
“I don’t know yet. But I will.”
“Sam? Everything’s under control for tonight. You stay with her. We can start fresh in the morning.”
“The other guard, was he hurt?”
“He’s a she, and no, she’s fine. Be
tter off than Gomez was. She woke up under some trees in a lovely garden, not in a trash bin.”
“But drugged.”
“Hit from behind. Exactly the same MO.”
“It’s not Ken.” The bastard was focused on screwing Bloom in another arena. Using the court system. His text the night of Gomez’s attack had been a coincidence.
“That it’s not Freelander is my assumption, as well.”
“It’s the abuser of one of Bloom’s clients who is currently at The Lemonade Stand. Not a past one.” Clarity was slow in coming. But it was teasing him.
Bloom had two people after her. Not just one.
“I’ll alert Lila to have every one of the Stand’s residents moved to the main house tonight and kept under guard.”
Which was the only way either of them would get any sleep.
He looked at Bloom. Still sitting there. Watching him. Everyone was safe.
For now.
* * *
SOMETHING WAS WRONG. It wasn’t only the late-night phone call that gave Bloom that indication. It was the way Sam had straightened more and more as he’d listened. The way he’d been watching her nonstop.
She sipped from her water bottle. Not really thirsty, but needing something to do.
Nervousness should be descending on her, but it wasn’t. Maybe it was the wine.
She had a feeling her lack of fear might be tied to Sam.
He instilled...confidence.
Because he was such a respected detective. And so dedicated to the job.
So why, when she watched him walk toward her, was she picturing him in those tighty-whities?
Because she was avoiding reality, she told herself. Thinking she was really doing well for coming up with the plausible explanation ahead of her inner voice.
Because she was emotionally healthy. In sync with herself.
“We need to talk,” Sam said before he was even fully inside the door.
Lucy bounded over to Bloom and put her paws on Bloom’s thighs. Burying her face in the red fur, Bloom hugged her. Madge’s arms wrapped around her.
No, Lucy’s did.
And Bloom wished they were Sam’s.
* * *
The Promise He Made Her Page 15
