by Julia Derek
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Prologue
Chapter 1
SINS OF THE PAST
Julia Derek
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Published by Adrenaline Books
Copyright © 2016 by Julia Derek
This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Published as an e-book December 2016 by Adrenaline Books.
To find out more about the author and to sign up for her new books release, visit
JuliaDerek.com
Cover design by Covermint Design.
* * *
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* * *
Prologue
Diego Martinez walked through Central Park after midnight, and once more he got the sense that someone was following him. He had felt this way pretty much since he walked on the block outside Café Lola, the high-end restaurant that he managed. But tossing a glance over his shoulder, all he could see was a couple holding hands walking over a small bridge in the opposite direction. Few people were out tonight despite that it was an unusually warm fall night, almost sixty degrees still. He shook his head. This was ridiculous; no one was following him! Why would anyone do such a thing? He wasn’t exactly the ideal rape victim with his broad shoulders and wiry, strong male body. Even so, he picked up his pace a little.
He thought about how happy his wife would be when he told her about the unexpected bonus he’d be getting at the end of the year; with her staying home with their two small kids, they could use it. They both preferred to live frugally, however, so that the kids could be raised by their mother until both were old enough to enter kindergarten. Then Kate would start to work part-time and they could spend more. Living in Manhattan was very expensive.
The thought of two-year-old Anna and Luis, who was about to turn four, put a smile on Diego’s lips. He was so lucky, having a beautiful, sweet wife, two healthy, smart kids and a job that paid well and that he loved most of the time. When the kids were much older, he and Kate might start their own restaurant just like his parents had done back in Texas. The smile grew wider. That would be something. He gave a light sigh of pleasure. Who would have thought he would get to be so happy? When he was a young teenager, he had had other plans for his future. Thankfully, those didn’t pan out. He couldn’t believe he had once even considered staying a member of the Latin Devils for life. If he had, chances were he would be dead now.
He forced himself to stop thinking about his time as a gang member. That was a long time ago now. Sins of the past. Sins that needed to stay in the past. He hadn’t even shared them with his wife for fear of her rejecting him. She hated gangs and shady people. Even though he had never done anything truly bad, certainly never killed anyone or hurt anyone badly like so many of his fellow gangbangers had done, he still felt guilty about the crimes he had been part of. It was still bad. As wonderful as Kate was, he didn’t think she would ever understand why he had chosen to be part of the Latin Devils. Maybe if it had been his only choice it would be different. But the fact of the matter was that no one had forced him to become a gang member; no, he had done it on a foolish dare as a thirteen-year-old boy.
Of course, he had paid dearly for that mistake. He almost died getting out of the gang.
He was halfway through the park now. The full moon had disappeared behind a gathering of light gray clouds, casting his surroundings in darkness despite lots of streetlights along the road he was on. Again, he got that niggling sense that someone was walking behind him, following him. He turned his head to check if he could see anyone, but no one was there. All he could see were lots of bushes and trees at the edges of the road.
Looking ahead, he half jogged up the hill. He should get out of the park. Even though he was sure he was only imagining that someone was after him, it was safer. In the last year, there had been a few assaults occurring in the park; he had read about them in the news. He shouldn’t push his luck. He had too many people who depended on him.
Content with his decision, he made a left turn at the top of the hill. All he needed to do was walk through a short tunnel beneath a cluster of trees, and then he would be near an exit to the street.
It was when he was halfway through the tunnel that he realized that he had been wrong; someone had been after him all along and now he or she was right behind him. But it was too late. The big, sharp thing that punctured his lung in the back made it impossible for him to scream for help. All he could do was try to get away. He stumbled out of the tunnel, into the shadows of the trees, but he didn’t get far until he felt another stab from behind. He turned around to try to defend himself, see who was attacking him so viciously. But he couldn’t see the person’s face; it was covered by a black ski mask. He noted this only vaguely as his attacker kept plunging the knife into him, cutting the hands he had raised to block it. The pain was excruciating.
He soon collapsed on the ground, too weak to defend himself effectively, and all he felt was pain as the stabs rained over his body. Pain, so much pain.
* * *
Chapter 1
The day of Diego’s funeral was not quite as unbearable as Kate Martinez had envisioned it to be. Yes, she was still numb with grief and missed her husband so much it hurt. She still couldn’t understand what their two small children had done to deserve such a cruel fate, growing up fatherless. Why Diego himself had deserved what had happened to him. It was all so very unfair. She and Diego were both so young, they had only been married four years. Because of the monster who had stabbed him to death, she was now a single mother without a job.
Despite wanting to crumble into a heap, Kate managed to stand up straight as the black casket disappeared into the big hole in the ground. She wiped at the warm tears that kept streaming down her face without interruption and threw the bouquet of red roses into the grave at last. For some reason, she hadn’t been able to let go of it until now. The flowers landed in the middle of all the others piling high on top of the gleaming casket, creating a potpourri of bright color.
She didn’t know how long she had been standing there, staring at what remained of her husband, when she felt a hand tugging gently at her arm.
“Let’s go, Kate,” a soft female voice immediately beside her u
rged. “Everyone else has left and it’s beginning to rain.”
Kate turned to look at the person that wanted her to leave. It was her best friend, Joanna. Joanna, tall and striking with shiny, dark brown hair cut in a neat bob and gorgeous pale skin. She was dressed in a black tailored pantsuit that toned down her curvaceous figure and wore makeup that was more subdued than normal. No red lips or bold eyeliner today.
“I told your mom and the others that I would make sure you got going,” Joanna continued. “They wanted to wait, but I reminded Beatrice that she needed to be at the reception.”
Beatrice was Kate’s mom.
Kate managed a faint nod, and then she let herself be dragged away from the grave in the direction of the black town car waiting for them near an oak tree. She knew she didn’t have much time to waste. There was so much to do. She needed to attend the funeral reception at her mother’s house in Queens, even though the last thing she felt like doing was talking to people and receiving their condolences. But she had no choice; not showing up and going straight home to relieve the nanny from Luis and Anna was just not an option. Especially since so many people had traveled so far to be part of the funeral. For example, Diego’s parents and sister had come from Texas, and Diego’s maternal grandparents had traveled all the way from Mexico. It was because the grandparents had wanted to be part of the burial that they had waited two weeks to bury Diego. She had to grin and bear it for an hour or two, make sure she thanked everyone for coming. Considering that she needed to find a job as soon as possible, she might keep the nanny for the rest of the day anyway. She would not be able to search the Internet and send out resumes with the kids around, wanting her attention. Not that she had tried yet. It was only this morning that she told herself that she simply must snap out of the all-encompassing grief and accept what had happened, then do something about it. Do something as in finding a way to support herself and her family now that her husband was gone. They couldn’t continue to live on the money her mother and Diego’s parents had given them for much longer, and soon their meager savings would run out.
Then there was the meeting with the detectives on Diego’s murder case. She couldn’t keep them waiting any longer. They needed to get to the bottom of what had happened to her husband. The two detectives who’d come to their house in the days following his attack had already done a preliminary interview with her, but because she had been so grief-stricken, they had agreed to go easy on her and do a more in-depth interview at a later date.
She sighed with resignation; she might as well take care of that today as well. It was not yet noon, so hopefully the detectives would be available. She didn’t think talking about her husband and what had happened in more detail would be any less difficult if she waited another day.
As she and Joanna entered the town car that would take them to her mother’s house, she found her cell in her purse. Having speed-dialed Cassie, the nanny, she placed the phone against her ear.
The nanny picked up after several rings, right before the call could go into voicemail.
“Hello.”
Kate quickly cleared her throat. “Hi, Cassie, it’s Kate.”
“Oh, hi, Kate. Is everything okay?”
“Yes. How are Luis and Anna?”
“Anna is napping and Luis is drawing a castle for me. They’ve been wonderful this morning, quiet and easy.” Kate could tell that Cassie was smiling.
“That’s good. Hey, are you able to stay this afternoon, possibly the evening? I have a few things I need to take care of, and it will be easier if I don’t have to deal with the children then. I’ll pay you double your usual fee.”
“Yes, sure, I can totally do that and you don’t have to pay me double. You’re already giving me more than any other parent I sit for.”
This time it was Kate who was smiling. She had really lucked out when she’d found Cassie; not only did the kids love the college girl, but she was such a sweet, responsible, mature person. She had a feeling Cassie knew Kate was strapped for cash, even if Kate would never admit such a thing unless it was absolutely necessary. So far, it hadn’t been.
“Thank you, Cassie, that’s so nice of you,” she said warmly. “I’ll be home in a couple of hours.”
They said goodbye, and then Kate called the number on the card she had gotten from Detective Cooper. She had been prepared to leave a voicemail, but the detective picked up after the first ring had gone through.
“Wilhelmina Cooper,” a female voice said in a confident tone.
“Hello, it’s Kate Martinez. I’m ready to talk to you now. Later today sometime, if possible.”
“Hello, Mrs. Martinez. That sounds good. Hold on a sec, will you?”
“Sure.”
Kate could hear how Detective Cooper said something to a person beside her. A few seconds later, she was back on the line.
“My partner and I can be at your apartment at five p.m. today. How does that sound?”
“That would work just fine.”
“Great, see you then.”
* * *
Chapter 2
Detective Wil Cooper put away her cell phone and looked at her partner, a stocky black man with a goatee by the name of Larry White.
“So that was Diego Martinez’s widow getting back to us,” Wil said with a smug little smile. “That’s who we’re seeing at five today. I told you we’d get a call soon. You need to start trusting my judgment more.” Her sharp green eyes went to the nearly finished double cheese burger in his big hand. “And that goes for your diet, too. If you keep eating all that crap, it’s only a matter of time before you have a heart attack.”
“Whatever,” Larry said and shoved the rest of the greasy burger into his mouth. He chewed quickly, then swallowed the food and leaned against the back of the passenger seat in their squad car. “It’s my body and I put whatever I want in it. I’m not a rabbit like you. I need real food to function properly.” He patted his belly that was somewhat chunky under the charcoal sports jacket. “Besides, the ladies love me and I want them to have more of me.” He sent her a pleased grin.
Wil couldn’t help but chuckle; Larry always had a smartass response to pretty much everything she said.
“Well, I’m sure they can’t get enough of you and your stomach,” she retorted dryly, having forced herself to be serious again. “Now let’s focus on the Diego Martinez case. Let’s go over what we have so far so we’re prepared when we see the widow again.”
“Okay.” Larry wiped his hands and mouth carefully with all the paper napkins he had picked up at the McDonalds they had visited half an hour ago upon his insistence. It took him several seconds before he was finished; the man was a stickler for cleanliness. In the meantime, Wil got going talking, consulting a police report that she had pulled up on her iPad.
“Diego Martinez was on his way home from a late shift as the general manager at Café Lola on East Sixty-third Street and Madison Ave. Sometime between the hours of twelve twenty and one a.m. October twenty-seventh, he was assaulted as he was walking through a short tunnel in the midwestern part of Central Park. All of his valuables were stolen. The area near the west side of the tunnel was poorly lit, making it hard for anyone to see what the perp looked like had there been any eyewitnesses to the killing. So far, no one has come forth. Because the stab wounds appear to have been done by one person only we believe the killer acted alone, which, after sneaking up on the victim and stabbing him first in the left lung, would be easy to do even for a woman. The two wounds in the back weren’t immediately fatal, nor were the ones delivered to the front of the body. The vic was left to bleed out in the grass right outside the tunnel. He was dead within thirty minutes. The body was discovered by a woman walking her dog at six thirty a.m. that same day. As of this morning, we still have no suspects to speak of. Because of the amount and precision of the sixteen stab wounds, we don’t believe it was a crime of opportunity despite that all the vic’s valuables were stolen—What?”
Larry ha
d raised a meaty palm.
“You don’t believe it was a crime of opportunity,” he said. “I still think it may be, and that it just so happened that none of the sixteen cuts the perp applied to the vic were fatal.”
“Fine,” Wil acquiesced. I don’t believe it was a crime of opportunity, but that someone had it out for Diego Martinez, or possibly his wife since she’s now an unemployed single mother of two small kids and has no money to speak of.”
“Based solely on the fact that none of the wounds were fatal and all of them seemingly precise.” It wasn’t a question, but a confirmation of what they both already knew was the reason Wil kept drawing her conclusion.
“Yes,” she said, sighing lightly. “I just don’t buy that anyone randomly stabbed him in that way. The killer knew what he or she was doing. He or she wanted to make the victim suffer as much as possible.”
Larry shrugged. “So maybe we’re dealing with a psychopath and a career criminal, though I doubt it. I’m telling you, it’s not all that unusual to stab someone several times without the person immediately dying from the wounds. Wait until you’ve been on the force as many years as I have. You’ll see.”
Wil gazed at him with half-closed eyes, her chin raised. “Oh, yeah? You think a few more years make that much of a difference? I’m not a rookie myself, you know.”
Unlike Larry, who’d been a cop twenty-three years, Wil had only been one for ten, and a detective for five. But she had been on the force since she finished college. Well, ever since she had gotten sober; a good chunk of the summer following her graduation at Miami U was a drunken blur, just the way it had been when she went to school. In fact, it was amazing that she had ever managed to graduate. In hindsight, she concluded that she had been a highly functioning alcoholic. It was only after she started working as a waitress that she lost control of herself, trashing the restaurant where she had been employed, that she realized she had a problem. A big problem. So she decided to get sober forever, then to become a cop instead of a lawyer, which had been her original plan. Now, ten years later, at age thirty-one, she still didn’t regret picking a different profession. Having dealt with lots of lawyers over the years, she was pretty sure she would have been miserable being one herself. She had never been good at office politics and playing the game. As a cop, things were more straightforward, the way she preferred it.
