“Sam...” she used his first name, though he’d never invited her to do so. “What’s going on? Can I help?”
He was there for a reason.
When he shook his head, her heart sank. Please, God, don’t let this man have done something bad enough to put him in jail. A world without him in it, Santa Raquel without him out there keeping it safe...
The idea left her bereft.
His expression cleared. “Yes, you can help.” He seemed to have fought some internal battle and...won?
“Okay.” She smiled. Couldn’t seem to stop smiling at him. Wanted to put her hand on his knee where it rested close to hers. Or on the hand he had resting on it. “What can I do?”
“I need you to do me a favor.”
“Sure. Fine. What?” This was Sam Larson. He’d saved her life. She owed him far more than she’d ever be able to repay.
“I need you to pack up whatever keepsakes and possessions you most value, along with clothes and personal items, and be ready for me to pick you up late tomorrow afternoon.”
She felt the blood drain from her face. Didn’t know her mouth was hanging open until she felt the dryness on her tongue.
“You’re abducting me?” They were the first words that came to her mind. He was in that much trouble?
“Of course not!” He shifted next to her and she felt the holstered gun he always wore under his jacket. He’d have one strapped to his ankle, too. “Well, not in the way you make it sound.”
“But you are planning to take me away against my will.” Her insides were frozen. Not shaking. She wasn’t even sure her heart was still beating.
And she didn’t give him time to answer. “I trusted you.”
He was wearing his badge. She’d seen that hooked to his belt, too, when he’d first taken a seat. He was on the job. Not committing a crime.
Didn’t feel any different to her.
When he bowed his head, she started to shake. Just her hands. Nothing else.
“Banyon.” She managed the one word past the sting in her throat. A tainted prosecuting attorney.
“He was selling guns to certain disreputable persons while prosecuting their competition. Twenty-four of his cases have been thrown out,” Detective Larson was saying. “Drug dealers are going to be back out on the street.”
“I don’t know any drug dealers.”
“You know someone who provided drugs to one in exchange for protection in prison. Drugs he’d been slowly, illegally, siphoning for years.”
To use on her. And others?
“Ken gave away the evidence.”
After a lot of intricate tracking of hidden trails, Sam Larson had found proof that Ken had been writing prescriptions for the various ingredients in the cocktail he’d been feeding her. But they’d never found drugs that correlated with the prescriptions. If he’d fed them all to her, she’d have been dead.
Her mind was working on facts. The rest of her was silent.
Gone.
“I need you to come with me, Bloom. Just for a few weeks.”
“I’m not running from him. I won’t let him make me a prisoner in my own life. Not again.”
“I’m not suggesting that you quit living your life. I’ll have someone posted to watch you at work and anywhere else you want to go. I just need you out of that house. Word came up from his cell block that he has plans for the place...”
“So I’ll sell it.”
“That’s fine. I need you safe in the meantime.”
She wasn’t afraid. Didn’t he get that? At least not of Ken hurting her. What scared her most was giving up control of her life again.
“No. If I run, he wins.”
“If he hurts you, he wins.”
She saw a friend of hers, Dr. Molly Higley, a woman who had an office on her floor, leave the building and get in her car. Bloom wanted to be as free as Molly was. Free to get in her car and drive off to a normal Saturday afternoon.
“I...know some people...inside...”
He had informants. Who’d say anything for favors.
“Word is that he’s going to see you pay...”
But, of course, there was no evidence that Freelander had said such a thing. No way to restrain a man before he committed a crime.
“I need time to build another case against him. Without any of the evidence Banyon presented.”
“With what then?”
“We’ve got this new information about him ditching the drugs to a dealer, for one.”
In exchange for protection in prison.
“Let me guess, some thug’s going to testify to that.” She’d learned how it all worked. Knew far too much.
His shrug wasn’t enough. Because he didn’t have enough.
“And you want me to believe that a thug’s word that a respected professor gave him drugs is going to be enough to convict Ken in court?”
When two and a half years before only her testimony would have been strong enough? And now they wouldn’t have that. Double jeopardy wouldn’t allow it.
“It won’t be enough. No. But it’s a start.” His gaze was piercing. “You’re in danger, Dr. Freelander.”
So they were going with formality again. Fine by her.
“You’re trying to scare me.”
“That depends.”
She hadn’t been asking a question. She’d been stating a fact. She knew what he was doing. What he’d done from the first time she’d met him in the emergency room. Frightened her so much she’d felt she had no choice but to appear in court, face her ex-husband, the man she’d given not only her heart, but her entire future, and talk about how he’d been responsible for her broken jaw. The detective had been right to ask things of her then. She’d taken the stand and taken back her life.
“Depends on what?”
“On whether or not it’s working. I need your cooperation on this, Bloom.”
Bloom again. Back and forth. Push and back off. Forcing her and then letting her choose. He knew how to manipulate, that was for sure.
“How long do you propose keeping me hostage?” She wasn’t going. At least not with him. Maybe she’d check herself into a hotel. Until she could figure out what else to do.
“Not long.”
She studied him. Wanting to trust him. But she’d trusted him when she’d been adamant about not testifying against Ken, and Sam had assured her that they had such an airtight case that nothing could possibly go wrong.
She’d trusted him when he’d told her that the way to ensure freedom from Ken for the rest of her life was to testify...
She’d trusted Ken, too, when he’d promised to love and honor her.
Turned out he’d been more threatened by her intelligence, her ability to surpass him in their chosen field, than in love with her.
And the self-admitted wedded-to-his-job detective needed her to close his case. Again.
Two very