The Promise He Made Her (3 page)

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 different men. Both serving their internal drive to be the brightest stars in their career universes.

“How can you sit there and calmly tell me that it won't be long? If what you say is true, you can't possibly know how long it will be before Ken does something else to get himself in hot water. Because if what you're telling me is true, he's going to be after me until he finds me, right? If you have your way, he doesn't find me at all. Which means I have to stay hidden forever.”

Or be found.

She might be slow to see some things, but she was not stupid. Far from it.

“I have a plan.”

It wasn't the look on Sam Larson's face that stopped Bloom's thoughts cold. Or even the words. It was the tone of his voice.

Like he wasn't bullshitting her at all.

Like he was deadly serious.

“Will you at least give me a chance to lay it out for you before you decide?”

The choice was hers. To listen or not. To decide her course of action. Either with him or not.

It would be stupid not to avail herself of all the information.

“I'll listen,” she told him. And she would.

But listening did not mean agreeing with what she heard.

It did not mean doing what she was told.

She was no longer a woman who could do that.

She'd rather die first.

 

CHAPTER FOUR

S
AM
HAD
HER
. He always knew when a subject he was interviewing was going to give him what he wanted. It was some kind of sixth sense he'd been given.

Sick sense, his ex-wife used to say. After she'd fallen out of love with him.

Whatever. He hadn't asked for it. And he used it for good.

This wasn't about having her. It had been. But now that he'd crossed that hurdle, he faced another.

How to make her think capitulation was her idea? How to make it her idea? Because the second he'd seen the spark of fear return to her eyes he'd known what he didn't want to have to do. Control her. Manipulate her. Scare her back into the woman he'd met in that hospital emergency room.

“First, I have a place you can stay that will cost you nothing...”

“I'm not a charity case,” she interrupted, and he swore silently, giving her time to add, “I can afford to pay my own way. And then some.”

“I expect you can afford to pay my way, too,” he told her with complete honesty. “And then some. This isn't about what you can afford. It's about not letting that bastard take another thing from you. Or cost you more than the thousands you already spent on legal fees and counseling...”

She knew he knew the intimate details. So why did he feel as though he'd just knocked on the bathroom door while she was inside?

“And you think leaving my home won't do that?”

He didn't like feeling like a failure in an interview. Had no practice at it. “It also has to do with making you less easy to trace,” he said. “Hear me out, please?” Demanding was going to defeat his purpose.

The one where she was the one in charge and still chose his course of action.

“The place I have, it's everything you told me you love about your house. It's right on the ocean—closer than your house actually. It's not as big—you'd said that you always thought that house was too much space just for you and the bastard. It's higher up so you have the view you'd said was most important to you. And...it's more private.”

She'd pictured a more peaceful setting for their beach home, but Ken had needed people around him. Rich people. All the time. At least that was what she'd told him close to three years before when he'd asked her permission to search her home without a warrant.

“You remember every word I ever said? Or have you been reading my case file?”

“My notes aren't that good. Did you catch the part about this place being private, Bloom? It's set up on a cliff, on private property. Fenced property. There's a small trail down to the ocean. One that can be easily guarded. You'll be safe there.”

Her expression softened. Everything in him pushed for the close. He gritted his teeth and sat there.

“I don't like how easily you can play me,” she told him. And he started to look for angles again. Was much more comfortable doing so.

So...his angle was to get her to agree without losing any sense of the control she'd gained over her life.

“Are you telling me it doesn't sound good to you?”

“It sounds heavenly.”

Good. Hopefully he could get her to agree before she actually saw the place.

“But I need to be right here in the city. I've got early morning appointments and sometimes I don't get home until nine o'clock at night as it is...”

Hours he could relate to. And didn't like to hear her keeping. As if she had no life...

“It is right here in the city.”

“A place like that, here in the city, and it's available?” Her tone had lightened. He took that as a win.

“Yes.”

“That's hard to believe.”

Not as hard as she thought. As she'd soon find out. He'd gotten the place for a steal, on foreclosure, after years of neglect and abuse.

The toilets had been replaced. And the faucets. Structurally it was fine. He'd added braces beneath the porch. Done some painting—so far only on the inside. And covered holes in the walls with cheap prints...

“So, do you think it's a good idea for you to stay there where it'll be easier to keep you safe? At least for the time being?”

The way she stuck her out lower lip, as though she was considering, that was new. Drew attention to how full that lip was...

“So that's your plan?” Her disapproving tone didn't coincide with his thoughts at all. “To have me move to a safer place? Be guarded? Held hostage for the unforeseeable future, in case someday Ken decides to act on a threat that he might not even have made?”

He'd made it. Sam was 100 percent certain of that.

He just had no proof. Yet.

“You honestly expect me to believe if you aren't guarded that you won't be looking over your shoulder every second of every day, living in fear, in case someday the bastard decides to act on a threat that he might not even have made?” The words burst from him. He'd rather scare her than have her beat up again. Or worse.

She had to move. Within the next twenty-four hours. Period.

He'd made a promise to her to keep her safe and he was damn well going to keep it.

* * *

H
ER
INSIDES
MIGHT
be clenching to the point of pain, but Bloom was not going to give in. Fear would not rule her life. Ever again.

Sure, she'd experience the emotion now and then. It was an inevitable part of the human experience. But that didn't mean she had to live it.

Feel it. Breathe. Move on. And it would pass. Fact. Not just theory. Or wishful thinking.

Nor was she going to dumb herself down by refusing to see, or to think about, the fearful challenges that could be in front of her. Having once been robbed of that chance against her will, without even knowing that it was happening to her, she now cherished her ability to face situations and make her own choices in how to deal with them.

“I won't be living in fear,” she said after a minute of careful thinking, in answer to the detective's challenge. “And I already look over my shoulder. Unless my back is against the wall,” she added. A timeless “gift” from her past. An awareness that there is always that which is unseen acting upon you.

His expression didn't change. Nor did his posture. But she knew he was changing tactics even before he spoke. Because she was trained to hear the things people didn't or couldn't say. To see the things that they didn't know were there.

Except for where Kenneth Freelander was concerned. That's what love had done to her. It had used her to prove the truth in the old adage “love is blind...”

“My plan doesn't end with getting you to a safe house.”

She was listening.

“A batterer will batter if he's met with the provocation that brings out that tendency in him,” he continued.

Now he was in her territory. “Unless he's had counseling and learned how to redirect those tendencies,” she said. “Or to recognize the circumstances that prompt them and distance himself from them before they get out of hand.”

Not all abusers were destined to lives of abuse. Science told her that. And she believed it, too. On a professional level. Personally, she couldn't be objective...

“Kenneth has had no counseling.”

He'd know what she'd had no way of finding out.

Bloom looked at his shoes. Those uneventful black loafers. And flashed back to a gray-and-white-tiled floor. Industrial tile. Hospital floor tile. She'd been in the emergency room. Unable to make herself look up from the floor. She'd been too drugged to care enough to try.

And too embarrassed by what had happened to her to face another human being eye to eye. She'd listened as medical personnel spoke to her. She'd heard the voices. The kindness in them had only made everything that much more difficult to bear. She hadn't felt like she'd deserved their kindness. She'd been a fool. The worst kind. Because she'd had the intelligence to know better...

His shoes had been her indication that someone else had entered the room. He'd said something about being on call for the High Risk Team. It was the first she'd heard the term. And had thought he was a doctor. Called in either because she was suspected to have brain damage and could hemorrhage. Or because they'd thought she was a suicide risk.

“I'm Detective Larson,” he'd said then. “And I need you to look at me.” There'd been no kindness in his voice. No demand, either, really. She'd never understood why that voice had moved her. Why she'd raised her head.

Or why she'd instantly trusted him.

“Bloom?”

She looked at him.

“I'm going to see that Kenneth is met with the provocation that will force him to hang himself.”

“That's entrapment.” She was in his territory, but she'd learned a lot since her debut in the court system. Knowledge was power. And inner power led to healing. With her IQ Bloom had had a head start to healthy living.

“Not if it's done right,” he said. “I've already spoken with a detective who is also on the High Risk Team...”

She knew the term now. Intimately. The team, comprised of industry professionals—if you could call intimate partner abuse an industry—was designed to prevent death due to domestic violence.

She'd been in danger of death. At Kenneth's hands. The thought came with the same internal hiccup as always. It was possible her mind would never completely wrap around that truth. She could live with hiccups.

“...Chantel did some undercover work for the team a few months ago...” Sam was saying.

Bloom didn't like that she'd missed part of what he'd been saying. A residual from her drugged days. Already he was sending her back.

Kenneth. And Sam, too.

“I read recently about this village in Northern Kenya,” she said, consciously switching focus, taking control of her thoughts. “Umoja, that's the name of the village...”

She looked Sam Larson in the eye, challenging him to leave her alone.

“It's fully inhabited by women and children, only. No men allowed.”

His eyes narrowed.

“And before you doubt its veracity, you should know that it's thriving, as much as any village in that region thrives. It was founded in 1990 by fifteen women who'd been victims of rape. In Kenya, when a woman is raped, she is blamed, considered unclean and unfit for marriage. If she was unlucky enough to be married at the time of the rape, she is oftentimes subjected to beatings by her husband...”

Drawing a shaky breath, Bloom turned her head, focusing on the flowering bush several yards away. Filled with reds and oranges, the plants reminded her of the paintings in her office. Bold. Vibrant. Sunrise and sunset. The circle of life.

“Women are survivors, Detective,” she said when she could speak calmly. “Many of us have not yet learned our strengths. We aren't raised to know about the core of steel inside of us. But it's there. We nurture. We spread softness, and care for our own, but don't mistake us as being incapable of taking care of ourselves.”

“When I first met you, you said there was no one I could call,” he responded immediately. “That you had no family close by. But I need to know if you have any family, period. Anyone Freelander might contact.”

The tiny voice crying out inside her had to be diminished. She would not crumble. Would not allow Kenneth to have squeezed the heart and soul out of her. She was smart, but she was so much more than a mind that made people curious. Her whole life people had concentrated on that part of her. Her own parents had shipped her off to a university to be raised as a lab rat.

No...she reined in her thoughts again. Those were Kenneth's words, hurled at her in one of his many verbal attacks when she'd been to blame for something he'd done. Carl and Betty, as she'd always called her parents, had loved her to distraction. And had given her some of the best memories of her life during her summer vacations and holidays with them. Betty had sobbed every single time they'd had to say goodbye. And there'd always been moisture in Carl's eyes, too, as he'd stood there with one hand on the big golden retriever they'd purchased the year after she left and who'd been a “child” more suited to the older couple, and the other hand at his wife's waist.

Maybe, if they'd been younger when they'd had her...or prepared to ever have a child...

“My parents are both alive. And I have an aunt and uncle and some cousins. All older than me.”

She never talked to anyone anymore about who she'd been before she'd attracted the attention of the handsome and charming star of the university psych department.

“Are they local?”

She stared at him. Thinking of Ken contacting Betty and Carl. And knowing he wouldn't.

“Because if they are, we need to make certain that they're safe, too...”

“They live in Oklahoma,” she said now, still watching him. “They have a house, and a couple of acres on the farm my father's family owns.”

Her father and father's older brother jointly owned and worked the farm. The final decision to ship her off had been made by the two of them. She'd been six.

Sam nodded. “Good.”

She nodded, too. It was good. And maybe in the fall, if her schedule slowed a little bit, she'd make time to spend a week on the farm. To get back to her roots and know that, no matter what, she was okay. Because she mattered to them all.

They didn't understand her. They were always afraid they were going to do or say the wrong thing. They were intimidated by her. At least her father and uncle were. But they did love her.

And she had to get to LA. Missing an evening out with her friends—most especially because of Ken—would be as unhealthy for her as a heart patient neglecting to take her beta-blocker.

She stood. “Tell me what time you'll get me tomorrow and I will be packed and ready,” she said, facing the detective as he stood, as well. His shoulders were broad. She liked them, anyway. “But I will only go on one condition...”