L.A.P.D. Special Investigations Series, Boxed Set: The Deceived, The Taken & The Silent (4 page)

“Fine. Keep it confidential.” She handed back the photograph. “I’d like you to leave now.”

But what she wanted apparently didn’t matter. He just stood there looming over her, his expression vigilant and intense, his chest expanding, then contracting with each breath he took.

“Okay,” he finally said. “But first…”

He drew something else from his pocket, handed her what looked like another photo.

Her heart pounding, she retreated a step. She didn’t want to take it, didn’t want to look. But like a driver passing the scene of a horrible accident, she was unable to stop herself. She reached out and snatched the photo from his hand.

The same man and the same woman, who appeared to be Latino, as well as a little boy, no more than two, were standing by a boat.

They were smiling—and just looking at them made Jillian’s eyes hurt. With trembling fingers, she turned over the photo.

Jack, Corita and Bobby Sullivan Jr. Mirador. June 2010.

“Where’s Mirador?” she asked.

“It’s in Costa Rica.”

“Oh.” She had nothing more to say.

“Your husband also went by the name Jack, didn’t he?”

She closed her eyes, hoping this was all a bad dream and that when she opened them, Detective Adam Ramsey would be gone.

But when she did, he was still there, waiting for a response.

Robert John Sullivan Jr. Rob’s mother had called him Jack to differentiate between her son and his father. Jillian had met Rob after his father had died and Rob had started going by his given name. But the people to whom he’d been closest had always called him Jack. Sometimes so had she. Her head spun, she felt dizzy and placed a hand against the wall for support.

Ramsey reached out.

She waved him away. There had to be an explanation, most likely a simple one. As firmly as she could, she said, “It’s obviously a mistake. Maybe the dates are wrong. Maybe someone who looks like my husband wanted to disappear and has taken his name. Or…or someone who wanted to assume a new identity picked the name from the obituaries and made himself look the same. I’ve heard of that being done…heard on television or somewhere. There was a program…20/20, I think…”

Her voice sounded not her own, and she was rambling, probably not making sense. The next thing she knew, Ramsey was at her side, urging her to the chair. He poured a glass of tea and brought it to her.

What did he think? That her husband was somehow still alive? Was that what this was all about? Well, it couldn’t be.

Could it?

She shook her head and waved the glass away. “I can see where you’re going with this, Detective…and I know what it looks like. But you’re wrong. Very wrong. My husband’s world revolved around his family. He loved us and he loved his life with us.

“That man may resemble my husband, Detective, and he may have the same name, but that’s where any similarity ends.”

“There could be mitigating circumstances.”

“Like what?” she spat, angry and hurt and confused and hating the man pressuring her to do something abhorrent. “Jack would never have willingly left us, his family. Not without a gun to his head.”

“Another possibility,” Ramsey said softly.

Tears welled in her eyes, but she forced them back. “The man in that photograph has no gun to his head. So…so I think that possibility can be ruled out. Now, please go.” She thrust the photo at him.

“Okay.” He set down the glass and went to the door where he stood for a moment before saying, “I’ll be in town for another day, then I’m heading back to L.A.” He laid a card on the small table by the door. “The number where I’m staying is on the back of the card. I sincerely hope you’ll change your—”

“Please…go.”

CHAPTER THREE

JILLIAN SAT ON THE couch for the longest time listening to the click, click, click of the fan oscillating from side to side, wishing she’d had the presence of mind to look more closely at the photos. The man couldn’t be Rob…and maybe there was something in the photo to prove it.

The fact that the pictures were taken after his death should be proof enough of that. Shouldn’t it?

She balled her hands into fists. She should never have talked to the Detective. He’d lied to her to get inside, said he wanted to do further testing to uncover something new about her husband’s murderer, when what he really wanted was to dig up and defile what was left of her husband’s body in order to prove it wasn’t her husband who’d died in the crash. Why should she believe anything he said when he’d lied to serve his own purpose?

But if he believed there was more to it, then did he believe she’d been lied to by the police? That everything they’d told her had been a lie?

Empty bullet casings were found near the highway where Rob’s truck went over the cliff, so the LAPD had concluded a sniper shot at Rob and caused the accident. Two years of so-called investigation and they had no other evidence, no reason to suspect anything other than one deranged person playing God with people’s lives. And they couldn’t track him down.

After years of frustration about Rob’s senseless death, knowing his killer would never be caught, she’d finally found peace within herself. She had a daughter to raise, Rob’s daughter, and she couldn’t do it well if she was railing at the world about something she couldn’t change.

The detective was wrong. Dead wrong. He didn’t know Rob. He didn’t know that her husband would never have deceived her like that. He would never have left his family, not for anything. After thirteen years together, she’d known her husband as well as she knew herself.

Still…someone impersonating Rob was within the realm of possibility, wasn’t it? Hard to imagine that kind of thing ever happened outside of the movies, but it could happen.

Myriad questions swirled through her brain. If this was someone impersonating Rob, who was the man in the photograph? She imagined one bizarre scenario after another, most of which she’d seen in a movie at some time or another. All within the realm of possibility.

Rob could’ve picked up a hitchhiker who’d killed him, run the truck over the cliff with his body inside and was now impersonating him. What if someone had hijacked the truck and in the crash he’d died, but Rob had been thrown out and wasn’t dead? What if he hadn’t died and wandered off in the desert somewhere and died…or what if he was wandering around with amnesia and used the only name he knew to start another life?

As surreal as it sounded, things like amnesia did happen, too. Four years ago, Dana and Logan’s daughter, Hallie, had suffered amnesia after a simple fall. Temporary amnesia, fortunately, but it could have been much worse. So, while amnesia or other phenomena were unlikely, they weren’t outside the realm of possibility.

Yet, no matter what scenario she posed to herself, the most horrible question of all remained. What if Rob had wanted to disappear? And if so, who was the man who’d died in his truck?

No! That would not happen. Not in a million years. She rubbed her temples. She couldn’t even think it, not for a second. Rob had been her savior, her husband, her surrogate father and her best friend.

She closed her eyes remembering the hopelessness and despair that was her life before Rob. A runaway at fifteen, she’d been living on the streets of East L.A., homeless, hungry and desperate—so desperate she’d been ready to prostitute herself to get money for food. The night she’d first tried had been the night she’d met Rob.

He’d taken her in, cleaned her up and saved her from self-destruction. Ten years older, he’d been kind and patient and loving and never once asked for anything in return.

When she’d offered herself in gratitude, he’d jokingly called her “jailbait.” He hadn’t touched her, said he wouldn’t until she was eighteen and they were married.

He’d been a man of his word.

Rob was a good man, an honorable man, and at that point in her life, he was the only honorable man she’d known. He’d taught her to trust again, and she was indebted to him. If she agreed to do what the detective wanted, wasn’t that the same as believing Rob wasn’t the man she thought he was?

If she doubted him now, everything they’d had together would be tainted by that doubt, and she’d start second-guessing the only meaningful relationship she’d ever had.

She couldn’t let that happen. He was Chloe’s father, for God’s sake.

Chloe. Her stomach muscles clenched. Thank heaven Chloe wasn’t home.

Rubbing her temples again, she drew in a deep breath. She had to pull herself together, forget the so-called “new information” the detective had foisted on her, because if she didn’t, she’d be a basket case by the time Chloe came home.

But could she? Could she forget that there was a man out there impersonating Rob? A man who, no matter how remote the possibility, could be Rob?

No. She couldn’t.

Jillian headed for her bedroom, where she ditched her shorts and top for a pair of faded jeans, a gauzy white shirt and chunky sandals.

Meadow Brook Nursing Home, where Rob’s mother now lived, was only a few miles away. Within minutes she pulled into one of the dozen empty spaces and exited her new red Mustang convertible, the only concession she’d made to conspicuous consumption now that she could afford it.

After two strokes, her mother-in-law had never been the same. One day Harriet was her old spunky, cantankerous self, making Jillian’s life a living hell…and the next she was frail, faded and forgetful. Many times she didn’t even remember Jillian.

“Hi, Mary Ann.” Jillian greeted the receptionist on her way in, then waved to some of the residents. “Hi, Jim. Mrs. Kramer.”

She headed toward the lounge, breathing in the strange combination of air freshener and disinfectant—lilac and Pine-Sol. Harriet was sitting in a wheelchair amid half a dozen other residents. Her silver hair, accented by one dark swoop down the left side, was easy to pick out among the sea of gray.

“Hi, Harriet. How’s the world’s greatest gin rummy player?” The older woman looked up at the sound of her name, and Jillian bent to give her mother-in-law a hug. Harriet was wearing her I-can’t-place-you smile.

Undaunted, Jillian said, “Your granddaughter is a real pill, Harriet. I had one heck of a time getting Chloe out the door today. She went with the Wakefields to their cabin for the remainder of the summer vacation, so she won’t be able to visit for a couple of weeks.”

At the mention of her granddaughter, the old woman’s eyes lit up. “A girl her age should be having fun and not be so serious all the time.”

Jillian chuckled and pulled a chair to the card table. “It’s called adolescence, and I wish they’d invent a formula or something so we could just skip that whole stage and go right to mature.”

“Maturity ain’t so hot, either,” said another silver-haired resident on Jillian’s left.

“Is my son here yet?” Harriet asked. “He’ll play rummy with me when he gets here.”

“No,” Jillian said softly. “He’s gone now. Remember?”

Her mother-in-law’s hopeful smile switched to a frown. “Yes, of course I remember. I remember when he left in that truck of his. Dangerous thing, I told him. He should be careful, but then, he never listens to his mother.”

Jillian wondered what Harriet’s reaction would be if she knew the police wanted to exhume her son’s body for testing. She’d be horrified, no doubt. A year after Rob died, Jillian had wanted to replace the temporary headstone for a permanent one with a meaningful inscription, but Harriet had made her promise she’d never disturb Rob’s grave in any way, not even for that.

Jillian had discovered then that Harriet had deep-seated beliefs about death, and disturbing a grave meant you’d disrupt the person’s afterlife. Apparently she’d passed her beliefs on to Rob, because he’d told her the same thing.

“My boy will be back soon,” Harriet said to the aide standing by the door.

Jillian’s heart turned over. For Harriet, time seemed compressed, and she talked about the past and the present as if they were the same. Jillian had never gotten used to hearing Harriet talk that way, and now, since the visit from the detective, Harriet’s habit had an eerie prescience.

“That’s nice,” the aide said.

Harriet eyed Jillian. “There’re cards in the drawer over there. Are we going to play rummy or not?”

“Sure.” Jillian got up and crossed to the table for the cards.

“You mix ’em up and deal,” Harriet said. “I don’t do that so good anymore.”

“You do just fine, Harriet. But okay, I’ll start.” Jillian sat down again and shuffled the deck. The cards, somewhat tacky from use, kept sticking.

“Harriet,” Jillian began slowly, deciding how best to phrase the questions she felt compelled to ask. “Do you remember when we buried Rob?” One by one, she dealt out the cards.

Harriet gathered her hand and fanned it out, pondered briefly, then switched a few cards around. “Of course I remember. It was the worst day of my life. Don’t you remember?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” Jillian sighed, ready to go on with her questions, but Harriet stopped her by raising a gnarled finger.

“The police still don’t know nothin’ about my son,” she said to the aide. “Did you know that?”

The aide shook her head.

“Have you heard about all the new scientific advancements these days?” Jillian asked. “With improved testing, I understand they can find out information they couldn’t before. Maybe if they did more tests—”

“You sound just like that detective.” Harriet waved a hand in dismissal, then laid down two sets of cards, three of a kind. “He asked too many questions. I told him I wasn’t going to tell him anything and he was just going to have to talk to Jack.”

Jillian stiffened. Ramsey had been here, too, and he hadn’t said a word to her about it. Or had he come here after he’d talked with her?

But why? Did he think Harriet could convince Jillian to agree to exhume Rob’s body? Or was he looking for other information?

Harriet plucked up another card and inserted it into the fan of cards still in her hand. “Jack told me not to talk to anybody. He wouldn’t like it if I talked to that man.”

Jillian made her play. “Well, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you talked to me.”

“Nope. I said I won’t say anything and I won’t.” She plunked down another set of cards, dropped a discard on the pile and, smiling, she looked up. “Gin.”

Jillian’s nerves stretched taut when she left Meadow Brook a half hour later, the demons of doubt nipping at her heels. Everything she believed in had been forged from her relationship with Rob. His sincerity, kindness and compassion had made her believe in the goodness in people again. If that was all a lie…she couldn’t even believe in him, what could she believe in?

But that wasn’t Rob. That wasn’t who he was and nothing anyone said was going to make her believe it. That’s what she kept telling herself all the way home and for hours after. But nothing she told herself rid her brain of the horrible possibility. Now, hours later, with all manner of drama playing out in her head, she sipped a glass of wine while listening to the early-evening news on television, hoping the noise would drown out the horrible thoughts corrupting her good sense.

She could not, would not, doubt Rob. Because if she did, everything she’d come to believe about love and trust would crumble. Rob had been an honorable man. Doubting his veracity was a betrayal of the worst kind.

Yet…that most awful what if question kept rearing its ugly head.

She couldn’t just sit here and wonder. She needed to see those photos again.

***

“I’ve got nothin’,” Adam told Rico on the phone.

“Hey, hold on a minute. Someone’s here.”

“Yeah, sure. What else do I have besides time?” Adam dropped onto the bed and leaned against the padded beige headboard in the beige motel room.

He had all the time in the world. Because nothing was urgent in cold cases that made up the bulk of his assignments these days. And according to the chief, the situation wasn’t likely to change unless he could prove himself.

For a guy used to being in the trenches, working cold cases depressed the hell out of him. And Enrico Santini, his new partner who’d come on board only a year ago, had taken the brunt of his dissatisfaction—until one morning when the kid had laid into him, telling Adam that if he wanted to tank his career and spend the rest of his life wallowing in self-pity, that was his choice.

But Rico wasn’t going to put up with his sarcastic jabs anymore, wasn’t going to keep covering his ass or let Adam’s attitude screw with his head or his job.

You’re the problem, Ramsey. If you’re going down, you’re gonna do it alone, Rico had said—right before he’d contacted the employee-intervention program.

Despite the scuttlebutt that the fresh-from-the-academy New Jersey propeller-head was a go-by-the-books wuss, Adam figured Rico had mega cojones to take on a multi-decorated senior officer. The kid, all full of shiny ideals about the way the world should be, reminded him a little of himself when he’d started on the force more than a dozen years ago.