“So how do you know Detective Samantha Cooper in Chicago?” he asked.
The chief sat behind his desk and invited her to sit in one of his visitor chairs while he made small talk and pried.
“In my line of work, I meet a lot of cops.”
“It’s just that she seemed to know you . . . beyond the job.”
She could have offered him more, but the fact that she and Sam Cooper had been friends since childhood was none of his business, and her gal pal had nothing to do with why she’d come. Jessie had her secrets and had gotten really good at being evasive.
“Don’t know what to tell ya.” She shrugged. “Chicago PD told me you scored a hit on my DNA from an old murder case. I just came to check it out, see if I could help.”
“What makes you think I need your help? From what I can see, your attitude could use an overhaul.”
Something in his smug expression flipped a switch in her. And even though it would have been better for Jessie to keep her mouth shut and stifle her cynicism, she just wasn’t good at that. Diplomacy was a skill set she didn’t have.
“I’m a recovering smart-ass. Guess I’ve fallen off the wagon.” After she realized how she sounded, Jessie heaved a sigh and tried to reel it back a notch. “Look, I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I’d appreciate seeing what you’ve got.”
“That’s not how it works around here.” The chief leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. Real defensive. “This is my case. I ask the questions.”
Jessie held up both hands, and said, “I didn’t mean to step on your toes, Chief. It’s just that I’m an investigator. And I thought that having another set of eyeballs on the murder book might help.”
Jessie had never called herself an investigator—until now—but if her argument swayed the stubborn man behind the desk, then she’d beef up her résumé to include anything that would get her a foot in the door of his case.
“No offense, but that murder book is off-limits to civilians. Now I know you were only a kid at the time, so I won’t be needin’ your help. All I need is your cooperation. Big difference.” He narrowed his eyes. “Now what can you tell me about your blood evidence being found here in La Pointe?”
Jessie didn’t know squat about how her blood had wound up in Wisconsin. She knew less about her past than most people since she’d blocked out the trauma of her childhood. And forget about old family albums. She didn’t have relatives or the usual trappings that could help trigger a memory.
“When we got that hit on your DNA, I looked at your missing-persons file.” The chief pursed his lips, letting what he’d said sink in. “Terrible thing happened to you.”
Jessie saw the look of pity in his eyes, and she hated it. That look was the reason she never talked about what had happened to her.
“That Danny Ray Millstone case hit national news. I didn’t need to read your file to remember that sorry excuse for a human being. He got what was coming to him.”
Guess the chief thought that commiserating over the serial pedophile who had tortured her and so many other kids was a way of breaking the ice. Well, she didn’t need that. Ever.
What she did need was a look at the chief’s investigation. Seeing what the local law had accumulated would give her a glimpse into a past she knew nothing about. And maybe, for the first time, she’d get a lead on the woman who might be her mother.
The way she figured it, she had a fifty-fifty chance of discovering that her mother had been involved with Danny Ray Millstone and given her up or had loved her the way a mother should and hadn’t been given the choice to keep her child.
But to get a look at the cold-case file—or gain the trust of the man behind the desk—would require her to do the one thing that didn’t come naturally. She had to open up to a stranger, or her business in La Pointe would be done—over, out, finito.
“All that took place after your murder, Chief, but I don’t know how your case would be connected to what happened to me.”
“To find that out, you may have to talk about things you don’t care to. You okay with that?” He furrowed his brow.
When the chief leaned forward in his chair, she knew she had his attention, making what she was about to ask him more difficult.
“Since you did DNA tests, was the woman who was killed . . . was she related to me?” Jessie cleared her throat, unable to look him in the eye. “Was she . . . my mother?”
“You don’t remember anything about your mother?” His voice softened.
“Bottom line is that I don’t know how my blood got here in La Pointe because I’ve blocked out a big chunk of my past. Either I was too young to remember stuff, or I didn’t want to know what had happened. I don’t know which, but I came here to see what you had, hoping I might learn something about my family . . . my mother, actually. That’s why I want to see what you’ve got on this case. Do you think you can help me, Chief?”
At first, the man stared at her as if she had two heads. Like the boy who cried wolf, she was about to find out if the guy believed her when she finally told him the truth. When his expression softened, he leaned back in his chair and heaved a sigh. He kept up his silent stare as if the truth would appear on her forehead.
Eventually, he broke the stalemate. “You have time to take a ride with me?”
The Pérez Compound
Outside Guadalajara, Mexico
Ramon and his men had left them alone, for hours now. Estella Calderone listened to every sound coming from the corridor outside, waiting for the footsteps that would signal that her nightmare wasn’t over.
And in the stillness of the cell, she also heard the labored breathing of the man next to her. They’d given him loose-fitting clothes to wear, pants that tied at his waist and a shirt that had not been buttoned. Since they’d taken his shoes, his feet were bare. Suspended by chains, he looked more like a ghost in the darkness of their cell. That was why Estella was shocked to hear the American speak to her for the first time.
“I’m s-sorry.”
His voice had been so soft, she almost missed what he said.
“For what, señor?” Estella found it hard to breathe. Hanging by ropes made it hard for her to fill her lungs. And when she tried to relieve the pain by moving, her body ached with every exertion.
“What they’ve done to you, it wasn’t s-supposed to go d-down like this.”
Estella didn’t know what he was talking about, but she heard the sincerity in his words. The man looked at her with his face half-swollen and saw the knife wounds Ramon had cut into her arms. The sight looked as if it truly pained him.
His reaction made her more aware of what Ramon had done to her. She would never be pretty to another man. Ramon had ruined her in more ways than one.
The smell of her own blood filled her nostrils in the small cell. And whenever she moved, she opened the wounds and more warm blood oozed down her skin. Estella felt the sting of new tears and fought them off by talking to the man she shared the cell with.
“I was born under an eclipsed moon. No good can come from that, my mother used to say.” If her hands hadn’t been tied, she would have made the sign of the cross. “Besides, Ramon owns me. He can do whatever he wants. My mother sold me to him.”
It had embarrassed her to admit what she was to this stranger, but since they were both about to die, she did not see the point in hiding the truth.
“That bastard might’ve given m-money to your mother,” he mumbled, trying hard to catch his breath. “ . . . but he can’t own you.”