I'll Be Watching You

Safety paramount? Who talked like that?

“Detective?”

“Hmm?” They’d hit Asilomar, one of the busier roads. Cardenas glanced in his mirrors and accelerated past two cars that had been meandering along.

“How about we not mention my middle name ever again, please? No one should ever saddle their child with something as horrible as Imaculata, even though it was my great-grandmother’s name, God rest her soul.”

The almost smile appeared again. “Catholic family?”

“You know it.” She didn’t know why, but it had suddenly become her challenge in life to make him smile outright, or maybe even laugh. Maybe because it kept her from thinking too hard about why Liz was so afraid for her safety, she’d pulled a hardworking detective off of his undoubtedly heavy caseload to babysit her. “Do you really think The Surgeon might be back?”

“I know you’re not asking for my advice, but call him Carter. It’ll remind you that he was just a man.”

A man who liked to carve people up for fun.

“Let me ask you a question,” Daniel said gently when she didn’t respond. “Is there anyone else it could be?”

Her hands flew briefly into the air, palms upward. “I don’t know. I’m pretty sure at least some of the notes I’ve gotten over the years have been from some teenagers who live near me. I even got a glimpse of one once, and he was definitely just shy of puberty. But this…it seemed different.”

“Let’s assume it is different,” he replied. Darn those glasses. She couldn’t see his eyes, and without that, she didn’t have a prayer of reading his expression. “Who else might want to upset you?”

She had to think about that one. Truthfully, she tried to avoid conflict and didn’t have any enemies she could think of. “Well, there’s…” She let the sentence trail off.

“There’s who?” he prompted gently.

“It’s nothing.” She shrugged. “Just a stupid thought.”

“Coworker? Customer? Some guy who passes you on the street every day and acts a little strange?”

“I was going to say there’s this guy in one of my yoga classes—a student. But he’s harmless, really. Just because someone is a little socially awkward—”

He took the glasses off and tossed them on the dash. “Adriana, I’d really like it if you’d give me permission to come into your house when I drop you off. There are a couple of things I haven’t told you yet.” He flicked a glance at her, and though she’d known his eyes were hazel, she hadn’t noticed the almost hypnotic combination of green and gold, until that split second. And then she remembered—when Daniel Cardenas looked at you, even for just a moment, he really looked at you. And he must have known the effect he had when he did, or he wouldn’t have removed those damned sunglasses just then.

She didn’t want to deal with his pity. She didn’t want to show him her drab house and the refrigerator that lacked all the things you offered a guest. She didn’t want him to have to keep up that unfailing politeness while he witnessed how sad and pathetic her life had become.

But someone was out there. Taking pictures of the dead.

And so she had to know what his last sentence had meant. “What things?”

“I can’t tell you how many times a victim I’ve interviewed has said, ‘I was going to mention this guy as a possible suspect, but he’s harmless,’ and the guy turned out to be not so harmless.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. He’d been doing that a lot, so she looked over her shoulder, too, but all she saw were a couple of innocuous cars cruising along behind them.

She waited for his second point, but instead he just asked, “See that handle up there?”

She blinked at the odd non sequitur. “What?”

“The grab handle.” He motioned slightly with his chin toward the interior handle near the roof. She’d always thought those were put there to hold dry cleaning.

“Yes.”

“Hang on to it.”

As soon as her fingers curled around it, Daniel calmly put the gear shift in Neutral. Then, he cranked the steering wheel to the left, yanking up hard on the emergency brake. With an ear-splitting squeal of its tires, the Charger spun in a tight half circle, fast and hard. Her right side slammed into the passenger door. “What are you—”

But Daniel wasn’t in the mood for questions. His mouth set in a grim line, he let down the brake handle and punched the accelerator, probably leaving most of his tire treads on the asphalt as the car shot forward. The force of it slammed Addy back in her seat. They zoomed past the cars that had been behind them. So fast, Addy couldn’t get even a glimpse of the drivers. As soon as they hit an intersection, Daniel took another hairpin turn to the right. He followed that with a tire-squealing left through a traffic light that had just changed from yellow to red.

After one more careening left turn, Daniel finally slowed down to an acceptable speed, leaving Addy reeling in her seat, dizzy and more than a little car sick.

“Do you always drive like this?” she asked, tentatively loosening her death grip on the grab handle. “Because if you do, I’m so going to throw up on you.”

The half smile actually turned into a full-fledged grin, a flash of straight, white teeth that contrasted against his brown skin.

“You’re laughing at me.” She fussed with the hoodie sweatshirt she’d tied around her waist to make her black, flared-leg spandex pants a little more modest as streetwear.

“I don’t laugh at crime victims.” His expression turned serious once more. He had a nice smile, and despite her confusion over what had just happened and the fear that had been lingering on the edge of her conscience all day, she kind of wished it had stayed a little longer.

“What just happened there? Because I think it was more than a boys-and-their-toys moment.”

Signaling a turn for the first time since she’d gotten into the car with him, he pulled the Charger onto Mermaid Point Drive. He parked the car in front of her little clapboard house.

“You know that guy who walked out of your store with you? Left in a taxi?”

“Stan?” But Cardenas hadn’t even pulled up until several minutes after Stan had left.

“He had the cab circle back and then got out on a side street,” he said. “He was watching you when I picked you up, and then he got into a blue Ford Taurus.”

Oh, no. “But why would he get in a cab if—”

“I lost him on that side street back there, or he probably would have followed us all the way to your house.” Those green-and-gold eyes were back on her, radiating an intensity that made her want to squirm in her seat. “Still think he’s harmless?”

Chapter Three

Though even under torture Daniel Cardenas wouldn’t have shown it, coming face-to-face with Adriana Torres for the first time in four years felt something like the time a bank robber had hit him with a stun gun.

He’d come to Cannery Row looking for her, so the fact that she’d gotten into the car wasn’t the shock of the century. It was her face, or more accurately, her expression, the way she walked, the way she moved, as if she was constantly trying to fold into herself. He’d known her for nearly a decade, and although they’d been no more than casual acquaintances, he’d never seen her look so…subdued.

Then again, he shouldn’t have been surprised. He knew what she’d been through. Violence changed you, especially when it happened to someone you loved.

Beautiful girl. I wish we could have saved him.

He got out of the car and walked around it to open her door. She ignored his outstretched hand.

“Liz said you have a wireless Internet connection,” he told her as she unfolded her tall, slender frame from the car. He reached into the backseat, pulling out his laptop case. “If you don’t mind my connecting to it, I’ll tell you everything you should know.”

When Liz had called him aside as they’d gotten back to the station after processing last night’s crime scene to ask him a favor, he’d said yes before she’d even had time to explain what she wanted. Because that’s what you did when a fellow cop needed you. That’s what you did when your partner needed you.

And when she’d told him that Elijah Carter, if he were indeed still alive, might decide to target the late Detective Brentwood’s fiancée, he’d shuffled his caseload for the next month to make Adriana a priority. He’d even offered to cancel his diving trip to the Caymans, which was supposed to start tomorrow. You never turned your back on a fallen cop’s family. But Liz had insisted he go.

He followed her up the small pathway flanked by flowers and a couple of shrubs that were so overgrown an army of burglars could hide in them. She unlocked the door, which had both a door lock and a dead bolt—good. And then they were inside.

He remembered when he’d been there last time. Adriana was an amateur artist, and the whole place had been decorated with vibrant oil paintings, photographs and objects encrusted in stained-glass mosaic tiles. Now it felt as if someone had come along and sucked most of the color out of the room—all of her pieces were gone, save one coffee table with a mosaic top made of broken china. The majority of the room’s surfaces were now bare—those that weren’t held candles or photographs of Adriana with James Brentwood. Her home had become as dark and drab as the black clothes she wore.

Though he’d known her for a long time, he hadn’t known her well. But funny thing—he still missed the color.

Adriana gestured for him to sit on the pale-green couch, as she pulled a fluffy gray throw off its cushions and hurriedly folded it. Gathering up a couple of mugs that sat on the coffee table, she hustled them into the kitchen, then hustled back and sat down in the chair across from him. She leaned forward to swat at some dust he couldn’t see on the coffee table, then finally relaxed.

“Sorry about the mess,” she said. “I didn’t realize I was going to have company. I mean, other than Liz who is used to my chaos.”

“’S’okay,” he replied. “We just need someplace quiet to talk.” Leaning toward her, he rested his elbows on his knees. “Liz wanted me to advise you on the best ways to protect yourself, and how the MPD can help.”

Her only answer was to grab a dark throw pillow and hug it to her chest.

He pulled his laptop out of its case and set it on the table, firing it up on battery power. “Like you said earlier, I’m the one who handles most of the stalking cases we get, which isn’t quite the situation we have going on here, but it translates. I was also on the task force handling Elijah Carter’s case—”

“I remember,” she said, a faraway look in her eyes. “You came here. The day James—”

“Yeah.” He cut her off before she could say died and go into what else lay unspoken between them, including the fact that he’d been the one to tell her that her fiancé had been killed. It was his face she imagined when she thought about the worst day of her life. His arms that had wrapped around her for comfort when they should have been James Brentwood’s.

It never got easier, telling people they’d lost someone. They knew as soon as they saw a cop coming to their door that the news would be the worst kind. Some of them dropped to the ground in hysterics, wailing before you could say a word. Some of them cried silently, tears streaming down their faces until you’d finished your piece, and then they couldn’t slam the door on you soon enough. Some argued with you, somehow convinced that they could undo the truth by making you take back your words. And some bolted, figuring if they could outrun you, they could outrun the news you’d brought.

Adriana’s reaction haunted him more than any other, maybe because it had been connected to the premature death of his own friend and colleague. Or maybe because he’d seen her through the years at department gatherings, and he’d known what she’d been like when she’d been happy.

Her pretty face had crumpled before she’d collapsed into a chair, and then she’d just reached her arms out, as if James would come any second to hold her. Of course, he hadn’t. And Daniel had been a damn poor substitute, under the circumstances.

He remembered the way her tears had soaked through the fabric of his jacket, and the frustrated helplessness he’d felt. More than any other house call, except the ones that were about children, he wished then that he could have made the news of her boyfriend’s death untrue.

He remembered the curve of her neck, and the way her hair smelled like spices. He remembered not wanting to let her go and then mentally kicking his own ass for even going there.

He remembered wanting to keep her safe. He still wanted to keep her safe.

“I never thanked you…then. You stayed with me for so long.” Picking up yet another picture of herself and James from the coffee table, she traced her finger around the wooden frame. “That must have been so awful for you.”

He looked away, jabbing at the space bar as if it would make his computer boot up faster. “You did say thank you. I was just doing my job.”

“You did more than your job, Detective.”

Adriana put the photograph down and shifted her focus to him.

She should have looked scared, but instead she just seemed tired. And not at all like the vibrant free spirit he’d seen on James’s arm during their shared years on the force.

Every time he’d noticed her at a department function or when she’d drop by the station to see James, she’d wrapped herself in blazing, bright colors and wild patterns. All the better to advertise the stuff she sold at the Trashy Diva, her used-clothing store, James had once explained. But she’d sold the store, he’d heard, and at Brentwood’s funeral she’d worn black.

Four years later, she was still wearing black—black sweatshirt tied around the waist of her black exercise pants, the whole outfit finished off with a black tank that hugged her flat stomach and a waist he could have spanned with his hands. The only color in her clothing choices was the bit of silver embroidery on her black flip-flops.

And the short hair that had shown off her Hepburn-like neck had grown out past her shoulders, still pretty, but he could tell it hadn’t been cut in a long time. She’d stopped highlighting it with red streaks, too, so it had gone back to its natural dark brown color. A few delicate lines had formed around her eyes, but otherwise she still looked the same. Still herself but…muted.

He fought the urge to scrub a hand down his face. Part of the job was the facade of looking cool and completely in control at all times, down to avoiding nervous twitches. He had to make a victim trust him, make her believe that his sole focus was her well-being. Because that trust could mean the difference between life and death, if things went south.

“You said back in the car that Stan had doubled back and was watching me,” she said when he asked her about Stan. “How did you know?” She shifted in her seat, her hands on the armrests as if she’d spring up and dart out the door the first chance she got.

“I cruised by your studio before you got there and saw him pacing in front of the door. Ran him in on a petty theft charge a few years back.” Reaching back into the laptop briefcase at his feet, he pulled out a file and opened it up, taking a sheet of paper out. “He got off on a plea bargain—turned out he’d been rolling with a crowd connected to a drug lord the vice squad had been watching for a while. We got him to squeal in exchange for a fine and no jail time.”

Her eyes were a light brown, the color of polished chunks of amber or really good scotch, and they widened to the point where the irises were rimmed with white. “Stan has a police record?”

“Not a long one. Just that and—” he flipped through the papers in the file “—a restraining order from an ex-girlfriend in Gilroy. Seems old Stanley Robert Peterson had a hard time saying goodbye. Has he expressed any romantic interest in you?”

“Yes. Just today, he…asked me out. He didn’t get upset or violent when I turned him down. He just looked a little sad.” She shook her head, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion. “He seems harmless.”

“His ex-girlfriend doesn’t think so. The Gilroy detective I talked to says he threw a chair at her during an argument they had.”

“Stan? Seriously?” She pulled her legs up onto the seat and wrapped her arms around them. “Well, maybe he was upset because his mom was dying.”

“Who told you that?” Daniel asked.

“Stan did.” She did not like where this was going.

Daniel leaned forward, his face sober. “His mom lives in Salinas. She works in housekeeping at at local hotel.”

Unbelievable. He’d lied to her.

“So you saw him and went back out to watch him?”

“Pretty much.”

She remained silent, which he was starting to realize meant she was waiting for more information. “I followed his taxi,” he continued. “He had the cab circle around and then got out about a block away from you. He ducked into a recessed doorway and watched you, until I picked you up. At that point, he got into a blue Taurus and followed us until I lost him.”

“But why?”

“You’re a beautiful woman,” he said matter-of-factly. “Looks like he’s formed an attachment.”

She abruptly broke eye contact at the compliment, becoming preoccupied with twisting a slim sapphire-and-gold ring on her right hand.

He hadn’t been flirting, but judging from her reaction to what had just come shooting out of his mouth, she would have shut him down big-time if he had been. “Liz said you’d gotten a note?”

She nodded, looking relieved that he’d changed the subject, and left the room. He heard a crinkling sound, and then she returned carrying a small paper bag, which she silently handed to him. He extracted the folded piece of paper inside, then looked in at the knife that had accompanied it.

Serrated edge, about twelve inches long, made for hunting. There were several just like it still in Evidence downtown.

He really didn’t like where this was going.

“You get one of these knives before?”

“No,” she answered. “I’ve gotten knives, but they tend to be the cheap butcher kind.”

Interesting. He rolled the bag shut and set it carefully on the table. Then he unfolded the note.

Liz had told him what that piece of paper contained, but nothing prepared him for the emotional sucker punch to the gut it delivered in reality.

James Brentwood, waxy looking and still. Just as he’d been in his last moments on earth, before the M.E. had shown up to collect “the body.” Before a team of Monterey PD had carried him to his grave and put one of their own in the ground. His mentor. His friend. Adriana’s almost husband.

It could have been Daniel. Maybe it should have been.

He stole a glance at Adriana, who hugged a pillow to her chest and was overly absorbed in picking at the fabric, her long legs tucked underneath her as she folded into herself once more. He didn’t have anyone who would have grieved for him the way she still did for James.

Damn Elijah Carter to hell.

She looked up suddenly and met his gaze head-on. “You’re quiet.” There was something almost accusatory in the way she said it.

“This must have been terrifying for you.” He folded the note again and put it back into the paper bag.

“It was but…” Her dark eyebrows drew together, and a slim line appeared in between them. “He worked with you, Detective. You saw him, talked with him every day—probably more than I did, he was such a workaholic.” She released her stranglehold on the pillow, her hands making empty gestures in the air. “And I just…You just… sit here, looking at that awful picture, and…”

“Adriana,” he said softly. “Would it really do you any good if I started cursing or throwing things?”

She froze and just stared at him.

“Because I could. No problem.” A corner of his mouth quirked upward in a wry smile that he knew held no trace of mirth. “I’m not exactly getting paid to sit in your living room and emote, though.”

A lone tear slipped down her cheek, and before he realized what he was doing, he’d reached out and brushed it away with one finger.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

His hand lingered against her skin, and suddenly it was as if they were the only two people in the world, and all he could look at was her.

“Don’t be,” he replied. “I’m sorry he didn’t come home to you that night.”

She jerked back, and the moment between them was gone. Who knew if it had really existed, or if it was just his overworked imagination and the fact that he’d been too damn tired to go on a date since the city government had slashed the police department budget last spring.

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