CHAPTER SEVEN
RAFAEL RAN DOWN Ellis Street as fast as he could, trying to get close enough to read the license plate on the car weaving through the night. Even after it careened around the corner of Main, he kept running, hoping that something, anything, would happen to slow them down. He just needed a minute to catch up….
He turned the corner and then stopped abruptly, completely disgusted. The street was deserted, the car—and the kids who had thrown the brick—gone as if they had never existed.
Swearing viciously, he jogged back to the center. It was just registering that he’d left Vivian alone there, with a hole the size of a small person in the front window. Though logic told him she was fine, he ran faster, determined to make sure she was all right.
He focused on that—and on who would vandalize the center—as he ran the half mile back. Anything to keep his mind off the spectacular kiss he and Vivian had shared. He hadn’t planned on kissing her, had told himself to stay as far from her as he could get. But she’d smelled so good, and had sounded so sweet when she’d asked him if he was all right, that he hadn’t been able to resist.
Once his lips had touched hers, his objections hadn’t seemed to matter, and he’d nearly eaten her alive. Talk about smooth—not. Add the brick through the window to the less-than-suave way he’d jumped her bones, and he figured it would be a miracle if she hadn’t run screaming to her car.
Back to her midnight-blue BMW. He hadn’t noticed it when they’d run to the hospital, but he’d sure as hell noticed it when they’d come back. Thousand-dollar suits, hundred-thousand-dollar cars—she was so far out of his league it was amazing they were on the same playing field.
He’d had no business kissing her when she was Diego’s lawyer. Their lives were too different, and the damn brick just underscored that point. He was pretty sure nothing like this would have happened to her in that upscale apartment building she lived in.
When he got back to Helping Hands, Vivian was still there, standing over the brick and broken glass, the phone in her hand. “The police are on their way,” she said softly to him, before going back to her conversation with who he assumed was the 911 operator.
He started to tell her to never mind, that such things had happened before when he’d first opened the teen center, and the cops had never done anything about it at the time. But then he saw the bright red writing on the large brick and the resignation that had been running through his veins exploded into anger.
Tell the bitch to back off. Or else we will.
“What the hell?” He stooped to pick up the filthy, offensive thing, but Vivian stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t do that. You’ll compromise any evidence there might be.”
Evidence? Someone had just threatened her and she was worried about evidence? He knew it was the lawyer talking, but still. All he could think of was burning the whole damn world until he found whoever had threatened his woman.
Whoa—the thought stopped him in his tracks, and Rafael started backing away from it almost before it was fully formed in his head. What was he, insane? One kiss, one mistake, did not make her his anything, which was a damn good thing. There was no way he was going to fall for a lawyer from the fancy side of the tracks. No way he’d ever put himself—or his family—through that again.
“When are the cops going to be here?” He thrust his hands into his pockets and gave the mess in the middle of the rec room a wide berth.
Who was doing this? he wondered. And why? Was it someone who was angry at Diego for killing Esme, or someone who knew he hadn’t, but wanted him to take the blame? Or was there a third possibility he hadn’t yet considered?
All he knew was that since the news broke that Vivian was defending Diego, things had gotten out of control. Unless he figured out who was doing this, he had a sick feeling the problems would just get worse.
Vivian hung up the phone with a quiet thank-you, then turned to him. “They gave an ETA of half an hour, but you know how these things go.”
“Yeah. We’ll be lucky if they make it in two hours.”
“Probably.”
She shivered as a particularly frigid gust of wind blew in through the broken window.
“Come on. Let’s go into the kitchen. It’ll be warmer in there.” He headed toward the back, not waiting to see if she would follow. A guy who got too dependent on a woman like her was asking for more than trouble. He was asking for disaster.
“Are you hungry?” he queried when he heard her enter the kitchen behind him. “There are always leftovers in the fridge.”
He walked over to the pantry, got out the coffee and a filter.
“Yeah, actually, I am. Lunch was a long time ago.” She opened the fridge. “Wow, you weren’t kidding. There’s all kinds of stuff in here.”
“We feed a lot of kids every day—not necessarily the ones who hang out here, but the ones who have no place else to go.” It still bothered him that he hadn’t yet been able to turn the center into a full-scale shelter, so that they could take in kids for the night who had no place to crash.
Someday, he promised himself, as he poured water into the coffeemaker. Someday he’d be able to save those kids who couldn’t save themselves.
“That’s amazing—I hadn’t realized you guys did that every day.”
He shook his head. “It’s not amazing. It’s sad that that’s all I can do, sad that there’s always enough money for guns and drugs and never enough to take care of our children.”
“Still,” she said, pulling out a tray of enchiladas, followed by a salad. “It’s really impressive. Especially in this neighborhood, where there’s so much suffering.”
“I think there’s probably some chicken in there from the other night,” he said. “In case you don’t want the enchiladas.”
“Are you kidding?” She grinned at him, and it was a real smile, despite the lines of strain around her eyes. “I love enchiladas. Especially cheese ones.”
“That surprises me.”
“Does it?” she asked, as she licked red sauce off her fingers. “Why?”
“I don’t know. They seem kind of messy for you.” He gestured to her fancy suit.
The look she shot him was oddly disappointed. “I think you have me confused with my mother. I live on takeout, preferably Chinese and Mexican.”
The microwave dinged, and she slipped a couple enchiladas onto each of their plates, then settled on one of the red, plastic-covered bar stools. “Aren’t you going to join me?”
He studied her, captivated by the impatient challenge in her eyes. Her hair, which had been pulled into some kind of sophisticated twist when she’d shown up six hours before, was now tumbling free of the hairpins. It was a really sexy look for her and it turned him on despite the circumstances.
Tell the bitch to back off.
The words on the brick ran through his mind yet again, and he shoved down his attraction. He needed to figure out what the hell was going on.
“What have you done in the last few days?” he demanded as he slid onto the bar stool to her left.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Look, don’t play games with—” He stopped as Vivian stared at her enchiladas in amazement.
“This is fabulous.” She shoveled another bite into her mouth, took her time savoring it. “I mean seriously fabulous,” she repeated, after swallowing.
“Marie’s a great cook.” Watching Vivian eat was the first real enjoyment he’d had in a while, Rafa realized.
“Marie made this?” she asked. “That tough, no-nonsense woman from the hospital? She didn’t look like the nurturing type.”
“She’s in charge of the dinner program, among other things.”
“You are one lucky man.”
“You should taste her lasagna. It’s enough to make a grown woman cry.”
“Well, you’ll have to call me the next time lasagna night rolls around. I’ll be here with bells on.”
As the reality of her words set in, the levity went out of the moment, and Rafael watched in consternation as Vivian’s smile faded. He wanted to say something to bring it back, but Diego’s situation was weighing heavily on him.
“So.” She cleared her throat as she crossed to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of water. “Are we going to talk about that brick and what it means?”
He circled back to his original topic. “Why don’t we talk about what you’ve been doing this week first?”
“I’ve been doing my job. I’ve looked at all the evidence the D.A.’s office has, and made squabbling noises about some of it. Filed a motion to get Diego’s trial moved to juvenile court.” She took a sip of water. “Got the paralegals started on drafting a motion to suppress anything and everything Diego said during questioning, as he was grilled without a parent, guardian or lawyer present. We won’t need it until after the judge decides where to have Diego’s trial, but I want it to be ready.”
“Why move to suppress the questioning? He never admitted to anything.”
“That’s not the point. I want it on record that from the very beginning the cops have been cutting corners and doing things illegally. A jury would never hear about it, but a juvenile court judge sure as hell will, and most likely, won’t be impressed.” She said the last with a look that could have boiled water.
Why had Rafael thought this woman didn’t know how to do her job? She’d been on the case four days and already she’d done more than the P.D. who had been on it for nine weeks. Not for the first time, he cursed Jacquelyn and what she’d done to him, not just the baseless accusations that had landed him in prison, but the prejudice he now wore like a second skin.
Normally it didn’t bother him, as he considered his dislike of rich people more than justified considering how fast most of his employers had turned on him once he’d been arrested. But misjudging Vivian made him uncomfortable. It had him wondering what other assumptions he’d made about her that might not be true.
Refusing to go down that road, at least for now, Rafael pulled his mind back to the issue at hand. “How much of this is common knowledge? I know the press knows some of it—they’ve been calling the center, and yesterday I saw an article that mentioned your involvement.”
“I don’t know how much the press knows. They’re obviously aware that my law firm is representing Diego—that paperwork got filed Tuesday morning, after I met with Diego, so by now it’s a matter of public record. But the rest…who knows what they’ve managed to dig up? Whatever it is, I’m sure we’ll see it on the six o’clock news tomorrow—if it hasn’t already run.”
“And that’s it? You haven’t done anything else?”
“Pretty much. Oh, this morning I met with the detectives who investigated Diego’s case.”
“Turner and Barnes?”
“Yeah. They weren’t particularly impressed with me.”
“I bet not.” His stomach clenched nervously. “What did you think of them?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t particularly like them—especially Turner.”
“Yeah, that was my reaction. They seemed more concerned with closing the case than finding Esme’s true killer. Plus, they don’t exactly have the best reputation in the Tenderloin, if you know what I mean.”
“That’s what I wanted to know, actually. I hired an investigator to look into them today.”
He froze. “Shit, Vivian, are you kidding me? No wonder they’re throwing bricks through my window.”
“You don’t actually think two police officers did that?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t get someone to do it for them.”
“They don’t even know I did it—”
“Don’t bet on that. If some guy starts asking questions about them, don’t you think someone would have tipped them off? Another cop? A neighbor? For all its violence, the Tenderloin is a really tight-knit area—everyone knows everybody else’s business. Especially the bad stuff.”
“But Diego was beat up before I met with the cops!”
“I know, but his assault fits in here somehow. I’d bet a hundred bucks it’s all tied together. We just don’t know how.”
“You make this sound like a conspiracy, Rafael. Why? Diego’s not that important in the grand scheme of things.”
“Yeah, but maybe whoever killed Esme is. If her death was drug related, maybe the cops are being paid off to keep the real perp out of jail. God knows we’ve got our share of crooked cops and politicians around here.” Rafael shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on, but something definitely isn’t right.”
“That’s crazy!”
He laughed. “I’m not sure where you think you are, Vivian, but life down here is more than crazy for a lot of these kids. It’s downright cruel.”
“I know that, Rafael. I do,” she insisted when he raised an eyebrow. “But how am I supposed to do my job if I’m worried about Diego getting killed? Or you?”
“You don’t worry about it. That’s my job. You need to concentrate on getting Diego a fair shot. That’s why I went after your law firm to begin with.”
“Even if it gets him killed?”
“I won’t let it.” Now that he knew there was a problem, there was no way one of those bastards was getting within five miles of Diego. But Vivian still didn’t look convinced.
“Vivian, spending twenty-five years of his life in a cage for a murder he didn’t commit is going to hurt Diego more than a few bruises will.”
“It’s more than a few bruises, Rafael. He nearly died.” She pushed away from the table and started pacing the kitchen in obvious frustration. Her back was to him and he watched her walk, admired the graceful easiness of her movements.
“I know that. And believe me, it’s killing me that I didn’t protect him. But you have to trust me—I won’t let it happen again. Besides, if you ask him, he’ll tell you they’re all worth it if it means he has a shot at being free.”
“How do you know that?” she demanded, pacing back again. “He’s in a coma. Half-dead. How can you possibly know what he’s thinking?”
“Because I’ve been where he is. And I would have given anything, taken any beating, if someone had stepped forward and helped me when I was too stupid to figure out that I couldn’t help myself. If they had, maybe I wouldn’t have wasted five years of my life in prison.”
* * *
EVERYTHING CEASED in the wake of Rafael’s revelation. Her heart stopped beating, and even her brain seemed to freeze before her body’s survival instinct kicked in.
“You’ve been to prison?” Her voice was reed thin. “For what?”
He eyed her grimly, and even before he opened his mouth she knew it was going to be bad. Really bad.
Bracing herself, she waited for his answer the way a death row inmate waited for execution day.
But for all her preparation, it was still a shock when he tersely answered, “Raping my girlfriend.”
The room started to spin, and for the first time in a long while Vivian’s legs threatened to go out from under her. Grabbing the counter, she kept herself standing through sheer force of will.
Rafael had gone to prison for rape.
She was attracted to a rapist.
She had kissed a rapist.
Her stomach churned at the thought, had her wondering if she was going to puke up Marie’s enchiladas all over the spotless kitchen floor.
Trying to regain a semblance of control, Vivian looked wildly around the room, concentrated on the stove, the refrigerator, the pale yellow walls. Looked anywhere and everywhere but at Rafael.
Eventually, though, there was nothing else to stare at, and she reluctantly shifted her gaze back to him. His face was carefully blank, his eyes empty, but his jaw was tense, his lips pressed tightly together as he watched her.
She knew he was waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t have a clue what to say. For years, she’d seen the result of rape and violence at the battered women’s shelters. Worse, she’d seen what it had done to Merry—years of rape and abuse at the hands of her husband had slowly destroyed Vivian’s sister until suicide had seemed like her only option.
It had been nine years since Merry had killed herself, but sometimes it felt as if it had just happened. On bad days, Vivian could still see her sister’s bruised, battered, bloodied body hanging naked from the ceiling fan.
She almost didn’t make it to the trash can in time.
Even as she was throwing up, Vivian was conscious of Rafael halfway across the kitchen. He didn’t attempt to come near her, didn’t say a word, but she could feel him staring at her, and that shook her even more than getting sick did.
It seemed as though it went on forever—dry heaves racking her body long after her stomach was empty. When it was finally over, she crossed to the sink, rinsed her mouth out with water and tried to figure out what to say.
In the end, she said the only thing that mattered, asked the only question her shocked brain could form. “Did you do it?”
“No.” His voice was hoarse, his answer immediate.
“I don’t believe you.” The words were instinctive.
“Do I look surprised?”
She couldn’t even glance at him. “Why?”
“Why didn’t they believe me? Or why was I accused?”
She swallowed against the bile that was once again creeping up her throat. “Why did you do it?”
His fist came down hard on the table. “I didn’t. Her father caught her sneaking back into the house one night. She’d been pretty roughed up. She told him I did it, even though I hadn’t seen her since early that morning. When the rape kit came back with two distinct sets of DNA—one of which belonged to her ‘public’ boyfriend and one which belonged to me—they arrested me even though I had never hurt her.”
“So why did she accuse you?”
“For kicks? Because she was too embarrassed to tell her father she was seeing one of the gardeners? It was fifteen years ago, during the summer, and I was mowing grass to save up money for my sophomore year of college.
“Or maybe it was because she was a vindictive bitch. I’d told her that morning that I wasn’t going to keep sneaking around. If she was so ashamed of me she couldn’t introduce me to her parents, then I wanted to break up. She assured me she wanted to be with me, that she would tell her father about us. The next thing I knew, I was being arrested for rape.”
Vivian wanted desperately to believe him, but every story she’d ever heard was echoing in her head. The excuses made by the abused, the lies told by the abuser. The details of rapes and beatings and attempted suicides running through her mind like a never-ending montage. And Merry. Dear God, Merry.
“I want to believe you.”
“So believe me. Or don’t.” He shrugged. “It’s not like it really matters, unless you’re going to back out of defending Diego.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“So there’s no problem then.”
“Rafael—”
A loud knock on the front door had her pausing, biting her lip.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I won’t.” He walked out without another word.
She watched him go, thoughts of their kiss in the front of her mind.
Too late she remembered his tenderness as he kissed her, his determination to make sure she was okay. His insistence that she say yes before he so much as touched her.
Sinking into the nearest chair, she laid her head on the kitchen table and tried to convince herself that this whole evening had been a nightmare. Too bad it didn’t look like she was going to wake up anytime soon.