The Man Behind the Cop

“Ohh.” Her fingers froze, and she stared at him. “Oh.”

The image of her flinging herself between the furious, betrayed husband and the wife he was determined to kill shook Bruce. He tried not to let her see how much.

“There’s no way you could have reached her in time anyway. Even if it had been physically possible, you would have had to read his intentions first, and that would have taken critical seconds.”

“I should have walked her to the van.”

“I repeat—unless you’re trained in martial arts, you couldn’t have done anything but get hurt.”

Her shoulders sagged and the napkin dropped to her lap. “Do you think…Is there any way…?”

“She’ll survive?”

Karin bit her lip and nodded.

“Of course it’s possible.” Why not? People had huge malignant tumors vanish between one ultrasound and the next. They woke from comas after twenty years. Miracles happened. “From what I’ve read, the brain has amazing recuperative properties. Other parts step in when one section is damaged. Right now, I’m guessing the swelling is what’s keeping her in the coma.”

Those big brown eyes were fixed on his face as if she were drinking in every word. She nodded. “That’s what the doctor said.”

“It takes time.” He glanced up. “Ah. Here’s our food.”

They both ate, initially in a silence filled with undercurrents. He studied her surreptitiously, and caught her scrutinizing him, as well. He knew why she interested him so much. The question of the day: Did she see him only as a cop, or had it occurred to her to be intrigued by the man?

He cleared his throat. “I hope you weren’t alone last night. Uh…this morning.”

“Alone? No, Cecilia did sit with me for a while, and then Lenora’s sister came…” Comprehension dawned. “Oh. You mean at home.”

Bruce nodded.

“I live alone. I mean, I’m not married, or…”

Was that a blush, or was he imagining things?

“I fell into bed without even brushing my teeth. I was past coherent conversation.”

He understood that. “I, ah, live alone, too.”

“Oh.” Definitely color in her cheeks, and her normally direct look skittered from his.

Well. They’d settled that. It was a start. Although to what he wasn’t sure. He kept his relationships with women superficial, and somehow he didn’t picture Karin Jorgensen being content with cheap wine when she could have full-bodied.

Great analogy; he was cheap.

No, not cheap—just not a keeper.

Somehow that didn’t sound any better.

“The clinic’s receptionist said you had questions for me.”

He swallowed the bite of food in his mouth. Clear your head, idiot. “I want to know every scrap you can remember about Roberto Escobar. I’m hitting dead ends everywhere else I turn. No one liked him. I have a handful of names of men who might have been friends of his, although most people I’ve interviewed doubt he actually had any friends. If he really doesn’t, if he’s on his own with two little kids, we’ll find him. If he has help, that’s going to be tougher.”

She set down her fork. “What do you think he’ll do if he is on his own?”

“Rent a cheap motel room. Two hundred bucks a week. That kind.”

Karin nibbled on her lower lip. “That sounds…bleak.”

“It is bleak. Especially since I doubt he’s ever done child care for more than a few hours at a time.” He hadn’t thought to ask anyone. “Is Enrico still in diapers?”

She shook her head. “Lenora was really happy to get him potty trained just…I don’t know, six weeks or so ago. Although that isn’t very long. Under stress, kids tend to regress.”

She wasn’t exaggerating. Under enough stress, they regressed by years sometimes. He’d seen a twelve-year-old curling up tightly and sucking her thumb. Having your mother brutally bludgeoned right in front of you…Yeah, that would be cause to lose bladder control.

“He’d be mad,” Bruce noted.

“Oh, he’d be mad at them no matter what. Enrico is two. You know what two-year-olds are like.”

He didn’t, except by reputation.

“And Anna is only four. Well, almost five. They need routine, they need naps, they’ll want their favorite toys—” She stopped. “Did he take the time to collect any of their stuff from their aunt and uncle’s?”

“After killing Aunt Julia, you mean?” he said dryly. “We assume they had a bag packed for the night, and if so, yes. It’s not there. But the ragged, stuffed bunny Uncle Mateo says Anna is passionately attached to was left on the sofa, along with Enrico’s blankie. Uncle Mateo predicts major tears.”

“Stupid,” she pronounced.

“He panicked. Wouldn’t you, under the circumstances?”

“Yes, but he’ll be sorry.” Then she shook her head, visibly going into psychologist mode. “No, sorry isn’t in his vocabulary. Not if it means, Gee, I screwed up. Everything is someone else’s fault. The more he gets frustrated with the children, the more enraged he’ll be at Lenora. This is all her fault. What’s frightening is that without her to deflect him, he’ll start turning that rage on Anna and Enrico. That he would anyway is worrying. That’s what finally precipitated her decision to leave him. She knew that sooner or later he’d lose his temper with them, not just with her.”

The sandwich was settling heavily in Bruce’s stomach. He was hearing a professional opinion, professionally delivered. “How soon will that happen?”

“Soon. It probably already has. If he’d attacked just Lenora, I’d think there was a chance that he’d have a period of being…chilled. Justifying it in his own mind, but shaken by what he’d done, too. The fact that he attacked two women, with—what, fifteen minutes, half an hour in between?—suggests that he’s even more cold-blooded than I would have guessed. No, he’ll have very little patience. His own children are just…possessions to him. Evidence of his virility. Not living, breathing, squalling, traumatized kids. He literally has no ability to empathize.”

Bruce swore. He supposed he had hoped Escobar was a man made momentarily insane by what he perceived as his wife’s betrayal.

Ah, here we go again. Hamster wheel squeaking. What was true insanity—what was cultural and what was in the blood, a legacy from father to son?

Give me a straightforward murder for profit any day.

In this case, at least, Karin was telling him that Roberto Escobar wasn’t momentarily nuts. He was the real thing: a genuine sociopath. One who, unfortunately, was on the run with two preschoolers. Now, that was scary.

He mined Karin for every tidbit she could dredge from her memory about her client’s husband. His favorite color was red; Lenora had once mentioned looking for a shirt for his birthday. Did it say that the guy loved the color of blood?

“He’s five foot eight, not five-ten as it says on his driver’s license. Lenora said he lied.”

Bruce made a note.

“He snores. But he didn’t like it when she slipped out of bed to sleep on the couch or got in bed with one of the kids. So usually she didn’t, even if she couldn’t sleep.”