Without Malice (The Without Series Book 1) Read online

  Because Wright was the attorney of record, the two men were allowed the privilege of a secure room, no recordings, no video tapes. At least in theory. After what’d happened to him, inmate 143973 – Roger Franklin Milano – didn’t trust police or guards or anyone anymore.

  Apparently Wright had decided to meet with Roger in regular visitation with the other inmates. No confidentiality.

  Was that good or bad? Important or trivial?

  Surprise or shock or something must’ve registered on his face because Wright’s first words were, “Walt Steiner sent me.”

  A jolt of terror raced through his blood like wildfire because he knew immediately what that meant.

  “It’s Frankie. She’s in trouble,” Wright continued, his sad basset-hound face drooping almost comically.

  “What?” Roger whispered, his voice as rusty as an old engine. He realized he rarely used his vocal chords anymore. “Who? Why?”

  “I’m trying to get a private room,” Wright assured him. “I don’t want to say more here.” He glanced around. “Publicly.”

  Roger looked at the door where a guard waited for visitation to end, and behind Wright where the reception officers watched through tinted windows. Every word said during inmate visits could be recorded and listened to later – no expectation of privacy inside a prison facility.

  “Walt said to give you the message about Frankie, and see what you can learn about ... ” The attorney looked down meaningfully at Roger’s hands splayed on the counter. The letters L-O-D were tattooed into the first three fingers of his right hand, below the knuckle joint.

  Roger Franklin Milano – inmate 143973 – was a member of the Lords of Death.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow in privilege,” Wright continued, “and tell you everything I know about – about what’s happened.” He cleared his throat. “Try not to worry. We’re taking care of it.”

  Wright stood abruptly and exited the room before time was up, leaving Roger staring after him. He sat on his round stool, gazed fixed on his folded hands, thinking desperately of the only thing in the world that mattered to him anymore.

  What had happened to his only daughter – Frankie Jones she called herself now – and what could he do about it stuck inside his concrete cage?

  Chapter 29

  Maybelle’s was a breakfast-lunch restaurant that had been an established attraction in Placer Hills for three decades. Worn and a little seedy, it served the best food in town and was still operated by the original owners.

  Cruz had just settled with a menu and a glass of water when Dr. Jones entered the diner and spotted him in the corner. She was as stunning as he’d remembered, and wore a casual look again today, her hair up in a loose ponytail.

  Slow down the hormones, he warned himself, as he rose from his chair.

  Instantly recognizing him, she sat down quickly while the wait server placed a menu and glass of water before her.

  “What’s good?” she asked, scanning the list.

  “They serve breakfast all day.” Cruz wondered what her particular relationship was to Cole Hansen, and what made her so edgy. Her fresh face and wide-eyed expression contrasted with her ill-at-ease body.

  “I like the biscuits and gravy with a side of sliced tomatoes, so I can pretend I’m eating healthy.”

  She tried a lopsided smile that didn’t quite work and ordered the same. They settled into an uncomfortable silence until the server, whose name tag said “Sally,” placed their breakfasts and the check on the table.

  “Let me know if you need anything,” Sally said. “We’ve got great bread pudding if you’re hankering for dessert.”

  They ate a few minutes in silence while the other customers gradually left and only they remained. He was starved. Being so occupied with his cases, he hadn’t taken time to eat all day.

  “Tell me what you know about Cole Hansen,” she said at last, laying her fork down.

  Again, a command, not a request.

  “We talked about confidentiality, Dr. Jones,” he answered, testing the waters.

  “Frankie, please.” She removed her sweater and hung it on the back of her chair. She wore a tank top that hugged her slender figure without being too revealing.

  “All right – Frankie,” he conceded, trying to keep his mind on her words. “I can’t give you parolee information without cause.”

  She sighed, patted her mouth, and placed her napkin beside the empty plate, signaling for the server. “I’ll have a Pepsi, please, lots of ice, and try that bread pudding you mentioned.”

  “Same for me.”

  After Sally left, Frankie continued, “There – there are – odd things happening at the prison where I’m head doctor. I can’t elaborate, but I think Cole Hansen is in serious jeopardy.”

  She leaned over the table and lowered her voice when Sally left to fill their dessert orders. The neckline of her tank revealed smooth, white flesh. “I saw him in my clinic right before he paroled. He dropped out – you know what that means?”

  Cruz nodded. “Debriefing. Snitching.”

  “Yes, and he had six months’ time left on his sentence, but after he dropped out, he was paroled that same day.”

  Cruz shrugged. “Lucky guy. So what’s the problem?”

  She lifted one dark eyebrow and leaned back in her chair. “Really. You don’t know that debriefing effectively puts a target on his back?”

  “Maybe, but it depends on what he gave up. If he just named small-time gang members, gave insignificant information about their activities, he wouldn’t be bothered on the inside or the outside.”

  “It’s the Lords of Death,” Frankie said flatly.

  “Ah.”

  “Yes, ah.”

  “Still, I don’t see what this has to do with you.” Cruz dug into the bread pudding Sally set before them. “You’re a doctor at Pelican Bay. Hansen is a parolee. I don’t see how you fit into any of this.”

  “They’re going to kill him,” she insisted ferociously.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Like I said, I saw Cole in the clinic the day before his release. A murder had just gone down in the prison yard. A new inmate stabbed in the jugular. Hispanic – Norteño, I think.” She shook her head. “Or maybe not even ganged up yet. I’m not sure. They got him to the clinic, but it was too late. He bled out.”

  Cruz lifted both shoulders and concentrated on his dessert. “So?”

  She frowned, a look both angry and disappointed shadowing her face. “So, Cole admitted to stabbing the man – no provocation at all – and landed in the SHU. He confessed, but I’m positive he didn’t kill that man.”

  Frankie willed the parole officer not to dismiss her. He scraped a hand across his jaw which was starting an early five-o’clock shadow. Her eyes followed his hand, brown and strong-looking. She’d always had a thing for well-shaped hands in a man.

  “And you think he took the fall because the Lords of Death shot-caller ordered it,” Cruz said

  Frankie nodded, forcing herself back to the topic. “Cole’s just not smart enough – or vicious enough – to do something like that.”

  Cruz tried to recall the details of Hansen’s rap sheet and parole record. If he remembered right, it was petty stuff, possession, dealing, theft – but no violent crimes. A lowly criminal like him didn’t usually escalate to murder, but you never knew.

  Prison had a way of changing men.

  Cruz spoke the words aloud.

  “You don’t understand.” Desperation jammed her voice like stones in a streambed. “Cole has information I need to find out.” She pushed aside her plate, took a deep drink of soda, and eyed him levelly across the table.

  “Cole may not be the only one in trouble.” A tiny line of perspiration dotted her upper lip. She dabbed at it with a napkin.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think someone’s trying to kill me, too.”

  “Why would someone try to kill a prison doctor?”

  �
��Because I – I think I know something, maybe something I don’t know I know.”

  Chapter 30

  Even through the convoluted words, Cruz knew what Frankie meant. She’d uncovered information she wasn’t supposed to have – information that put her in danger.

  Her hand rested on the table, palm downward. Without thinking he covered it briefly with his own. He’d only meant a gesture of comfort, but an unexpected tingle ran through him. For a single moment their eyes met, and he knew she’d felt it, too.

  “Tell me everything,” he said, signaling for another round of sodas.

  Frankie Jones recounted each detail – from the murder in the prison yard to the note Cole Hansen had slipped her. From Anson Stark’s menacing visit to – finally and reluctantly – the attack in the prison parking lot.

  Cruz sat stunned for long moments.

  “It sounds like a made-up story, I know,” she said at last, but the look in her stormy gray eyes told him she was desperate for him to believe her. “I’m not crazy.”

  “And this friend of yours – this Walt Steiner? – can you trust him?”

  “I – I don’t know. When I called him, he – he told me to go to a certain house.”

  “You must trust him then.”

  I thought I could trust a lot of people. Now I’m not so sure.” Her eyes narrowed and her face became stone. “When I was ... young, Walt designated a place for me to go if I ever – ever got in trouble. She clasped her hands together on the table top. “I didn’t go there. I got a motel room instead.”

  He noticed the slim fingers and the clean nails, cut short and bluntly. Capable hands. She seemed like an efficient woman, a steady woman not prone to fanciful imaginings. “You’re safe enough in Rosedale, don’t you think?” So far from Crescent City?”

  She bit her bottom lip. “Maybe. I don’t know. I was followed by a low rider car last night. I didn’t dare go back to my motel room.”

  “Gang bangers?”

  She spread her hands helplessly. “They were white, not Mexican, but they looked like gang members.”

  “Go to the cops,” Cruz advised. “What can I do for you?”

  “No cops,” she insisted. “If CO’s at the prison are involved in this, why not local police? You can help me find Cole. He’ll have some answers.” Her face was a stubborn wall of determination.

  Why would someone who worked for Corrections and Rehabilitation not trust the authorities?

  Frankie pulled a paper from her handbag and shoved it across the table. It was the coded message, wrinkled and torn, she claimed Cole had given her when she was examining him in the prison clinic. “Can you tell what it means?”

  Cruz was impressed by her composure. The attack and threats must’ve been terrifying, but she managed to maintain a cool outward façade.

  He reached across the table, took the note, looking around to check if anyone had noticed. “It looks like gobbledygook,” he complained after a glance.

  “Cole Hansen risked his life getting it to me in prison. He couldn’t know his release date would come so quickly.”

  Cruz lifted one eyebrow. “Don’t make Cole Hansen into some kind of hero, Dr. Jones. He’s an ex-felon. He’ll say or do anything to make his life easier.”

  “Maybe.” Frankie shifted in her chair. “But I don’t think he’s a killer. I think he’s a guy who got caught up in something he doesn’t know how to get out of.”

  “In every one of his prison terms he’s been ganged up,” he reminded her.

  “You know how it is in prison,” Frankie returned hotly, pink flushing her high cheekbones. “It’s all about survival.”

  Cruz sighed and rubbed his right temple. What kind of prison doctor was also so supportive of prisoners? Christ, the woman gave him a headache.

  But he couldn’t help notice how appealing she looked when she blushed.

  “You may be right,” he returned, “but unless we can find Cole, get him to help us figure this out, it’s just a useless piece of paper.”

  “A piece of paper intended for the president of the Lords of Death,” she countered.

  Cruz nodded. “There’s that.”

  “We have to find Cole before someone else does.”

  “You need to worry about your own safety first. If you’re correct, and someone’s trying to get to you, you’re in trouble. If you won’t go to the police, don’t return to the motel. Do you have somewhere that’s secure?”

  Frankie had already found her safe house, but only nodded.

  “Okay, go to this – this place you have – and make sure no one follows you,” Cruz ordered, pushing back from the table, throwing a few bills down.

  He reached for her phone lying on the table and programmed his number into it. “Wait for me to call. We’ll talk about that – ” He nodded at the note “ – later.”

  “Wh – what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to locate Cole Hansen.”

  Cole needed help, but didn’t know where to turn.

  As his last few dollars ran out, he scrounged around for empty soda cans and got enough change for a cup of coffee and a dollar sandwich at McDonald’s. Another manager, another young kid, gave him warning looks as he huddled quietly in the corner, so he left.

  By now he was real grubby. He hadn’t washed since he’d left prison and was sure the frowns and stares he got from people in Old Town was from the stink coming off him. He’d never lived on the street before. In between jail and prison stints, he always found someone who’d give him a place to stay, a few weeks here, a few there, even if it meant sleeping on the floor or in the garage.

  Desperation felt like a ball of sodden bread clogging his throat.

  He sat on the steps of the Washington Street Church. Looked around the corner to see the small sign of the Jesus Saves building. Cruz had said the woman there, Angie Hunt, was good people. Cole didn’t know if he could trust his parole officer or not, but what choice did he have?

  He was that desperate.

  Chapter 31

  Cruz caught up with Cole Hansen by sheer accident.

  Cruising down Washington Street, he swung his jeep into the parking lot behind the Washington Street Church where the parishioners served a snack on weekdays for the homeless. A few stragglers lingered about, drinking coffee and eating protein bars.

  Cruz idled his vehicle a few moments, watching the people who exited the back door of the church. Suddenly, Cole came out of the wide double doors and looked around carefully. He hoisted his backpack on one shoulder while he sipped from a Styrofoam cup.

  Clearly, Cole didn’t recognize Cruz’s car. The parole officer eased out of the seat, closed the door quietly, and started walking toward the parolee. Cole caught the movement, and in a flash tossed aside his cup of coffee and hauled ass around the side of the building.

  Damn! Cruz hated runners. He took off after him.

  Cole was faster on his feet than Cruz had expected, but no match for him. He worked out regularly and ran five to seven miles a day. Single, with few hobbies, and both parents passed away, Cruz had little else to do with his spare time.

  He caught up with Cole three blocks away in a residential section of Old Town Rosedale. Tackling him hard, he twisted his arms behind his back and cuffed him.

  “See now, Cole, that’s exactly what you’re not supposed to do.” He puffed out a long breath and hauled the parolee to his feet, glowering down at him. “Running from your P.O.? Worst thing you can do.”

  Cole looked like a cornered animal. “Don’t violate me, please. I can’t go back to Pelican Bay.” Surprisingly Cruz saw tears squeeze out of the corners of the man’s eyes. “I’m a dead man if I go back there.”

  “Jeez, Cole, are you going to cry like a little baby? Come on, man up.” Cruz didn’t like disrespecting the man, but experience told him it was the best way to handle this situation.

  He tugged on Cole’s arm and looked around. No one had followed them, but there might be a crowd wh
en they got back to his car. They took their time returning to allow any church stragglers to disperse. By then the brief spurt of fight had gone out of Cole.

  Cruz shoved Cole into the back of his jeep and drove off, getting on Interstate 80 and heading to Placer Hills and the Bigler County Jail. Halfway there, he realized he didn’t want to drag Cole into the office where everyone could see him in handcuffs. Once that happened, he’d be forced to violate the man’s parole.

  What was he going to do with Cole?

  Impulsively, he pulled off the road, put on his hazard blinkers, and called Frankie Jones’ number – the one he’d programmed into his cell phone.

  “I found him,” he said as soon as she answered.

  “Officer Cruz?”

  “You can call me Chago,” he corrected.”

  An awkward pause followed – charged with tension.

  “I found Cole, Cruz said after a moment, looking over his shoulder. Cole was staring gloomily out the window, his hands and shoulders twisted awkwardly from the cuffs. “Idiot ran as soon as he laid eyes on me.”

  “Is he hurt?”

  Hurt? Did she imagine he would abuse one of his parolees?

  “No,” he snapped, “of course not. Where are you now?”

  Frankie hesitated. “At the – the house, the place I told you about.”

  “Right.” Cruz thought a moment, then lowered his voice, trying to imagine what kind of house she had and how secluded it might be. “We both need to question Cole and find out what he knows before I decide if I’m going to violate his parole.”

  “Do you have to violate him? If he goes back to jail or prison – ”

  “I have some discretion,” he interrupted impatiently. “Right now I have to decide where to keep him.”

  “Wait until dark and bring him here,” Frankie suggested after a moment.

  Cruz sighed heavily. “Think about that. Do you really want an ex-con to know where you live?”

  Cruz could hear the shrug in her voice, her being brave. “It’s not my primary residence. Besides, if you arrive at night he won’t remember the address or how to get here. It’ll be okay.”