Love Lost (12 page)

“Hey.  Have you heard from Vin since he left mom’s house?”

“No.  I haven’t.  But when we left, Jesse said there was a car that pulled up behind us and Vin had been talking to the driver.  We didn’t think anything of it.  Are you guys fighting again?  You’re almost like a married couple, Man!”

“I haven’t heard back from him and I think he might be in trouble.”

“Look.  You are probably just being paranoid.  You
were
just shot.  Let me call Jesse and see if he can swing by Vin’s place.  He’s probably shacked up with some hot girl.  You know how he is!”

“Maybe.  Let me know if Jesse talks to him.”

Jason hung up the phone with the bad feeling still present.  Selene’s arms wrapped around him and he felt some of his tension ease. 

“No stress,
Babe.  Vin is fine.”

He kissed her forehead and waited until she fell asleep
, then he reached for his phone and gently rose from the bed.  Jean came in and almost yelled at him until he pointed at Selene sleeping.  She wiggled her finger at him and helped him to the couch.

“What are you trying to do, land in another coma?” 
the nurse whispered to him.

“I need to make a call and I didn’t want to wake her.”

“Hang on.”  She left and came back with a wheelchair.  She helped him sit on it and wheeled him to the cafeteria. 

“Since I’m on my dinner break, I will grab you some food to eat while you make your call.”

As she left to get some food, Jason called the medical examiner’s office.  He hoped that the night staff was still the same.  When the voice came on, he was overjoyed.  

“Kassie. It’s Jason!”

“Jason?  I heard what happened.  Are you ok?”

“I’m fine. Listen, I need a huge favor.  Do you have an ID on my shooter?”

“You will owe me big for this!”

He heard her typing away and then she let out a whistle.

“This is strange.”

“What?” 

“He is in the system as a confidential informant.”

Jason held his breath.  “For who?”

“Vincent Arroyo.”

Lucio watched from across the room as Selene slept in the hospital bed.  He would have approached her if it wasn’t for the nosy nurse that watched him like a hawk. 

“Sir, visiting hours are over and you have to leave. You can come back to visit her husband tomorrow.”

“Husband?”

“Yes. You are here to see the detective that was shot, right?”

He was still trying to compose himself over what the nurse just said to even care about answering anymore of her questions.

She married him???? 
How could he have missed this?
  Lucio walked out of the hospital, kicking a trash can on his way to the car.  He climbed into his car and took off, almost hitting a traffic cone on the way out.  Lucio gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were bone white.  He pulled over into a vacant alley and jumped out of his car to pop open the trunk.

“Do you see what you have caused?  If you hadn’t involved her, then I wouldn’t have to kill her now.  This is all your fault!  Now, he has her…”

Lucio paused and a thought struck him.  He leaned in closer and started to run his hands over the body. 

“You just might be of use to me.”

He slammed the trunk shut and took off into the night.

After two long weeks in the hospital and against his doctor’s wishes, Jason was finally able to come home.  Since finding out about the shooter being an informant for Vin, Jason knew something was wrong.  He knew that Vin kept all of his informants out of the system.  This particular informant could not belong to his friend and that meant that someone on the force was dirty.  Vin was in trouble and Jason needed to find him.

Selene had left the apartment to pick up some groceries so he used that time to meet with his brothers.  They arrived with serious looks on their faces and Jesse approached Jason first.

“Jason, I went by Vin’s house while you were still in the hospital.  No one was there and I didn’t see anything out of place so I left.  I went back last night and all of his things are gone.  The landlord said someone came by to pay the rent and told him that Vin was moving out of the country.”

“Vin wouldn’t leave without saying anything.  We are his family and he knows that Mom would kick his ass.”

His brothers laughed at the comment.  Julian gripped the chair in front of him.

“Jason, what exactly is going on?  You normally don’t ask us to help you on a case.  Why aren’t you going to your Captain with this?”

Jason leaned forward and placed a file on the desk.

“Everything that has happened is connected.  Vin’s disappearance, the shooting at the station, even the shooting at Selene’s office.”

“You think Selene is involved in this?”

He shook his head.  “I don’t think she realizes it yet, but she’s working on a case that could possibly have ties to my case.”

Jesse frowned.  “Why don’t you just ask her?”

Julian pulled out the chair to sit down. “Because, dumbass, she can’t say anything.  It will blow her case apart if she talks to Jason, especially since he is a cop.”

Jason looked at Julian.  “Did you get to look at any of her cases?”

Julian pulled an envelope from his bag and handed it to Jason.  Jesse grabbed the envelope first.

“Hang on.  You know you’re snooping on your girlfriend, right?”

Jason snatched the envelope from his brother.  “Someone on any of these cases could be behind all of this.  I’m not going to lose her.”

Jesse laughed and slapped Jason’s shoulder.  “Because you love her.”

Jason didn’t respond.  Julian narrowed his eyes at his younger brother.  “Have you told her?”

Jesse chomped on a donut.  “Not if he is going to snoop on her cases.  Come on, Jason.  You know this is not how you want things to be with Selene.  You’re serious about her, right?”

“Of course I’m serious about her.  How do I protect her if she won’t tell me anything?”

“Try asking her.”

All three men turned
toward the voice to see Selene standing in the doorway.

Julian stood up and motioned for Jesse to leave. 

“We’ll talk later.”

They both passed by Selene and waved goodbye on their way out.  Jason sat at the table, unable to move. 

“How much did you hear?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does to me.”

“I think what matters more to you is knowing what case I’m working on
. Or did I hear wrong?”

She placed the groceries on the counter and started to put them away. 

“Actually, I do deserve to know what you’re working on.  I was shot at and that pretty much makes me a part of whatever this is. I’m fighting blind here, Selene.”

She turned to face him and was eerily calm.  She chewed the corner of her lip and walked
toward the table.  She sat down and looked him in the eye.

“Let’s cut to the chase here. Ask me what you really want to ask me, Jason.”

He knew he should leave well enough alone, but a part of him needed to know.

“Who are you protecting at the Pink Bunny?”

She laughed.  “I am not protecting him.  I am trying to bring the bastard down.”

Jason frowned.  “I don’t understand.”

“Jason, my case is against Lucio Cardoso.”

Jason let out a breath.  He was almost relieved that they were both working to bring down the same guy.

“Well, that’s good to hear.  I’m working on a case against him, too.”

He realized that Selene was tearing up.  He tried to reach for her hand but she pulled away.

“I’m on the case for different reasons, Jason.   Lucio wasn’t always called Lucio.”

“Criminals have aliases all the time.  What was he called before?”

“We used to call him Luke.”

Selene watched as Jason processed what she had just told him.  He stood up and reached for the Hennessy bottle on the small bar rack, along with a glass. 

“Jason, it’s not what you think.”

Jason laughed at her response and she was taken aback by it.

“Then why don’t you explain it to me, Selene. Please explain what the hell I’m supposed to think.  You’re trying to bring down your ex-boyfriend who happens to be a homicidal maniac.”

Selene watched as he poured himself a glass and drank it in one long gulp.  “I need to tell you everything, but I need to start from the beginning.  My father never left us.  He was an addict.  He used to beat the crap out of all of us, especially my mom.  When he wasn’t beating us, he was drugging us so he could…”

Jason looked angry.  “So he could what?”

Selene couldn’t finish that sentence.

“I met Lucio when I was 14.  I ran away from home when my sister passed away.”

Jason sat at the table and folded his hands in front of him. “You lied about your sister?”

Selene looked over to the kitchen counter to the picture frame of her and Jason, smiling. 

“I didn’t lie to you, Jay.  I just didn’t tell you who the molester was.”

“OK. So what really happened with your sister?”

The man she loved was sitting in front of her, but the distance he was putting between them made him seem miles away.  “My father was the molester.  I fought him off for years, but my sister was too young. He started drugging her to get what he wanted out of her.  He was arrested for molesting another little girl, but he was released early.  We didn’t even know he was released until he showed up one night. My father barged into my room and practically dragged me into my sister’s room.  She was convulsing and died within minutes.  He had given her too much and she overdosed.”

Selene let the tears flow.  There was no use in hiding them now.  “I ran away after he forced me to bury her in my own backyard like she was a pet dog.”

Jason brought his hands to his mouth, resting his chin on them. “I’m sorry to hear about your sister and what really happened to her. But how does this all tie in with Lucio?”

“When I ran away from home, I stayed with some friends.  They were the ones that introduced me to Lucio at a party they threw. Lucio was the first guy I ever loved.”  Jason flinched at her words like he was poked with a hot stick.  He drank the rest of the brown liquid in his glass.  “Or at least that’s what I thought love was.  He brought me to his father’s clubs and parties, and made me feel like I was special.  I never had anyone show me they cared before, Jason.  I didn’t see what he truly was until much later.  It wasn’t until other men started showing interest in me that his true colors showed.  He would hit me if anyone even looked at me.  I shouldn’t have been wearing that dress or that shirt.  It was always something and it was always my fault.  After my mother died, I had no place to go so I was forced to go back to him.” 

“Forced?  How?”

“I had no money and no place to go home to so I was forced to live on the street.  I tried to steal a piece of bread because I hadn’t eaten in days.  The shop owner caught me and he called the police.  I had no one else to call except for Lucio’s parents.  His father came to pick me up and told me if I went back to Lucio willingly, that he would make the charges disappear and keep me off the streets.” 

Jason frowned.  “Why did his father want you back with Lucio?”

“It’s all about appearances, Jason.  We couldn’t let anyone know that Lucio was the one that attacked me and my mom, or the one behind my mother’s beating. To make matters worse, his father forced me to be a stripper at one of his clubs.”

“What?!  How was that acceptable?”

“You have no idea how things were or are back home.  It’s why I left. I still remember the first night I danced.  I felt those eyes on me and was so scared.  Lucio stopped hitting me when I became one of his father’s dancers because he said he wasn’t going to damage his Sweet Selene any more.  He would beat another dancer in my place if I didn’t behave.”

Selene stood up and reached for a glass and the Hennessy.  The liquid burned as it went down her throat.

“Behave?” 

“As in, obey his orders.  He beat a dancer so badly, I heard her jaw break.  All because one of his disgusting friends wanted to touch me during one of my private dances and I smacked him.  Eventually, I became friends with another dancer there. Her name was Mimi and she helped me avoid some of Lucio’s tantrums.  I started making a lot of money as a dancer and I saved it all, hoping to find a way to leave one day.  Thankfully, my aunt called me to say I could live with her almost a year after my mother passed away. I started to plan on how I could leave and Mimi helped me get out of the country without Lucio finding out.  She bought the ticket for me under one of her cousin’s names and drove me to the airport.  She told me to never look back and live my life for the both of us.” 

Jason maintained his eyes on her and shook his head in disbelief.  Selene knew this was going to hurt him but she needed to get it all out once and for all. 

“Mimi came to me after I graduated from law school.  Lucio hired people to try to find me and they did. He sent her to convince me to go back to him.  Mimi had other intentions, though, and was willing to help me bring him down.  She had a daughter that she feared would end up like her and she wanted to make sure her daughter was safe.” 

“A daughter? Is-”

“The father Lucio? She never said who the father was but I always suspected he was.  She refused to talk about it.  I think she feared anyone associated with Lucio would be in danger.  I guess there’s some truth to that, huh?”

Jason rubbed his face and seemed unsure of what to say. Selene stood up to head into the bedroom and returned with the file on Lucio.  “Mimi is my client, not Lucio.  She helped me collect all of this evidence, including video surveillance from one of his clubs.” 

Jason looked at the file but didn’t open it. “The Pink Bunny?”

Selene nodded. “Yes. Lucio would call me at work, or on my cell. He would even make surprise visits when he knew I was alone in the office but he would never drag me back.  It’s like he was taunting me the whole time.  I never really loved him, Jason.  I never knew what love was until…”

Jason balled up his fists.

“Was he the one calling you and threatening you, Selene?”

“Yes.”

“Wait.  Did Daphne know about him?”

“She knew about him, based on what I told her, but she never met him.  I didn’t even show her a picture of what he looked like, because I was so afraid of him and what he could do to her.  I didn’t want to involve her or put her life at risk, but I failed on both counts.  If she knew what he looked like, she would still be alive.”