Reclaim: A Recovered Innocence Novel (2 page)

I hold up the page. “Carla Ruiz.”

She unfolds herself and comes toward me. She takes the sheet and nods. “This one got to me too. What made you choose her?”

I
knew
it. “She lost twice—her son then her freedom. That’s too much for anyone, let alone someone so young.”

“Yeah. I thought the same thing.” There’s a look in her eyes that I don’t like seeing. Sadness. She’s too pretty to be sad. “Beau was a year younger than her when
he
went to prison and they’re nearly the same age now.”

“That must’ve been awful.”

She nods, her focus on Carla’s photo.

“How’s Vera doing?” I have to ask. Then I hold my breath, waiting for the answer.

Her bright-blue gaze slides from the paper to me and it’s a warm wave crashing over me, making my breath catch. It’s the same blue as the streaks in her hair. Startling. Mesmerizing. Totally off limits.

She smiles. “She’s coming home today. That’s why Beau isn’t here. He’s getting her settled in.”

“That’s good. I’m glad.” So, so glad. It’s like someone just lifted a stadium off my shoulders.

“Thanks for taking up the slack.” She motions with the paper. “And for helping me choose.”

“Sure. Anytime.”

She starts to turn away, then comes back. “We’re still a little short handed around here. You’ve been so great about working overtime and filling in, I hate to ask…”

“Whatever you need.”

“Since you helped me pick the case I’d like you to take lead on it. I’ll help. It’s not like I’d be leaving you on your own. It’s just that the work you’ve been doing has been really great and I’d like you to start heading up a few cases. Jerry’s been making noises about retiring, and with Mr. Nash in semi-retirement already we really need another lead investigator around here. You’ve more than shown you can handle it. This could be a training case. Leads make more money and you’d get out of the office more. What do you say?”

I open my mouth to speak—because she clearly expects a response—but nothing comes out except a squeak. A horrible, embarrassing squeak. I cough to cover it up. She’s caught me totally off guard. Her eyes are hopeful and before I form the thought I’m nodding.
What am I doing?
Make it stop.

“Sure,” I say, completing the humiliation. My brain is melting down. While it burns the rest of me goes on automatic, responding totally separately from my mind. I can almost smell the smoke that is surely bellowing out my ears.

“Oh,
thank you,
” Cora says. Her smile fans the flames. Sirens go off in my head. “I’ll set up the appointment for us to meet with the Freedom Project staff attorney,” she continues, totally unaware of the mass casualties in my skull. “You’re going to do great. Just great.” She backs away toward the door. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

Before I can stop her she’s gone.

What have I done?

I’m late. I hate being late. I hate people who show up late even more. Now I’m one of them. There was a jam-up at the coroner’s office so it took me forever to get a copy of Diego Ruiz’s autopsy. I’ve got it and am now racing across town to meet the private investigator that will be helping with Carla Ruiz’s case. I’m lucky. Nash Security and Investigation has a stellar reputation. Carla deserves the best.

I’ve never worked with them so I haven’t been to their offices. Recently they were instrumental in freeing two men who were wrongfully convicted. I’m hoping they’ve got what it will take to free Carla too. I hope
I’ve
got what it takes. I’ve never encountered a case that touched me the way this one does. The form she filled out to have her case considered by The Freedom Project reads like a note one of my parents might have written. The sentences are all in English, but they’re broken and the word order is wrong in places.

I feel her pain in each carefully chosen word. I also feel her confusion, anger, and deep sense of betrayal. She illegally crossed the border from Mexico to the United States with her father and brother when she was a small child just like I did. And just like Carla and her family, my father, my mother pregnant with my sister, and I came to America with the hope of a better life. That wasn’t what Carla got. That’s not exactly what I got either.

The end of her story hasn’t been written yet. She can still have the life she dreamed of. Or at least a close approximation. I can’t give her back her son, but I can possibly give her back her life. We’re not supposed to make promises to our clients at The Freedom Project. That wouldn’t be fair. But I make one to myself—that I’ll exhaust every avenue, pursue every lead. I won’t quit until I’ve done everything I can to free her. I am her. She is me. We are one in our shared experiences. I can give her something she probably has never had—hope.

When she’s free I can help her through the process of getting her paperwork to stay in the U.S. We speak the same language and know the same fears. I can help her rebuild her life. Through my ties to the immigrant community I can help her find a job and an apartment. But first I have to fight for her freedom.

Tomorrow I’ll visit her in prison. It will be our first meeting. I don’t know if I’m excited or afraid or an unsettling combination of the two. This is my first case for The Freedom Project, and I fought hard to win the privilege to help Carla. I just hope I’m up to the task. Wanting something and achieving it are two totally different things.

I pull up to the building with the Nash offices and park. It’s unassuming. Not at all flashy. I appreciate that. The February sun is warm, but the air has a slight chill as I climb out of my car and gather my things. The pavement is dark from last night’s rain. Thank goodness it stopped raining. San Diegans aren’t the best at driving in the rain and I would’ve been even later than I am. I open the door of the Nash offices and enter the sparsely furnished reception area. A blond receptionist sits at a desk talking on the phone. She holds up a finger to let me know she’ll be right with me. I turn my attention to the framed newspaper clippings on the wall. They feature the two men that Nash helped to free. I picture a similar tribute for Carla placed right next to the other two.

“Can I help you?”

I turn to the receptionist. “Hello. I’m Lila Garcia with The Freedom Project. I have an appointment.”

“Oh, yes. Pleased to meet you.” She comes around the desk and offers her hand. “I’m Savannah.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“I’ll let Cora know you’re here.” She goes down the hall then comes back. “She asked me to direct you to the conference room.” I follow her and take a seat at the large table. “Can I offer you something to drink? Coffee? Tea? Water?”

“Water would be great. Thanks.”

“Cora will be right with you.”

Alone, I pull out all the information I have on Carla’s case. I made copies of everything for the PI except for the coroner’s report. I’m sure they’ll want a copy, so I set it aside. I got a copy of the trial transcripts. Her defense attorney was an incompetent ass. This case never should’ve gone to trial, let alone ended in a conviction. There was no crime. I flip open the coroner’s report and skim down to his finding—accidental death. Not murder. So why did the district attorney file charges in the first place? And why didn’t the defense attorney get the charges dropped? It just doesn’t make sense.

“Lila?” A woman with black hair streaked with blue enters the room followed by a dark-haired guy. “Hi, I’m Cora Hollis. This is Nolan Perry. He’ll be lead on this case.”

We do the shaking-hands thing and sit. Savannah comes in with bottles of water for everyone. Cora and Nolan sit across from me. He looks nervous. She looks composed. And familiar. I’m trying to figure out where I know her from and then it hits me—she’s Beau Hollis’s sister. She started working at Nash to help free him. That was a hell of a case to crack. I’m impressed.

“Thank you for taking this case.” I slide a folder across the table to her. “I made you copies of everything I have except the coroner’s report, which I just obtained.” I hand that folder over too. “As you can see Diego Ruiz’s death was ruled accidental.”

Cora places the folder between the two of them and opens it. “I don’t understand. If the death was accidental how did she get convicted for murder?”

“Carla confessed to strangling her son.”

“Why would she confess?”

“The police questioned her for nearly thirty hours without a break. Until she finally gave in and confessed. No food, no water, no trips to the restroom. According to the form she filled out to have her case considered by The Freedom Project, the police pushed her around, bullied her, and called her names. She felt like she didn’t have a choice. She’s in the country illegally. She doesn’t speak English very well. They threatened to deport her entire family. She was alone and completely at their mercy. What would you do?”

Cora nods. “I see your point. Is there any way for her to recant her confession?”

“The Freedom Project has relationships with a couple of experts on false confessions. I’ve already sent out a copy of the police video to them. I’m hoping they can give us some insight. Here’s the video.” I give her a DVD copy. “In it you’ll see how tired Carla looks. Her clothes are disheveled. There’s a bruise near her right eye. Who knows what all they did to her, what they said.”

“What do you need from us?” This is the first time Nolan’s spoken.

His voice is deeper, rougher than I expected. I look at him—really look at him—for the first time. As the lead investigator on the case, he’s someone I’m going to be spending a lot of time with. I should’ve been paying better attention. On the surface he’s a placid lake. There’s a quietness to him that makes me wonder if he’s as deep as he seems or as dumb as a box of rocks. Either way I envy his calm. Drawn up tight and strung out so thin, I sometimes vibrate inside like a plucked string. There is no stillness in me. I’m like a bee flitting from flower to flower, never landing for very long.

His seemingly tranquil nature intrigues me. I press him for more, leaning closer to ask, “What do you mean?”

“It seems like you’ve got everything sorted out with the experts. I’m just wondering what you need a private investigation agency for?”

Cora doesn’t say a word as she turns her attention from Nolan back to me.

“A couple of things,” I say. “I’ve been able to locate one witness, an eight-year-old boy, who can testify that when he and Diego were little, Diego liked to wrap the elastic cord of the bedsheet that strangled him around his throat and pretend he was Spider-Man. I want to see if we can find Inez Torres, the neighbor who often babysat Diego. Filipe, that’s the eight-year-old, said that she chastised Diego for putting the cord around his neck more than once. They can corroborate Carla’s version of events.

“I also need you to find Carla’s defense attorney, John Martin. He disappeared shortly after her conviction. I’d really like to see his notes and paperwork on the case if they still exist.”

“What do you mean
disappeared
?” Cora asks.

“As in vanished off the face of the earth. His family filed a missing persons report a little more than a month after the trial.”

“Do you suspect foul play?”

“I don’t know what to make of it. The timing of it…I want to know if he really disappeared or if he relocated and didn’t tell anyone. And if he
did
relocate, why?”

“Maybe he went into witness protection.” Nolan meant it as a joke, but his quip is a possibility I hadn’t considered. But then why would a defense attorney go into protective custody?

Cora turns to Nolan. “That’s a thread we’ll definitely have to follow. There’s no way the federal marshals would tell us if he was in witness protection, but we can try to see if there was something in his background or in one of his cases that might cause that to happen.”

“A court-appointed defense attorney isn’t likely to have the kind of cases that would warrant protective custody,” I say. “Even if he did, there’s attorney–client privilege. He couldn’t testify using any information he received during his defense of a client.”

“He probably ran off with a mistress or something.” Nolan shrugs. “Or he’s dead.”

I’m not sure I like his flippant attitude. “If he was dead there would be a death certificate.”

“Not if he was murdered.”

I can’t say the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but the question is,
Why
? “Why would someone murder a low-level public defender? There’s nothing in his background that might lead to that.”

“Not even his personal background? Maybe he had an affair with a married woman with a vindictive husband. Maybe he had a gambling debt he couldn’t repay. Maybe he fleeced a client and they exacted revenge.” Nolan jerks a shoulder. “Or maybe he drove off a cliff and died somewhere too dense to see the wreckage from the road. He could’ve given up his life and gone native. I knew a guy who did that. He walked out on his family and into the forest and never came back. There are a million possibilities here.”

“And we’ll exhaust them all,” Cora says, blinking back her surprise at Nolan.

Maybe those still waters run deeper than he lets on even to his co-workers. Intriguing.

“I have an appointment to visit Carla tomorrow. I’d like you to go with me,” I tell Nolan. “We can ask her about her attorney and about her neighbor. She might have information she doesn’t realize she possesses.”

“Tomorrow?” I can see in his head he’s rearranging his weekend plans.

“I know it’s Saturday—”

“No. It’s okay. No problem. What time?”

“It’s a long drive. How about I pick you up around eight tomorrow morning?”

“Can we stop for coffee before we hit the road?”

“Sure.”

His smile is brief but flashy, catching me off guard. “Give me your number and I’ll text you my address.”

He enters it into his cell as I rattle it off. A few seconds later my phone pings with his text. An odd thrill runs through me. I don’t give my number out easily. Especially not to strange, attractive men, but a part of me wanted him to have it. That same part also hopes he’ll use it for more than business, which is absurd. I don’t mix business with personal. Not anymore.

Which is why I’ve turned Kurt down the last three times he called to get together. As much as my body craved to have him over me, pounding into me, I just couldn’t give in. I shouldn’t have given in to him at all, it went against everything in me, but there was something intriguing about having a relationship that didn’t go any deeper than the sexual. In the weeks since our last hookup something changed for me. While I enjoyed the sex it left me feeling strangely dissatisfied.

My attraction to Nolan is a new song in the old refrain. My pattern. Hooking up with a guy I have no business getting together with or any intention of taking to a deeper level. Not that Nolan’s showed an ounce of interest in me. If anything I get the impression I bore him. I almost smile at the thought. That’s good. A guy like him has to have a girlfriend anyway. So probably all of my insecure internal ramblings are for nothing.

“Thanks,” I tell him, keying his name into my phone.

Cora rises. “I’m going to go make copies of the coroner’s report. Do you want me to make any extras?”

“Actually, yes. I’d like a copy for myself that I can bring home with me tonight.”

“Can you make an extra copy for me too?” Nolan asks.

His request surprises me. Some of my astonishment must show on my face because he tilts his head and smiles at me. He waits until Cora leaves with the file, then leans across the table toward me.

“I can’t be a workaholic too?”

“Are you?”

“Yeah. Sometimes. When it’s important.”

“What plans do you have to cancel to go to the prison with me tomorrow? Because I know you had something going on.”

He leans back in his seat, one brow raised. “Ms. Garcia, are you asking me if I have a date tomorrow?”

“No,” I blurt out. “Of course not.” But that’s exactly the information I was stupidly angling for.

“I have plans to go fishing tomorrow with some guy friends. I can go next time. No biggie.”

“You don’t have to explain to me—”

“Not that you would ask, but I don’t have a girlfriend. So I have lots of empty nights to go over coroner’s reports and do some side work on the case. I’m guessing you have a similar situation?”

“I don’t fish, but yes. Lots of empty nights.”

That smile again. Short-lived and showy. It’s quite devastating. I pull my gaze from him and fix it on the papers in front of me. Carla stares back at me. She’s the reason I’m here and I’d better start remembering it.

“This case is important to you.”

I raise my gaze. “They’re all important to me.”

“But this one’s special. You get this determined look on your face and a little line right here.” He motions between his eyebrows with a finger. “Your lips kind of press together and your nostrils get bigger. I can almost hear the wheels turning in your head.”

“My nostrils don’t
get bigger.
”