Please, Lord, let Efren be okay, just delayed.
CHAPTER 3
Anger.
Obsession.
Fixation.
Axe to grind.
Those had been some of the things said about Lainie after Vine escaped being charged with murder and was released. They were all true back then, and it not only almost destroyed her career, but it also nearly destroyed Lainie. The city took a dim view of a rookie cop costing them money because someone like Vine filed a harassment lawsuit. Thankfully, the chief had recognized that her hard work had dulled, if not erased, the dark-black mark on her career. That she’d made it to detective status was evidence that she had succeeded. Hard work made up for a rookie lapse in judgment.
It was late. At home, she still brooded. She sat at her desk and rummaged through the top drawer. Near the back, she found the photo and pulled it out. It was a picture of Daphne Sparks, the woman she’d found dead in the back of Dallas Vine’s vehicle. Memories of that night were still vivid and came to life in her mind. Vine had thoroughly unsettled her. An aura of evil surrounded him.
They had almost reached the station when he’d spoken up from the back seat. “You’re making a mistake.”
He’d barely said anything since the arrest. The only other words he’d uttered were when he refused to take a Breathalyzer test. Lainie had to take him to the hospital and have his blood drawn. By then, he was stiff and uncooperative. It surprised her when he sat quietly for the blood draw. Lainie wanted to advise him of his rights and question him, but the homicide detective on call had asked her not to. That was their job.
Lainie aspired to work homicide one day, so she followed their instructions. Vine had spoken first, so she answered him.
“I don’t think so. You’re drunk, you’re driving, and you’re carrying a concealed weapon, among other things.”
“I’m so much bigger than you know. You’re too small and insignificant to stop me.”
“That so?” She glanced at him in the rearview mirror as she made the turn to the booking tunnel.
His gaze pierced her with a cold, deadly stare. The stony gray eyes and the jagged scar on his cheek made his mere appearance malevolent. He gave her the creeps. All of her instincts screamed that he had murdered the woman in his back seat. She prayed that he’d volunteer something incriminating.
The prayer was not answered.
“I’m bulletproof” was the last thing the smirking man said when she released Vine to the jailers.
At the station Lainie learned a little bit more about him.
“Whoa.” The booking sergeant stared down at Vine on the bench when Lainie brought him in. “I know this guy.”
Vine scowled at him and cursed, then spit on the floor.
The sergeant chuckled. “This guy was in a vicious bar fight a few years ago, over a woman if I remember right. Cut the other guy up so bad he bled to death. Then he gave a sob story at his trial, kept hisscar uncovered, and gave the jury puppy dog eyes. Got acquitted.” The sergeant turned from Lainie back to Vine. “I knew you’d be back. Hope it sticks this time.”
That night, Vine didn’t speak to the homicide detectives either. Then he avoided being charged with anything serious. He pled guilty to two misdemeanors, paid a fine, and did forty hours of community service.
The murder of Daphne Sparks had never been solved. It was now in the cold case file.
Lainie had taken that miscarriage of justice personally. She tried hard to solve the case. It took nearly two years for Vine’s plea agreement to make its way through the system. When it did, Vine was free and clear.
She couldn’t let that stand, so she began to follow him. Her off time was consumed with trying to prove that the man had killed Sparks. He lived in a big house on Appian Way, in the Naples section of Long Beach, on the water with a dock for his yacht. She was down there often, documenting the comings and goings. He also had a cigar lounge on Pine Street and an office at the harbor for a time. She visited those locations often as well.
Like an addict, even when she was told to back off, Lainie kept after Vine. In hindsight, she realized she was acting on raw emotion and not thinking clearly. When the lawsuit came, even though the attorneys negotiated a settlement, it was only her friend and training officer Max Beck that saved her. He stuck up for her to all the brass.
Max had always told Lainie she had promise.
“You’re a good cop. Vine is a dirtbag. He’ll go down because of good, solid police work;they always do. Don’t let him goad you into destroying your career, clear?”
She had listened to Max, and so had internal affairs. Over the years she had watched the Vine crime empire grow, paying passing attention, but kept her distance. He’d been indicted twice more only to be acquitted both times.
She studied the photo of Daphne Sparks, a smiling, bright, attractive woman. When Lainie had first glimpsed her in the back of the car, blonde hair splayed across the seat around her head like a halo, she looked unreal, like a mannequin. It wasn’t the first dead body Lainie had seen, but it had a profound effect on her. Daphne appeared defenseless, innocent, and she was young, very close to Lainie’s twenty-two years.
