by Dana Nussio
But, unlike some people, he honored his commitments. Taking two quick gulps of his beer and then turning the can upside down in the sink to drain, he jogged to the front door.
“Did you forget?” Angelena Hayes hurried inside, a toddler perched on one hip and a preschooler holding her free hand.
“Of course not.”
Her smile told him how much she believed his lie. He wasn’t the only one in their family with good instincts. His baby sister knew him well.
“Well, good. We need a babysitter. Date night has dwindled to once a month already. If it drops to every two months, Miles and I are going to be a divorce statistic like Mom and Dad.”
“Don’t even joke about that.” At least she really was kidding. Angelena and Miles were the real deal, unlike their parents, whose marriage hadn’t so much dissolved in acrimony as withered away from neglect. For him and Laurel, it had been more like a murder/suicide.
“Are we going to play, Uncle Tony?”
Squeezed between the two adults, four-year-old Tabitha tapped his leg several times.
He bent at the waist to speak to the child at her level. “We sure are. What do you want to play first?”
Tabitha wrinkled her button nose. “You smell yucky.”
“You’ve been drinking?”
Angelena’s stage whisper was loud enough for the neighbors in his spread-out subdivision of 1970s ranch homes to hear.
“Two swallows. That’s it.”
“Had better be it.”
He nabbed the little girl and tucked her under his arm, her giggles filling the room and that headful of riotous chocolate curls falling around her face. His sister already knew he would do anything to protect these little people.
“I want to play school!”
“Then school, it is.”
Tony and Angelena exchanged smiles because Tabitha chose the same activity every time he babysat. Everyone knew electronics were off-limits at Uncle Tony’s house.
“Too,” the two-year-old man of few words, Carter, called out, extending his pudgy arms to be lifted.
Tony obliged and shifted the boy onto his opposite hip.
Angelena grinned at her brother. “You’re the best babysitter ever.”
“The price is definitely right.”
“Just name your price. You know we’ll pay it.”
“Now if I’d known that before...”
He didn’t bother finishing that since he always refused to take her money. He also loved the two ruffians like they were his own. As close to it as he would ever get.
“Rough day?”
“The same.”
“Oh. Your brow looks more furrowed than usual.”
Was it so obvious that he was out of sorts? But then Angelena and Miles were the only ones he’d told about his transfer request. “Your description makes me sound super hot.”
“Ew. Just ew.”
“Anyway, aren’t you going to get out of here? Don’t you two have reservations or something?”
“That’s an avoidance tactic if I ever heard one.”
He opened the door for her, but she didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave.
“Well, what’s going on?”
“It’s just that this new state police officer joined the task force. Bad timing. And she—”
“She?”
His sister had finally started out the door, but she paused and looked back at him.
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop. We’re not going there.”
“You never go there, and you should. With somebody. It’s been four years.”
Tabitha picked that moment to moan and wiggle until he lowered her to the ground. She planted her hands on her hips.
“Are we going to play?”
“Yeah,” Carter chimed.
Tony could’ve hugged them both and planned to as soon as their mother finally left.
“Thanks for your concern, little sister, but I have everything I need right here.” He took both kids’ hands to make his point. “And, apparently, I need to play now.”
He started down the hall with his niece and nephew.
“See you guys later,” Angelena called before she left.
Tony blew out a loud breath. Why had he mentioned Kelly in the first place? He knew better than to speak of women around his sister, even one as inconsequential as Kelly Roberts. He turned left into his guest bedroom.
Tabitha rushed ahead and opened the sliding closet door. Inside, a small desk was pushed against the wall, a tiny chair stacked on top of it. A cardboard box filled with school supplies had been squeezed in next to it. The other closet door hid an easel with a chalkboard.
“Let’s get this party started.”
Soon his living room had been transformed from its regular man-friendly state to a proper classroom. The buttery recliner in dark leather, matching sofa and the industrial-style wood end tables had been shoved out of the way to make room for the desk, chalkboard and the sheet spread out to cover the floor. Tony had learned the hard way about marker stains on the carpeting.
“Look. This one is a U.”
Tabitha sat at the desk and held up her paper. Carter lay on his belly on the floor, coloring a huge art pad and himself. Mostly himself.
“Uncle Tony, can you write your letters? In order?”
“In order? That’s tough. Maybe I could do it if I worked really hard.”
“I can help you.”
“Help. Too.”
Carter popped up from the floor and approached with his purple marker. His “help” was to decorate his uncle’s hands.
If Kelly could only see him now. Tony blinked, his fingers automatically closing. Why had she come up again? He was off the clock now, and he didn’t need to think about work or her. Maybe she’d peeked her annoyingly attractive face into his evening hours because he wanted her to see that he wasn’t always a jerk.
Why did she get to him? She wasn’t the first newbie police officer to join the task force since he’d been there. Eric was just one example. She wasn’t even the first female.
So, what was different about Trooper Roberts? Was he trying to scare her off because he sensed vulnerability in her, and his instinct was to shield her from things he’d seen? She was a trained police officer. She’d been carrying a weapon all day, for God’s sake. She didn’t need his protection. She would consider him patriarchal if not downright misogynistic for considering it.
Still, believing this was about his hero complex was easier than acknowledging another reason he might not want Kelly on the task force. It had more to do with sensual lips that could make a man think of all sorts of naughtiness, brown eyes that seemed to take in everything at once and a body that even a police uniform couldn’t disguise. Or maybe it was his temptation to pull those pins from her hair, just to watch it tumble down her back.
That wasn’t going to happen.
He didn’t do office romance. He didn’t do romance. Once bitten, twice done, you might say. He’d already told Angelena he wasn’t going there. With his career in a state of flux right now, it needed to be a hell no. His focus had to be of closing this case so that he could finally be transferred. That meant one thing. If he was even tempted to veer toward that on-ramp, he was hitting the brakes and putting that car in Park.
Chapter 5
With his curtains drawn and office door locked, he dropped into the leather executive chair behind his mahogany desk. Usually that gleaming piece of furniture and the built-in shelves with all his favorite books would have soothed his frustrations, even after a long week at his day job. He might even have smiled at the degrees on the wall and the framed photos on his desk—one a family portrait and the other of him in uniform.
But not today. No, nothing could tamp down his irritation as he attached the cable for his external
hard drive to his second laptop, kept just for business purposes. It was all he could do not to slam his hands on the keyboard while using the keys and touchpad to reach the even more secretive back door of his already well-hidden website.
He couldn’t alert his dear wife to his problems, either. She’d done a fine job of avoiding asking questions for years and had graciously accepted the baubles he’d showered her with as rewards. No sense in crippling a smoothly working system.
With a few more expert keystrokes, he landed on a page showing recent transactions from his Soleil Enterprises customers, all paid for using the cryptocurrency Bitcoin for anonymity. He loosened his tie, smiling at the second-quarter sales figures. Those had already tripled since the same time period a year before.
It was a beautiful business model, providing a wide variety of goods and services for his clients’ proclivities and peccadilloes, all at prices they were willing to stretch to afford. He didn’t even know why it was called the “Dark Web,” when it spelled a brighter future for the secret bank accounts of people like him.
Except that his sunny days might have been clouded recently with a bucket of blood.
He fisted one hand and squeezed it so hard with the other that all his fingers ached. If only it could have been the guy’s neck. Of course, he wasn’t certain that it was one of his customers who had crossed the line and murdered those girls. It could have been anyone. But the crushed tiara, part of the secret crime scene information that a loose-lipped peace officer had shared with him, had made him wonder.
Tiaras. Princesses. The sinking feeling in his gut told him it was a possibility. He shouldn’t have taken a chance on that guy. But greed could trap anyone in its grasp, just as an online supermarket for dark desires kept his clients coming back. Maybe he’d been caught this time.
“If it’s you, you’re done,” he whispered to the monitor.
Leaving his own site, he navigated to a few others that the local FBI task force regularly monitored. Again, it was information he shouldn’t have had but did.
He couldn’t casually observe the task force’s activities any longer. Everyone was searching for answers. He had to find them first.
He closed the Dark Web browser, launched another on the Surface Web and selected a chat room website that was among his customers’ favorites.
Though he rarely joined in on the conversations, he started a dialogue box for his screen name.
MR. SUNSHINE: Today’s been hell. Who agrees with me?
A knock at his office door interrupted him just as responses poured in.
“I’m headed up to bed,” his wife said from outside. “Will you be working long?”
“You go ahead. I have a little more to do.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Sweet dreams.”
He wouldn’t be able to sleep now if he tried, so he continued to lurk, waiting to see who was playing that night.
He’d worked too hard to build his empire, too hard to protect it. No one would be allowed to expose it or him. Not a customer who’d taken his fun too far. Not a task force that could uncover a connection during its investigation.
Would he kill to preserve this good thing he had? In a minute.
* * *
Tony braced himself as he pushed open the office door, but all seemed quiet inside. Although a few of the early risers were milling about, most knew better than to seek his input before his second cup of coffee.
Instead of going to fill his cup, he crossed to his cubicle. It wasn’t his fault he had to pass hers to get there. He was more relieved than he cared to admit that she wasn’t at her desk. Though he planned to make nice with her today, it was too early to start.
But as Tony rounded the corner to his desk, the source of his agitation and lack of sleep sat waiting for him in his chair. Out of uniform, she looked different. Brown slacks, feminine cream blouse buttoned almost to the collar and sensible, low-heeled shoes. She could have traded places with any female FBI agent he knew. So how did she manage to make even that outfit look sexy?
“I didn’t think you’d ever get here.” She crossed her arms and settled back into the chair.
“What are you talking about?” He checked his watch. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet. “Mind giving me my seat?”
He rested his briefcase next to his desk. Though she met his gaze steadily, she gave her nervousness away by tucking a loose tendril behind her ear. If only that hadn’t drawn his attention back to her hair, tied up the same way she’d worn it the day before. It was looser though, softer, as if she’d been less determined with a can of hairspray this time.
“I thought we could have a chat first.”
His jaw tightened, but he’d promised himself he wouldn’t let her get to him today, so he dropped in the guest chair at his own desk. All of this without coffee.
“So, what’s up?”
“What’s up is whatever’s going on between us has to stop.”
Tony blinked. He couldn’t help it. He was usually better at hiding his reactions than that, but he’d done a lousy job of it ever since she’d arrived. “Excuse me?”
“Special Agent Dawson told me to figure out what the problem is that you have with me, so we can find a way to work together.”
“He said that?” he asked instead of answering a question.
He shot a glance toward Dawson’s cubicle, nearer to the office door, but he really couldn’t see it through the maze of temporary walls. Leave it to him to piss off the one person who could delay his transfer even longer.
“Well, not in so many words.”
She was staring at her folded hands now, using one thumb to snap away from the other the way she would flick a lighter. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as he thought.
“Then with what words specifically?”
She stared back at him in what felt like a standoff and then lowered her gaze again.
“He said we need to work together.”
“And when did he say that?” Come to think of it, had he passed Dawson’s umbrella near the front door on his way in? He always had it with him, just in case.
“Yesterday.”
“You mean before we had our practice session?”
This time, she didn’t answer his question.
“Anyway, I know you don’t want me here. I didn’t ask to be assigned to this task force, either. But now that I have been, I am determined to help track down this suspect and help make connections to any other cases, if they exist. I’ll do my job. You do yours.”
“Okay.”
“You act like you know me, but you know nothing about me. And if you want to get rid of me, the fastest way to do that would be to close this case.”
What didn’t he know about her? The question struck him, though he had no business wondering or even the right to ask. But she’d brought it up. He had to give her credit for her moxie. Kelly was stronger than she looked, and she hadn’t appeared all that frail in the first place.
As Kelly tightened her arms across her chest, Tony tried not to notice how this gave her an extra lift that she didn’t need and one that wasn’t in his best interest to see.
“That’s fair.”
Tony was relieved that his words came out as something more than squeaks. He wasn’t a seventh grader. He was a grown-ass man, and he needed to start acting like it.
“Okay, then.”
He could have let it go at that. She’d made it easy for him to avoid answering any questions, but he couldn’t accept the gift. Besides, he wanted to close this case as much as she did. Like she kept saying, it was personal to him, too.
“About yesterday, I was just having a bad day. Can we start over?” He stood and extended his hand. “Hi, I’m Special Agent Anthony Lazzaro. Tony, for short.”
She stared at his hand instead of lifting hers. He couldn’t blame her. He’d made a poi
nt of not greeting her properly the day before. Still, she reached out and gripped his hand.
“Trooper Kelly Roberts. Good to meet you, sir.”
Her handshake was firm, professional and a mistake, he guessed from his tingling palm as he pulled away. He couldn’t worry about that now. He’d told himself he would focus on the case, and he planned to keep that promise.
“Well, if I’m going to get started on my job, I will need my seat back.”
* * *
Cory’s cell phone buzzed again as it had been all morning. He’d silenced the ringer and turned it face down on his desk so he couldn’t see the display, but it had continued to buzz about every thirty minutes. Mom never gave up when she wanted something. He was like her in that way.
At first, he’d been too focused on the messages scrolling up his laptop monitor to pay much attention to his phone, but the sound was distracting him now. The chat rooms weren’t much fun today, anyway. Just screen names he’d seen before, seeming to talk to themselves or each other. No titillating flirtations. No potential Cinderella or Snow White or even a beautiful Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty.
He couldn’t ignore his mother forever. She might turn off the Internet. He couldn’t risk that. When the phone buzzed again, he answered.
“What is it?”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I saw that you called a few times.”
“If you saw, then why didn’t you pick it up? It’s not like you have anything better to do. Like go to work.”
Cory straightened in his chair just as he would have if she were in the same room instead of in Boca Raton. At least she hadn’t video-dialed in this time. He hadn’t showered in a day or two. Or three.
He switched to his best cajoling tone. It had always worked before. “Come on, Mom. I told you that job wasn’t a good fit for me. Grocery-cart collector? I hated it. I’ll find something better. Soon.”