by Amy Vansant
A new thought pushed its way to the forefront and her sprouting smile wilted.
Unless that man was the one person who knew I’d be talking to Viggo.
&&&
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Angelina headed over the bridge to the address she’d found on Bracco’s 1099s. His first name was Robert.
Who knew?
She’d never called him anything but Bracco.
Shee’s suspicions made her realize how little she knew about the man. Did he have a wife? For some reason, she’d always assumed he did.
I saw a picture of her at some point, didn’t I?
Did he have kids? Grandkids?
Any of them could be used against him.
She needed to get information before Shee returned. She didn’t trust the girl to handle the situation with finesse. Bracco was a friend. Innocent until proven guilty.
She needed him to watch that door until Mick woke up.
Angelina found a parking spot at Bracco’s apartment complex and cut her engine. Dim shadows played on the walls of the pale buildings, palms dancing in the yellow glow of ancient landscape flood lights. The building’s plaster had split in several places, cracks racing up the walls, edges peeling to reveal cinderblock bones beneath. An orange glow caught her eye—a couple smoking on a balcony one building over. The man wore boxers, the woman only an oversized tee.
“Why do you live here, Bracco?” Angelina muttered aloud.
She knew Mick paid him well. He overpaid everyone. She felt certain the hotel hadn’t made a dime since he opened it, but the paychecks kept coming. Soon she’d have to investigate, gain access to Mick’s account and unravel the place. She hoped Mick would wake up before it came to that.
Angelina opened her glove compartment to retrieve a can of pepper spray and dropped it into her purse. Once she found Bracco she’d feel safe. No one in their right mind would step to that mountain of a man. But on the way there...
Locking her car, she headed up the open-air stairs to the second floor, where she guessed apartment two-oh-nine would be. She found it at the back of the building overlooking yet another parking lot. Below, a pair of raccoons worked at chewing through a dumpster lid.
Angelina’s lip curled.
I wonder if he pays extra for the view.
Angelina knocked on the door. The peephole darkened and she heard Bracco say something that sounded like cakewalk. He opened the door wearing an old Ozzy Osbourne t-shirt and a paint-splattered pair of cargo shorts.
She pointed. “I didn’t peg you for an Ozzy fan.”
He smiled and shrugged, but his brow remained knit.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here?”
Bracco pointed in the direction of the ocean, looking concerned. Angelina guessed his meaning.
“Everything’s fine at the hotel. Can I come in?”
He grimaced and looked behind him.
“Please?”
He opened the door wide enough for her to enter. It didn’t take long for her to surmise why he’d been reluctant. A torn, black leather recliner and what Angelina guessed to be a thirty-two inch television propped on a pair of plastic bins served as his only furniture.
“I love what you’ve done to the place,” she said, too late to stop herself. She poked her head into the kitchen. It was clean, but equally old and sparse. A frozen pizza box poked from a trash can against the wall.
“Did you just move?” she asked.
Bracco shook his head. He motioned to the only chair.
“No, I’ll stand.” Angelina frowned. “Where’s your wife?”
Bracco’s expression darkened and his shoulders snapped downward, as if he’d given up trying to remain tall. He disappeared through a door at the back left corner of the room. Angelina saw a made bed inside, but nothing else. He returned with the largest shoebox Angelina had ever seen.
“You know what they say about guys with big feet,” she said, waggling her eyebrows. “Big shoeboxes.”
He chuckled and opened the lid to reveal a pile of papers and photos. From it, he pulled some bundled documents and handed them to her. She rolled them open to read the blue cover.
Divorce Decree.
Ah. Ex-wife.
She looked around the apartment. “Looks like she cleaned you out pretty good.”
He plucked a photo from the box and handed it to her. In it, a woman sat smiling with a dark-haired boy on her lap.
“You have a son?”
He nodded.
Angelina kept her expression relaxed, but she saw more than a boy in the photo. She saw leverage.
Angelina handed him back the papers. “Kids do complicate things. You’ve been living here ever since?”
He nodded.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
He hooked his mouth to the side and gave her a withering glance.
“You know what I mean. Are you going to therapy? I mean, I assumed you had a support system at home—”
Bracco pulled a therapy pamphlet from the box and thrust it at her.
“Broca Aphasia,” she read the title aloud. “So you do go to therapy.”
He nodded.
“Bracco has Broca,” she murmured. “Maybe I should call you Robert from now on. Calling you a name so close to your condition feels a little like calling a dwarf shorty.”
He laughed, one loud bark and then touched her hand to make her look at him.
“Here?” he asked. The effort it took him pained her to watch.
Angelina gaped. She’d never heard him utter an appropriate comment before. “You’re asking why I’m here?”
He nodded.
“You’re getting better?”
He held up pinched fingers.
“Do you play it up a little at work?”
Grinning, he shrugged, seeming embarrassed.
“Because it makes us laugh?”
He nodded.
Angelina sighed as Bracco scowled and pointed to the ground several times.
“Oh. I’m here because we do have a little problem at the hotel.”
Bracco straightened, and Angelina put a hand on his arm.
“Nothing urgent. But I have to ask you a question.”
Bracco pressed his lips together, waiting. Angelina hesitated. She didn’t like doubting the man’s loyalty.
“Has anyone approached you about Mick? About hurting Mick, or helping them get to him?”
Bracco’s eyes flashed with what looked like anger.
“No,” he said.
“Maybe they threatened your kid?”
“No.”
Angelina believed him. His fist clenched, but she didn’t feel threatened. He seemed frustrated.
“I’ll tell you why I ask,” she said, saving him the need to speak again. “Shee talked to Viggo Nilsson—”
Bracco’s eyes widened.
“One of Mick’s team, we know.”
Agitated, he tapped his chest.
“Right. Part of your team, too. Well, someone threatened his grandkid and forced him to set Mick up. That’s what got him shot. He was the person in Minneapolis.”
Anger flared anew across Bracco’s expression and he continued to pound his chest, now with a flat hand.
“I know you think you’d never do that, but they threatened his grandkid, and you—”
She motioned to the box, the picture of the boy still lying on top of the pile inside.
“No,” he said.
“Okay. I wanted to talk to you before Shee came back. She can’t help being suspicious of everyone.”
He reached out and grabbed Angelina’s hand, staring deep into her eyes as if trying to telegraph a thousand emotions.
None felt like betrayal.
She patted his top hand.
“It’s okay. I believe you. Shee doesn’t want you near Mick for a bit though, okay?”
He straightened, looking like a sentry, his lips working to find the word. “Door?”
“You can still work the door.”
He nodded.
“Banana pie.”
She laughed and pointed at him. “But I’m not falling for that nonsense anymore.”
&&&
Chapter Thirty
Tyler watched the man and the woman leave the Viking’s house, get in their car and drive away.
Did they not see the dead man?
He’d seen them enter the back door from his vantage point a block away. Then one of the neighbors appeared to shovel his walk, or build a snowman, or do whatever insane Snowpeople did on negative ninety-two days, and he started moving.
By the time he came around the block, the woman and the man were getting back in their car and driving away.
They had to have seen the body, but they left. Didn’t wait. He heard no approaching sirens.
What are they up to?
Tyler looked down at the framed newspaper clipping in his hand. The guy in the photo was definitely his missed target, younger, but him. The other dude next to the President was the man he’d just snuffed.
That guy...
The giant had nearly clipped him before he got off his own shot. Tyler had eased open the bathroom door after the woman left, feeling confident he had the drop on the old guy, and the next thing he knew a bullet was screaming past his skull.
The near miss left him a bit shaken. He hadn’t screwed up so many times in a row since...he didn’t know when.
He glanced down at the picture.
SEALs.
All the guns on the Viking’s table made sense now. Tyler had been gawking at them, cursing that he’d had to kill Viggo before he could get the name of his buddy out of him, when the conversation between the man and the visiting woman returned to his memory. They’d been talking about the framed newspaper clipping on the wall. It felt important, so he’d snatched it from the wall on his way out.
Staring at the photo now, even with his brain half-numb from the ridiculous cold, everything fell into place.
Shea McQueen and Viggo Nilsson.
The woman had to have been talking about his target. She’d mentioned someone named Mick, but his real name had to be Shea. Mick for McQueen.
Tyler felt like a genius for putting together the pieces. He grinned as best he could with his frozen cheeks.
I guess I still got it.
He twisted the cheap plastic frame until the back popped off. No need to carry around the whole frame.
How many Shea McQueens could there be? He knew the dude was a SEAL, probably retired now, he knew—
Tyler was about to toss the frame to the curb and head back to the airport when something behind the newspaper article caught his eye.
He slid out a handwritten letter on light green stationary. The top sported a sea turtle logo for The Loggerhead Inn and a date from two years earlier.
Dear Viggo,
Consider this your official invite to come join us. I’m starting something. I think you’ll like it. Swing by and let me tell you about it. If you’ve got your own shit going on I understand, but if you don’t, I’m here. If you’re looking for something, like so many of us, come see me. Anytime, buddy.
Mick
Tyler’s attention dropped to the bottom of the letterhead to read one small additional line of text.
An address, phone number and email.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Tyler dropped the frame, pulled out his phone and dialed the number on the letterhead.
“Loggerhead Inn, this is Croix. How can I help you?”
He clicked the phone dead.
The place still exists.
If Mick McQueen was still alive, The Loggerhead Inn in Jupiter Beach, Florida, would be the place to start looking for him.
Florida.
Tyler smiled and got into his rental.
Thank God.
&&&
Chapter Thirty-One
Shee and Mason circled Viggo’s block looking for the shooter, but Shee’s mind kept returning to the man beside her. She questioned his motives until she couldn’t stay silent any longer.
“You knew I’d be here,” she said as he rolled down a new street.
“Hm?” Mason seemed to pull his thoughts back from somewhere far away. “What?”
“You said Viggo’s death was a coincidence. I don’t like coincidences.”
He looked at her and then did a double take when he saw her glaring at him.
“Wait—you think I set this up?” he asked.
“Who else knew I was here?”
“Why would I let you talk to him and then have someone kill him?”
“Maybe your man got here late?”
Mason hit the brakes so suddenly they slid another two feet. Shee slapped her hand to the side of the car and stomped her feet, pumping imaginary brakes. When the car’s tires finally found purchase on exposed asphalt, Mason left them idling in the middle of the snowy neighborhood street.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Oh, I dunno. I thought maybe you’d want to get out of the car. You know, rather than drive around with a traitor.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh come on. You don’t see how I could find this odd? You showing up now?”
“I showed up because I heard your father was dead.”
“What about Viggo’s? How did someone know we’d be there?”
“I don’t know, Shee. Ever think maybe someone is watching you? Following you?”
She sat glaring at him, struck speechless.
Shit. The kid.
There was someone following her—Logan Sandoval. Maybe he was better at his job than she’d thought. Maybe he’d discovered she was headed to Minneapolis. Made a call. Warned someone.
Damn.
“Why do you have a scalpel?” She spat the words to distract him, and herself, from her failings.
His attention snapped to her as if she’d poked him in the side of the face. “How—?”
Someone honked behind them and Mason glanced at the rearview. With a huff he put them in drive and they rolled forward as he continued, “Look, you don’t have to tell me all your secrets but if you don’t even trust that I had nothing to do with killing your father, tell me now.”
“I—it’s just weird—”
“If you think for a second I could ever...”
He faded off even as Shee let the air run out of her own lungs. Everything in her gut told her he had nothing to do with it. She just wasn’t sure if her gut could be trusted when it came to Mason.
On the other hand...
He has a point.
It didn’t have to be him who sent a killer to Viggo’s. Logan could have ratted her out. Or it could have been a coincidence. And Mason did seem to believe Mick was dead. If he was involved, there’d be no reason for him to show up at the hotel. His job would have been done, had he been involved, as far as he was concerned.
“Fine,” she said.
“Fine?”
“Fine. I trust you.”
He looked at her. “You do? You’re sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure.” She lifted her phone. “I’m going to call the airline and see if we can get out of here any earlier.”
He sighed. “Fine. I’m going to make one more sweep.”
“Fine.”
Mason drove around the block again, his jaw clenched. Shee had no luck finding a flight earlier than their redeye. She lowered the phone and tried to think of ways she could make it back to Florida without him peppering her with an endless stream of questions she didn’t know how to answer.
I could stuff something in his mouth...
“We’ve got six hours to kill. Let’s grab a steak,” she suggested.
“A steak?”
“Isn’t that what people eat in the Midwest?”
He shrugged. “You’ll get no argument from me.”
She did a quick search for a spot and directed him downtown.
She regrette
d the decision once they walked into the restaurant. Scanning the other diners, she felt underdressed in her jeans. The place felt a little celebratory for how they’d spent the day.
“I’m not sure my appetite is up to the challenge,” she said.
Hearing no response, she glanced at Mason to find his gaze tracking the path of a sizzling steak on a waiter’s tray as it navigated through the restaurant.
He didn’t seem to share her misgivings.
She gave in and followed the maître d’ to a small, white-clothed table. Mason sat and stared at her.
“What?” she asked.
He took a sip of his water. “You’re tense.”
“You think? I can’t imagine why.”
“We did everything we could.”
She frowned. “Did we? What if—”
He slid a hand forward to rest his fingers on hers. “No one followed us to Viggo’s. Calling it in won’t bring him back to life. It would only get us wrapped into the investigation.” He sighed. “We should agree not to talk shop during dinner.”
Five minutes previous she would have been thrilled to hear him say that. Now all she wanted to do was go over everything that had happened at Viggo’s again and again.
She closed her eyes and tilted back her head. “I want a drink. A really, really big drink.”
“That’s your best idea yet.” Mason pulled his napkin to his lap and winked at her. “Not that you’re not always full of good ideas.”
“Shut up,” she mumbled, smirking. Drumming her fingers on the table, she craned her neck, searching for the server. “What’s a girl have to do to get a drink around here?”
Mason leaned forward and peered at her from beneath a lowered brow. “Am I allowed to offer suggestions?”
Shee felt herself blush. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“You know what you’re doing. You’re giving me the look.”
Mason sniffed. “Ah’m sure ah don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And cut the southern accent. You know I love that.”
“Cut the—? Why, Miss Jelly, ah’ll have you know ah grew up in the great state of South Carolina—”