by Mallory Kane
He finished his salad and dug into the omelet, watching her as he ate. She did pretty well with one arm. She’d take a bite of salad, then a bite of omelet, and set her fork down. She’d pick up a small piece of bread and slide it across the pat of butter on her plate and pop it into her mouth, take a sip of wine, then repeat the process.
He refilled their glasses, buttered another piece of bread and sat back, staring at her. “Your arm’s not broken,” he said.
She shook her head and considered him narrowly. “Just dislocated. I fell on it when he pushed me down.”
“You didn’t recognize him?”
“No. Are you relieved?”
Dawson frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped.
She raised her brows and shrugged. “You tell me. You already admitted you were following me and watching the post office. Maybe you had someone else watching me, too.”
“Come on, rookie,” he growled, irritated. “I told you, we’re on the same side.”
“Yeah, maybe, until you get the information you want from me. You asked me what was in the letter I got. Are you sure you don’t already have the answer to that question?”
Dawson stood so abruptly that he almost turned over his chair. He grabbed his plate and hers and tossed them into the sink with a clatter, then he jerked the salad and dressing off the table. In less than a minute he had the food put away. Then he turned on her, his face dark as a storm.
“You’re accusing me of roughing you up and stealing your damn letter?” he roared, his words splitting the air like a thunderclap.
Chapter Four
Juliana jumped when Dawson yelled at her. Although she should have expected it given the way he’d thrown her dishes around. Then the absurdity hit her.
She chuckled. “Did you seriously just bus the table before stopping to yell at me?” she asked.
Dawson scowled, then looked down at his hands. He still held the dishrag he’d used to wipe the table. He balled it up and fired a line drive into the sink, then scrubbed a palm across his evening stubble. “Chalk it up to a very dysfunctional childhood.” He sighed.
He sounded sincere. Juliana resented him for making her want to believe him.
“If you want to be a private eye, you’re going to have to get a hell of a lot better at reading people. Because trust me, rookie,” Dawson said, fishing the dishrag out of the sink and folding it, “if I had that letter, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be here begging you for information.”
“I thought you told me you had info for me, too,” she said, deciding for the moment to trust him.
No, not trust. But she would give him the benefit of the doubt for long enough to find out what he knew.
Then she’d see.
“Well, thank you for fixing dinner and cleaning up the kitchen,” she said, picking up her wineglass and heading back to the couch. She beat him by about two and a half seconds.
She slipped her arm out of the sling and grabbed the stack of folders as she sat. Her left shoulder protested, but at least her research was in her hands and not his.
He sat down beside her. “I see your shoulder’s better,” he said.
“A little. The doctor told me to keep it immobile and put ice on it for a couple of days, then I could start using it. If I don’t move it too far or too fast, it’s bearable.”
“So what have you got in your lap there, rookie?”
She pressed her right hand down on the top folder as he casually reached for it. “Nothing you get to see until you share with me what you know. And—” she arched a brow at him “—it has to be something I don’t already have.”
“You don’t already know this,” he said confidently. He’d gotten it from Reilly, who’d pulled the info from the case files.
She turned toward him. “I guess we’ll know soon. So what is it?”
“The initial report from the forensic engineer is that the Sky Walk looked just fine. No code violations, no recorded changes in materials from the submitted plans.”
Juliana looked as if he’d slapped her. For a moment she just stared at him. “That can’t be true,” she finally said, shaking her head. “Mr. Kaplan, the architect, said—”
Dawson shrugged.
“No,” Juliana snapped. “Whoever told you that was wrong.”
“Sorry. This came from police records.”
“But it—” She took a shaky breath. “It couldn’t have just broken. There had to be something wrong with it. Things don’t just break.” Her eyes glittered with tears and her hands fisted around the top two manila folders on her lap.
Dawson felt a tug inside him, an urge to give her what she wanted so badly—someone to blame for her father’s death. She might say she wanted the truth, might even believe it. But her search was for explanations, not facts. He only had a tiny scrap of hope to give her, but he offered it for what it was worth.
“It’s a preliminary finding. But according to my source, the final report won’t be ready for at least thirty days.” He paused, then said, “Maybe then—”
“Not maybe. There was something wrong with the Sky Walk,” she said again. “There was.” Her fingers were squeezing the folders so tightly that their tips were turning bluish-white.
“Hey,” he said, touching her hand. “Relax. If there’s something wrong with the materials, the forensic engineer will find it.”
She shook her head. “Michael Delancey has plenty of money. He could have paid him off. Somebody like him could cover up anything.” Her eyes widened. “There are Delanceys on the police force.”
“Whoa, slow down,” Dawson said quickly, instinctively steering her away from Michael Delancey as the villain of the Golden Galaxy Casino tragedy. Trouble was, he wasn’t sure she was wrong. He decided to press her for more information carefully.
“Why are you so convinced that Michael Delancey is the one responsible for the collapse?”
She looked at him steadily. “Because he built the casino. He was the contractor. Every design, every purchase order, every decision that was made went through him.” She stopped and swallowed. “Whatever caused the Sky Walk to collapse and kill my father and five other people was approved by Michael Delancey.”
Dawson nodded. Everything she said was true, and her conclusion was rational. He’d reached the same conclusion eight years ago when questions arose about the luxury condominiums his dad had been building in Chef Voleur. At that time Dawson had been working for his dad, but once accusations started flying about inferior materials, Dawson had bailed.
He’d already tired of physical labor anyway, so he’d moved to Biloxi and gone back to school for a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice. He, like his kid brothers, was interested in law enforcement, but unlike Ryker and Reilly, he did not want to work for someone else. So he’d gotten his private investigator license and opened his own business.
By that time, his dad was in prison, so John Dawson Delancey had registered his business under the name John D. Dawson and distanced himself from the infamous Delancey dynasty.
He realized Juliana was talking to him.
“Well?” she said impatiently. “You out there in ya-ya land. Do you want to see it or not?”
Dawson blinked. “Uh, yeah,” he said, having no clue what she was referring to. “Sure.”
She flipped through the folders and pulled out the flattest one. It couldn’t have more than two sheets of paper in it. She opened it carefully and took out a plastic bag that contained a note.
Dawson’s pulse hammered. “What’s that?” He reached for it, but Juliana held on to it.
“You can look at it, but you can’t take it out of the baggie. You can’t touch the paper.”
“No problem.”
She handed him the plastic bag. He quickly scanned the note, written in carefully lettered block print.
BE CAREFUL, CAPRESE. THERE'S PROBLEMS WITH THE SKYWALK. DELANCEY SHOULD KNOW. LOOK AT VEGA. HE HOLDS GRUDGES.
“Where’d you get this?” h
e demanded sharply.
“It was in Daddy’s wallet, under that little hidden flap in the bill compartment.”
Dawson held it up to the light, studying it more closely. He turned the baggie over. “Look how creased it is. It must have been folded in your dad’s wallet for weeks. See the wear on the creased edges?”
She nodded.
“Are you the one who bagged it?”
She nodded again. “I thought if there were any fingerprints on the paper, I didn’t want to take a chance on smudging them.”
“How much did you handle it?”
“I took it out of his wallet and unfolded it,” she said. “Then when I realized what it was, I used kitchen tongs to slide it into the plastic bag.”
“When did you find it?”
“The day before the funeral. I was looking for insurance papers, cards—you know, stuff the funeral home needed.”
“And you don’t have any idea when he got it?”
“No, he never mentioned it.”
“When was the Sky Walk finished? The grand opening of the Golden Galaxy was in May, right?”
“June 1.”
“What about the casino? Did your dad talk about it?”
She smiled sadly. “He was so excited about his new job. He’d managed other casinos, but the Golden Galaxy was the largest and the most elaborate. He was so proud of it, and it killed him.” By the time she finished, her voice was tight and hoarse, laced with grief and thousands of unshed tears.
He laid his hand over her fist and gently urged her fingers to loosen. She was so rigid, so controlled. Her fingers finally relaxed.
He squeezed her hand reassuringly as he studied the note. “Is this how you decided that Michael Delancey was responsible for what happened?”
“Yes, it’s right there in black and white. Delancey should know.”
Dawson had his own opinion of what the three words meant. Was the writer saying that Delancey knew that something was wrong? Or was he saying that Delancey should be told about the note? There was no way to be sure.
“What about this reference to Vega?” He knew who Tito Vega was. He’d heard his dad talk about him for eight years. Michael blamed Vega for framing him and putting him in prison.
“The name sounded vaguely familiar to me, so I looked him up.” Juliana flipped awkwardly through the folders in her lap and pulled one out. She opened it and glanced at the pages before she handed it to him. Probably checking to be sure there was nothing in there that she didn’t want him to see.
The pages were printouts of webpages, articles and op-eds about Vittorio “Tito” Vega. Dawson skimmed them. She’d done a good job ferreting out information about the high-profile real-estate investor.
Dawson already knew a lot about him. Vega patronized the arts and enjoyed involving himself in local politics. He was an important contributor to both. But like many public figures, rumors abounded that he was involved in other, less laudable ventures. One of the regional newspapers occasionally printed op-ed pieces that suggested that Tito Vega was involved in loan-sharking and even bribery.
“What did Vega have to do with the Golden Galaxy?” he asked, although he already knew from his dad that Vega was somehow involved.
Juliana sat up, pride and excitement giving her cheeks a pretty pink blush. “It took me a long time to find that. He apparently worked very hard to keep his various concerns separate. It was really difficult to track them, but I did it!”
Dawson was impressed. He knew about Vega. He’d done his own investigation into Vega’s activities after his dad went to prison. He’d tried to prove that his dad was telling the truth—that Vega had framed him. He’d failed, but he’d ended up with a file drawer full of information and a fairly long list of people who’d been hurt by the real-estate mogul.
“I finally put it all together.” She dug out another folder and handed him a sheet of paper. “Take a look at this.”
It was a handwritten flowchart. Vega’s name was at the top and the Golden Galaxy Casino was at the bottom. Dawson followed the flow of companies down the chart. There were eight of them.
“Wow,” he said. He recognized most of the companies, because he’d traced Vega’s connection to the Golden Galaxy, too, but if he’d written out a chart like this, his would have had several holes in it. “This is impressive. I was working on something like this, but I didn’t find any connection with Meadow Gold and I never heard of Bayside Industries.”
Juliana beamed. “That was a hard one. It’s actually a company based in Switzerland that makes knives. We export steel to them, then we buy the knives to sell here. It’s the only one I’m not a hundred percent sure of. See here? Vittorio Vega, Inc. owns Biloxi Coast Realty and Islandview Condominiums in Bay St. Louis. The corporation manages a number of marinas along the Gulf Coast. It took me a while, but I found a marina in Pascagoula that was owned by Vega, Inc. but was sold a few years ago to Meadow Gold Corporation, which owns the Golden Galaxy.”
Dawson was impressed. “You must have dug pretty deep to find that,” he said.
She nodded. “Now, here’s where it gets really interesting. I couldn’t find any figures from the Pascagoula marina, but Meadow Gold buys a lot of knives from Bayside Industries and sells them to that marina. And the last piece of the puzzle I could find was Avanti Investments. One of their holdings was the tract of land the Golden Galaxy is built on. They went bankrupt after Katrina, and Meadow Gold Corporation picked up the land for a song. Avanti had Bayside Industries in their stock portfolio. And that’s how Vega is connected to the Golden Galaxy.”
“And you can prove it?”
The triumphant blush left her cheeks and she looked down at her stack of folders. “I don’t know. I copied all the public documents I could find, but some of it, like Avanti’s stock portfolio, I only found one reference to that, and it was several years ago. So anywhere along the line, the connection could break down.” She raised her gaze to his and her dark eyes glistened with tears. “I’m afraid it’s not good enough. A lot of paperwork was lost in the storm surge.”
She blinked and the dampness that had been clinging to her lower lashes spilled over onto her cheek. Dawson didn’t realize he was going to catch it with his thumb until it was too late to stop himself.
Her eyes drifted closed when he brushed the tear away. It would be the easiest thing in the world to kiss her. He leaned forward, mesmerized by the thick dark lashes that threw spiky shadows onto her cheeks. His gaze moved to her mouth. Her lips were slightly parted. A blade of desire sliced through him and he reached for her.
His hand hit the stack of folders.
Her eyes flew open. She grabbed them up and hugged them to her chest.
Dawson pulled back, stunned.
Juliana bit her lip and carefully relaxed her left arm, wincing, but she still hung on to the folders with her right arm.
He stood and stared down at her. “You really think that’s what I was doing? Trying to distract you while I went for your little stack of research?” he asked harshly.
“I—” she looked beyond him, then down “—I didn’t know. I mean, you say you’re here to help me, but you haven’t taken your eyes off the folders since you came in.”
Dawson stepped away from the couch and grabbed his jacket. “Yeah, right,” he said. He was pissed that she thought he was going to grab her paperwork and run. But he was also embarrassed. His ego was stinging. Not only had he ruined his chances of getting his hands on those folders, but he’d also given in to a stupid impulse and tried to kiss her.
“Look, Dawson, you’re charming and—” she gestured toward him “—attractive, and I appreciate the information you gave me, but I’m trying to get justice for my dad. He didn’t deserve to die. And the truth is, I don’t know what you’re trying to do.”
Dawson nodded, holding on to his temper with an iron fist. “That’s true. You don’t.” He shrugged into his jacket and stalked toward her front door and opened it. Then he turned
back.
“You won’t have to worry about me getting close enough to steal your little folders again. But make no mistake, Juliana Caprese, I’m riding your tail until you either find what you’re looking for or give up.” He opened the door and gave her his parting shot.
“There’s no way in hell I’m going to sit by and let you get yourself killed.”
Chapter Five
Friday morning Juliana hurried down the steps from her apartment and into the waiting taxi. She wore jeans and low-heeled boots. There was no telling what kind of mess she’d be digging through.
Ten minutes later the driver said, “Here? This is where you wanna go?”
“Yes, right here. And I want you to wait for me,” she said as she climbed out.
“No, no, no,” he protested, shaking his head. “I’ll lose too much money.”
“Keep the meter running.”
“That don’t count for tips.”
Juliana sighed. “I’ll give you an extra twenty. I’ll be out in less than a half hour.”
The driver eyed her narrowly. “Fifty.”
“Forty. Otherwise forget it.”
“Okay, forty,” he said, putting the vehicle in Park.
She looked at the expansive gaudy exterior of the Golden Galaxy Casino. It had been billed as the largest casino on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Now it was the biggest piece of wreckage. The paper had said that demolition was scheduled to begin Monday. And this was Friday. That was why she was here.
Walking past the fountains and reflecting pools that surrounded the main entrance, Juliana saw the crosses and silk flowers families had placed. She hadn’t brought one for her dad. She had no desire to memorialize this place that had killed him.
She ducked under the crime scene tape and dug into her pocket for her dad’s key ring. There were two keys embossed with the Golden Galaxy logo. Her dad had brought her here before the casino opened to show her the Sky Walk, so she knew what the keys were for. She was worried about opening the electronic doors manually with her injured arm, but when she approached, they easily glided open. The electricity was on.