by Michele Hart
“Nice outfit,” she commented, “You’ll easily win the female judges over in that ensemble, and you won’t even have to cook.”
“This isn’t bound to impress the investors. I’ve plans to wear a different outfit.”
“Good. Everyone should be focusing on the food, anyway.”
Thinking a grateful appreciation to Penny for actually having food in her refrigerator and giving up breakfast ingredients to her, Elissa set plates of eggs, bacon, and toast down on the table before glasses of orange juice, then she joined him and took up the ketchup bottle. Squirting a creative pattern onto her eggs, she indulged in a first bite before she realized he wore a little grin on his face.
“This is a reminder to the ketchup deliberation you spoke of.”
“Oh, yes. The Amigos had stopped me in the ketchup aisle to purchase a date for you. Apparently they stock blind dates in the ketchup aisle.”
“Well, sure. Among the sauces,” he replied, with a shameless smile.
She sputtered a giggle over her orange juice, then went on, “After your brother’s promise of great riches, I felt like celebrating the upcoming cash, so I bought the name-brand ketchup instead of a half gallon of gas.”
“Way to let your hair down, you wild woman,” he teased.
“Yeah, well, sometimes I spoil myself.”
“The ketchup tastes better on eggs than gas.” Greg checked the time on his watch. “We have to be at the Cook-off in three and a half hours.”
“Not a problem,” Elissa replied, chasing the last of her eggs with her toast. “I’ll call Penny and let her know.”
“Be sure to bring tomorrow’s clothes with you.”
Elissa smiled into her last forkful of tomato-streaked eggs. “Are you keeping me tonight?” Suddenly, it was his choice now.
“I hope so. Unless you plan to flee for a few days again.”
She looked up from her bacon to see Greg’s pecan eyes questioning her as though he wanted her to promise she wouldn’t just take flight at any time.
“I’ll not miss an effort to mesmerize your friends with my dullness,” she vowed, hoping he’d catch on to some light-hearted banter instead of focusing on her attempts at distance.
“That’s not what I meant.”
He seemed to drop the subject entirely and devote himself to his breakfast, to her great relief.
Done with their modest meal, he took custody of her hand, drew her to the couch, and put her snuggled close to his side as though she existed solely to be his companion. It felt good.
But it got little done. She smiled when she said, “Saturday mornings, I study, Greg. You’re welcome to watch TV or run errands, but I must study.”
“You study too much. The universe isn’t going anywhere, you know.”
“If I listened to you, I’d soon wreck a good grade average,” she replied, reaching into her school backpack to find her forensics book and mourning that she didn’t have a book cover to fit it. She’d need to keep the title from his sight.
Greg gave an exaggerated expression of pout. “What subject takes you away this morning?”
“Cosmology,” she lied, yanked the book from his sight, and felt bad for continuing that fib instead of just laying her cards on the table. She hoped he asked less questions over quasars and black holes than he would over forensics, which would open up subjects she didn’t want touched.
But… after last night… Something inside her changed.
Seemingly resigned to her study time, Greg drew some papers from the half-empty crate of wine bottles.
After several minutes of studying ways to sort fingerprints, she glanced up to see the most baffling look in his eyes cast to some receipt in his hands. She couldn’t leave that expression unexplored. “What is it?”
“I’m reading the shipping manifest, and it says seven crates were delivered in the import company’s order. The police seizure reports seven crates had been seized from the docks.”
Elissa was confused. “What seizure reports?”
“I helped the police set up a faked port robbery,” Greg revealed. “A way of shaking up the companies involved in a shipment that might’ve gotten my father shot.”
The hair on the back of Elissa’s neck rose in warning. “Your father was shot?”
“Yes. A year and a half ago, Julian entered the restaurant for a day’s work, and found my father spread out on the floor. The murder was never solved. The police had heard on the street it was a Mob hit.”
There was the organized crime connection Elissa hadn’t seen. “There’s a Mob in the restaurant business?”
“That’s the part that bothered me. There isn’t. But tips in the underworld led the police to believe my father’s shooting might’ve involved the Mob in some way. The possibility made the state police take notice when I thought of a plan that might cause some movement in the case.”
Here were the missing elements Elissa had sensed hidden from her view. “So you set up a faked port robbery.”
Greg nodded. “I’d placed orders with all the same suppliers my father had used. The police secretly confiscated the shipment when it arrived, upsetting all the same supply chains.”
Greg’s father had been shot, just like Elissa’s, murdered by bad men. It seized her heart and shook her sense of justice. “That’s awful about your father, Greg. I’m sorry. Has the faked robbery given you any clues?”
“Nothing yet. I’d been expecting some sign to show up in a month or so.” He still seemed to hold much back. “But it appears we’ve shaken a few trees.”
Elissa’s instincts tingled. She’d just tripped over the missing puzzle piece. The break-in, the home invasion. None of it was about the Cook-off. All the hints of organized crime rose from Greg’s faked port robbery. Did he know how much danger he’d put himself in?
“So what did you see in those papers that’s so exciting?”
Greg shuffled another page around, then slid it into her vision. “This is the winery invoice. I’d only ordered six cases, three shipped to the house for the Bay Cook-off, the other three went to police lock-up as stolen freight. The shipping manifest and police report account for seven cases. There’s an extra case in lock-up.”
Greg’s cell phone rang, and he bent to his night case to withdraw his phone. Checking caller ID, he regarded her, and reported, “It’s the state police.”
“This is Greg Moretti,” he said into the phone and, acutely interested, she watched a light dim in his eyes. “You can’t be serious. Last night. How could that happen? Aren’t there preventions for such things?”
The voice who spoke to him droned on, too low for Elissa’s ear.
“What do you recommend?” Greg asked, then he went sour. “It’s too late to stop the train. I’m not going to give up now. Let me know if you find out who walked away with everything. I agree. This could lead to the answers we want.”
Elissa went back to her forensics book to occupy her over-curious mind, figuring he’d clue her in, now that she knew more of the problem.
And now she was beginning to feel like a part of him, and the lies she’d told him began to hurt. If she withheld any information at all, and something bad happened, she'd never forgive herself.
When he closed the phone, Greg mourned, “Of all the scariest ways this port snatch could’ve turned, the freight involved in the faked heist was stolen from police custody. It all walked away in the middle of the night.”
Elissa shook her head, wariness reborn and multiplied. “Greg, that’s a terrible sign that organized crime’s at work. Only the police can walk away with things held under state custody.”
Greg stared into the carpet. “Must be a dirty cop somewhere. You’re right. This could get much uglier than I’d anticipated. Only the Mob could’ve made that freight disappear. Something tells me this isn’t about the restaurant business.”
Elissa suddenly put the breaking-and-entering of Rubia’s together with missing freight from the police lockup, and ca
ses of wine a stranger wanted.
“An extra crate marked as wine, hopping a ride at the end of your order. I think you could have an instance of smuggled freight. Maybe even a smuggling network.”
Greg ran a finger over his chin in contemplation. “A case of wine turned up missing after my father’s shooting. Too coincidental, I think.”
She perked to the hint. “I don’t put much stock in coincidence.”
“I’ve sent two cases with Julian to the Cook-off, have given away nearly all the rest. It’s not the wine cases we possess bringing in something under the table. All the bottles were accounted for. Nothing hidden in the packaging.”
Both of them were let down, and Greg looked profoundly bothered by the newest information.
Elissa mapped out a possibility. “The unordered case in the shipment must’ve been taken by the police in the warehouse seizure, then stolen from the evidence locker. Obviously well-connected smugglers got their confiscated freight back from the loose clutches of the law last night. After the break-in at Rubia’s and the gunman with an alcohol problem, they must’ve finally found what they were looking for in the freight they’d stolen last night.”
“I’m suddenly worried over something I’ve set in motion. I don’t want the restaurant or any family member meeting up with danger. I’m going to pray the media doesn’t attach the Rubia name to any smuggling operation. As you say, if they now hold what they’re looking for, then this should go away.”
Elissa took his hand. “If we’re right, they’ve got what they want. That should be the end of it. Just do a little time, and don’t let paranoia set in. Besides, we could be completely wrong here.”
She didn’t believe her own words for a minute.
“The freight may have been stolen for some reason we don’t know, unconnected to your father’s case. Or the state lockup may have lost evidence before, something they sure won’t mention to you. You never see everything. Sometimes things are not what they first seem. Sometimes you blind yourself from what's in front of you.”
Greg seemed to consider her words. “You’re probably right. The stock room break-in was most likely a competitor at the Cook-off wishing to give Rubia’s a food-tampering scare or looking for a menu, or even entirely unrelated. The house robbery may have been a common burglar planning to take a carload of stuff until you showed up. You probably kept him from stripping the house of everything valuable. I have you to thank for that.”
She gave a shy smile. She was just doing her job.
Greg shook his head, disappointed. “I’d been hoping the faked port robbery would lead to clues of my father’s murder. Still, it’s too interwoven to be just chance. I want to set it aside and not be concerned, but…”
The wish set her mind to work. “Okay, let’s speculate that all these events are connected. Perhaps your father had received an extra bit of freight not on his order, and someone came to pick it up while your father was in the restaurant.
“Here again,” she tapped on the invoice of his shipment, “it appears there’s an extra case in your order, as well. Someone could be doing some creative smuggling, shipping illegal freight through regular orders. It’s a common tactic of the Mob.”
“If that’s true, it sounds like an indictment of Jerry’s family company, Fortunate Imports.”
“Maybe not. Fortunate may have no idea they’re being used for a cover.”
Greg turned his troubled eyes onto her. His glare was disturbed and stripping, demanding and beseeching. “Alright, Elissa. It’s time for you to come clean with me. Are you a cop connected to this case? Are you a private investigator?”
“No, Greg, I’m not connected to the case at all.”
He looked quietly upset to realize she’d been lying to him. “Well, your timing’s suspicious. What makes you so knowledgeable about smuggling and the Mob?”
Elissa took a great breath, felt a low and ominous shudder move through her. If the Mob was a part of this situation, Greg and she needed to take this very seriously. Now she saw plenty of reason to level with him. She’d grown to hate lying to him anyway. “I’ll tell you the truth.”
“I’d like that.”
“I’m not an astronomy major.”
His expression revealed nothing.
“I’m a semester away from earning my Master’s degree in criminology.”
His eyes turned cold from her lies. “Not a cop but close. Last night said much. And I’m not an assignment?”
“No, Greg. Our meeting was accidental.”
His sight cast past her to the dead TV, he shook his dark head, his hair dried in scattered spikes over his forehead. “It wasn’t accidental. You thought not to tell me any of this?”
Elissa rubbed her thumb into her itching palm. “I’m working on keeping a low profile in this area. After school, I’m heading for Quantico.”
Hardening herself to needing his good reaction, Elissa gazed into his eyes, anxious and sad of his negative reaction. “I’ll train to be a criminologist for the FBI.”
Greg was silent for too long.
“This is the idea you’re in love with. This is what you’re working so hard for.”
She nodded slowly, unable to tell if he would accept her plans for her life or not. Then she told herself again his approval wasn’t necessary. Suddenly his opinion was important when it shouldn’t be.
“And you felt like you couldn’t tell me.”
“It’s not personal, Greg. I don’t tell anyone. Penny’s the only one who knows. If no one learns much about me, I can return to the Bay area after training and take a position in a field office near my mother.”
The despondent shadow over his face became more profound. His eyes held a deadness to them. “We’re lovers, Elissa. You didn’t see that as a good reason to level with me?”
Her sight tripped over the plain features of her apartment, a crowded bookshelf, the stack of case studies for various classes sitting in the corner of the room. Textbooks, each with bookmarks sticking from their pages pointing out various tactics of crime detection. She noticed everything around her was about school. Nothing but school, no other life.
“On the night we met, I told you my routine story of studying astronomy. I figured if I would be saying goodbye to you at the end of the month, and you probably shouldn’t know the truth. It’s essential for me to remain unknown. The anonymity is necessary for me to work in this area after training.”
“That’s how you knew so much about pistols, and how our wine bandit had bailed out of jail.”
She nodded weakly. “I’ve a friend in the FBI already. A phone call got me the info about his bail.”
“So, this is the thing that drives you,” he stated in a disturbing deadpan. Her motivations must have confounded him all along, and he just now understood. He still gave no strong hint of emotion, just despondent flavors of sadness and airs of dark mood.
“I’d lost my father, a small-town patrolman, to a fleeing felon, shot down in the street. Afterward, still pretty young, I’d mapped out a plan to become a federal agent. I’ve learned about weapons, taken martial arts lessons half my life, and I’ve tailored my education to meet that goal.”
Greg grew disturbed by it all, given away by his stare at the tweed couch. “No wonder the robberies interested you so much.”
Then he gave a humorless chuckle. "That's how you could ID the car as a professional's."
“Solving crimes will soon be my job.”
He turned to her with no better expression for learning the entire truth of her. “At the end of the summer, you’ll be going to Virginia?”
She nodded.
“And nothing’s going to change your course?”
Elissa shook her head. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
But her heart sank with that last lie. She wished she could have both the FBI and Greg, but she knew life didn’t give a person everything she wished for.
He was unreadable. “Dangerous job, Elissa.”
“What about my loss of you?” Greg muttered low.
It was a direct stab at her heart, and she worked to soothe it over with a protective shell.
“Don’t think about something so far away. Think about Julian’s eighth win.”
Chapter 11
Elissa was relieved to see Greg had cast away the angst of their earlier conversation in trade for the glory of the day.
She turned the key to the lock, and she couldn’t help but laugh with Sissy trailing behind her as they passed through the threshold and into the kitchen with as much of the Cook-off’s bounty as they could swipe from the salty-aired open kitchen. Julian and Penny would show up in two hours for a mini-celebration of the win.
“Did you see the look on Greg’s face when they announced Julian’s win?” Elissa asked, probably too obviously fascinated with him. “My eyes were right on him when the judge called out Rubia’s name. The look on his face never changed.”
Elissa guided the box of chocolate-toffee cheesecake straight into the refrigerator before she relieved Sissy of the two bags stacked atop big trays of award-winning mushroom veal marsala cradled in her arms.
Sissy set the trays atop the stove, not surprised. “I guarantee you he never entertained a doubt of Julian’s genius. It’s never a competition in Greg’s book. He got that dedication from Rubia blood.”
Elissa’s smile was unmanageable. A large entourage of Rubias had attended the Cook-off. She’d seen them from afar, spotted several of the faces she recognized from the restaurant in the spectator stands, all of them hovered around a small and beautiful, dark-haired, older woman who must be the matriarch of the Rubia family.
Greg had mentioned introducing his mother to her, but she’d wholeheartedly refused and threatened him with violence if he dragged her over there, knowing she looked so danged awful in ill-fitting clothes and unbrushed hair. She’d stood her ground and won that one without giving away the fact that meeting his mother was just too much familiarity than she wanted to promote. She shouldn’t get too close when she knew she’d leave for Virginia in months.