“No. Gibson’s being blackmailed just like the rest of them. Someone else is in charge.”
“You’re kidding? Who?”
“I’m not sure,” said Al hesitantly.
“Well, then, how do you know?” I asked.
“That computer stick had some financial stuff on it too. Ralph said we needed to follow the money,” explained Al. “So we did some digging, and we found out that PGC is being funded by someone, but it isn’t Markovitz. Markovitz is being paid through PGC.”
“Well, then, who’s funding PGC?”
“Like I said, I don’t know yet. I got Ralph and Eddie working on it.”
“Alright, well, we’re not going to be able to go after the boss until we know who the boss is,” I said.
“I know. The guys and I are on it. I’ll call you if we figure anything out.”
“Hey, Al,” I said, adjusting myself on my hospital bed to get a little more comfortable. “You and Evie probably ought to stay over at Gary’s place tonight just to be on the safe side.”
“Yeah, way ahead of you. Evie’s staying with one of her girlfriends. I’ll stay with Eddie or Ralph. Don’t worry about me. You just keep yourself safe.”
“Will do. Call me when you get new information.”
“Count on it.”
Al hung up before I could say goodbye. It was a habit I’d noticed about him—hanging up before a conversation was over. Maybe I was a little OCD, but I had to say goodbye to the empty airwaves. “Talk to you later, Al.”
38
I woke up several hours later, feeling a little more human than I had earlier. The throbbing headache I’d initially had when I’d first woken up in the hospital had reduced in intensity from an eleven to a three and was now only a slight dull ache behind my skull. The lights were off in my room, and the monitors behind me beeped steadily, reminding me to be thankful that I was alive. Frankie was asleep in a chair next to me. Her head was cranked back at an awkward angle and her mouth had fallen open. She still wore the white blouse and black dress pants we’d worn to the party at Harvey Markovitz’s, but now her top buttons were all undone and her shirt was partially untucked.
I stared at her.
She looked so vulnerable like that. Possibly the most vulnerable I’d ever seen her. Usually Frankie was a kickass police chick. Fierce. Intelligent. Sweet. Adorable. And sexy. All the traits of a perfect woman, rolled into one gorgeously toned package. But now here she was, letting out the softest of snores. Her face was relaxed. One arm rested in her lap, and the other dangled off the side of the chair. A tiny bit of drool glistened near the side of her mouth, threatening to run down the side of her face.
For the first time since I’d met Francesca Cruz, she looked unabashedly human. And it made me appreciate her that much more.
“Hey, Frankie,” I whisper-hissed in her direction.
Her mouth snapped shut, but her eyes didn’t budge.
“Frankie,” I said again. This time I leaned over and got a hand around the chair’s wooden arm rest and pulled her towards me. The wood against the tile floor made a hoarse scratching rolled r sound, trrrrrrr.
Frankie’s whole body flinched. Her eyes opened and she sat up in her chair, looking around. “Danny? What’s the matter? Is everything okay?”
“No. You look uncomfortable.” I scooted towards the outside edge of my twin-sized hospital bed. My stab wound smarted, but I refused to show it in my face. “Come lay with me. I’ve got plenty of room.”
“Danny, I—”
“Lay with me.” The words came out as a bit of a whine. Admittedly, I wasn’t above whining.
She smiled. “Okay. Scooch over.”
I slid over until my back rested up against the plastic railing on my bed. “That’s all I’ve got to give.”
Frankie crawled in bed next to me. She lay on her side and propped her bent arm underneath her head. “This okay?”
I smiled at her. Her white blouse had popped open slightly, revealing a tiny morsel of the white lace bra she wore beneath it. “Better than okay.”
“How’s your wound?”
“Can’t even feel it. How are you feeling?”
Frankie’s dark eyes stared back at me for a second before she shrugged. “Frustrated.”
“Yeah? About Gibson?”
She let out a little sigh. “Yeah, Gibson. Gibson and the whole police force. I’ve been working for them for years and have never gotten anywhere in my career there. For years I thought it was me. I thought it was because I was a woman. I thought it had something to do with me living in America for a while. I thought maybe I’d done something in my early days to piss the sergeant off. I just—” Looking down at the bed, she shook her head. Then she swallowed hard and looked up at me. Her eyes were glossy. “I doubted myself, Danny. Gibson and all the other guys like Jones and Ames made me doubt myself. And now to find out that the reason I never got anywhere close to making inspector was because Gibson and Jones and Ames and who knows who else were the bad guys? It’s just—ugh.” She rolled back a little and covered her face with her hand.
I gave her a tight smile. “Yeah, I get it. It feels like you’ve wasted all that time?”
“Well, yeah, that. But mostly they made me feel insecure about myself. I’m not an insecure person, Danny.”
“Yeah, I know you’re not. I’ve never seen you once act insecure.”
“That’s because you don’t make me feel that way. With you I feel like an equal. But it’s never been like that at the PIRPF. And now I find out it’s all been a lie? It’s just—I don’t know—kind of overwhelming to be honest.”
“And now we have to figure out how to bring Gibson and his cronies down.”
“Oh, I know. Before I fell asleep, it’s all I could think about. Who do you go to when the person you’re supposed to go to is in on the corruption?”
I sighed. I felt exactly the same way. Where did we go from here? We were both quiet for several seconds, each of us lost in thought. Finally, I spoke. “You know, I have my own insecurities too.”
“Yeah? Danny Drunk, the cockiest guy I know, is insecure? What could you possibly be insecure about?”
“Crazy, right?” I chuckled. The movement made me grunt a little as a shooting pain surged through my side.
She raised her head, her face filled with concern. “You okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m good.” I shot her a smile. “You know, I don’t know if I mentioned this to you or not, but my goal since Pam left the island has been to become a better person. To become the person everyone else seems to think I can be. To become decent and trustworthy.”
“You mentioned you were working on those things,” she said softly. “I think you’re doing a good job.”
I leaned backwards against the railing and covered my face with my free hand. “I don’t. I feel—defeated. Like no matter what I do, I just can’t win. I can’t save everyone.”
“You don’t have to save everyone to be a good person, Danny.”
“I feel like I do, because I have so much to make up for. Like the only way I’m going to prove myself is to be better than my best.” I sighed. The pressure to be perfect tightened the invisible noose around my neck, making it difficult to breathe. I forced a deep breath of rigid air into my lungs. “And now Gibson’s in on all this. The one guy we thought we’d be able to go to to take it from here, and he’s working against us. Like what do we do now, Frankie?” I ground the pads of my fingers into my eyes.
Frankie reached a hand out and touched the side of my face.
Her soft touch caught me off guard. I moved my hand from my eyes and looked at her.
“This isn’t all on you, Danny. I’m here too. We’re doing this together,” she said, her voice low. Her fingers trailed from the top of my cheekbone down to the stubble on my jaw.
When they got to my chin, I reached out and caught hold of them. I pulled her hand into my mouth and pressed my lips against the top of it. Her hand felt soft
and cool against my lips.
“Thanks, Frankie,” I whispered, letting go of her hand.
Our eyes locked and I suddenly wished that we weren’t in a hospital bed, but rather alone in Frankie’s apartment like we were supposed to be. My eyes moved to her lips. Craving the taste of them, my mouth watered. I stared at the plump pair long and hard, finding myself torn between wanting to devour her and being afraid that the pain meds I was on were clouding my judgment.
She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down gently.
Desire surged through my veins.
Ahh, fuck it.
In one fluid motion, I reached a hand out and snaked my fingers into her hair and around the back of her head, pulling her towards me. Our eyes closed in unison as my lips introduced themselves to hers for the very first time. She tasted sweet, like the strawberry Jell-O we’d had as a snack earlier.
Focusing my attention on her deliciously soft, pillowy lips, I stopped short of invading her mouth with my tongue. I wanted to take it slowly with Frankie; I wanted our first kiss to last forever, and at the same time, I wanted to give Frankie time to back out of it if that was what she wanted. But when I felt her hands in my hair, I knew this was where she wanted to be too.
And yet something seemed to be holding me back. “Frankie,” I whispered.
Her eyelids fluttered open. “Yeah?” Her chest heaved up and down.
“Maybe this isn’t the right thing for us?”
The fog cleared from her dark eyes right in front of me. She pulled back a little. “You don’t want to kiss me?” Veiled hurt curled the edge of her question.
“No, no, Frankie. I’ve been dying to kiss you. I don’t wanna stop.”
She smiled. “Well, then, why did you stop, dummy?”
I groaned. “Because I promised myself I wouldn’t go after you until I felt worthy. I don’t feel worthy yet.”
“Danny, I’m not some goddess that you have to be perfect for. I’m just a woman. And you’re just a man. We’re both flawed.”
Emotion that I didn’t know was inside of me erupted. Tears burned the back of my eyes. “But I couldn’t save her, Frankie,” I whispered. “What kind of man am I that I couldn’t save a sixteen-year-old girl?”
Frankie looked at me for a split second, and then before I knew what was happening, her arms were around my head. She scooted herself up and closer to me, so that my head was nestled between her arms, snug up against her breasts. She hugged my head tightly. “It’s not your fault that Jordan died, Danny.”
“But what if they killed her because I started looking for her? What if it was my fault?”
“You were trying to save her. You didn’t know what was going on. You can’t blame yourself. You not being able to save her doesn’t make you a bad man, Danny. It doesn’t make you unworthy.”
“It doesn’t make me a good man either,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around Frankie.
“Chasing after the bad guys makes you a good man. A worthy man. We’re going to make the men who did this to her pay. I promise you. We’re going to take them all down. Every last one of them. And then you’ll see. People can count on you.” She patted my hair softly. “Then you’ll know you’re a good man, worthy of good things.”
Whether it was the warmth of Frankie’s embrace or the pain medicine I’d been given or the release of the emotions I’d held back, I felt my body shudder, and then slowly, I drifted off.
39
The next morning, Frankie and I pulled our vehicles up to my cottage at the Seacoast Majestic. My head still ached and I felt a little off-balance, but the medicine the doctors had me on kept the pain mostly at bay, so much so that I couldn’t even feel the pain from my flesh wound. We’d gotten a few hours of sleep and by ten a.m. I’d been discharged. Frankie took me back to the scene of my attack to retrieve my vehicle, still parked along the side of the road. I was thankful I’d found it in one piece as I’d yet to find time to put any insurance on it. We’d come back to grab me a change of clothes and then to go find Al and see what new information he had for us.
As soon as she got out of her vehicle, Frankie rushed to my side and threw my arm over her shoulder so I could lean on her.
I chuckled. “I can walk just fine, Frankie.”
“You look wobbly,” she said, looking up at me.
“Oh, fine.” I leaned my weight on her, not because I needed the help, but because she was cute and I just wanted to feel her close.
When we hit the top of the porch, I heard a screeching voice come from the road behind us. Frankie and I both stopped walking and turned to look over our shoulders.
It was Mariposa Marrero, wailing at the top of her lungs as she ran down the path. “Where is she?!”
I tipped my head to the side curiously. “Hey, Mari. What’s going on? Why are you yelling?”
She stopped at the bottom of my porch stairs and wagged a finger at me. “Where is she, Drunk? I know you have her here.”
I frowned. “Have who here?”
“Giselle! I know she’s here.”
I tipped my head to the side. “Giselle? What are you talking about, Mari? Giselle’s not here.”
“Liar!” she hissed. She looked past me at my cottage. “Giselle! I know you’re in there! Come out!”
“Mari. Giselle’s not in there. I literally just got home.”
Mari’s face was set in a firm, angry line. Her face was crimson as she stuck her finger out towards me again. “I know you’ve been seeing my daughter behind my back!”
My heart thundered in my chest. I glanced over at Frankie uncomfortably. “Mari. I swear to you, I haven’t been seeing Giselle.”
But she ignored me and continued to rail. “You said I could trust you! But you haven’t changed. Not one little bit!”
“Ms. Marrero,” began Frankie, holding her hands out calmly. “I think you’re mistaken. Danny was with me last night. He doesn’t have your daughter. Honestly.”
Mariposa sucked in her breath. “Bed hopping from one woman to the next. Ay, Dios mío! I knew that you hadn’t changed! I told you!”
I let go of Frankie and slowly crept towards Mari, holding my hands up defensively. “Mari. I swear to you, I haven’t been seeing Giselle. You have to believe me.”
“I didn’t want to believe it at first,” she admitted, nodding. “But when she didn’t come home last night, some of the rumors I’d been hearing around the resort came back to haunt me.”
I looked at her in surprise. “Wait a minute, Giselle didn’t come home last night?” Fear filled my limbs with lead and made me feel suddenly weak. We’d told Gibson that Giselle had been the one to open the giant can of worms up for investigation. What if they’d gone after her to shut her up?
“Several people saw you talking to her down at the swim-up bar this week,” she continued. “And one of the cleaning girls said she saw Giselle sneaking into your cottage. I told her it couldn’t be true, but she insisted. So I asked Giselle about it. She denied it, but now I know—you convinced her to lie to me, so I wouldn’t know the truth!”
My head shook. “Mari, that’s not what—”
“And then when she didn’t come home last night and wouldn’t return any of my calls or texts, I went online and looked at her cell phone usage. I saw that she’d been texting and receiving texts from a US number. So I looked up your number and sure enough, it was you!”
I palmed my forehead. “Mari, I swear to you. Yes, I texted Giselle, but it’s not what you think. If you’ll just let me ex—”
“But this, this was the final straw!” she hollered angrily. She pulled a red tank top from a plastic bag that hung on her arm and shook it in the air. “I went through her room last night and I found this!”
It was the tank top I’d slid over Giselle’s head on the first night she’d come to my cottage to ask for my help finding Jordan.
“I’ve seen you wear this tank top, Drunk. I know it’s yours, don’t try and deny it! You’re having
an affair with my daughter! I’m going to have you arrested!”
Frankie stepped forward. “Ms. Marrero. Do you recognize me? I’m Officer Francesca Cruz. With the Paradise Isle Royal Police Force. Would you please allow me to say something?”
Mari’s head rocked wildly from side to side. Tears streamed down her face. “I want this man arrested!”
“Please, Ms. Marrero, let me tell you what’s going on.”
Mariposa’s chest heaved up and down from all the yelling and screaming and from running over to my cottage. “You’re friends with him. You’ll just lie to me too!”
“No, I won’t. I promise. I’m going to tell you exactly what’s going on. It’s time you know the truth, because I think your daughter might be in serious danger.”
Mariposa’s face went white. Trembling, her hand went to her heart then. “My Giselle is in danger?”
“Yes, Mari,” I said. “Please, just let Officer Cruz explain. Okay?”
But all the excitement was too much for Mari. Her knees buckled. Frankie and I rushed the bottom of the steps to scoop her up. We both got her by the elbow and caught her just before her head hit the ground.
“Let’s get her inside, Danny,” said Frankie. “It’s too hot out here for her to be carrying on like this.”
Together, we managed to get Mari inside and got her seated on my sofa. I went to the kitchen and plucked a bottle of water from it, took off the cap and rushed to Mari’s side. “Drink this, Mari. You’re overheated.”
With shaking hands, Mari managed to hold the bottle and take a couple of long sips. Finally, she looked up at Frankie. “Tell me you know where my Giselle is. Please?”
“We’ll find her,” said Frankie. “But first I need you to believe me. Danny hasn’t been taking advantage of your daughter. I swear to you. He’s been trying to help her.”
“Help her? Help her with what?”
“Your daughter got herself into some trouble and she didn’t want you to know about it. So she went to Danny to ask for help.”
Mari’s eyes widened. She looked up at me in surprise. “What? She got herself into trouble and she went to you?!”
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