“I was told Tyson wouldn’t be mad if I seduced someone up from the basement.” I stepped up beside him as we exited to the parking lot and headed toward my vehicle.

  “You’re out of luck, everyone else is paired off, and I’m Asexual. You’ve already failed at that assignment.” He grinned at me, and I nearly stumbled at his revelation.

  I knew Asexual people. Some had sex, some were indifferent, but I’d never really thought that was an option with him. One friend I had was sex-repulsed, and they didn’t even like thinking about it. I was in love with a man that wouldn’t ever let me love him or love me back. It was like a punch to the gut, but my choice to just be friends didn’t change. His Asexuality didn’t matter because I already knew we’d never have a romantic relationship, but that didn’t change the fact that my heart was breaking a bit at the news.

  “You work with a lot of sexual people.”

  “Sex positivity doesn’t bother me. I don’t have any issues with sex. I’ve just never been interested. I’d never really thought about it until after I talked with Doc and Vega one night while they were having one of their debates.” He paused at the front of the SUV. “It’s why I hate when my parents try to set me up because I know they only do it with the intention that I marry and give them grandchildren.”

  “Your wishes should be respected.”

  “You’d think so, but it doesn’t. Let’s go talk to Dekland, and afterward, we’ll discuss strategy on how to approach the interview with Darner.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Do we have to stop and pick you up food? It’s been a few hours.”

  “You’re not funny, but, yeah, let’s hit a drive-thru.”

  I chuckled as he hurried to get in the passenger side, and I shook my head. I was going to need to start keeping snacks in the vehicle. Then I realized once this case was over, I was back to Homicide, and he was back to his cold cases. Our time was running out, and that was another thing I didn’t know how to process.

  25

  GRAVES

  I called an older partner of mine who still worked Organized Crime and got the whereabouts of Dekland. Why was meeting him always like a bad gangster movie? The restaurant we’d arrived at was closed for him. Guards littered the room, and he was having lunch.

  There was one thing I’d learned I hated most about my job, and his name was Dekland Mancini. He was as bigoted and old school as they came. He learned being a mobster from Scarface and The Godfather. I was ready to hear him talk like Brando or Pacino. I just wanted to punch him and get it over with. As most people said, can’t get much more demoted than the dungeon.

  I drank my espresso and tried not to glare; Marcel’s badly concealed amusement wasn’t helping my mood. My hand was killing me on top of everything. I should’ve taken half a pill before I left the house.

  “Enjoying your lunch there, Dekland?” I asked.

  “I was until about ten minutes ago. You’re no longer in Organized Crime or Homicide. What did I do for you to fuck up part of my day?”

  “Maybe I just wanted to fuck up your entire day.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past you, Graves. So, ask what you want to, and we can end this visit.”

  “What do you know about the bodies being dumped around Bianchi and Finnegan’s places?”

  “Couldn’t happen to a nicer two men.”

  “Cut the shit, just tell me.”

  “Listen, Graves. I don’t know shit.”

  “Show him the pictures,” I told Marcel, and the man pulled out the photos and laid them out one by one. “Four men, all clean slates and ready to be erased with not even a blip on the radar. Do you recognize them? I’m not fucking asking you to confess to some crime. I just want to know do you recognize them.”

  He studied each one as he wiped his mouth, and I waited for him to say something. “Seen them around. They work for some construction company.” He snapped his fingers, and I gritted my teeth. “They hung out over on Frederick Ave, where foremen pick up day labor.”

  “And how would you know that?”

  “My old man had a remodeling business. Most of his labor came from them so he didn’t have to pay anyone on the books. I didn’t always have this.” He waved around the room.

  “Shoving little girls into shipping containers must be very lucrative for you.” I smirked as his face turned red. Probably wasn’t the best idea to provoke the guy. He’d rubbed me the wrong way since he came on the scene. I could excuse some drug running or a beat down or two, but he sold girls to whoever would pay him the highest price. Thing was, all we had were rumors. We’d never caught him in the act, but I’d give anything to take his ass down.

  “Disgraceful business that, I have five sisters. Couldn’t imagine…”

  “Don’t even try that I have sisters bullshit with me. I’ve known your ass way too long.” I glanced at Marcel as he picked up the photos from the table and slid them back in the envelope.

  “Believe what you want, Graves. You and your lot are no better than me. You run the entire strip.”

  “We offer support and give respect to anyone on the strip. You heard about any trouble coming our way?”

  “You, Remy and Boss, if you weren’t considered untouchable, you’d have targets right between your eyes.” He paused, and the corner of his thin lips pulled up into a nasty grin. “Seems someone didn’t listen to the word on the street. Heard someone tried to kill you.”

  “Wasn’t you, was it?”

  “If it was me, you wouldn’t be sitting there. There’s something you gotta learn, Graves. Power is all we have around here. In this city, the biggest and baddest rule. Yet when you have a very small group of supposed do-gooders who run the biggest territory, someone’s going to try to take you out.”

  “Is that a threat I heard, Dekland?” I was a bit paranoid after the attack on Savvy and me, but I wouldn’t put anything past Dekland. We’d never been the friendliest rivals.

  “No threat, Detective. All I’m saying is someone may be gunning for you all. We all have enemies. Is this conversation over with?”

  “Thank you for your time.” I stood at the same time as Marcel and was amazed he’d stayed quiet most of the exchange. He preferred to take the lead. We exited the restaurant into the late afternoon sun and headed for the SUV. “You were awful quiet.”

  “You had it handled. I don’t think he did it, though. Although, I would like to knock that smug expression off his face.”

  I snorted. “He gets that a lot. I thought about it the entire time I was talking to him.” I opened the passenger door and got in. I buckled up as Marcel got in. “Another dead end?”

  “Maybe not. Want to check out the address he gave us?”

  “Sure, nothing planned for the afternoon.”

  “What are your thoughts on Darner tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. Outside the events where I met her and Mr. Darner, nothing much to remember. Quiet. Very much a cultured lady. We talked a bit about boarding school life.” She’d seemed conditioned to her status in life. She’d hid a bit of humor under her cool exterior. Her husband had never been one of my favorite people to interact with at functions. It wasn’t hard to notice the way she tensed when he’d approached or placed his hand on the small of her back or grabbed her elbow to guide her where he wanted her to go. My cool politeness hadn’t missed his attention either and hadn’t cared all that much.

  “Sounds exciting.”

  “It was a blast.” I threw a bunched-up napkin at him as he chuckled at my expense. “All I wanted was to have a normal life.”

  “What would you consider a normal life?”

  I flinched at the question and tried to remember what I’d assumed a regular, boring life would be like. Before I answered, I thought over how much I wanted to give away, and in the end, I said fuck it and answered honestly. “I don’t know, never had one. I wanted friends instead of adversaries. I wanted to be a little less hunted by the popular guys because I was an uptight American. Go home at night, over the weekends, or at holidays.”

  “So, you were just flown in for the requisite photo op.” There wasn’t any amusement in his voice when he spoke.

  “Yep, that’s unless they had a layover between flights to some tropical paradise. What about you? You said you had a dad and brothers, sisters-in-law?”

  “My mother passed away from an embolism a few months after the birth of my baby brother. I was seven. I don’t remember much about her other than the stories my dad and older brothers told. Dad worked, we took care of ourselves, and then when we got old enough, we started working at the family construction company. First site clean-up. Yet one of my big chores was cooking for everyone.”

  “Really? Those cooking skills of yours are more than a little rusty.”

  “Hey, you said my food was worth putting up with me.”

  “It had fat and flavor. I would’ve given you any compliment.”

  “I’m not feeling the love, baby. After all the devotion and care I’ve bestowed upon you…it’s disappointing and ungrateful.”

  “I’m going home.”

  “No, you’re not, not before we find out who’s trying to kill you and our kid.”

  As my chest tightened at him calling Savvy ours, I jerked my gaze to him to see if he was making fun of me. “Our kid?” I gave myself a mental slap on the back as the question came out steady.

  “She claimed you, so, yes, our kid.”

  I didn’t have a chance to answer as he pulled into the parking lot and parked along the front of the lot where trucks were pulling up with men sitting in the back. There were a few familiar faces. I unbuckled and got out.

  “Hey, Chance,” I called out, and the tired guy turned, a smile tilting his mouth. Even knowing he was Cash’s brother, I couldn’t see them as siblings.

  “Graves, what brings you out here?” He approached but slowed down when he spotted Marcel.

  “This is my new partner, Detective Douglas. We got a few pictures for you to look at. You got a minute?”

  “For you, all the time in the world.”

  Marcel pulled out the same images we’d shown Dekland and handed them to Chance. “Do you recognize them?”

  He cycled through the four images. We still weren’t holding out much hope with the fourth victim. The attack had pulverized his nose, jaw and displaced his orbital sockets, but Vega was still working on reconstructing them the old-fashioned way.

  “Shaughnessy, he’d been around the past six months or so, got picked up and never came back. Figured he’d gotten lucky and scored a full-time gig.” He handed the photo back to Marcel. “Boyd, mean motherfucker. Got kicked off job sites until word got around, and no one wanted him, not even if they were desperate.” He studied the third. “Staitland, asshole, always smelled of alcohol no matter how early it was, but he did whatever job he was offered.” Chance checked out the fourth one.

  “We haven’t gotten an ID on him yet, you’d make Vega happy, but I think she’s having too much fun gluing his skull back together.”

  Chance choked on a laugh. “She would. My sister has that twisted little computer geek wrapped around her finger.”

  “You’re Cash’s brother?” Marcel asked.

  “She’s the oldest and got all the height in the family. Playing music doesn’t always pay the bills. This helps when studio or bar gigs are slow.” He brought his attention back to the image. “Could be Kerouac, not his real name, and don’t think he ever gave it. Always had some Beat Lit book in the back pocket of his coveralls. Pretty smart and interesting guy. He went missing several weeks back.”

  “Did they all get picked up by a common guy?” Marcel inquired as he took the last photo and put them back in the envelope.

  “Not that I remember. Weren’t ever on a crew with me.”

  “Did this Kerouac guy maybe ever mention where he lived or anything?”

  “Some flophouse on the strip. I think Ticket owns the building. Kerouac mentioned his name. Graves, you know Ticket isn’t too discerning in his tenants as long as they pay their rent every Friday and don’t have the cops come to his buildings. He rents to everyone.”

  “Thanks, Chance. If you notice someone else going missing, you let me know, okay?”

  “Not a problem, Graves. I gotta get going, need a shower and a cold beer.”

  “See you later.” I returned his wave as he jogged off to get in his car.

  “Is any of that information going to help us?” Marcel leaned back against the grille of his vehicle.

  “I don’t know. None of these companies give names, and they all pay cash. This seems to be the common denominator, though. These guys are out here just for the cash jobs. Promise of that, and most of them would do whatever was asked. We can go talk to Ticket, but he won’t be very helpful. Like Chance said, he’s not too particular about his tenants if they pay. Although, if this guy is the one we’re looking for, Ticket might still have something he couldn’t sell. People get kicked out, and he pawns what he can.”

  “Better than what we had a few hours ago.”

  “I’ll give Vega a call and tell her what we know about the possible fourth victim. She’d probably have more luck with Ticket than us.”

  “Information is information, no matter how we get it, and Vega is pretty scary.”

  “Why is everyone so scared of her?”

  “Have you met her?”

  “Yeah, but she’s good at her job.”

  “Did you get the pat-down?”

  “I thought I was going to have to tase her. That was more action than I ever wanted to have.” I flipped Marcel off as he loudly laughed. “Let’s get back. We still have to talk about how to approach Ms. Darner and what questions to ask. Like I said, we have one chance at this, and it’s best we don’t offend her.”

  “I’ll let you question her. You have a history with her and her former husband. Maybe that will help us out.”

  I could only hope he was right, I was running out of knives to throw, but we didn’t have time. We just needed to find some suspects because I didn’t want to rely on another body to move our case forward.

  26

  DOUGLAS

  It was odd being back in my suits, I’d gone more casual since working with Simon, but I wouldn’t complain about being able to see how he filled out a hand-tailored suit. I was a big man and always had my suits custom-made, but next to him, I looked shabby. We’d been silent since we’d left the precinct. We’d practiced our approach until the early hours of the morning.

  I’d made sure he understood I wanted him to take the lead. They had a common background and had spoken in the past, so maybe that would ease the sting of any of our questions. We exited our vehicle and made our way toward a stately manor. The home was in Hylen Estates, the most affluent part of the city. As we stood on the stoop, I glanced at him. Took in the lift of his chin, the strong set of his shoulders, and he looked like he belonged there.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. We just have to make sure we get this right.”

  “You’ll be perfect, baby. You’re a familiar face.”

  “But that was years ago. Let’s just hope she has a long memory,” he said as he pushed the button of the doorbell and a loud chime sounded inside.

  A few minutes later, the door opened, and a petite woman in a maid’s uniform answered. “Good morning, gentlemen. How may I help you today?”

  “Yes, good morning, I’m Detective Graves, and this is Detective Douglas. Ms. Darner is expecting us.”

  “Of course, please, come in. I’ll show you to the sitting room and let Mrs. Darner know you’ve arrived.”

  I motioned him to precede me and then I followed him inside. The sound of my dress shoes echoed too loudly off the expensive tile floors. We walked into a large room with two sofas positioned in front of the massive fireplace. The lady motioned to one of the couches, and we took a seat as she exited. I felt so out of place, but I tried to relax the sudden stiffness of my body. If I was tense, then they’d notice.

  The soft click of heels made us stand, and then a woman, maybe in her seventies, entered in a bright, red pantsuit. Her completely silver hair twisted into a flawless up-do.

  “Simon, it’s a pleasure to see you again.” She greeted Simon with a friendly smile, and she held out her hand.

  He gently took it and shook as he gave her an award-winning smile. “You, too, Ms. Darner. I was wondering if you’d remember me.”

  “You were the highlight of those boring functions.”

  “As were you.”

  “I doubt that, but you were always a gentleman. And you must be Detective Douglas.” She shook my hand, but it was less friendly and shorter than the one she’d given Simon.

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you so much for meeting us this morning.”

  “Of course, I don’t know what I can do to help.” She motioned, and we retook our seats.

  “We just have a few questions, Ms. Darner.” Simon’s serene tone belied his nervousness before we’d entered and this was probably more his turf than mine. Surrounded by opulence and a sophistication only money could produce.

  “Please, call me Jackie. I’m not particularly attached to that name.”

  “Of course, Jackie.”

  “Marta is bringing us coffee and some pastries.” She sat down and gracefully crossed her legs. “While those are being prepared, maybe enlighten me.”

  “Of course. Did you want to have one of your sons or your attorney sit in?” Simon asked, and I knew what he was doing. If she or her sons had something to hide, they’d want to be there to get a read on what information we had.

  “No, Simon, I’m a capable woman to handle my own affairs.”

  “Yes, you are, but I wanted to make sure just for your comfort.” He was about to speak as Marta returned with a tray, quickly set us up with coffee, and excused herself. “As I said on the phone yesterday, we just wanted to ask some questions about your former husband.”