Rascal (Edgewater Agency Book 2)

by Kyanna Skye

  “Yes,” she decided. He knows he’s being released soon and obviously he knew that I was coming… I have to find out what else he knows first. “I do.”

  He nodded. “Wonderful. Well, then let us begin with the most obvious question you have, now that the mystery of this prison has been solved.”

  She readied her pen. “Why are you here, Mr. Rizzuto?”

  He straightened himself up as though stiffened by a sense of self-importance. “Quite simply, I embezzled over $10 million dollars from my former employer.”

  She made a note of that. “Why did you do it?”

  He shrugged. “The challenge of it, if nothing else,” he said, reminding her of a boy she had known in high school. That boy had fancied himself the ultimate daredevil of the school simply because he was bored and wanted attention and went to tremendous lengths to capture it.

  “I see. And who was your former employer?”

  “Lester & Desoto, they’re a legal firm in New York.”

  Jamie’s hand trembled as she wrote his response.

  It was close to nightfall when she left and she had only left because the guards had advised her that the drive down the mountain was treacherous after dark. Unable to stay she agreed, her mind exploding with questions. When she got back to her car the first thing she did as she drove away from the prison was dial up Lester & Desoto. She went through several switchboards until she finally arrived at the familiar voice of Mr. Desoto on the other end.

  “Ms. Lombardo,” he said familiarly on the other end, “successful so soon?”

  She bit her lip. “No, Mr. Desoto, I’m not,” she admitted but quickly pressed on before she lost her momentum. “Sir, are you aware that this Dominic Rizzuto was a former employee of our firm?”

  Desoto sighed with aggravation, but patiently replied, “Yes, Ms. Lombardo, we were well aware of that.”

  “Sir, I feel that that was something that could have been left inside my brief… or that you could have told me firsthand. A detail like that–”

  “Is of no consequence to anyone outside of our firm, do you understand?” Desoto said, his voice rising to the point of being a warning.

  Jamie had studied the law long enough to know how to read between the lines when someone was talking to her that way. The meaning of Desoto’s words was clear: Yes, we know, but we don’t want anyone else to find out about it. The reason for her being sent here was also clear. Dominic Rizzuto had embezzled ten million from her firm and she had been sent to find out what he’d done with it.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied.

  “Good. So you’ve made contact with him, I expect.”

  “I have, sir.”

  “Then you know what to do. Show us that our confidence in you has been vindicated and learn what we need you to find out. Do that, and your reputation within our firm will be solid.”

  Before she could say another word there was a familiar Click!

  She sighed as she drove back to her hotel. Her client used to work for her new employer. Right off she could see that as a conflict of interest. She had thought it strange to wonder why she would be sent in now to consult with a man who was weeks away from freedom. If he had the information necessary to reveal where he had hidden the firm’s money, why not bring in someone else? A forensic accountant? A tax attorney? Either of these would have been a more accurate ploy… but that still didn’t answer the question as to why they wanted her.

  “Because I’m expendable,” she reiterated for what felt like the hundredth time. Yes, that still remained the most logical conclusion. But a part of her clung to the hope that she had been singled out for this task because they believed that she could do something that another lawyer could not. She had the ability to get inside a person’s head and learn their secrets from the inside out. She had said as much in school… she had written papers on it… she had even done it a couple of times in practice. But this, this, certainly was not practiced. And the stakes here were $10 million strong.

  “This is going to be a long job.” She drove to her hotel, anxious for rest.

  Over the next few days, Jamie fell into a kind of pattern, although in fairness to mathematical precision the only things about her day that resembled any kind of predictability was that she would rise in the morning, shower and dress, have breakfast at one of the dozens of mom and pop diners that this quaint little town offered. In the evening when she returned to her hotel room, she would research what little she could from the tidbits that she managed to pry out from under her client’s awareness, and usually fall asleep without realizing it.

  Everything that occurred in between was more of a difficult thing to predict. Each day was different and every trip to the prison yielded something new and oftentimes enlightening about her task. But insofar, nothing had proved to be what she might term as ‘groundbreaking’. And Mr. Rizzuto’s release date was only drawing closer. Though she still had weeks to accomplish her job, she already felt the pressures of failure weighing down upon her.

  Little by little she learned more about Dominic Rizzuto. Everything that she had learned of him reminded her of a great brick wall being built and she was watching it go up brick by agonizing brick. Watching grass grow would have seemed the faster element and she felt as though she was still no closer to solving the mystery of the strange man.

  And though it was interesting to meet him in the setting of the prison, she was surprised to find day after day that it was less of a prison and indeed more of some kind of a social or athletic club. It had everything that an ordinary prison did not have and even a few things that a high society social club did not. And Dominic insisted that she meet with him to sample what was available that the prison could offer.

  There were tennis courts, which they abandoned after the first time when she proved what a horrible player she was. “Nothing to worry over,” Mr. Rizzuto had told her. “I haven’t played since I was about ten or eleven myself. So I believe that our skills are at the least, evenly matched in that regard.”

  His words offered her no comfort as she had played so terribly that she couldn’t have hit a single ball if she had been swinging a door instead of a tennis racket.

  There was a pool set in the prison yard, which even came equipped with a lifeguard that Jamie was surprised to see was not a guard but a civilian employee. Bet he gets paid a lot, she mused, having heard that the pool was made use of rather infrequently and the lifeguard was only summoned when someone had signed in for use of the pool.

  She had found the swimming hole easy enough to make use of but was surprised to see that the prison offered her a complimentary swimsuit. “I didn’t think that there were any women here,” she had remarked when she slipped from her bathing robe – also complimentary – and into the slightly chilled waters with Mr. Rizzuto.

  “There aren’t,” he said matter-of-factly. “I asked the quartermaster to have one made especially for you. A very nice mine does fine work.” He paused and an admiring eye looked her over. “I’ll have to be certain to give him a generous tip.”

  At that point, Jamie was glad for the heat of the Colorado summer as it helped to hide the redness of her cheeks.

  There was a gaming room that the prison had been outfitted with. It was filled with the latest versions of almost every game that one could imagine in the console or old-style arcade formats. There were even some venues available that she had not ever seen outside of Las Vegas, having gone there once with friends during her pre-law school years. Some of that which was included were V.R. games that required the use of vision goggles, gloves, and the strange padded vests that would allow a player to feel everything that was happening around them as well as see.

  “I’ve grown fond of these games,” Mr. Rizzuto had said to her after he’d paid nearly $50 for them to play a game that simulated very near-to-life hunting scenarios. “It saves the trouble of having to go home and shower and clean one’s weapons afterward.”

  As the days wore by they made use o
f the other diversions that Hahn’s Peak permitted its inmates. There was a sauna that they made use of more than a single time. The towels were again, complimentary, and Jamie found that she had grown eager to use the sauna whenever Mr. Rizzuto suggested it.

  Each time they had gone, she had worn a towel that wrapped tightly around her chest, covering her down to knees with a supplementary towel that covered her head and kept her scalp from growing into wild entanglements.

  Mr. Rizzuto, alternately, was more appealing to see. He wore only a towel around his waist that covered his pelvis down the knee. But in the true old-gentlemanly fashion, he had a second towel draped over his right shoulder that he would, occasionally, use to mop the sweat from off of his brow. That added to her earlier estimations that he had come from old money and likely had enjoyed this kind of a temptation outside of prison, but she still could not pry any more details from him on the matter than he was willing to give.

  But even so, the sight of him reclined on a wooden bench in a steam room with his eyes closed and resting his head on the backside of the bench with nothing but steam between them was as intoxicating a sight as any that she had seen. The vision of Mr. Rizzuto with sweat glistening on his hard body sent shivers down her spine that the steam of the sauna could do nothing to combat. And with his eyes closed and resting, almost angle-like, she found that she could admire him in a capacity that was most certainly unprofessional. But she managed to hide her brief moments of interest with the reliable cloak of her job.

  “You seem like you’ve done this plenty of times before, Mr. Rizzuto,” she had probed delicately one day.

  “I have,” he’d replied without opening his eyes. “There was a sauna not far from where I grew up back home. The owner was a friend of my family’s. Every so often, he would give us a family pass and we would indulge.” He sighed deeply as if lost in the memory. “Some of the first friends that I ever made were in those steam baths.”

  A sauna not far from where he grew up, she thought with some contriteness that could be anywhere.

  More diversions that the prison offered were indulged. Of all of the things that Jamie had expected to find in this place, the largest of the surprises were a lounge and a bar – though she learned that nothing better than 2% alcohol was served. “This is a prison after all,” Mr. Rizzuto had said with a wink at her.

  Despite the strangeness of the lounge and bar, which had been named after the prison, she found that offered a rather enjoyable atmosphere. It was the first chance she’d had to see how Mr. Rizzuto interacted with some of the other inmates, who also frequented this establishment.

  At any given time there was never more than a half-dozen of them allowed within the bar and she observed that they were at least kept on either strict timetables or were limited to the number of drinks that they were permitted to enjoy.

  “Much as I do love this place,” Mr. Rizzuto had commented one night after another of the inmates had made use of the bar’s stage to perform a short stand-up comedy routine, “I do wish that they’d serve us something more potent than this.” He indicated a glass of something that pretended to be a red wine that had been served with the steaks that they had ordered.

  Jamie could agree with that fact seeing as how 2% alcohol more or less tasted like flavored water – and disgustingly so at that – she had sensed another opportunity to learn something new about her client. “Something you miss from home?”

  “Indeed,” Mr. Rizzuto said, holding up his glass as if examining its contents. “Wine is like a fine woman if you’ll pardon my lapse in manors and stoop to the cliché. It all begins on the vine, doesn’t it? It starts with the grapes that are raised and harvested when the seasons permit the most perfect of times. They need to absorb the rain, the sun, even take a good bath in the dirt that nature sees fit to blow around, and then be harvested when nature deems them worthy. Then they need to be plucked, ever so carefully, and crushed in a giant vat of a wine press, and always in a wood vat, never let anyone tell you different. And then the resulting juices need to be aged, properly, before they’re bottled. And again, the bottles need to be aged before they’re finally opened.”

  He closed his eyes as if lost in a grand memory once again. “Perfection. The process I’ve just described is over-simplified, I admit. But the gist of it is there. There is an art to making wine… a tradition if you will. There is something that honors our forebears that are not done here.” He looked again at the glass in his hand and set it gently upon the ground and wiped his fingers on his napkin as something oily had been on the glass. “The swill that they served us here tastes very much like it could have been concocted under the bunk of any inmate in any other prison that you could name.”

  Jamie wished that she had had her pen and pad with her to have written down everything that he had said. Not only was it the longest batch of words that Dominic Rizzuto had ever spoken to her, but there was something else behind it: passion.

  He’d spoken of making wine as if he had done it, countless times, and from a young age. Obviously, he had an appreciation for it and that had made him a little easier to read. He had described harvesting grapes for wine as if he had done so from one who had to observe the changing of the seasons and that he knew how to read them. He’d commented that crushing grapes in a wooden vat – not the metal ones that most tended to use these days – was the way to go. Jamie knew nothing about making wine, but even that sounded like something that was done for the sake of tradition if nothing else. That told her that Mr. Rizzuto had an affinity for doing things in an old-fashioned sense.

  Again, all of this smacked of an old family with old-world values and traditions. Perhaps one that owns its own vineyard or winery? Still, that didn’t narrow her field of search at all. When she returned to her hotel that night, her research revealed that there were hundreds of families up and down both coasts of the country that owned their own fields and wineries. None of them matched the Rizzuto family name either, which frustrated her thinking that she had hit another dead end with the biggest bit of information that her client had given her.

  Christ, he could have grown up on a vineyard and played with rich kids his whole life and dreamed of a life of eloquence. It didn’t seem so farfetched, that, and unfortunately for her, it wasn’t something that she could research and confirm. Not without asking outright either.

  Now that is an idea. Just ask outright questions. Yeah, why not? Her mind flooded with questions that she could have asked.

  Is Dominic Rizzuto your real name? Where were you born? Who were your parents? Do you have a sweetheart waiting for you when you get out? What are your plans when you do get out? Where did you hide the money that you embezzled from the people that sent me here to get that info from you?

  She softly chuckled at the thoughts as she prepared for bed that night. Yes, she could try the direct approach and get what she needed from Mr. Rizzuto. But that would destroy everything that she had been working to accomplish and completely foil any chance she had at proving that a soft approach to client’s confidences could be inferred. I’d be a laughing stock then, wouldn’t I?

  As the days went past, they found other ways to occupy their time. They took many frequent walks on the grounds inside of the wire and she found the view around them beautiful. “It really is gorgeous up here,” she’d remarked one morning as they walked.

  “What did you expect?” Mr. Rizzuto had asked.

  She’d shrugged. “Well, I’ve heard that Colorado was pretty much the stoner capital of the country. I expected to see pot farms everywhere and guys with dreadlocks selling dime bags on every corner, and the smell of marijuana in the air everywhere I went.”

  Mr. Rizzuto laughed at that. “And now?”

  She looked out at the landscape again. “All I see is mountains. I smell evergreen trees. I can hear the wind rustling through the leaves. I can hear birds that aren’t pigeons or crows. There're no car alarms here, no sound of angry traffic at all. I don’t hear the s
ounds of shoes on concrete. I don’t hear any neighbors screaming at each other over rent or whose turn it is to stay home with the kids. It’s almost… peaceful here.”

  He nodded in silent agreement with her analysis. “You’re a city kid, I take it?”

  She confirmed with a nod, “My whole life the ‘great outdoors’ was something that you either saw on TV or read about in a book. I always used to think that there wasn’t anything even remotely resembling a ‘wild frontier’ anymore. I thought every place was just plowed under or covered with cement. You know… civilized.”

  He turned a curious eye towards her and the single look informed her that she had touched on a delicate subject. “So, by your definition, anyplace without concrete under your feet… a Starbucks on every corner… or free Wi-Fi isn’t civilized. And by extension, anyone who would choose to surround themselves with such things is what, a savage?”

  Jamie had never even considered military service, but she felt like the time had come to throw herself on a hand grenade… one that she had thrown, in fact. “No, not all Mr. Rizzuto,” she said, thinking quickly. “It’s just, I wasn’t expecting a place like this when I first came here. I mean, from here, I can see the horizon to horizon and all I see is this beautiful mountain range. I had thought that anymore – no matter where you went – you couldn’t go anyplace without being able to see the next small town or city. It’s just amazing that there some land that remains untouched out here.”

  Mr. Rizzuto watched her carefully for the span of no more than a few seconds before he seemed to accept her explanation. He gave a small nod. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Though she didn’t let it show, she had breathed a sigh of relief inwardly that would have doubled most people over. I learned something new today, she later realized, I think he’s a bit of a rustic kind of boy.