Steal The CEO's Daughter - A Carny Bad Boy Romance

by Layla Valentine

  “How come you didn’t out Laura after she arrested you?” Cassandra glanced from Lenny to Jack, who was staring down at him with a kind of intensity that didn’t bode well for Lenny’s health or state of mind.

  “The lawyers told me that was about the worst thing I could do,” Lenny said, sounding sulky. “I wanted to roll over on her, see if they’d cut me a deal, you know? But she was still the golden child back then; the truth hadn’t come out yet. The lawyers said no one would believe me, and I’d only be making things worse for myself if I tried to take her down with me.” Lenny spit again, and Cassandra thought he might be imagining Laura’s face when he did it. “That bitch pranced around in uniform like she owned the damn city.”

  “So why aren’t you rotting in jail right now, Lenny? How come I didn’t see you in the yard?”

  “They had me plead guilty to everything,” Lenny said. He winced at the pain in his arms before continuing. “They chalked my jumping bail up to temporary insanity, and convinced the judge that since I didn’t have a record, I should get off light.” Lenny let out a rusty-sounding laugh. “I don’t know how they managed it, but I guess that’s why they’re so damn expensive.”

  “I remember your trial,” Cassandra said, as the pieces fell into place in her mind. “You got house arrest.”

  “That’s right,” Lenny said, a smug expression flitting across his face. “Those bankrupting sons of bitches got me that much; I got to stay in here for a few months instead of getting gutted in some fucking cell.”

  “If you got off so lightly, how come you’re living like a cockroach?” Jack said, his voice full of disgust.

  Cassandra started to tell Jack to calm down, to take a breath; but she could see he wasn’t in a state of mind to take suggestions on his interrogation technique.

  “You know what happens to a man who gets snatched up by the 5-0? He’s tainted goods. Nobody would come within fifty feet of me, like they’d put some kind of restraining order on everyone who hustled.” Lenny shook his head. “Nobody would get me product to sell, nobody would buy from me. Even once they took that shitting monitor off my ankle, nobody wanted anything to do with me.”

  “You were trying to deal while you were under house arrest?” Cassandra shook her head in disbelief. “That’s stupid as hell.”

  “Lenny here’s never been all that smart, have you asshole?” Jack leaned on the man’s arm and Lenny groaned in pain.

  “Jack, he’s talking, don’t break his arm, please,” Cassandra said. The words left her before she could consider whether it was wise to interrupt the man at work.

  “Listen to her, man,” Lenny said, nodding his head in Cassandra’s direction. “I’m telling you everything—why you gotta break my arm for that?”

  Jack grunted wordlessly, but Cassandra saw him loosen his grip on the junkie.

  “If no one would work with you, how’d you end up using?”

  Lenny laughed again. “They wouldn’t let me sell for them or help me move product, but they’d sell to me, sure enough,” he said. “I started with my own stuff—the stuff the cops never found. I was bored, it was a way to pass the time.” He made that awkward, half-shrugging movement again. “After a while I was hooked. And it got me out of the house.”

  “That’s why the place is empty,” Cassandra said, realizing suddenly that the man had sold everything to fund his habit.

  “That’s right, man—habit like mine costs money, you know? I started with the jewelry and shit, and then…” Lenny turned his head. “Before I knew it, I was here.”

  There was something building up in Jack, in spite of Lenny’s obviously honest words.

  “So you’re telling me that Laura Granger ruins your fucking life and you just sit here in the corner doing blow?” Jack gave Lenny a shake. “Tell the truth you asshole! She crashed your little enterprise and let you go to the dogs, so you killed her and pinned it on me because I was the one who turned you over.”

  “No! No—no, man, you got it wrong,” Lenny said. The fear flashed across his face again, and Cassandra thought that if Jack put even a few pounds more pressure on the man’s arms, they’d break across his back. “The police thought the same thing. When that bitch turned up dead, they pulled me in.”

  “So what happened then?” Cassandra sank into a crouch, keeping in Jack’s line of sight.

  “They already had evidence pointing to Jackie here, but he wasn’t talking. When they couldn’t get a confession out of him, they brought in a bunch of possible suspects; dealers Laura had worked with, everyone she’d arrested who wasn’t in jail. They did their job thoroughly alright, I’ll give them that—but the 5-0 always look out for their own.”

  Lenny looked at Cassandra, grimacing as Jack’s grip on his arms held firm. “So they haul me in for questioning—big loss there, no one’s going into business with me anyway. But they didn’t have any evidence, you know? And they could tell I’m not even a little hot to kill anybody anymore.”

  “You pulled a knife on Jack just now.”

  “You was in my place!” Lenny looked at Cassandra wildly. “Of course I’m gonna pull a knife on someone I think is here to kill me. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Sure,” Cassandra said dryly.

  “Hey—I may be a rat but I ain’t wasteful. You’ve got a pretty face, and a nice body. At most I’d have taken down your man here and told you if you said anything to anyone about it, I’d come pay you a visit.”

  “So Laura ruined your life and you didn’t even try to get even?” Jack’s voice was full of contempt. “You didn’t think to maybe pin it on me? Come on Lenny, I’m not stupid.”

  “Yeah, she ruined my life,” Lenny said, twisting on the mattress. “And you know what, maybe I did want her dead. But if I was gonna to do it, I’d try and be classy about it. The beast that got her… You could see that wasn’t just business.”

  “What do you mean?” Cassandra moved a little closer to the two men, concerned that Jack’s patience might snap at any moment.

  “You know anything about that, bitch?”

  “I know as much about her as the cops do; I wrote up the case for the newspaper.”

  Lenny frowned, looking at her for a moment. “Oh—yeah, you’re that lady who goes on the news sometimes.” He smiled. “How the hell did you end up with this guy?”

  “Not really relevant right now, Lenny,” Cassandra licked her lips, thinking. “How did it go down when they brought you in for questioning? Did they try and get you to confess? Did they have anything from the scene that pointed to you?”

  Lenny shook his head. “Man, that shit’s ancient history now,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at Jack. “They brought me in the room. They thought I’d killed Laura, same reason Hardy does. Said she ruined my life and I put paid to her, same old story.” Lenny shook his head again. “They brought out pictures of her—you seen those?”

  Cassandra nodded, wincing—she had seen more than pictures.

  “Then you know that whoever did that to her wasn’t just getting back at her over a deal gone bad, or whatever. No, there were marks all round her neck, face all beat to hell. Real nasty business.”

  “What else did they ask you?” Cassandra didn’t dare to glance at Jack; she needed to keep Lenny’s attention on her and keep the tension level in the room down. Training in dealing with hostile interview subjects sure does come in handy where you least expect it, she thought absently.

  “All the normal questions, ‘Where were you on this night,’ ‘who was with you,’ ‘do you have any proof that you were there,’ shit like that. The night Laura got killed, I was trying to sling a pair of shoes so I could go buy a gram.” Lenny made a face.

  “Is that all you did that night, Lenny?”

  “I’m telling you; I bought some stuff, and then I went and hung out at Roxy’s for a while. Then I came back here.”

  “What else did the police ask you? Come on, Lenny, I’m doing everything I can to help you out here.
Work with me.” Cassandra glanced askance at Jack, who was barely holding in his frustration.

  “I told you; they asked where I was, who I was with, all the normal things. That night was the same as every night; get some cash, find some dope, come home and use.” Lenny was shaking slightly under Jack’s weight, and Cassandra could see he was starting to go into the twitchy, itchy state of intense craving.

  “I’d be using right now if I had my hands to myself,” he said. “That’s all I know. I wasn’t there, I wasn’t involved. If I’d seen Laura in the street I might spit on her, but I wasn’t in any shape to do what that son of a bitch did to her.”

  “Anything else you can remember them asking you? I know it was a while ago, but I just want to make sure we’ve got all the details. You get that, right Lenny?”

  The junkie considered for a moment, his gaze abstracted. “They asked me the same questions so many times I didn’t really think about it.” He licked his lips and looked at Cassandra. “They asked me where I was the night it happened. Who I was with, the clothes I was wearing, if I wore any jewelry, all that stuff. I said to ‘em, do I look like the kind of guy who wears jewelry? I’d sell the clothes off of my back for a hit.”

  Something tugged at Cassandra’s mind. She sat back on her haunches, frowning as she felt something tickling at a corner of her brain.

  “What? What is it, Cass?” Jack said, turning to look at her.

  Cassandra shook her head, holding her hand up to silence his questions. There was something about the mention of jewelry.

  There was something… Come on, Cass, think. It was something to do with a bracelet, or a necklace…something.

  She shook her head as nothing rose up as she attempted to call the detail to mind. Was it something she’d seen in a police report, or was it something she remembered from walking into the scene itself? It was impossible to remember exactly, but the sudden nagging in her brain was enough to convince Cassandra that Lenny wasn’t the man they were looking for.

  “He’s not who we need to be talking to,” Cassandra said finally, taking a deep breath and sighing as she turned her attention back to the two men in front of her. “We’re wasting our time here, Lenny wasn’t involved. I mean, look at him; he can barely sit still long enough to answer questions. There’s no way he would have been able to kill someone and make it look like you did it.”

  For a moment, Jack didn’t move. He said nothing, and Cassandra could tell that he was deliberating, trying to decide whether or not he agreed with her analysis. He closed his eyes and Cassandra saw a ripple of tension work through him. A moment later, he released his hold on Lenny and stood up, stepping away from the mattress. Cassandra struggled to her feet, stamping a couple of times to rid herself of the pins-and-needles feeling in her toes.

  “I have an idea,” she told Jack quickly. “I know you’re in charge here, but something just came to me. I’m not sure what it means yet, but I think there’s somewhere else we need to be.”

  Jack held her gaze for a long moment and then nodded. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, nodding towards the room where they’d entered the apartment.

  As they started towards the dining room, Cassandra looked back to see Lenny watching them, confusion evident on his face, before reaching for the little baggie of white powder, his hands shaking and his attention absorbed completely by the dope. She shook her head and reminded herself that his fate was none of her business—beyond keeping Jack from killing him, at least.

  Turning back to the dining room, she saw that Jack had already jumped through the window. She pushed herself up onto the windowsill, thinking about the best possible way to get the information she needed.

  “Where are we going?” Jack asked, as he lifted her through the window and set her on her feet.

  “Laura’s place,” Cassandra said. “I need to see if there’s something…” She shook her head. “I just need to see it.”

  Jack shrugged, looking out over the balcony. “I suppose we better get down from here then,” he said, flashing an almost-smile in her direction.

  “I can’t wait,” Cassandra said sarcastically, steeling herself for their descent.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A few dozen near-heart attacks later, Cassandra was back behind the wheel of her car, speeding along the highway.

  Jack lay in the backseat in silence, and as the music on her stereo swirled around her in eddies and floods of sonic fury, Cassandra wracked her mind to try and figure out what it was about Lenny’s words that had pricked at her memory. There was something she’d seen, somewhere along the line, that she had to see again. There was something she’d noticed, something she’d thought to be insignificant, that had gone into the back of her mind without being catalogued.

  Cassandra stifled a yawn; the nap she had taken earlier was starting to wear off. She just hoped that somehow their luck would hold out; that they’d take a look at Laura’s place, figure out what it was that she needed to remember, and from there discover who it was who had framed Jack.

  She wasn’t sure when she had decided that she believed Hardy was innocent. Now she was convinced not only of Hardy’s innocence, but also that her own reputation as a journalist was now on the line. It was up to her to figure out where the investigation had gone wrong; to find out what it was that she and the cops had missed.

  Cassandra yawned, wishing she had taken a moment to grab something with caffeine in it before getting back onto the Interstate. She had gotten maybe three hours of sleep during her nap that morning in the driver’s seat—far from enough to satisfy her brain’s needs.

  Get to Laura’s place and figure out what you need to figure out, and then maybe if something happens you can get some sleep after that. Stick with me for just a little while longer, brain.

  As she drove, Cassandra thought back to the case she’d covered months before. At the time she’d received it, the tip off about Laura’s murder had seemed like a grisly answer to her prayers. She had been with The Daily Inquisitor for almost a year at that point, having joined fresh out of college. For months she had been struggling to set herself apart from her colleagues. Out of fear of seeming difficult, she’d let editorial put her on whatever assignments needed covering, and her articles always seemed to end up buried in the middle of the paper, next to advertorial content that no one ever read. She had made herself available to do legwork for other reporters, doing small-time interviews, tracking down details for research that would back up a scoop, but no matter how hard she tried to get a toe in the door, it seemed that no one wanted to give her a meaty assignment—not when she was so readily available for the grunt work.

  Everything had changed when she picked up the phone, late one night in the near-empty office. The anonymous caller had told her that there had been a murder, and to get to an address up in Scarsville as soon as possible. When Cassandra asked the person to identify themselves, they had already hung up.

  After calling the police, Cassandra had hurried out to the address; unaware that she was about to be the first on the scene of the murder of Laura Granger, sweetheart of the NYPD. When she’d arrived at Granger’s house, the police had been right on her heels. It had been Cassandra’s first dead body, and she had been shocked at the sight of the scene. Even after months of living in New York, and writing about the most repellent crimes, she still hadn’t become hardened to the uglier side of the city she lived in.

  When Cassandra’s investigative report on Laura Granger had come out, her parents had been proud of her; the suggestions that she should quit her job and come back home to the tiny town she’d grown up in, buried in Vermont, had finally stopped. Her father had framed the copies of her articles that she’d sent them. They hadn’t known quite how far down the rabbit hole their daughter had gone to get the information she needed; Cassandra hadn’t told them about the late nights poring over reports and analyses, digging through information on Laura Granger, on Jack Hardy and his methods.

  In the thre
e months since Jack Hardy had gone to jail, Cassandra’s career had gained momentum. She wasn’t the type to get complacent, though. She knew that she had to stay relevant, keep her eye out for her next big scoop, if she wanted to hold onto her position. She had been focused on getting a more permanent position—a senior correspondent, a section editorship, something that didn’t require her to constantly be out in the field—when Jack had caught her in her own apartment. Max Adelman, Senior Editor at The Daily Inquisitor, had been keeping a close eye on her, but Cassandra had been waiting for him to give her something other than praise in staff meetings and the occasional bonus; what she really wanted was a promotion.

  Cassandra took one hand off of the steering wheel, reaching up to rub at her eyes. They were starting to take on that heavy, scratchy feeling again; the telltale sign that she was starting to get to the downhill side of fatigue. She reminded herself that Jack was a fugitive on the lam. It wasn’t like they could afford to take a bunch of time off to sleep—they could run into the law at any moment, and then their road trip would come to a screeching halt.

  Jack wouldn’t just be back in jail; they’d tack on at least a few more months for the escape. Maybe even years, depending on what he did to escape.

  That was a question she hadn’t asked Jack—how had he gotten out of the prison in the first place? Cassandra tried to remember if the news report she’d heard on the radio—the breaking news that had first informed her that Jack was on the loose—had mentioned anything about his method of escape.

  “Jack,” she said, glancing at the shape of his curled-up body in her rearview mirror.

  “Hmm?” Jack replied, his head turning just enough for Cassandra to catch a glimpse of his eyes.

  “How’d you get out of the pen?”

  Jack chuckled. Cassandra watched as he slipped a hand into his pocket and tugged out his pack of cigarettes, shaking one loose and tugging it out of the box. As if she had been conditioned, she followed his example, reaching over into the passenger seat to pluck one of the cigarettes from the pack and pressing the travel lighter on her center console. Jack rolled down one of the back windows and lit up, and when the button popped free of the heating mechanism, Cassandra brought the electric coil to the tip of her cigarette.