by Christa Wick
Sighing, I called Dante's office and checked with his secretary for when Ray's funeral services would be.
"Sunday," the woman replied, giving me the time and address.
I had no intention of showing up at the funeral but I called a discreet cameraman I had on retainer and hired him for the day. At eleven, I called Davies, catching him outside on a smoke break and away from his partner Hicks.
Davies took a long drag on his cigarette after I identified myself. "Diamond give you my number?"
I didn't answer, determined to drive the conversation with him. "No one wants to see you make a mistake in your career, Davies."
"Don't see how I am, Ms. Miller," he said, but there was no detectible conviction in his tone.
I looked at my watch and calculated how long it would take Davies to reach the liquor store. I didn't want him looking at the videotape without me whispering in his ear. Still talking to him, I grabbed my keys and computer bag and headed for the office door.
"The killer was caught on tape."
"I've seen all the footage, just a bunch of teenagers, single guys with no life and frazzled moms with their brats going through the drive-thru or inside."
"Then all you've looked at is the Arby's tape." I forced a wide grin, knowing it would carry over the phone through my tone and the precise enunciation of my words. "Which means you missed the killer and the witness who can identify him."
Another long drag on the cigarette while Davies mentally chewed over the claim. "What have you got, exactly?"
"Meet me back at Arby's at noon and I'll show you." I was taking the stairs down to the lobby, afraid I would lose the connection if I got on the elevator. "Alone."
"Ms. Miller, I don't--"
"Run an errand," I cut in. "I need you to look without any blinders on."
"You better produce or you won't have any currency left in the department," he warned and hung up.
********************
I parked in front of the liquor store and waited alongside my car. Davies was fifteen minutes late. Spotting me from the street, he pulled in the space behind my sedan.
"You couldn't point this out to the fucking patrol unit yesterday?"
I knew from the placement of "fucking" that he was more irritated with the patrol unit than with me, and maybe a little annoyed that he hadn't visited the location before now. It was, after all, part of the crime scene in Ray Epps' homicide -- even if it was halfway between the murder site and his house.
I paused on my way into the liquor store to pull out my phone. I plugged in the construction site's address, Ray's place and the liquor store.
Arby's was on the main street between the site and Ray's neighborhood.
"You got a call you have to take, Ms. Miller?" Davies drawled as he pulled up short behind me. "Because I can always leave while you take it and come back, like...never."
There had to be more than one camera on the route from the murder site to Arby's that captured the street traffic. But first I had to convince Davies that he didn't already have Ray's killer in jail or else he'd never look for the other video.
I turned and showed him the phone's display. A frown surfaced on his face for an instant before he suppressed it. He shrugged and motioned for me to proceed to the counter, where he flashed his badge at the clerk.
Inside the small office, I offered Davies the seat while I cued up the video, but he remained standing. I sat down and fast forwarded the tape to a few minutes before nine-thirty.
"Here," I pointed at the car. "And you see here, what he's throwing over the roof of the car into the dumpster?"
Davies didn't say anything, but he was leaning over my shoulder and squinting hard at the screen. I watched his face as the video continued playing, relief flooding through me when his expression first sharpened in anticipation as the car began to pull forward and then flashed with outright anger as the truck pulled in and blocked the view.
He was, at long last, hooked.
I fast forwarded the tape to Max taking the jacket out of the dumpster and putting it on.
I swiveled the chair so I could look straight up into Davies face. "So, was that Alex Serrano?"
Davies pulled out his phone and called up a document. "Alex drives a 2008 F150. Looks like the only sedan readily available to him is his grandmother's 2010 Impala. Of course--"
"He could have had an accomplice," I finished for him. "That's, what...Chapter Six of Introduction to Police Bullshit?"
Davies looked down at me, his gaze narrowing. "You used to be on the right side if I remember right."
It wasn't the first time I'd heard those words coming from a cop and I delivered my canned response with a saccharine smile. "Justice doesn't take sides, detective."
I pulled my phone out again, relieved to see a fat email message from Chris. I opened the file to find a jpg with the last four characters on the truck's license plate cleaned up. The other two remained beyond recognition. I showed the picture to Davies. "Accomplice or solo killer, this guy will be able to identify him, you just have to find him."
When Davies continued to hesitate, I pulled up another file, the one Adam Malkin had been so kind to send me from his visit with Alex after the surgery. It was a picture of Alex, his face badly bruised and his left arm in a cast from wrist to elbow. "He got jumped last night by three guys in what was supposed to be a locked cell. All the men were from east of Waverly."
Davies knew the city well enough to understand my meaning. A working man was dead and the rich white boy accused of killing him had to share a cell block with men from Ray's side of town.
I switched back to the picture of the license plate and Davies dutifully took the number down. When he was done, I briefly touched his hand. "One more thing..."
He cut a glance at my face and then looked away, but I knew he was still listening from the tilt of his head.
"Ray's phone hasn't been recovered. You probably did a dump for the night of the murder." Davies nodded and I continued. "Have you done one since?"
He shook his head.
"Are you going to?"
Another nod.
Davies turned and went out to the store front. I followed right behind him. He motioned the clerk closer. "I'll be back in about an hour, but, listen, I wasn't already here."
The clerk furrowed his brow, and Davies repeated himself. "I wasn't here, neither was she."
Slowly, understanding dawned in the young man's eyes.
Out on the street, I halted Davies before he could get in his car. "So you go back to the station and have a lunch time epiphany?"
"Pretty much," he said, unlocking his door. He grinned, appearing downright friendly for a second. "Worst thing in the world I could do is tell Hicks the information came from Serrano's hired gun."
I smiled at that. I'd been called a lot of things regardless of which side of the case I was working on, but no one had ever called me a hired gun. Considering I'd been a little mercenary getting Davies down here and was ready to do worse with the tape recording, it kind of fit and I liked it.
Chapter Twelve
At home in the kitchen, my hair twisted into a bun, sleeves pushed up and a hand towel over my shoulder as I washed the dinner dishes, I didn't hear the knock at the front door. It wasn't until I heard Dante's voice drifting from the entry room that I realized momma had opened the door and wasn't just talking to herself.
"Daniel, isn't it?" she asked.
"Dante," he corrected gently. "Is Olivia home, I need to see her."
Wet up to my elbows, I frantically searched for the dishtowel to dry my hands.
"Oh, of course. No reason why you can't." Momma dropped her voice a pinch. "It's only bad luck on the big day, dear."
"What big day?"
I could hear the confusion in Dante's voice. He didn't realize momma didn't always live in the present. Still dripping dish water, I rushed into the entry room and slipped a hand around momma's arm. She had a lost look on her face. "It's okay,
momma."
"Your hands are wet, dear." She took the dishtowel from my shoulder and dried my hands off before wiping her own arm dry. "Sometimes I swear you have the Alzheimer's, Ladybug."
My eyes watered immediately, a tear falling down my cheek when I blinked. "Maybe momma." I put an arm around her shoulder. "I've got your tea on. Let's get you ready for bed."
In the hallway, momma whispered to me. "Weren't you going to marry him?"
"A long time ago." I managed to keep my voice from breaking. If I started crying now, it would only upset her.
In her room, momma sat on the bed and held her arms up as I lifted the dressing gown she had put on that morning and replaced it with a fresh one. "What was it that happened?"
"His brother died in a car accident." I pulled the blanket and sheet back and then rotated a stack of books next to her bed so that she could read the titles.
Momma put a hand out to stop me. "That doesn't seem like a reason for not getting married."
"You'd be surprised, mama." I offered her a thin smile and ran a finger over the book spines. "Now, you finished the last one. Which one are you starting tonight?"
"Not any of hers." She pointed at a title by Orla Clark. "That last one wasn't a romance at all! Can you believe the grandmother killed the baby?"
I thumbed a tear from momma's cheek before taking all the Clark titles out of the pile. "No, momma. I don't read your stories. But I'll check and make sure these are romances if you want."
She nodded like a two-year old who was sure the bogeyman was hiding in her closet -- or her stack of books.
"Okay." I put the Clark books on the floor and pushed them under the bed. "So which from these?"
She pointed to a fat anthology at the bottom of the pile. I pulled it out and rearranged the stack before handing the book to her.
"Alright." I kissed her on the forehead. "I'll be back with your tea in a few minutes."
Bypassing Dante where he stood in the entry room, I went into the kitchen, filled the tea kettle and put it on the stove. Dante came into the room. Trying to ignore him, I returned to washing dishes while I waited for the kettle to work up a steam.
"How long has your mother been like this?"
I shrugged. "A month before I opened the office here in Masonville, I was talking to her on the phone and it sounded like she didn't know daddy was dead. When I said something about it, she started sobbing uncontrollably. I called a neighbor to come over and watch her and got on the next plane."
I was ready to cry myself. I turned my back on Dante, pretending to sort through momma's selection of teas. He wrapped his hands around my shoulders, his forearms resting flat against my arms and his chest pressed against my back.
"Don't."
He kissed the back of my neck and then once on each side. When I started shaking, he wrapped his arms around me, trapping mine in his embrace.
"I'm sorry, I should have checked in," he whispered. "It's my fault you stayed away."
I wanted to be furious at his presumption and tell him he should get over himself because I had, but it was true.
"I wanted to contact you so many times..."
I pushed at his hands but he wouldn't budge.
"At first, after the divorce, when you didn't go through with the engagement to Dumont, I stayed away because I had nothing to offer you."
Wrong, I thought angrily, even broke and taking care of a toddler, he was the only man who had something to offer me. Desperate not to lose control like I had back in the office, I tried to twist my way out of the embrace. My struggles only put me face-to-face with Dante. "I don't care why you stayed away," I told him hotly.
"Then why are you crying, Liv?"
My back was to the refrigerator and he pushed me up against it, his hands around my hips. He kissed me, just at the side of my mouth. "Every time I looked to see what you were doing, where you were at, I wanted to call you, to show up. No husband, no kids..." He shook his head, smiling sadly as he reached up and freed my hair from the tight bun. "Was it stupid to think you were saving a place for me in your life all that time?"
It wasn't stupid, but I would die before I admitted it to him.
"Before I could get the nerve up, I'd look at Alex and wonder what would I tell him? That I wasn't his dad, that his mom had wanted to abort him...that she basically sold him to me when he was three?"
I closed my eyes. Alex still didn't know. Gabriella didn't want him to find out. Even if Dante was being honest and not just trying to seduce me into staying on the case, would he still hesitate to tell Alex when the boy was free?
"Liv?" His mouth moved over mine, his tongue darting out to tease my lips open.
I shook my head, pushed at his chest. I couldn't afford to surrender to him again. I'd lost two decades of my life because I hadn't been able to get over him. When this case was done I would start life over. I couldn't do that if I still had the taste of him on my tongue.
"Why'd you come here tonight?"
Dante looked like he was struggling to remember. He was touching foreheads with me. His hands moved to capture mine. It reminded me of our early negotiations, his lower body hard against my plump flesh as I tried to control his roaming hands. The engineering student and the pastor's virgin daughter.
I hadn't stayed a virgin long.
"Why?" I repeated.
"You weren't telling me the truth this morning," he answered, letting go of my hands and tilting my chin up so that I either had to close my eyes or meet his gaze.
"Because you think it's best for Alex--" he started.
"Because I know it's best for Alex." The kettle started whistling and I pushed past him to turn the burner off and start momma's tea steeping.
"Then just tell me you're holding something back if I ask. Don't lie to me. There's been too much silence and lies in our lives." He tried to put his palm against my shoulder but I quickly moved out of the way. "Does Alex know what it is?"
I shook my head, "Not unless Malkin told him."
I glanced at him, saw he was chewing on his bottom lip. I turned and finished making momma's tea. "I've got to take this to her."
I took the cup into momma's bedroom, gave her one last kiss for the night and stepped back into the hallway. Closing her door, I turned to see Dante standing outside my bedroom.
I tried to brush past him but he hooked an arm around my waist and drew me to him.
"You're leaving," I told him in a terse whisper. When he didn't let go, I brought a palm up to leverage off his chest. My fingers carelessly brushed his nipple, the tip a small bullet. He took a deep breath in, slowly blinking once before his other hand seized my hair and his mouth came down hard on mine.
I fisted the fabric of his dark blue t-shirt, fighting to control myself so I had any hope of controlling him. His foot swept to the side, pushing my bedroom door open. Starting to panic, I beat my fist against the steel plate of his chest.
Dante eased back, his strong hands and thick arms still controlling me.
"Don't you dare start a fight in my momma's house," I hissed under my breath.
He didn't like that. His mouth quirked and then he kissed me again, squeezing me tight. He let me go, just long enough for me to come up for air. "I don't want a fight, love."
Another possessive kiss from Dante threatened to take my knees out from under me. I pushed against his face until he abandoned my mouth in favor of my throat. I squirmed, my body starting to tingle. "I want you out!"
"Not happening." He maneuvered me through the doorway and into my room. The door closed softly behind us. "Not tonight, not after Alex is free. You're still my girl, Livvy."
"Like hell I am." I shook my head, hard and furious. I tried again to walk past him and again he hooked me to his side.
His lips brushed my ear. "You still come like my girl."
He kissed the corner of my jaw. "Still moan like my girl."
One escaped me and I bit down on my lip before another traitorous sound could esc
ape.
Hearing it, he chuckled, his hands starting to roam my body now that I wasn't fighting to get free. His fingertips slid down my hip and across my thigh to curl against my lower lips. "I bet you're all wet like my girl, too."
My breathing gave a little hitch, too many conflicting emotions threatening to overwhelm me. He eased back again, holding me a little away from his body as he studied my face. "Do you enjoy hating me, love?"
There was no sarcasm in his voice, just sorrow. I shook my head. "I don't…"
He closed the distance between us again kissing my throat as he continued to interrogate me. "Don't hate me or don't enjoy it?"
"I don't hate you," I said after a few more seconds of thinking about it.
Slowly guiding me toward my bed, he looked incredulous. "I think you do."
I shook my head a little more vehemently, metaphorically walking straight into his trap.
"If you hate me," he said and tugged my blouse loose from my dress pants, "then you don't care if I walk away."
I cared alright. He thumbed the button on my pants open and I tried to capture his hands. Too slow, he captured mine instead, one big hand wrapped around both my wrists as his other hand pressed on my shoulder until I was off balance and dropping to sit on my bed.
"But if you don't hate me, then why are you fighting what your body so obviously wants?"
"It doesn't," I protested even as he thumbed the swollen tip of my nipple that tented the fabric of my bra and blouse.
Maintaining the slow, steady push on my shoulder, Dante leaned over me, manipulating my body until my back was flat against the mattress and he was half draped across me. His fingers woven in my hair, he held me in place while he leisurely undid the buttons on my blouse.
No longer studying my face, his mouth returned to my throat, tenderizing my flesh with kisses and licks. My blouse unbuttoned, he unsnapped the front closure of my bra and abandoned my neck entirely.
