Krystal's Bodyguard

by Molly Rice

He held it out and she crossed to him and took it. “It’s just a matchbook. So what?”

  “When does your service come?”

  She had to think a minute. She stared at the matchbook cover. The Hilton. She hadn’t been to any of the Hilton hotels since…

  “Fridays,” she murmured. “They come on Friday. Where did you get this?”

  “It was stuck in the door of the gazebo. Found it when Krystal and I walked down to the dock.”

  “Well, so what? Probably been there…I don’t know, maybe Mrs. J. found it in the grass and stuck it in the door to…”

  Nico was shaking his head. “Look at it, Dana. It’s in mint condition. It hasn’t been outside for more than twenty-four hours, at most.”

  “Why twenty-four hours?” She turned it over and then over again. He was right, it was in good condition.

  “It rained night before last for about forty minutes.”

  It struck her then, where he was coming from. “Some one was out in my backyard sometime yesterday.”

  “Most likely last night.”

  She looked at the matchbook and then up into his face. He looked so solemn she almost laughed. “Probably a neighbor kid. A teenager cutting through the backyards to get home before curfew. A closet smoker, hiding the matches so his folks wouldn’t find them.”

  He nodded. “That’s not a bad scenario. But, unfortunately, it won’t wash.”

  They were silent for a minute. “If it were anyone else, why leave the matchbook?”

  “To show you that they could. That you’re not as safe as you think you are.”

  Dana eased into a chair, still clutching the matchbook in her hand, her eyes fixed on Nico’s face. “I like my scenario better,” she said hoarsely.

  He joined her at the table. “So do I, but it doesn’t fit for me,” he said, his voice heavy with regret.

  She put the article on the table between them. Suddenly she leaned forward, grabbing Nico’s hand without thinking. “Fingerprints!”

  Nico shook his head. “I already dusted it. Nothing.”

  She let go of his hand and slumped back, her mouth open. “You have your own fingerprint kit?”

  He grinned. “I’m a detective. It’s what I do, remember?”

  She grinned back. “Do you have a magnifying glass and a deerstalker hat?”

  He laughed. “No, but I’d know how to find them if I needed to.”

  They sobered.

  “So that pretty much tells us this wasn’t an innocent incident,” Nico said. “The temperature hasn’t dropped below sixty-five in the past week, there’d be no reason to wear gloves, which is obviously what this guy was doing. And by the way, Dana, I want you to start making it a practice to keep your security system activated at all times. Even when we’re home.”

  Dana nodded. A cold chill had run up her back and settled at the base of her neck. She put her hand up and rubbed the spot but it didn’t go away.

  “We’ve had a patrol car out front for two nights, did you check to see if—”

  “Nothing,” Nico interrupted. “But to tell you the truth, I think the Chief put a cop out there just to scare off anyone driving by with intention to harass. I don’t think one officer in a car can cover all the bases. And I think that’s what our backyard caller intended to prove.”

  “I don’t see any of the Carters hanging out at the Hilton,” Dana mused, pushing the matchbook around in a circle with one finger.

  “I don’t think there’s a clue in that,” Nico said, seeing where she was trying to take this. “Matchbooks are found everywhere with no real connection to their advertising. Besides, we have three Hiltons in the Cities, even if we could prove one of our suspects had been to one of them, it wouldn’t prove they’d been in your backyard.”

  “Suspects,” Dana said. “As a matter of fact, we don’t really have any suspects.”

  Nico nodded agreement “That’s true. We’re assuming that the shooting and the threats are connected, which points to your three prosecutions, but they may be totally unrelated.”

  “‘Still, it has Caprezio written all over it to me.”

  Nico shrugged. “Yes and no.” He stood, picking up the matchbook in the process. “Sometimes an item by itself doesn’t tell us anything, but surrounded by other bits of evidence it can start to unfold a story.”

  Dana remained at the table for a few minutes after Nico’d gone upstairs, pondering the thought of an intruder on her property. She’d agreed only to the minimal security setup of alarms at the front and back doors and the first-floor windows with a motion detector pointed from the front door down to the end of the long hall. Half the time she didn’t even bother to activate the system.

  Up till now they’d been perfectly safe.

  She’d never worried about Krystal going outside alone once she was sure her little girl understood the rules pertaining to strangers. The only other rule they’d cautioned was that Krystal was never to go onto the dock or down to the water’s edge unless accompanied by an adult She had never disobeyed that edict.

  Minimal as it might be, there was a cop car out front, and more important, a detective on the premises; they were as safe as they could be for tonight.

  She didn’t realize until she’d arrived at her study door that she’d been turning on lamps along the way, creating a trail of light behind her, as if that could scare off hobgoblins and drive-by shooters.

  She stopped in the doorway of the study and gazed across the dark room to the window that overlooked the backyard. Turning on a light would make her visible to anyone standing outside. She pulled her hand from the switch and crossed the room in the dark.

  At the window she peered out. A half moon illuminated the yard, bringing some things into focus, casting others in shadow. Did some of the shadows have the outline of human form? She could see the gazebo from this vantage point but could not see into its screened interior. Could someone be lurking inside, peering back at her across the shadows? .

  Suddenly she thought she could feel eyes staring at her. She took an involuntary step back and felt a presence behind her.

  She spun around, crying out in fright. And stepped into Nico’s arms.

  His hand intercepted the scream that rose in her throat. “Shh, it’s okay, it’s me.” Cautiously he removed his hand.

  “Why did you sneak up on me like that?” Dana gasped, fighting to catch her breath. Her legs were weak and trembling and she was grateful for the support of his arm around her.

  “I wasn’t sneaking,” he said. “I wanted to see what you were seeing out of the window and I didn’t want to attract attention if there was actually someone out there. Did you see anyone?”

  She shook her head, her hair drifting with the movement, brushing against his cheek. He could smell her shampoo, the spicy fragrance that was her signature cologne.

  “Nobody.”

  “Something spooked you. Besides me, I mean.”

  She sighed and took a step back, lifting her head to look into his face. “I spooked myself, actually,” she said, feeling foolish while at the same time needing the haven of his arms. “I didn’t see anyone, I just let my imagination run wild for a moment.”

  Nico knew there was no reason to keep his arm around her any longer but looking down into her upturned face, feeling her heart beating against his chest, hearing the ragged edge to her breathing, his own pulse quickened and a faint stirring in his loins made him pull her closer.

  “This isn’t an easy time for you,” he murmured, his lips brushing the top of her head.

  Dana felt her body moving of its own accord to fit against the length of him, her hands sliding up his chest sensing the erratic rhythm of his heartbeat.

  She inhaled his clean, masculine fragrance. “It’s easier having someone to share it with,” she whispered.

  A cloud moved in the sky, giving the moon’s rays a direct shot at the house, in through the window behind them, bathing them in a soft glow of illumination.

&nbs
p; It felt like a benediction, gave Nico the courage to tilt her chin so that their eyes met. He read the vulnerability there. And more. Desire? As if testing it, he bent to press his lips to hers, half expecting her to draw back.

  He didn’t exert any pressure, make any demands. His lips were just a gentle caress across her own. Dana understood that he had only opened a door; he was leaving it to her to decide whether to go through. Her hands slid upward, crossing the hard expanse of chest, cupping the girth of his shoulders, moved up the strong column of his neck to settle in the crisp wealth of hair at the back of his head. Tendrils of curls snaked around her fingers and she marveled at the vibrant, lively quality of it.

  He was a magnificent male specimen and her hands trembled with pleasure at the indulgence of the feel of him. Her lips parted and she sighed into his mouth as he read her invitation and deepened the kiss. His mustache tickled her top lip and then, as he increased the pressure, it added to the erotic sensations the kiss ignited.

  Excitement darted through her nerve endings, pooled in her stomach, heated her skin. Nico’s hands were no longer comforting but had begun a seductive exploration of her body and she leaned in to facilitate his search even as her hands continued their own survey over him.

  She felt as if she’d died and gone to heaven. How could she have forgotten the pleasure to be derived from this kind of human contact?

  Thoughts of the past, of Zack, contrasted with the present, reminding her of the situation that existed in the here and now and of how inappropriate this was.

  Nico heard her murmur though he couldn’t make out the words. He interpreted them as words of passion. Without breaking their kiss he turned in a circle so that Dana’s backside rested against the desk. He was lifting her onto the edge when she cried out, pushing him away.

  “No, Nico, don’t, please…”

  He stumbled back in surprise, caught off guard so that he nearly fell. His mouth still hummed with the feel of hers, his senses still buzzed with desire. Dazed, he could only stare at her, not comprehending the disruption.

  Dana folded her arms across her breasts, her hands holding her elbows. She gazed at him, eyes heavy with pain. “I’m sorry, Nico, so sorry. I shouldn’t have started this.”

  “You didn’t start…I mean…” He faltered, shook his head.

  “This is wrong,” Dana said, her voice strengthening as reason slowly usurped passion.

  “Wrong?” He couldn’t quite focus, couldn’t understand why she was talking when they could be kissing, touching. He took a step toward her, his hand outstretched. His legs felt weak and his pulse still thrummed.

  Dana held her breath, frightened of him, of herself, of her own runaway passion. If he touched her again she feared she wouldn’t have the power to resist. Her body felt like one huge ache, every part of her wanting him.

  And looking into his face, fused with desire, she could see the reflection of her own feelings. His eyes had darkened to black and his lips were fuller than usual beneath his dark mustache. His cheekbones and jawline were more pronounced, the skin stretched taut against them. His masculine beauty seemed almost surrealistic in this small room. He belonged on the pages of a magazine or on the television screen where she’d first seen him. Fleetingly she wondered if she would have found him easier to resist if his physical charms were less compelling. She shuddered to think she might be that shallow.

  She took a deep breath and moved with purpose to the light switch. “Time to put paranoia behind us,” she said as the lamps came on, “and time to get busy. I had an interview with a witness today. I think my notes will interest you. Now where…”

  He watched her bustle around the desk, searching for her notes, listened to the bright, breezy tone, and recognized that she was feeling some residual embarrassment.

  “Are they in that folder on the right?” he asked, matching his tone to hers though he had to clear his throat before he could speak.

  She understood that he was attempting to ease her feelings of awkwardness and she was grateful. What a really nice man he was, she thought, knowing that many men would have continued to push for, or refused to acknowledge her right to terminate, intimacy. And she could think of no other man who would have been as sensitive to her feelings in the aftermath.

  “Yes,” she said, a smile tempering her confusion, “here they are.” She removed a sheaf of notes transcribed by a department stenographer.

  Nico let out a ragged sigh, took the notes and then sat in the one club chair, leaving the chair behind the desk to Dana.

  At the top of the page was the witness’s name: George Bertram Vale, and the date: September 2, 1996. His address, Nico noted, was only a block from the warehouse owned by Caprezio, Inc., which Harper and Lake had under surveillance the night Harper got shot.

  It was typical Q&A and the typist had transcribed it exactly that way into the computer.

  The witness, Mr. Vale was being questioned about seeing the red Porsche and its owner, Marcus Caprezio, pull up outside the family-owned warehouse at the corner of Thirty-fourth and Lake on the night of the Nunzio murder.

  He’d read halfway down the second page when he saw what she meant for him to see.

  Q: Was it normal for people to use the warehouse after business hours? No, let’s put that another way. Did you ever see anyone going in or out of there at irregular times?

  A: Yeah. Lots of times. We called the police a couple times but nothing ever came of it.

  Q: You never heard anything more, then, as to what the police found?

  A: Nah. We talked it over. The neighbors, you know? It seemed like the cops were covering for whatever goes on over there because Caprezio is…well, you know what they say?

  Q: Did you ever see or hear anything that would warrant that implication, Mr. Vale?

  A: Well, there was that shooting two, three years ago. You know, that cop got shot?

  Here, Nico stopped reading and glanced over at Dana. The witness must have been referring to the death of Dana’s late husband. She was busily typing at the keyboard of her computer, unaware that he’d come to that part of the transcript. He wondered how she’d responded to mention of the shooting. It wouldn’t be recorded in her notes.

  He lowered his eyes to the page.

  A: Some of us heard the shots. We expected the cops would question us but nobody ever came around. So then, finally, when there didn’t seem to be much in the papers about it, the shooting I mean, and we heard on the. news that the police didn’t have no information to go on, a couple of us went over to talk to the chief. He gave us this big song and dance about being good citizens and all but the bottom line was what we had to say didn’t help none. Said the case would never be officially closed, bein’ a murder and all, but that the cops had to move on to things they could do something about. We felt like something was bein’ pushed under the rug, you know, but like we done all we could and that’s the way the ball bounces. Anyways, after that, seemed like nobody was doin’ nothin’ about the traffic in and out of the warehouse. Some of the folks even think it’s a crack house but the cops don’t show no interest.

  There was more but apparently Dana had brought Mr. Vale back to the case she was prosecuting, the killing of Nunzio.

  Nico put the transcript back in the folder and set it on the desk.

  Dana looked up, a question in her expression.

  Nico nodded. “Yeah, sounds like you’re not the only one with the feeling the cops buried your husband’s case. But there’s no new information there, that I could.see.”

  Dana’s eyes brightened with hope. “No, but don’t you think if we questioned the neighbors something more might come out that would give us some answers? Isn’t it clear the police hardly investigated at all?”

  Nico rubbed the back of his head. “Dana, you didn’t hire me to investigate your husband’s death and I’m not sure I’d let you waste the money if you tried.”

  She expelled a sigh of exasperation. “This isn’t about money, S
calia, and you don’t have to worry about how I spend mine. If you don’t want to help me, fine.” She turned her back on him, faced the computer. “I can do this on my own.”

  Alarm sent a frisson of cold up his spine. “What do you mean?”

  She spun the swivel chair around, her chin pugnaciously thrust forward. “I mean that I’m going to talk to Mr. Vale again and to any of his neighbors who are willing to talk with me. I mean I’m not going to let the police go on pretending Zack’s death was an accident. I mean, Mr. Scalia, I’m going to levy an investigation on my own.”

  Nico shook his head, admiration for her warring with fear for her safety. If Zack Harper’s case had been a cover-up, bought and paid for by the Caprezios, she could be setting herself up as. a target and pretty likely next time the shooter would hit his mark. What puzzled him about the thing, though, was the fact that there’d been no cover-up in the Nunzio case. He expressed his questions out loud.

  “Don’t you think it’s funny that the same people who might bury your husband’s case wouldn’t cover for Marcus?”

  “We have witnesses this time,” Dana reminded him.

  Again Nico shook his head. “Witnesses can be bought off, not to mention other ways they’ve been made to change their stories, or disappear altogether, for that matter.”

  Dana pulled the scrunchy out of her hair, letting the abundance of gold fall to her shoulders. “There’s something I didn’t tell you about…” She hesitated and then seemed to make up her mind. “We’re cooperating with the Feds on the Caprezio case. It’s all very hush-hush and I’m trusting that what I tell you won’t go beyond this room.”

  She barely waited for his nod of assent.

  “We might normally have waited until we had more than just circumstantial evidence to take this to the Grand Jury for an indictment, but the Feds have been looking for a way in for years and they asked us to move on this with what we had. By bringing Marcus to trial, we could use any evidence we found to develop a case for enterprise corruption against the Caprezio empire.”

  “How firm is your case for trial?” Nico asked.

  Dana picked up a pencil and drummed it on the desk. “Not bad. This is the first time we’ve got one of the Caprezios into a courtroom and we’re counting on their reputation to sway the jury if there’s any doubts left in their mind by the meager amount of physical evidence.”