Taking Care of the Target

by Cindi Madsen

  Sorry, Dad, but he went after Bobby and my girl.

  “You guys want Carlo Rossi, and I can help you get him,” Vince said. “You just need to promise you’ll make it stick. I’m not going to put my life on the line for him to turn around and easily wiggle out of the charges.”

  McVee pushed Mancini’s arm down so that the gun was no longer pointed at Vince. “Depends on what you have.”

  “I can tell you how he runs his protection racket and which storeowners would be the most likely to turn on him. I know the names of his dealers and distributers, as well as where he keeps his product. If you get a warrant to search the restaurant, you’ll find his and his men’s unregistered weapons collection that I’m sure could be tied to several crimes. And I personally witnessed the murder of Eduardo Alvarez. I don’t know the exact place he’s buried, but I know around where.”

  Thanks to Sal’s big mouth, Vince overheard him and Dante talking about where to bury the guy who’d dared pull a weapon on him. “Get a few dogs and a team of detectives to the area, and you should be able to find the body. But you guys need to back off until you’ve got enough to arrest him, or he’ll bury every scrap of evidence before you get to it. He’s high-strung right now, and while he’s proud, he’ll run if he thinks he needs to. He’s got the resources to do it, too.”

  “I bet he’s breathing easier now that Miss Dalton has disappeared,” McVee said.

  Vince ignored it. First he’d solidify this, and then he’d talk about Cassie.

  “How do we know we can trust you?” Mancini asked. “That you’re not just getting us to back off so you can hide evidence?”

  “You don’t. But if you don’t back off, I’m not helping. I’m not getting myself killed for nothing. If you let me do things my way, you’ll catch the guy I’m guessing you’ve been after for years. I don’t think you have a whole lot of options. If you did, you would’ve arrested him already.”

  “All right,” McVee said. “We’ll do it your way, but if you screw us over, we’ll return the favor. And I want to know what happened to Cassandra. What made her run into the street like that, and where is she now?”

  Mancini folded his arms across the back of his seat. “We know you were dating her. Or at least pretending to.”

  Vince sat back with a sigh. “I was keeping an eye on her for Carlo. She witnessed the Eduardo Alvarez murder, but after her accident, she had no memory of it. I tried to convince him to let it go, and yes, while I was watching her, she and I got…close. Then you guys started pushing Carlo, and he got worried about loose ends, so he told me to kill her.”

  He swallowed hard, and his emotions weren’t all for show. Thinking about her tore him up inside every damn time. “He sent backup just in case I failed, and since you’ve obviously seen her apartment, you can guess how that went. Which makes you as responsible as I am for her death. Good luck living with that.” In fact, he could reach over the seat right now and knock the guys’ heads together for putting her in danger the way they had. Only that’d make it harder to get their help.

  McVee’s face fell, leading Vince to believe he cared about keeping her safe. It made him like him a little more. “She’s dead?”

  “The sniper hit her right in the gut. I tried to get her to a hospital, but it was too late, and I knew there’d be too many questions. Then Carlo would just come after me, so I decided I’d make sure he paid for her death instead.”

  McVee’s sharp eyes studied Vince. “You’re right about us seeing her apartment. We got there shortly after the shots were fired—fast enough to catch Tony “the Trigger” Castellano coming from the other building.”

  “Good. Charge him with her death, too.”

  “I think there would’ve been more blood if the shot was fatal. I don’t think you’re being completely honest with us.”

  “Well, everyone’s entitled to their opinions,” Vince said. “I carried that girl out of the building, and believe me, I saw plenty of her blood.”

  “Where’s her body, then?”

  Vince clenched his jaw and blew a breath out of his nose. “I put her to rest.”

  McVee pressed his fingers to his forehead and made a tired, frustrated noise. “We’d have a better case with her body.”

  “That’s too damn bad. I’m not letting you dig her up. You’ll have plenty of evidence, and she went through enough. Now, do you want my help or not?”

  ***

  Jim watched Vince cut across the alley and disappear.

  “You think he’s telling the truth?” Mancini asked.

  “About Cassandra, no. Forensics got her blood type from the hospital, and they said the blood at the scene wasn’t hers. My guess is it’s his, but I don’t think he’ll readily agree to a blood test. About Rossi, though…I think Vince is our best bet at getting him, which makes me want to believe him. Maybe a little too much.”

  “As much as I hate to say this about the brute who pulled me out of a window, he’s smarter than the rest of Carlo’s guys.”

  “Yeah, he’ll either give us what we need, or destroy our whole case.” Jim lifted the coordinates Vince gave him. He couldn’t wait to call it in and see what the dogs and CSI could find, and despite trying to keep himself from putting too much stock in this tip, he’d already started seeing visions of arrest warrants dancing in his head.

  ***

  Carlo was out back enjoying one of his cigars, when Vince stepped out the back door. “I thought you were gonna take a few days off.”

  “Hard to relax when there’s a pig parked outside my house,” Vince said. “So I stayed away and then got rid of your tail. Told them it was harassment when they didn’t have anything on you, and that we’d call our lawyer if we needed to.”

  “And what did they say to that?”

  Vince shrugged. “Bunch of bullshit cop stuff, but I could tell I hit a nerve. I doubt they’ll be following you anymore.”

  “Did they ask you about Cassie?”

  “Yeah. I wish your sniper hadn’t made such a fucking mess. I told them she and I had dated a bit, but it was nothing serious and I hadn’t heard from her in a while. They ever-so-predictably asked me if I wanted to finish the conversation at the station. I told them I’d love a free ride, but I’d be calling the same lawyer I was going to have look into their harassment, and they backed off. They might poke around a bit more, but they won’t find anything, and with no body, they’ll never be able to prove anything. I’m not worried.”

  Carlo studied his nephew in the fading afternoon light. Last night when Vince had first burst in, he didn’t know what to think. But as he talked about carrying out the hit on Cassie…He knew that haunted look. It was the look you got when you’d done something you’d hated to do and you weren’t sure how exactly to live with it yet. Most of his men would deny it, but they’d all had hard hits that shook them up like that. It came along with the territory, and Vince had done well, carrying things out despite the hiccup.

  Carlo also peeked out the window as Vince drove away. His tires and the bottom of Jeep were both coated in dried mud, more evidence confirming his story.

  Trigger must’ve gotten a little trigger-happy. Or maybe Sal thought he’d pay Vince back and take a cheap shot at him while he could get away with it. I should’ve known to take care of the call myself.

  If the heat hadn’t been so high, he would’ve.

  “Anyway, just thought I’d update you,” Vince said. “If they don’t back off, let me know and we’ll come up with a new plan of attack. Maybe even sic that overpriced lawyer you’ve got on retainer on them and make them dizzy with paperwork.” One corner of his mouth twisted up. “That’d be fun.”

  “Yeah, I never thought of the harassment angle. Even if it doesn’t stick, we can at least make them chase their curly little tails a while. Fucking pigs.”

  “Fucking pigs,” Vince echoed. “Anyway, I’m going to see if I can go back to my house now. If not, I might let them take me down to the station just so I can g
et a nap.” He gave a short laugh, clapped Carlo on the back, and then headed back inside of Rossi’s.

  As Carlo took the last few puffs of his cigar, he wondered how many of his men would have the balls to walk up to a tail like that. And to think, Vince wasn’t sure if he was made for this. It was in his blood, and he was already better than men who’d been at it for years.

  He’d still have to watch him, because he knew there was some bitterness left over from everything that happened with Bobby, and it’d probably increased when Vince found out Carlo had given the order to take him out if necessary. But he could always use Bobby again if Vince needed extra motivation, and clearly his nephew had realized who was in charge and decided he might as well come over to the winning side.

  He might not be completely out of the woods, but the pieces were all starting to come together. And if anything or anyone got in the way, he’d take care of it. Just like he always did.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Jim stood in the middle of the wooded area, shivering despite his thick coat. November nights could be unforgiving, and from the feel of it, the snow they’d gotten earlier this week was going to look like a joke when tomorrow’s storm hit.

  It raised the stakes, weather and time teaming up against him and the rest of the search team. They’d been at it since first thing this morning, and with the sun all but down, morale was waning. Of course, this whole thing could just be a wild goose chase, and Vince and Carlo could be disposing of evidence right now.

  Jim shoved that thought away, because it wouldn’t help anything. Not the search or his frustration or frozen toes. He liked to think he read people pretty well, and while he didn’t think Vince was completely honest about what happened to Cassandra, he was certain he cared for her. Mancini agreed, citing his first run-in with Vince as proof he took her safety seriously.

  Was a woman really enough to get him to turn on his own uncle?

  He hoped so.

  A loud bark broke the silence, and Jim rushed in the direction it came from. The rest of the crew gradually made their way over. They stood in a large circle, waiting to see what the cadaver dog had found.

  A freezing eternity later, the team prepared to pull the body out of the ground. Jim set aside the cup of coffee that stopped warming his hands and insides long ago and moved as close as the forensic team would allow.

  As horrible as it was to feel relief over a dead body, Jim couldn’t help it. This could be the smoking gun they needed to arrest Carlo Rossi for murder. With what Vince already gave them on the racketeering side of the business, they could throw the RICO Act at him and his boys—and they would—but the sentences were often bargained down to lesser ones, and he wanted Carlo put away for life.

  Mancini’s need to do just that practically vibrated off him. The Styrofoam cup in his hand was now a mangled mess.

  Jim clapped him on the back. “This is going to sink him. We’re going to get the bastard.” He thought about telling him that his dad would be proud, but he didn’t know if that was too mushy.

  Two CSI guys lifted the body onto the nearby tarp. Bile rose up as Jim took in the size of the exit wound in the back of the man’s skull. What features he could see matched the picture from Eduardo Alvares’s driver’s license. Of course, they matched a lot of people, especially after this much time in the ground.

  Which meant they had to do more waiting.

  ***

  Carlo sat in his office at the restaurant, thinking how nice it was to have his freedoms back. The feds hadn’t tailed him for a couple of days, Allegra was content to shop and greet him with a kiss at the end of the day, and he could finally just sit back, relax, and enjoy a plate of cannoli, uninterrupted.

  Tomorrow he’d put the squeeze on a few of his businesses that’d taken advantage of his recent distractions. Killing Eduardo was supposed to send a message to the other merchants to fall into place. Instead, several of them thought it would be a good idea to form a neighborhood watch program and take care of their own protection.

  He’d take Sal, Dante, and some of the other boys with him to make sure the neighborhood watch members wouldn’t be able to watch anything for a week or so. A couple of swollen black eyes should do it. That’d be their warning, and he had no doubt people would fall in again.

  Carlo’s cell phone rang, and Dante’s name popped up on the screen.

  “What’s up?” Carlo answered.

  “While I was sweating it out in jail, one of our dealers ran off with a few kilos of cocaine. Don’t worry, I’ll find him and let you know once he’s taken care of. But I wanted you to hear it from me.”

  “Just take care of it. Jeez, one fucking week and the people start revolting. Where’s the loyalty?” He licked cream off his fingers. “What about Sanji’s Market? He pay?”

  “Took a little roughing up, but I got it.”

  “Good. We’ll hit a few more places tomorrow.” He’d automatically skipped Vince out of habit, but now was as good a time as any to get him into the swing of things. “I’m sending Vince with you tomorrow. Keep an eye on him for me. Tell me if you notice him going too soft on the merchants. Just between me and you, capisce?”

  “You got it, Boss.”

  Noise erupted from the dining area, and Carlo disconnected the call. Occasionally Rossi’s got a loud party of people that got louder the more they drank, but the roar sounded like three rowdy parties at once.

  With a scowl, Carlo pushed away from his desk. He headed toward the heart of the restaurant to see what was going on.

  “Freeze!” A voice yelled. “Carlo Rossi, you’re under arrest for—”

  Carlo darted into the hall, planning on ducking out the back alley. A couple of pigs cut him off, guns aimed at his chest. One of them looked familiar. It took him a moment to realize he’d seen him in McCarthy’s restaurant the day he went to check on Cassie. Obviously he wasn’t as paranoid that day as he’d thought.

  “Hands where I can see them,” the pig said. “If you choose to run, my partner would be glad to add resisting arrest to your rap sheet. You wanna try it?”

  Smug bastard—he’d make him pay. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been arrested before. “Sure, boys. Care to tell me why I’m being arrested today?”

  “Racketeering to start with, conspiracy to commit murder, and murder to top it off. We’ll get to the officials in a moment, but let’s just say, I’m confident you’ll never see the outside of a prison cell again.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  A little over two weeks after being dumped off in a Greyhound station, Katie Jones had a job, an apartment, and a roommate who also worked at the Front Range Steakhouse.

  Cassie tried to celebrate her success at managing all three so quickly. She put on a good front around other people, but when she retreated to her bedroom alone at night, everything she held at bay during the day rushed her at once.

  Vince’s absence glared at her, this big empty space that should be filled with a big rugged guy. Before falling asleep, she relived every moment they had together and let her heartache wash over her. Probably counterproductive to truly moving on, but as someone who’d lost memories, the thought of having those stripped from her made her hold on that much tighter.

  Unfortunately, bad memories leaked into her dreams, turning them into nightmares where she watched Eduardo Alvarez’s murder again and again. Occasionally, Vince’s face would replace Eduardo’s right before Carlo pulled the trigger.

  Then she’d wake up in a cold sweat, thrashing at the sheets binding her legs. More than once she wondered if she was being ridiculously stubborn for staying in Oklahoma and not doing more to hide. She considered dyeing her hair, but she’d already met everyone as a blond and figured she might as well stay that way. A search on the Kate Joneses in the area came up with over seventy listings, which made her feel better about her odds.

  So she’d tried to stop second-and-triple guessing her decisions, forced herself to pretend her way through starting over,
and told herself that eventually, her heartbreak would lessen and her new life wouldn’t feel so…black and white. That she’d go a night without nightmares. That she’d learn to walk down the sidewalk without flinching at passing cars. That one day color and full feeling would return.

  At the knock on her bedroom door, she propped the corners of her mouth into a smile and called out, “Yeah?”

  Her roommate, Deanne, poked her head inside and flashed her a wide grin—she was one of the sunny spots in her new life. High energy and as bright as the red appliances in her kitchen and the boots on her feet, her enthusiasm helped keep Cassie from crashing. “Ready to go?”

  Cassie reached into her closet and skimmed her hand down the sleeve of Vince’s army jacket. It’ll just remind Maude she still hasn’t gotten the full story. With a sigh, she grabbed the black coat she recently bought instead. Maude insisted she and Deanne come over for Sunday dinner. Apparently it was tradition, and Cassie—or Katie, as it were—was now going to be part of it.

  At the front door, Deanne bent over and shook out her dark hair, the way she always did before they left the house. Then she flipped up her head, her waves now twice their usual size. She applied a layer of pinkish gold lip-gloss that complemented her bronze skin tone, and they were officially ready for their grand exit.

  On their way to the Hurst’s, Deanne chatted about Trevor, one of the other servers she had a crush on. “What about you? You always stay quiet when me or the other girls talk about guys. Ooh, what about Owen?”

  “Like, Maude’s-grandson-and-our-manager Owen?”

  “That doesn’t make him any less cute. He’s studying to be a vet, you know. What’s cuter than a guy who wants to save animals?”

  Yes, when Cassie thought about it objectively, she supposed Owen, with his sandy-colored messy curls, blue eyes, and desire to save animals, was cute, if a little on the scrawny side. Since arriving in Oklahoma, she’d really only looked at every guy as not-Vince. Speaking of, it’d been almost twenty-four hours since she checked the Trenton news. Upon her arrival here, she’d chosen the cheapest used phone with internet access she could get, and for the first few days, she refreshed the Trenton newspapers once an hour, as if the news would magically change during the day.