Follow the Money (Detective Kate Rosetti Mystery Book 3)

by Gina LaManna

  Special Thanks:

  To Alex and Leo—my best friend and my little gardening buddy! я тебя люблю!

  To my family—I love you guys!

  To Stacia—for looking up details and pictures of gunshot wounds and autopsies so I don’t have to!

  To my family, friends, and LaManna’s Ladies, thank YOU for making this book possible!

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  FOLLOW THE MONEY

  First edition. June 5, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 Gina LaManna.

  Written by Gina LaManna.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Blurb

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  To my family :)

  Blurb

  When a well-known mobster turns up dead—gunned down in the refrigerator at her favorite local restaurant—Detective Rosetti has no choice but to get involved. Unfortunately, it’s not long before a familiar name emerges as a suspect, making this case her most personal one yet. The infamous Angelo Rosetti, Kate’s father, is back.

  Along with her new case, Kate is forced to balance a cozy weekend with her (almost) boyfriend as she dives deep into the Rosetti family history. However, when romantic dinners turn into stakeouts, her burgeoning relationship stumbles onto shaky ground. If Kate can’t find a way to lock up the hitman who has turned his sights on her, it’s not only her love life that’s on the line...

  Chapter 1

  The last time I’d spent more than thirty minutes preparing for a date was my high school prom, and that hadn’t ended well.

  Timmy Johnson had brought a flask of his dad’s special Kool-Aid to our romantic Olive Garden dinner. When he offered me some, I’d given him a half hour lecture on the potential consequences of underage drinking. He ditched me halfway through dinner for Sally Hershfield, and I can’t say that I blamed him.

  Even then, I’d known I wanted to be a cop. And while I might’ve been a bit of a spoilsport on prom, I hadn’t been willing to take any risks that could ruin my chances at achieving my dreams.

  Yet here I was, a decade later, preparing to do just that.

  I swiped on mascara and lip gloss and tugged down the blue dress that Lassie had loaned me. She was rounder than me in every possible way, but with a few nifty pins, she’d transformed the material into a swishy thing that even I had to admit flattered my body.

  My phone jingled, sending my pulse skyrocketing. I looked down, saw Lassie’s name. I hit answer, and Lassie’s face popped up just as I leaned down to adjust my bra.

  “I thought I told you to wear a push-up!” she exclaimed. “We went to Victoria’s Secret for this very reason last week.”

  “Why do you do this?” I scrambled to re-cover my chest with the dress. “Can’t you just call like a normal person? Why do you need video?”

  “Because it’s the only way I can tell when you’re lying about wearing the push-up bra I bought for you.”

  “It was my credit card. I bought it.”

  “Yeah, but I picked it out.”

  I sighed, then flipped the phone around to give Lassie a full view of my body. “What do you think?”

  Lassie bit her lip onscreen. “Shoes?”

  I slipped on the heels she’d lent me. It’d taken a lot of bartering to get out of wearing full-on stilettos. The thicker heels had been a compromise.

  “Good,” she said, her face brightening. “Now, can I please write about this on my column?”

  “What is there to say?” I scoffed. “Uptight cop goes on a date?”

  “Um, you’re totally downplaying everything. Gorgeous hunk melts the heart of ice-cold cop Kate Rosetti.”

  “Gee whiz, thanks.”

  “You’ve been in the news quite a bit lately. You’re something of a local celebrity.”

  “That can’t be further from the truth. The only people who know my name are the people I put in prison and my colleagues.”

  “And me,” Lassie pointed out unhelpfully. “I could do a lot for your image if you just let me. I’m thinking of taking on PR as a second career, and I think as a team, we could really kickstart both of our statuses.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “So, are you going to sleep with him tonight?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a first date.”

  “Sort of,” Lassie said. “You already know you like him a lot. You’re friends. And he’s basically in love with you.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I’m just saying, after all he’s done for you?”

  “I’m going to hang up now.”

  “Is he at your place?”

  “No, but I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “I’m just saying, you should let your hair down,” Lassie said. She rolled her eyes when I touched my head. “Not literally. I mean, you’re both adults, you both like each other—why waste time when you want to climb all over one another?”

  “I’m really hanging up now.”

  “Okay, fine. But you should add that lipstick I slipped into your purse earlier today. It’s got a bit more sex appeal.”

  “I thought you said I looked nice?”

  “You look nice.” Lassie emphasized nice, then winked into the phone and made a tiger-like claw with her fingers. “But I think we both know you should be going for something else. Roar, if you know what I mean.”

  “Goodbye.”

  No sooner had I hung up than my phone pinged with a text from my date, telling me that he’d arrived out front. I eyed my badge and gun longingly, then locked them away. Lassie had made me promise to try one date unarmed.

  I felt naked as I locked up, fumbling for my clutch instead of my weapon, dropping my keys onto the steps and feeling my face heat as I bent down to retrieve them. When I stood up, he was there in front of me.

  His eyes glowed, his lips looked intensely soft. He held out a hand, hooked it through my arm. “Are you ready?”

  I hesitated, gave a small smile. “Not really.”

  “Well then, let’s see what I can do about that.”

  “I’M SORRY IT’S NOT fancier,” Jack Russo said as we made our way into an upscale pizza restaurant. He gestured to the woodburning stove off to one side of the room. “But I figured you’d prefer a place that served real food, with real portions, to those five-star joints that give you a basil leaf and call it salad.”

  I laughed, feeling the tension slip from my shoulders as I hung my light coat over a chair and eased into my seat across from Russo. “This is perfect. They have the best margherita pizza here.”

  “Then I’ll give that a try,” Russo said. “Unless you’d like to share one?”

  I raised my eyebrow. “Is it completely unromantic if I tell you I’d prefer to get my own?”

  Russo’s eyes gleamed. “I’d have expected nothing les
s.”

  A server dressed in sharp black pants and a white shirt arrived at our table and handed over a wine list. Russo made a quick selection then glanced my way to make sure I was okay with it.

  I shrugged. “If it’s wine, I’m probably fine with it.”

  When the server vanished with the menu and silence settled over the table, my nerves came back in full force.

  “I’m really glad you agreed to see me,” Russo said. “I hope you’re not regretting your choice.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re incredibly tense,” Russo said, his eyes traveling down to my bare shoulders, then back to my face. “In case you hadn’t heard, I’m an FBI agent, and I have extensive training in interrogation and reading body language.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Most of my first dates are quite intrigued by that fact.”

  “How many second dates do you get?”

  Jack squinted at me. “Now, that depends. The real question is whether you’ll help my average or hurt it.”

  “I still haven’t decided.” I picked up the menu and feigned disinterest, perusing it despite having made my decision about what to eat before we’d even arrived at the restaurant.

  Finally, I set the menu down.

  “Still going with the margherita?” he asked with a smirk.

  I squinted back and was relieved to find the server approaching with the bottle of wine. He presented it to me for a taste, which quickly turned into him pouring our two glasses and taking our order. Then the safety of having another person at our table evaporated, and I was left alone once more with Russo.

  I took a stalling sip of wine, letting the warmth of the liquid cascade down my throat as I surveyed the FBI agent sitting across from me. Russo had dressed nice for our evening out, but not intimidatingly nice. He’d worn khaki slacks with a neat white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

  Under the dim light of the pizza parlor, I could make out the slightest hints of gray peppering his dark hair, a feature that only served to enhance his attractiveness. His face was naturally tanned, his eyes glittering with an intensity that set off fireworks somewhere deep in my stomach.

  “I’m not entirely sure how we ended up here,” I admitted. “And I’m not entirely sure what comes next. I don’t date a lot.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed.” Russo winked. “Let’s just say I’m glad you took me up on the offer.”

  “Took you up on the offer? Did I really have a choice? You were quite persistent.”

  “I go after what I want. And if I didn’t make my intentions clear, someone else would have. I’ve never met anyone like you, Kate. I would have regretted it if I didn’t take a leap and make this happen.”

  The only response I could think of was another sip of wine. In truth, my relationship with Russo had been somewhat of a rollercoaster. We’d started off as frenemies—feds and local police working together on a high-intensity case. From there, we’d graduated to more of a partnership as we hunted a killer who had set his sights on me.

  When Wilkes had been tossed back in prison over two months ago, our relationship had turned personal on Valentine’s Day. Russo had shown up at a holiday party thrown by none other than Alastair Gem. There, he’d made his intentions clear by kissing me under twinkly lights. My stomach had flip-flopped like I was a teenager all over again, staring down Timmy Johnson’s flask.

  “I’m glad you called me,” I said, then winced. “Multiple times.”

  “No need to apologize,” he said. “I knew it wouldn’t be easy to get ahold of you.”

  I sighed. “I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I’m still not. I just...I’m so bad at this, Russo. I’m sorry. You’ll need to be patient.”

  “Would it help if I told you I was expensing this dinner?” Russo’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “We can pretend it’s a business date, and you can grill me like you usually do. Then, we’ll go to my place and have sex.”

  I choked on my wine.

  “I’m kidding!” Russo looked startled. “It was a joke.”

  “Ah.” My eyes watered. “Don’t get any ideas, buddy.”

  “I told you, Rosetti. I don’t expect anything. I just wanted to see you again.”

  “I—I wanted to see you, too.”

  “If only that didn’t sound like I’d tortured you to say it.”

  “Let me finish this glass of wine, and I bet things will get easier.”

  “Or,” Russo said, scooting his chair around to my side of the table so we were sitting leg to leg, arm to arm, “We could try this.”

  I barely had time to inhale before Russo slid his arm around my neck and spun me to face him. He leaned in, smelling of spicy cologne and sharp mouthwash. As I heated all over, he waited patiently, a hint of a smile dancing on his lips. “May I?”

  I made some sort of noise that Russo correctly interpreted to be an affirmative. His other hand came up, rested on my cheek. Suddenly, my face was cradled between his palms, and his lips were on mine.

  I rested against him, letting out a sigh of happiness as we leisurely explored one another. My mind went blissfully blank. My arms rose around his neck as I pressed closer and closer. It’d been so long since I’d shared a real kiss, felt the warmth of a man who made me laugh and feel safe.

  It was wonderful.

  “Two margherita pizzas—” The server stopped abruptly. “Er, sorry.”

  We broke apart. Russo’s face was handsomely flushed, full of life. I caught a glimpse of my own face in the window’s reflection and found I looked more like the passata sauce on the pizza.

  “Do you have parmesan?” I blurted dumbly.

  The server looked at the table. “You need some more?”

  I found myself staring into a well-stocked bowl of cheese and cleared my throat. “Nope, that’ll be good. Thanks. More wine, maybe?”

  A laugh rolled from Russo as the confused server left the table. “You know he’s just supposed to run the food, yeah?”

  “Whatever,” I mumbled. “Smells good, doesn’t it?”

  “I think it does,” he said. “Then again, I’m already satisfied. I’ve half a mind to get a couple of boxes and take this to go.”

  I dug my elbow into Russo’s ribs playfully. “I told you not to get any ideas.”

  “I can’t help the ideas that crop up when you kiss me like that.”

  I glared at him.

  “I’m a man,” Russo said. “Consider it a compliment.”

  Thankfully, our actual waiter returned, both with an extra bowl of parmesan cheese and another bottle of wine that wasn’t entirely necessary. He filled our glasses then backed away from the table.

  I followed Russo’s lead and tucked into the pizza, relieved to give my hands something to do that didn’t involve feeling up my former partner. It was a bit frightening to admit, even to myself, how unsettled that kiss had made me.

  The sensations left me shocked to the core. I couldn’t remember the last time my mind had gone so completely and utterly empty, filled only by the tastes and smells of Jack Russo. Even more horrifying was the fact that I already wanted more.

  After our brief touch-of-the-lips kiss at Gem’s Valentine’s Day party, Russo had been on my mind around the clock. The only thing that’d been able to distract me from remembering that moment had been the few murder cases I’d caught in the months since Wilkes’s capture.

  Then Russo had called. Not once, not twice, but a third time. I’d finally answered and, from Washington D.C., Russo had expressed the desire to see me again—this time in a non-professional environment. He’d offered to fly me out to the east coast, but I’d refused. I’d refused his offer to come to Minnesota for a third time.

  But then May had rolled around, and Lassie had pointed out that I’d spent the last two months talking to Russo several times a week. More than I talked to my mother, or my friends, she’d said with a haughty little sniff. Clearly, I was in denial.

  Finally, I’d ag
reed to see him on my home turf. I’d laid out a few ground rules. He had to get a hotel. This was an experiment only, and if things went south, either of us could call it off at any time. And most importantly, no sex. Pretty simple rules. Though the heat from our kiss had me wondering if either of us was entirely interested in keeping to the third rule.

  I gave a shake of my head, took another sip of wine, swallowed a generous bite of pizza. Sex complicated things. My relationship with Russo was guaranteed to be complicated enough without adding extra strings to the mix. We had to see if we could get along as friends, then more than friends, before adding a physical element to it.

  “I know. You made your rules clear,” Russo said, as if he could read my mind. “But let me remind you that I promised to respect them—not to follow them.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That if you change your mind on any of them, I’ll support it.”

  “That’s awfully forward for a first date.”

  “I’m honest,” he said simply, and took another bite of pizza. “Tell me about yourself.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what people do on first dates,” Russo said.

  “What do you want to know about me?”

  He grinned. “You’ve got one sister. A mom. Tell me more about your dad.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “That’s not how conversations generally go.”

  “You know about my father. You’re a federal agent, my dad’s a convicted criminal. We don’t have a relationship. It’s not like you’d ever have to ask him for my hand in marriage—”

  Russo’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, my.”

  “It was just an expression,” I said. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Do you want to get married?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  Russo sighed. “Kate, I really like you. And I’m fine with your rules. If you get uncomfortable, you can call this off at any time. But if you’re interested in seeing if we could make something work, you’ll have to open up a little bit.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said gruffly. “I told you, I’m not great at this. But I do want to try.”