by Gina LaManna
“I’ll see what we can do.” I turned from Russo and looked to the cop in charge of the scene. “Do you need anything else from me? I’m going to take off if not.”
They cleared me to leave. I found Russo with his car already running. He grinned as I climbed into the passenger’s seat. Then laughed when my stomach growled.
“Hungry?”
“All that adrenaline gives me an appetite,” I admitted. “Unfortunately, I’m not feeling anything fancy. I had quite a morning, and frankly, I just want about a foot of sandwich.”
“Sandwiches it is,” Russo said, peeling out of the parking lot and flicking on the blinker. “I figured we’d make lunch quick anyway. I’ve got a little surprise for you.”
I groaned. “Is it a romantic sort of surprise?”
He laughed. “For most women, no. It would be quite unromantic and might earn me a slap to the face. But considering it’s you... I dunno. You might just ask me to marry you.”
“Now you’ve got me intrigued.”
True to his word, Russo took me to a cute little sandwich shop not far away from downtown. We put in our orders at the counter, a footlong club for me, a meatball hoagie for him. The server seated us at a table outside and brought us fresh glasses of lemonade.
As I sipped the sweet beverage, I took a moment to bask in the sunlight. The May day had dawned gorgeous, and as the hours passed, it had turned even more beautiful. Hints of summer were in the air, carried across the outdoor patio on a light breeze perfumed with a pleasant lilac scent.
If I hadn’t just been shot at, it would have been the perfect lunch date. Quiet, peaceful. Good food, good company. I looked up at Russo and wondered if other people felt this sort of comfort on a regular basis with their significant others.
“What are you thinking about?” Russo’s voice was measured. His hand rested on the lemonade, his fingers leaving imprints on the sweating glass. “And don’t tell me it’s work because I can see the difference.”
I opted for the truth, since it seemed pointless to lie. “I was just thinking that I’m a little scared about how this is all playing out.”
“Most people don’t love being targets of an assassination attempt.”
“No, not the shooting,” I said carefully. I leaned forward and inhaled a sip of my lemonade. The sweet and tart made my eyes water as I sat back. “I mean this. You and me—sitting here, enjoying a Sunday morning. I could get used to it, and that bothers me.”
Russo looked pleasantly shocked at my admission. He recovered quickly. “I’d say that’s completely natural.”
“I’d disagree. Most people, when they find a relationship that’s working for them, don’t want to immediately run away.”
“You’d be surprised, I think. Relationships are hard for most people; the people you love the most can also hurt you the deepest.”
“I suppose.”
“You’ve been hurt before.”
“I’ve barely dipped my toe into the relationship waters. My prom night kicked off a string of bad dates that didn’t lead to much of anything else.”
“I’m talking about your dad. He had to go away at a time you really needed him. I’m not saying this is all his fault, but it had to be hard on you.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“That sort of thing gets engrained in you,” he said. “What’s more, is that even if you’d gotten over it yourself, you had to watch your mother go through the betrayal, too. I know you care about her an awful lot—more so than anyone else maybe—and to see her suffering had to be difficult. Your father hurt her, even if it was inadvertent, and you saw it all.”
“Has everyone but me gone to psychology school?” I muttered. “Why do I feel like I’m the only one who didn’t see all this when I should have—years ago?”
Russo grinned. “It’s no wonder you find it hard to get into a stable relationship. Or find it difficult to trust men. You saw a perfectly good relationship crumble and split apart a family. It’s natural for you to be nervous of history repeating itself.”
“I suppose. But that’s an excuse. My father wasn’t mean to me, not even close. Other people have it way worse than me, and they manage to move on.”
“You haven’t moved on yet. I’m not sure you’ve dealt with a lot of the complicated feelings around your dad,” he said. “You found work, a job so engrossing that it took up all of your time and energy—emotional, physical, or otherwise. Now that you’re finally pausing and taking a breath, it’s seeping in through the cracks.”
“That, and the small fact that my father is suddenly back in the picture after years of silence.”
“That is probably is contributing, too.”
“I found out last night that my sister has been meeting him for dinners.” I waited, watched Russo’s expression. “For years.”
“No kidding.”
I filled Russo in on my conversation with Jane from the previous evening. When I finished, I waited for him to react.
“Sounds like your sister is a smart woman,” he said. “I can’t say I disagree with what she told you.”
“Again with your psychology nonsense,” I said. “Apparently I missed the day in class where they discussed father/daughter issues.”
Russo laughed. “You don’t have to figure this all out in a day. There are years of feelings to unravel. Take your time. Nobody’s saying you have to ask your dad to walk you down the aisle tomorrow. If you’re interested in what a relationship with him might look like, start with grabbing a coffee. Go from there.”
Our sandwiches had long since arrived, but neither of us touched our food.
“Eat your meatballs before they go cold,” I said. “And then let’s talk about something else. I didn’t come here to moan about my personal problems.”
“That’s part of a relationship,” Russo said with a wry smile. “Moaning to each other about our personal problems and figuring out ways—together—to get past them.”
I gave him a thin smile. “Thanks for listening.”
“Anytime. Did you want to go halfsies?”
“What?”
“Halfsies,” Russo said. “You know, we each got a footlong. We cut ours both in half, then trade a piece.”
“Why would we do that?”
His expression was torn between amusement and exasperation. “To share food. Sometimes couples do that. To get more of a variety.”
“But I ordered the club because I wanted the club.”
“And I ordered the meatball because...” Russo waved a hand. “Never mind.”
“No,” I said. “Let’s try it. Swap me.”
Russo and I exchanged half for half.
“This is a little bit fun,” I admitted. “It’s nice.”
“I agree.”
We munched through our sandwiches in silence for several moments. The waiter returned and poured more lemonade in our glasses. I put in an order for a large cookie to be served as dessert. It arrived and was the size of my face.
“Do you want to split it?” I asked on second thought, just before I cut into it.
“It looks like it’s painful for you to ask that,” Russo said. “Luckily, the answer is no. I’m stuffed full. It’s all yours.”
I cracked the cookie in two and gestured toward it. “Well, help yourself if you’d like. By the way, didn’t you say you had something to tell me?”
Russo winked. “I do, but it’s dangerous.”
“Why? Because I might be so thrilled I’ll propose on the spot?”
“Exactly.”
I wrinkled my nose and popped a bite of cookie into my mouth. I was ravenous. Getting shot at did crazy things to my appetite.
“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” I said. “Marriage isn’t in the cards for me.”
“Never?”
I stilled, a hunk of cookie posed in my fingers. “I guess...I don’t know. I haven’t considered it lately.”
“Interesting.”
“What about you?�
� I asked. “You’ve been married before. I’d think if anything that would make you wary of doing it again.”
Russo shook his head. “Quite the opposite. I wouldn’t mind being married—to the right person. Even marriage to the wrong person had its perks. I can only imagine that being married to the right person would be extraordinary.”
I didn’t know what to say in response. My appetite had suddenly disappeared, and I let the cookie fall back onto the plate.
Russo’s keen eyes picked up on the movement. “I’m not asking you to give me an answer now. I was just curious.”
“Is marriage a deal breaker to you?” I asked curiously. “If I never wanted to get married, would things still have a chance of working out between us?”
Russo leaned forward, clasped his hand over mine. “Stop looking for ways out of this relationship. I like you. You like me. Let’s leave it at that for now.”
“But I don’t want to waste your time. Or mine.”
“I happen to like wasting time with you. Unless there’s someone else you’d rather be wasting time with...”
“No,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean that. I just meant that it seems pointless to start a relationship, knowing it will end. We’d be setting ourselves up for failure.”
“I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but all relationships come to an end at some point. We all die.”
“Well, that’s morbid.”
“Maybe it’s worth trying not to take everything so seriously. Give it a chance. Have some fun. That’s all I ask.”
“I suppose it’s a little premature to be discussing marriage when we haven’t even...” I lowered my voice. “Slept together.”
The server cleared his throat just then. He’d picked the most inopportune time to appear.
“Check please,” I muttered.
The server scurried away, head bowed.
Russo was grinning when I finally pulled my head out of the proverbial sand and looked at him.
“I’m glad you’re amused,” I said. “Now, what was this huge thing you had to tell me that’ll make me propose?”
Russo’s face sobered some. He pulled out his phone, putzed with something that looked like an e-mail app. A moment later, my phone beeped with an incoming message from him.
I glanced at his name on my phone in confusion. “What’s this?”
“I spoke with Asha this morning,” Russo said. “Before you ask, no—I wasn’t trying to interfere. She called me.”
“Why’d she do that?”
“You forget, I’m a fed. I have access to some systems that even she doesn’t have access to.”
“Oh?”
“In this case, she was looking for some information on Ray Hammond. I wasn’t able to help with her specific question, unfortunately, but I did do some poking around on my own time.”
“And?” My fingers trembled in anticipation.
“I’m assuming you’re looking for dirt on him,” Russo said. “Leverage of some sort?”
“That would be ideal.”
“Open it.” Russo nodded toward my phone. “I think that might help.”
I pulled up the message, scanned through the copied and pasted information. By the time I looked up, I was grinning. “I think you’re right.”
“So,” Russo said, his hands extended. “Should I be expecting a ring?”
“It’s pretty good,” I said, standing up and pushing the plates out of our way. “But to get me down the aisle, you’ll have to do better than this.”
Russo secured his hand behind my back. “I like a challenge.”
“You and me both,” I said. “Which is why I’m ready to nail Hammond. What do you say we take a trip to the finer side of St. Paul?”
Chapter 18
It was fortunate that Russo agreed to go on the interview with me, seeing as my car was being detained as evidence at the gas station crime scene. Russo drove his rental across town, following my directions, listening intently as I pointed out various locales where I’d spent time in my youth.
“I’d just like to point out,” Russo said as he parked in front of a large Victorian off Selby in the Cathedral Hill neighborhood of St. Paul, “that this is why I need to get my own car when I come to town. Otherwise, we’d never get anywhere.”
I grinned. “I appreciate it.”
“Ever been here before?” Russo teased as he slid out from the car.
“Ha-ha.”
I joined Russo on the sidewalk and looked up at the violet mansion, quaint and dated in some parts, but elegantly modernized in others. A fresh coat of paint covered the outside, and the front steps looked to have been recently redone. The lawn was manicured and well-kept with several early spring bulbs just beginning to poke their heads up from the dirt.
The street was pleasantly quiet. Only local traffic buzzed nearby. A few neighborhood kids pedaled past on bikes. A lawnmower started up in the distance. Trees swayed and the sun shone. I would never have guessed we were standing outside of a brothel.
It looked like Russo had the same thought. He scanned up and down the block, taking everything in. I did the same thing and came to the conclusion that it looked like a very normal, happy-go-lucky, upper middle-class neighborhood.
We made our way up the front steps. When I reached the front door, I realized I didn’t know the standard protocol for how to get inside.
“Do we knock?” I turned to Russo. “Ring the doorbell? Call a number? I’m unfamiliar with these things.”
“You say that like I should have experience in the matter,” he said. “I vote we start simple and go from there.”
I raised a hand, pointer finger extended, and depressed the buzzer. I could hear it resonate inside. A moment later, the heavy wooden door opened, though the screen door remained closed.
A young woman dressed in a gorgeous gown stood behind the door. She had long blonde hair that fell in soft ringlets over her shoulder, and her skin was as pale as a porcelain doll. Her lips were tinged with pink, turning up in an easy smile at the sight of us.
“Can I help y’all?” she asked in a drawl.
“We’re looking for Madame Roux,” I said, giving the name Russo had highlighted in his file. “Is she around?”
The woman’s lips twitched. “May I ask the nature of your business?”
I pulled out my badge. “Detective Kate Rosetti. This is my partner, Jack Russo. We’ve got a few questions.”
Her lips parted in a soft ‘O’ shape. “I’m afraid she’s not in.”
“I’m afraid I don’t believe you.” I blew out a disappointed sigh. I had no real clue if Madame Roux was in the house or not, but I wouldn’t know if I didn’t pry. “I don’t know you, but I’m sure you’re a nice enough young woman. And if you don’t want to get in trouble, it’s imperative we get your full cooperation on this matter.”
“What matter?”
“It’s a homicide investigation,” I said. “We’re investigating a murder.”
“But—” she gasped. “I didn’t kill anyone! Who died? When? I’m sure the Madame didn’t either. She’s firm, but she’s very nice. She’s a good person.”
“That might be true, but we still have to ask our questions. And just because you turn us away today doesn’t mean we won’t find our answers. We’ll be back, and that would be very inconvenient. I guarantee if we come back, it won’t be just Madame Roux we’ve got questions for, if you catch my drift.”
“S-she...” The woman hesitated. “We’re not supposed to let anyone in without an appointment.”
“How about you squeeze us in?” I suggested. “If all goes well, this won’t take long. We’ll be in and out of your hair before you know it. I promise you that delaying it will only make things worse.”
Russo gave a perfunctory nod next to me. The woman glanced between us, and something on our faces must have convinced her that we were telling the truth, or close enough to it.
She spun, her cream-colored silk dress flowing behind
her regally as she made her way deeper into the house. The front door remained ajar which I took to be an invitation.
Russo tugged the screen door open and entered first. I followed close behind. The interior of the house was colored by majestic wood bannisters and a matching floor that was accented with deep maroon rugs, complete with golden threads trimming the edges. A chandelier hung from the ceiling and sparkled in all directions as sunlight streamed through the front door.
A moment later, the sunlight was extinguished as another woman appeared from a hallway near the coat closet to close the front door. She had sleek black hair that was offset by an exotic headband of jewels that hung low on her forehead, circling her head like a crown. Her gown was an emerald green in a gorgeous velvet fabric that reminded me of a lush forest.
“Are you—” I began, then stopped abruptly as the woman disappeared mid-sentence back into the doorway from which she’d come. I gave Russo a raised eyebrow of confusion. The house was beginning to feel a bit haunted.
Overall, Russo’s file on Ray Hammond had been thin. Like the local authorities, the feds didn’t have much on the man. Hammond was suspected to have his hands in a lot of big-ticket activities, but nothing had been proven. The only thing we had a tenuous link to was an alleged penchant for a certain high-class escort service run by one Madame Roux.
Pegging Hammond on a prostitution charge wasn’t ideal, but it was the best we had for a starting point. He might not be terrified of the charge—he had money and lawyers, and he’d fight it in court. But it might be enough of a headache that he’d want to avoid the situation entirely in exchange for a few breadcrumbs on Cox.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?”
My neck snapped upward as I glanced at the beauty posed on the staircase above us. I placed the woman to be somewhere in her sixties, though extraordinarily well preserved. She wore a sharp black dress with a pearl necklace and matching studs. Her graying hair looked to be untouched by product or dye and was swept back and pinned near the nape of her neck.
“I’m Detective Kate Rosetti, and this is my partner, Jack Russo,” I repeated. “We were hoping for a few minutes of your time.”
“Of course. You’ll have to excuse me, however, as I don’t know what you’ve come to discuss.”
