"Oh. Well, next time, I'll make sure to wait up."
Spencer smirks, the left side of his mouth freezing slightly higher than the other. "Yeah, you make sure and do that… Next time."
"Confidentiality aside, did you catch the guys Ridge was looking for?" I lean forward in the bed to get closer to him.
“We’ve been after Frank Zanetti, a suspected mobster out of New York, for months now. He uses crews of different guys, never getting his hands dirty. Ridge thinks we can link a few of them to the latest crime spike.”
I’m pretty sure that’s Spencer’s watered-down way of referencing Kevin, the dead body. No way in hell am I going to ask him to confirm that, though. “Can you link them to Frank, too?”
He sighs. “Not sure yet. These guys are new. No one from his inner circle.” Spencer crawls higher in the bed and lies on the side, not getting under the covers with his regular clothes on. “But we grabbed most of them, at least.”
"What do you mean, ‘most of them’?"
He releases a breath against his lips. "Ridge's best estimates place this particular group at about fifteen members. Tonight, we rounded up nine. That should be enough to break up their ranks, but not enough that they won't come back at some point in time."
I shrug. I watch enoughCSIto know there is always a bad guy waiting somewhere. "Did you get the guy who came to my door?”
Spencer smiles, but it's a weird one. Half his face is raised up in a happy expression, yet the other side is pinched in concentration. "Maybe."
Not an overly helpful answer, either.
He pulls out his wallet. "Is this the guy?" From an inside pocket, he produces a mini Polaroid picture.
I didn't think they still made that type of camera. Let alone film for it.
Spencer flaps the picture a few times and passes it over to me. The angle is weird, like the picture was taken while standing above. The lighting is darker, and the person sits slumped in a gray steel chair that matches the cinderblocks of the room. His hands hang down beside him, but not in a relaxed pose. The guy’s head is slightly turned, but I’m a nurse and have seen enough domestic violence to figure out half of his face is swollen.
"I don’t know. It's hard to tell from this angle. Why is he all beat-up?"
Spencer's face loses the half smile. "We forgot to take the picture before we started the process."
"What process?"
He pauses and his eyes circle the room, obviously debating how much to tell me. "The interrogation process."
"Interrogation? You can’t beat up people in interrogations.” Did he forget he’s talking to a nurse? I help people, not let others beat them up.
"Joslin, these aren’t two-bit criminals who tried to rob the 7-Eleven. The guy in the chair is Tony Mendez. ‘Hardened criminal’ isn’t a tough enough adjective to describe his lifestyle. Saying please isn’t effective with this group.”
He has good points, but it's not my nature to see someone in distress and not want to help them.
"Is Tony the guy who was at your door?"
I hold the picture closer to my face, turn my head to the right, turn my head to the left, then squint, closing one eye completely. "I don’t know."
"You sure?"
I hand the picture back. "Sorry. The angle is different, and I didn’t pay that much attention. I was freaked out. But the hair looks similar…maybe.”
Spencer sighs, throwing the picture and his wallet on the empty nightstand. "‘Maybe’ isn’t good enough, so it looks like you're stuck with me for a few more days. At least until we can bust his group open."
The idea there are more guys like Tony Mendez around Pelican Bay isn't a settling one, but I find myself smiling anyway. A few more days with Spencer by my side isn't the worst thing that can happen to a girl. Hopefully, my boss at the hospital feels the same.
A moment of silence stretches between us, and I wait for Spencer to make his next move. I don’t know what you do after a hard day of surveillance. Eat? Read a book? Go to sleep? Watch a movie?
"You know what else I've never had happen?" he asks, leaning back with his arms behind his head.
"What?"
