“I can take care of myself,” I told him softly, “and that’s thanks toyou. Trust your training.”
He pulled out of my embrace to continue packing. After a moment, he put a shaking hand to his forehead. “I’m sorry. Tonight shook me up more than I…”
I knew why. Angelo and I had sifted through his relationship with Tino Morelli more than once, but we both knew there was more work there to do.
It was the work of a lifetime.
“Ineverwant to go back to New York,” Angelo went on. “We already talked about it, but tonight confirmed it for me. Especially now that Luca and Finch are living in Tino’s old house. There are too many bad memories there for me. I’m sorry—I know you love the City—”
“Fuck New York,” I said fervently. “We’ll go somewhere else. Anywhere you want.”
I don’t know much about fish, I’d told Julian. It was embarrassing to remember that I’d thought about Angelo in just that way: as a fish on the end of the Morelli hook. But Angelo Messina was no oblivious, wriggling fish.
He was a fearsome, razor-toothed shark, and he would swim wherever he damn well pleased.
He looked over at me with relief clear on his face. “Thank you for understanding, Bax. And listen, I’m sorry about Greco. Abouteverything. I’ve dragged you down with me, all this time we’ve been on the run.”
“Bullshit,” I said firmly. “Everything I’ve done, I chose to do. My conscience is clear. As for Greco…” I looked down as I sorted through my thoughts along with my clothes, trying to find the right words. “The thing is, with Greco dead, it means…well, for us, for the two of us, it means…”
He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you know something I don’t,” he said, “because I have no idea what it means for us. Yet. There are still a lot of chess pieces on the board and we’re both tired. We need to think through our next move.”
That shocked me out of my tongue being tied. “Ournextmove? Greco’s dead. There’s no next move.”
Angelo grinned and reached over the corner of the bed to pat my face. “Come on, kid, where’s that optimism gone? There’s always another route. We just have to find it. I want your name cleared, and I’m not going to give up just because some Clemenza rat got himself poisoned onmyaccount.”
My phone started to ring before I could respond, and I groaned when I saw the name. Garcia. I’d already called her earlier to explain the situation, and she’d chewed me out then. “I’mma put this on speaker,” I told Angelo, “soyoucan get yelled at this time, too.”
But Garcia, it turned out, was not calling to bust my ass for a second time. Or notonly.
“Listen, moron,” she sighed at me, “I was already working on a few things about the Central Park Slayer before you got hold of Greco. After that story you spun when you were here last, I got a white hat hacker to have a look at Ethan Villiers’ tech. His shit is still stored in Evidence while the case against you is open, but no one ever bothered to look at any of it closely because he was considered a victim, not a suspect. Plus the task force IT guys…well, they weren’t exactly motivated. They thought it was open and shut against you and your boyfriend. But this geek I got through my new Bureau contacts, he pulled out a lot of very incriminating shit.”
“But would it—” I began.
“Stand up in court? I already ran it by the legal types, and it’s looking good. Greco would have been the fucking cherry on top, but from what I’m hearing, the case against you and Messina will get dropped. Eventually.”
Angelo and I stared at the phone together in silence.
“Hello?” Garcia snapped impatiently.
“Sorry, I’m here. I just…”
“I thought you’d bepleased. Doubt you’ll get an apology from the task force, but they’ll probably throw out the fugitive-from-justice charges along with everything else as a sweetener. That means you and your cute crim can head on back to New York once the paperwork goes through. Have you seen that site, by the way?”
“Thank you, Gina,” I said awkwardly. “That’s—that’s great news.”
“Wow, don’t explode with gratitude or anything,” she said. “Whatever. I’ll let you know when the coast is clear. You just make sure you keep coming to me with any tips, you hear me?”
“Sure,” I said. “Thanks again.” I ended the call and looked over at Angelo. “All those deaths—fornothing.” I was getting angry. “And now we have the chance to go back to New York, right when we figured out we don’t evenwantto? It’s not…it’s notfair.”
“Nothing’s ever fair, kid,” he said quietly, and came around to hug me. “But hell, as long as your reputation gets cleaned up, that’ll do me.” He kissed me until I kissed him back. “There you go,” he murmured with his lips against mine. “Everything’ll work out.”
“But what will wedo? I don’t want to stay in LA. And I don’t think Sonny would stay friendly for long if we went back to Vegas for any length of time. So where does that leave?Iceland?”
“So it’s a no to Iceland?” Angelo grinned at my glare and gave a thoughtful hum. “It’s a good question. Because the other issue is, I have a pretty limited skillset, Babyface. It’s not like I could suddenly become a librarian or a short-order cook.”
“Barista?” I snorted, and was a little worried to see him think it over. “You’re not going to be a barista, for Christ’s sake. You wouldn’t be able to bring yourself to make iced coffee, for one thing.”
“True,” he admitted. He started to speak, hesitated, and shook his head.
