“It isn’t.” I took a breath. “Nick’s dead, Rachel. Someone killed him.”
“Jesus.” The word came out as a whisper. “Who? It wasn’t Jacquie, was it?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I found the body yesterday morning. I went to his place to look for him, or rather, to see if Megan was there with him.”
“And was she?”
“No. And that’s something else I need to tell you. But first?—”
“Yes,” Rachel agreed, “let’s stick to one thing at a time. So you found Nick.”
“Dead in bed with a bullet hole in his forehead.”
Rachel made a sound, almost as if I’d socked her in the stomach. But she didn’t say anything else, so I continued. “I called Mendoza, but he couldn’t take the case, because he’s working undercover at Sambuca. He brought in his lieutenant, and then he and I went to tell Jacquie about Nick.”
There was a pause while Rachel processed all this. In justice to her, it was a lot of information.
“Jaime’s working undercover at a restaurant?” she asked eventually. “When did you find that out?”
“Last night, during dinner with Greg. It wasn’t pretty.”
I could tell from her voice that she was smirking. “I can imagine. That’s also part of the other stuff you have to tell me, I assume.”
I agreed that it was.
“Later, then. So you called him, and he called his lieutenant, and then the two of you went to talk to Jacquie about Nick being dead. And how did she take it?”
“Not well.” I paused. “Or she’s a really good actress. Mendoza seems to thinks she might have killed him.”
Rachel was quiet for a moment. “What do you think?”
I could tell that the idea that out client might be guilty didn’t sit any easier with her than it did with me.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “She seemed genuine to me. Then again, the girlfriend is always a suspect, right?”
Rachel grunted.
“But there’s more to it than that,” I added. “Turns out Nick was mixed up with the mob in some sort of money laundering operation, and?—”
“Mob?” Rachel’s voice rose, and I winced. “Gina, what have you gotten us into?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “I mean, yes, the mob, but we’re not involved. Mendoza’s working on it. And there’s an undercover cop at the Body Shop too—the blonde, Megan. She’s Mendoza’s partner. Or so I assume. He hasn’t actually confirmed that. But it all hangs together.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Rachel said.
“Good.” Because I didn’t feel like explaining it in more detail than I’d already done. “The point is, this is way bigger than Nick possibly cheating on Jacquie. But that, or his murder, is not our concern. I just wanted to let you know what happened.”
There was a beat. “What about Zachary?” Rachel asked. “Have you told him?”
“About the mob connection,” I said. “It scared him.”
“I’m not surprised. It scares me too. And after what happened in September…”
I nodded. “I told him to take the weekend off and that we’d withdraw from the case on Monday, and give Jacquie her money back. That was before I knew about Nick, obviously.”
“Obviously. So what do we do now? Do we call and tell him?”
I thought about it. Zachary did need to know, of course. He was part of the firm and had been working on the case the same way I had been. But was there any point in ruining the rest of his weekend with news that would only scare him further?
