“There’s one photo of Nazario, then five other people,” Holden said. “Eleven photos total, with a few repeats.”
James paused on the first photo. It was a group of four men in suits at some charity gala, with a sticky tab marking a skinny white man. The sticky tab had a question mark. The photo meant nothing to James.
He could feel everyone around the table straining to see.
“I’ll pass them around,” James said, amused despite himself. “What was wrong with this guy?”
Holden shrugged. “He just seems sketchy.”
James passed the photo to Kit, who squinted for a second before passing it to Bishop.
“The next guy is also just sketchy,” Holden said. “Your dad was pretty good about labeling things, but the only name he labeled in these was Nazario.”
There were three photos of Sketchy Guy Number 2. They followed Sketchy Guy Number 1 around the table, from James to Kit to Bishop, who inspected them the closest. The photos continued to Darius, then Holden, who stacked them neatly.
All the photos were taken at events. Charity galas, gallery openings, chamber of commerce dinners. The public formality reassured James, in a weird way. His parents had kept the darker side of their business away from their family.
Until they couldn’t any longer.
The tall Latina woman in the next photo was marked with a sticky note too, but this one had a star instead of a question mark.
“The star means I recognized them,” Holden explained, sounding a bit more excited. “She was arrested for vehicular manslaughter eight years ago. There was a ton of speculation that it was murder, but they couldn’t prove it.”
“Is she in your psycho murder scrapbooks?” Darius asked, looking up.
Holden grinned. “She practically has a whole chapter. The next guy has a star too, but he was boring. Wire fraud.”
“I remember that one,” Bishop said, as the photo reached him. “Ended up out of our jurisdiction, but my sergeant thought we were missing something on him.”
The next photo was taken at an art gallery. James’s dad smiled next to a short, tattooed blond woman. Her sticky note had a question mark—unknown. There were two more photos of her, and James passed them all down before brooding over the last.
Nazario Bradach, the known Rat King. James didn’t need the star sticky note to pick the bastard out of the group. Nazario beamed through his curly brown beard, holding a glass of wine aloft. Toasting with him were both of James’s parents, also smiling.
Maybe Mom and Dad weren’t the perfect people James always thought they were, but that didn’t matter. It turned out James was more like them than he had ever realized. A secret life of crime didn’t change the fact that they were his parents. His. James protected his people.
Soon, Nazario would never smile again. That thought was coldly reassuring.
Glass clattered on the table, jolting James from his murderous fantasies.
“Fuck,” Darius swore, righting his beer bottle before it tipped over the table. He winced apologetically. “Sorry, forgot this was there.”
Holden helpfully rescued the photos of the tattooed woman. Maybe he wasn’t so bad. Or maybe he was just showing shitty blond person solidarity.
“If you ruin Dad’s scrapbook, I’ll shoot your hand off,” James said cheerfully. “Did anyone conveniently recognize these people?”
“Just Mr. Wire Fraud and Ms. Vehicular Manslaughter,” Bishop said. “I can call in a favor and get SCPD’s files on them.”
Kit shrugged, pulling his feet up onto his chair. “I don’t recognize any of them. Uh, not that I expected to.”
Darius leaned forward—more careful with his beer under James’s glare. Skepticism wrinkled his brow. “The first sketchy guy looked a little familiar. I’ll see if my sources have intel on any of them. But what’s our methodology here? I don’t get why we’re steering this investigation based on Blondie’s vibes.”
“I can justify it all with body language analysis if you want.” Holden didn’t quite smirk. “But that’s mostly junk science. Take the vibes or not, doesn’t matter to me.”
“The Rat Kings are good at cleaning up actual evidence,” James said. “If I was working alone, honestly I would have just blown up Nazario’s house by now. That’s still on the table—but first, I want to pull some threads. See what unravels.”
Darius stared a moment longer, then chuckled. “Damn. Guess I’m just not used to seeing you careful.”
“Don’t get used to it,” James warned.
