As much as I’d love to spend the rest of my day letting out my pent-up aggression, I needed to leave soon. I’d never been late to anything in my life, and I wasn’t about to start now.
Grabbing the towel that I’d set aside earlier, I wiped off the sweat from my brow and chest before unwinding the boxing-wraps from my hands.
Ten minutes to shower. Twenty minutes to shave, fix my hair, and apply my favorite black orchid cologne. Five minutes to change into the freshly pressed suit that I’d brought along.
That left me five minutes ahead of schedule.
Perfect.
Saturday night traffic in Baton Rouge wasn’t the worst, but no amount of traffic was enjoyable. I’d considered getting a sports car for the fun of it, but what was the point when traffic wouldn’t let me go faster than any other car on the road.
My reliable Lexus would do just fine.
Traffic was slightly worse than I predicted, so I arrived at Alias Investigations only two minutes ahead of schedule. It was not ideal, but still acceptable.
The door was locked, which was a good idea for Private Investigators who probably racked up a lot of enemies, so I rang the doorbell and waited.
After a punctual amount of time, a young redheaded man opened the door.
“Can I help you?”
Cute. Short and slender with big blue eyes. The man’s style of dress was eclectic, with a bright mix of colors and a cartoon print on a cheap polyester vest, but other than that, he was just my type.
“Kitt Doyle,” I introduced myself, subtly checking the cuffs of my suit to make sure everything was in order. “I called earlier.”
The man’s whole face lit up when he smiled, emphasizing the freckles on his face.
“Oh, right. From the DA’s office. Come in.”
Stepping into Alias Investigations’ office, the first thing I noticed was that everything was brand new. I’d heard that their office had been blown up two years ago when they were hot on the bell ringer case.
Yet, they’d persevered, and in the end, they rebuilt. It was impressive and gave me a sense of confidence to work with them.
Inside the office, I found both of the Roth brothers sitting at their own desks. I’d never met either of the men before, but I could already recognize them just from their descriptions.
“Kitt Doyle,” the brother named Damien said as he stood and held out his hand. “You’re the lawyer from the DA, right?”
It was strange. The brother named Sebastian was sitting closer to the door, yet it was Damien who stood up and greeted me first.
“Yes,” I said as I accepted his hand. “I know my call earlier was probably vague, but I want to talk to you about the bell ringer case.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as the redheaded young man helped Sebastian from his chair. The other Roth brother walked with a limp and rested part of his weight on a cane. Overall, he was stable but getting in and out of a chair seemed to give him some difficulty.
The redhead’s hands lingered on Sebastian longer than necessary, even once the other man was on his feet. There was an unmistakable look of affection between them.
It was a pity. The redhead may be my type, but I was no homewrecker.
Although I was being subtle, never looking at the pair directly, Sebastian must have still noticed my gaze. His hand rested on the redhead’s shoulder as he straightened up and came toward me, his cane barely touching the ground with each step.
“What’s there to talk about? Our lawyer left us high and dry, and the case is falling apart.”
Side by side, the Roth brothers made an intimidating wall, like two indomitable pillars. The only hint of weakness was the way that Damien stood just a bit in front of Sebastian, like he was ready to jump in front of a bullet for his brother at a moment’s notice.
“Forgive me if this is insulting, but we don’t really trust the DA right now. Even before our lawyer abandoned the case, we’d been having trouble getting the DA to return our calls. It’s clear your department doesn’t really want to deal with our case. Now, you show up unexpectedly, claiming you want to continue pursuing the bell ringers. Why?”
Taking a deep breath, I walked over to seemingly empty desks—why did they have four desks when Alias Investigations was only run by two people?—and set down my briefcase. The Roth brothers were not the kind of people that could be bullshitted. Only the truth would be accepted.
Luckily, I came armed with plenty of that.
