“Tell me you got to shadow the investigation.”
“You could say that.”
“I want to hear everything. What did you do?” Sylvia sounded breathless as I considered what to tell her.
“Well… first, we chased down a suspect wanted for questioning in a strip club.”
She gasped. “Then what?”
“Then we disarmed a violent assailant in an alley, cuffed him, and threw him in the back of a police car.”
“My hair’s standing on end, Finlay! I haven’t had this many goose bumps since Barbra Streisand last performed at Madison Square Garden. What else?”
“Let’s see… we broke up a party that got out of hand, secured a crime scene, searched for two lost minors, infiltrated a sleazy sex lair, freed a hostage, recovered a stolen car, engaged two armed villains in a dangerous standoff, and rescued a puppy.”
“You left out the sex.”
“And we had sex.”
“Fantastic! I want to hear all about the sex and the puppy next time we talk. Speaking of which, I hope you’re ready to discuss that TV deal. The producer keeps calling, and I can’t keep him waiting forever. I have to tell him something, Finlay.”
“Tell him…” I paused, thinking over all that was at stake—the possible risks and rewards. About the odds I had overcome just to get this far. “Tell him I’m ready to make a deal.”
Sylvia smacked her desk, triumphant. “Great! I’ll set up a meeting. You get back to your office and get those fingers back to work. You’ve had enough time off, and we have bestsellers to write.” I laughed as she disconnected.
Vero’s voice rose from the kitchen. “No,Todd,we are not going to Vegas! Not until I get flowers and candy and a ring that doesn’tglow in the dark! I deserve to be wooed. And stop calling me Mrs. Liebowitz!”
I pulled the blankets over my face, stealing a final moment of peace before facing the day.
There was a soft knock on my door. I lifted the blankets from my head, expecting to see Delia’s face as the door opened a crack.
Nick peeked cautiously inside. “Can I come in?”
I sat up, sliding over to make room for him. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but what are you doing here? I thought you weren’t coming back until tonight?”
He sat beside me, leaning back against the headboard and lacing his fingers with mine. “Garrett offered to stick around and wrap up the loose ends. He had to stay in New Jersey for a few more days to work a new lead on the Grindley case anyway.”
“A new lead?”
“We sent someone to Ike’s house to check on his wife. No one’s seen or heard from her since we talked to her a few days ago. We worried that maybe Charlie or Feliks got to her, so Garrett sent one of his guys to poke around. He didn’t find Trina, but he did find a gold tooth in the backyard. We think it might belong to Ike.”
“Wow.” I choked back a nervous laugh. “Do they have any idea how it got there?”
“That’s the interesting part. We don’t know,” Nick said. “It looks like Trina skipped town. Maybe she just got spooked, or maybe she knew more about what happened to Ike than she was letting on. Either way, it looks like the focus of the investigation is moving closer to home, and Garrett didn’t need me to stay. The Toscano investigation is moving pretty quickly.”
“Oh?”
“It’s all pretty cut-and-dried. Cam and Giada both heard Charlie confess to killing Marco and his associate. Ricky told us the same when he finally came around.”
“Did he say anything else? About why Charlie was there?”
“Nothing more than what Cam already told us. Charlie had just returned to the Royal Flush when he spotted Cam leaving the hotel. According to both boys, Ricky was at work and got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
I knew that wasn’t the full story. But it didn’t surprise me that Ricky had made no mention of the Aston Martin to the police.
“All the evidence points to Charlie,” Nick said. “And the attendant working the front desk at the Villagio said she remembered a man claiming to be a police officer asking for Marco’s room number on Friday night. She positively ID’d Charlie from a photo. It should be an open-and-shut case. There’s just one thing Garrett and I can’t figure out.” He looked up at me, his face troubled. “The ME’s report is all pending an autopsy, but—unofficially—the estimated time of death is the only thing that doesn’t fit the rest of the picture. Based on what she saw of the remains we found in the Audi, she thinks the murder could have occurred as early as Friday night, around the time Charlie would have been in Marco’s suite. But the butler there said Marco hosted a party on Saturday. Garrett interviewed two escorts who were paid to attend, and they both said they remembered Marco being there that night.”
“Maybe the ME was wrong. You did say it was just an estimate, right?”
