Dante reached for his sunglasses from the visor and stepped out of the vehicle. The early Sunday morning sun showed promise of a powerfully hot day. Keeping his glasses on kept others thwarted from the awkwardness of trying to read his eyes. The mirrored shades hung against his ears and slid comfortably against the bridge of his nose. Up ahead the crowd parted. The scene on the two way street had become a local event. Crowds of people stood on the sidelines as police officers put up yellow tape to block off the scene. A few reporters stood with notepads in hands and several onlookers used their phones as cameras to document everything. The crime scene came equipped with a tamale stand and a coffee stand. Spiced meats, cooked fruit, and coffee filtered the morning air. A young barista with a low cut shirt and perky breasts smiled sweetly and nodded her head toward her goodies, an array of different coffees.
Coffee sounded good right about now. Last night whipped through him like a hazy blur. The piping hot black liquid would be good to jolt his system. The barista batted her eyelashes and licked her lips, offering more than just coffee as she handed him a cup and a slip of paper, no doubt her phone number.
Dante purposely reached for it with his left hand and pointed toward the ring with his right. “Sorry, married.” He said with a wink and she smiled, snapping her fingers.
Why in hell was he still wearing the ring? And why in hell would he use it to ward off women? Dante loved women. Lots of women. So many women, he often needed a vacation from his vacation with women.
Well, with the way the barista backed off when she saw it, it could be worth it to have some peace and quiet while he was in town. Typically he liked his missions like he liked his women, fast and easy. Something in his gut told him he was in a heap of trouble with his latest mission, considering the length he went through to track down Leonardo Marchette.
The bastard slipped through his fingers before and he’d be damned if he’d let it happen again. He’d been chasing him unofficially since he was seventeen when Leonardo murdered his sister. Dante made the sign of the cross as he thought of his beloved Allegra. Every test he took to qualify him for Special Ops, Special Forces, and Black Ops covered his relationship with his family. No one wanted a loose-cannon and for twenty years Dante managed to keep his emotions under control. But now with him so close to catching Leonardo, Dante tried to contain his vengeful excitement.
Officially, Dante spent his career as an agent trying to locate him. It had been one thing or another and this time he wasn’t going to stop. Leonardo was somewhere in Florida, more importantly he was somewhere in the Tallahassee vicinity. Dante’s skin pricked knowing he was this close.
His eyes focused on the makeshift privacy screen held up by four white sheets. A man in a white overcoat, plastic-bootie slippers and blue rubber gloves pushed his way through the opening of the curtain. The coroner was here. Now maybe some work could get done since no one was allowed to touch the body until he arrived. A collective gasp from the crowd reached the clouds at the limited peek of the massacre behind the sheets. Maybe he was too hardened by the lengths criminals went to, to make their name in the world. Nothing shocked him. The same couldn’t be said for the extras walking by him fighting their gag reflexes. Today’s crime sight would be no surprise to him, except for one thing. There, in the midst of the uniformed officers, standing behind a wide lens camera stood Harley Tomasello.
His bride.
What the fuck was he thinking? What the fuck was she even doing here? She left him this morning wearing a pair of jeans and a light colored shirt. Now she wore a pair of skin-tight black jeans that showed off her fantastic ass and a tight black shirt, armored vest. He wasn’t sure which was more attractive, the bullet-proof vest or the gun and holster and hardware strapped to her thigh—a standard police officer issued nine mm. He liked a girl who knew her way around a weapon.
What he didn’t like was the way this asshole pushed her shoulder forward so he could follow the coroner in the hut. Dante kept his eyes focused on the dude. He wore a Sears suit, nothing special about the square shoulders and bland clothing, and kept his hands on his face. The morning sun wasn’t fully up yet but Dante was willing to bet his right nut this redneck was the leading officer on the scene. What was the name his supervisor Cole gave him? Steve Lundy. Yea, that was it. Dante sighed heavily and forged forward. This wasn’t going to be fun.
“Detective Lundy?” Dante said walking under the yellow police tape securing the crime scene.
The man named Lundy spun around, beady blue eyes looked up at him. “No sir, you need to go back behind the lines.”
“You spoke with my boss, Cole Wentworth. I’m Special Agent Rossi.”
“Damn,” said Lundy, pinching a wad of chewing tobacco between his bottom lip and teeth, “You boys move fast. What’d you do, fly here?”
Wheels were up the minute the picture bleeped across the screen of his phone, but this guy didn’t need to know that. “The sooner we catch this guy, the sooner I will be out of your hair.”
Lundy made a hissing noise with the back of his teeth then spit out a brown liquid into a coffee cup. “I already patrolled the area, I think it was an accident. These people don’t pay attention, too quick to try and jump on the back of a truck for day laboring.”
These people, Lundy referred to were the lines of Mexicans standing on the side, crying, praying, and twisting their rosaries around their wrists. The south didn’t seem much different than the neighborhoods in New York City. There were the Jewish neighborhoods, Puerto Rican, Dominican and, of course, the Italian. The difference there and here was the fact that up north there was more tolerance. He thought about his new wife.
With Tomasello as a last name, he bet Italian blood coursed through her veins. Chet didn’t give him the rundown of too much other than warning him of Harley’s wrath if pissed off. Really all Dante needed was for his cousin, Chet, to point out which one was Harley. His practical jokester cousin probably thought it funny as hell to omit Harley worked for the police department.
“Allow me to be the judge.”
“Well, there ain’t much here for you to see. Hard to get some identification, ain’t much of his hands left.”
All the more reason Dante suspected Leonardo’s handiwork. Leonardo slept comfortably to the shrill of a scream from a good old-fashioned dragging. It never mattered the distance of a drive. He drove with a person handcuffed to the door until the screams stopped. The whole road ahead needed to be sealed off and hosed down with an industrial strength chemical spray if Dante’s hunch was right.
“Have you thought about getting the road blocked further down?”
Lundy craned his neck down the road and shook his head. “Don’t see any reason to. Look,” Lundy elbowed Dante in the ribs as if they were old friends. “The way I see it, this kid got hooked to an early morning hunter. We hunt in these parts.”
No mistake on the, ‘these parts’. Dante raised an eyebrow. So far two different stories of what may have happened to the body.
“You’re not from around here,” Lundy used his great detective skills.
He could have told him he’d been to Tallahassee so many times he ought to be a tour guide, but right now this redneck needed to know the minimum. Dante bit his tongue to keep from speaking his mind. “No. Mind if I see the body?”
“Be my guest.” Lundy nodded his head toward the lining of the tent and slipped inside before Dante could move, more than likely to prepare everyone in there for the higher-ups who were taking over. He’d heard the speech before and so he gave it a few seconds before entering the space. Lundy’s back was to Dante’s. He fully expected the man to be rolling his eyes right about now. The red headed coroner’s eyes averted from Lundy’s to his, nervously chuckled, and his freckled covered face reddened. Harley stood directly in front of Lundy clicking away with her camera and her back to Lundy.
Getting hitched last night was fun and it was business, but right now he needed to be serious. He didn’t need the distractions of her fawning over him at a crime scene. He needed her to understand this was his business. It would be best for her as well. This jerk of a supervisor she had wouldn’t appreciate her being involved with him and when he left, Lundy could make her life miserable.
“Harley, I would like to introduce you to Special Agent,” Lundy half turned to make the introduction which was just a simple wave in Dante’s direction, “Rossi.”