Mr. and Mrs. Rossi

“Why would I be at a bar whining about not being married?”

Dante shrugged, what did he know about women? The most he’d gotten to know about them was what they liked for breakfast and half the time he’d emotionally checked out. “I don’t know, maybe you were engaged or something and he left you.”

The way her eyes bore down on him he felt the sear of heat. “Do

I strike you as someone a man would leave?”

Actually, Harley Tomasello struck him as the type of woman who would eat her prey before leaving the bed. The thought frightened him and excited him at the same time. Chet warned him about pissing her off. He shook his head.

“Thank you.”

“So, did they come down yet?” Harley asked, nodding her head toward the other side of the arch toward the stairs. Upstairs, drawers moved opened and closed. Careful footsteps moved around on the carpet.

“No.”

Harley pulled herself onto the barstool furthest away from him, putting the blue tiled island between them. Oh, the things he could do to her here. He cleared his throat to get the thought out of his head. He needed to concentrate but she made it difficult. Her still wet hair, which hung loose, caused the front of her shirt to dampen. Perversion came so quickly when Harley came around. He needed to concentrate on this case. Dante reached into his briefcase for his laptop and set it on the countertop. Once on, he clicked on his email and downloaded the pictures. Elliott already sent him a police lineup with a replica of the local police station and it generated a line up along with pictures of other people fitting the mystery man. Dante scanned one of the pictures of the men at the table, Christopher Alfaro, a seasoned drug dealer from this area. Word on the street, Leonardo wanted to make bigger connections than his father and make himself a name.

The small printer from his brief case hummed and shot out two pieces of paper. Dante held the documents toward the light from the yellow curtained window over the sink. Harley didn’t strike him as the soft yellow type of girl, but the accents in the kitchen worked well. Royal blue dishes drip-dried in the double sink. The yellow softened her. He imagined her at the stove stirring a pot of sauce. His body stiffened. Even the thought of her cooking turned him on.

“Hannah,” Harley pushed away from the island and leaned toward the arched doorway to yell once again for her niece. “Hannah, you guys come down here.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” Harley’s upper lip went up, disgusted. “The sooner you talk to Javier, the sooner you can get lost.”

He feigned hurt, hand to his heart. “Does this mean you’re canceling our dinner plans?”

“Let me think for a second,” she pressed her index finger to her chin as her eyes rolled to the ceiling. “Um, hell yeah.”

“So we’ll skip to dessert,” he toyed with her. Her delicate jaw line tensed. “Aw, c’mon Harley, I know we got off to a rocky start.”

Finally she smiled at him, albeit, a tight cold spine chilling. “You know what you can …”

Thankfully Hannah and her friend came, Hannah bouncing, while the male was sluggish, dragging forward. Harley stopped from saying what was really on her mind but he had a pretty good idea. He was a piece of shit in her mind.

“Harley, this is Javier.”

The boy Javier stood about five-eight with jet black hair cropped close to his scalp. His skin was the same reddish brown of the victim this morning. Dante had his answer.

“I hate having to meet you under such circumstances,” Harley welcomed Javier with a motherly hug. Her arms embraced his thin shoulders and for a moment Dante swore the boy sobbed.

Dante overheard Harley last night about her niece being engaged to someone she’d never met. She’d been drowning her sorrows in booze and he’d come along to help ease the pain. A part of him felt uncomfortable at this first meeting, but he had business to handle.

Javier nodded his head. His blood eyes with dark shadows underneath greeted him. He’d been crying. He’d been through hell. “Nice to meet you.”

“Son,” Dante started. The best way to gain someone’s trust was to relate to him or her or make him or her relatable. Dante knew firsthand how it felt to lose someone, especially a sibling. “I am Special Agent Dante Rossi, and I know these last few hours have been hell on you.”

Javier only nodded and kept his gaze to the ground. Hannah placed a hand on his back for support. Young love. Whatever, Dante thought to himself.

“My brother is missing.”

“I think he lost his phone,” Hannah offered.

“No,” Javier shook his head. “After we dropped you off this morning we went back to the club because Gaston couldn’t find his wallet. He wanted to check the lost and found. I was in the car waiting for him when I saw these two men grab him before he could go inside. One guy took some handcuffs to him and hooked him on to the car.”

The coffee he had earlier wanted made its way to the back of Dante’s throat. He had his confirmation. Leonardo was here. He just needed visual confirmation. “Do you think you can make a positive ID on the driver?”

Javier shrugged his hunched-over shoulders.