Devil (The Marchesi Family 3)

“When is he not?”

“These days, never. Maybe that should give you a clue.”

I let out a long breath.

“You’ve got to focus,” she said in a softer voice, obviously not wanting anyone else to hear. “You need to concentrate on your own cases.”

When I scowled at her, she changed the subject.

“You don’t look as hungover as I expected you to this morning.” She was one to talk. She didn’t look hung over at all, but she never did.

“I only had one beer after I left you last night.”

She studied me for a moment. “Something happened, didn’t it?”

“Let’s take a walk.” I stood and motioned for her to follow me.

We headed toward the exit, which earned me a glare from McDonough. I waved at him, and Lindsay and I walked down the street to my favorite coffee cart. I told her about seeing Devil and following him but left out the details of what happened in the alley.

“So, basically, you fucked up your chance of getting a decent night’s sleep but didn’t learn anything?”

Lindsay never sugarcoated things. That was one of the things I liked about her. “No, I learned something.”

“What?”

I’d learned several things, but I wasn’t going to share most of them. “Devil didn’t do it.”

“How did you learn that by following him on a bar crawl?”

“I’m not saying he hasn’t killed. He’s mixed up in all his family’s shit, but the way this girl was killed… It’s not his style.”

Lindsay took a sip of her latte. “If I hadn’t seen how damn reliable your gut instincts are, I would laugh in your face right now.”

My gut instincts had closed several of the cases we’d worked. “He’s not the killer.”

“I suppose that’s valuable information, but he’s not even the main suspect. Are you going to follow his cousin around tomorrow night?”

“I don’t think his cousin leads such a colorful life.”

“Then maybe you could spend some time on the cases that are actually assigned to us.”

“Lindsay—”

“I know all the reasons for what you’re doing, and they’re good ones, but I’m worried about you. I’m worried you’re going to get yourself in trouble or give yourself a heart attack if someone doesn’t kill you first.”

I was worried about all that too, but I wasn’t smart enough to let it stop me. “I’m going to focus on our cases today. I promise.”

“And tonight?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know about tonight.”

She squeezed my arm. “Please be careful. And”—she sighed—“if you’re in a bind, call me.”

“I will.” I wouldn’t. No way in hell would I put her in danger.

I spent the afternoon working Dobson’s case. I had one last thing to check before going back to the station to type up the report for McDonough.

When I parked near the convenience store where Dobson’s suspect worked, I realized I was near a pawn shop rumored to be frequented by the Marchesis and their allies. I didn’t think they came there to sell second-hand TVs.

I checked the time. I could easily make this one quick detour and question the pawn shop owner.

4

Devil

The next evening, I got a call from Marco Ricci. The Riccis were rivals of ours, but Marco had split from them a few years ago. Now he ran a pawn shop which, as far as I knew, did some legitimate business. He also worked as a fence for my family and several other criminal operations. I still questioned his loyalty at times, but I had yet to see any proof he was planning to fuck us over.

“What’s up, Marco?”

“I had a cop in here asking questions about Lucien and whether I did business with your family. It wasn’t the guy in charge of the Milano case, though. The guy said he was assisting Detective Murphy, but something seemed off about it.”

“Did you get his name?”

“Yeah, the guy gave me his card. Joseph Daniels. I’ve got a phone number too, and I did some poking around to find out where he lives.”

“Give me his address, and I’ll pay him a visit.” Lucien would be furious if he knew what I was planning, but I was tired of sitting on my ass when it came to his safety. If this Daniels guy was sniffing around when he didn’t have any business to, then I already had something on him. That would make him an easy mark.

Normally I’d ask Angelo to ride along with me. We usually did everything together, but I wasn’t sure letting him at a guy who was gunning for Lucien was a good idea.

“Do you want to join me?” I asked Marco. “I bet breaking into a cop’s house is probably better than whatever you had planned for tonight.”

“Considering I’d planned to sit on my ass in front of the TV with some pizza and beer, I guess so. But your kind of fun usually leads to a fuckload of trouble.”