Chapter 42
42
DAX
“Why didn’t you tell me that Fiona Whitaker, the FBI agent, is also the daughter of Vincent Genovese?”
I was on a video call with Nitro, having left Fiona in the nail salon with Dottie. The place reeked of nail polish and was full of women. A few I recognized from storytime.
I only had eyes for Fiona. I was all in with her. So the little finger wave one of the women gave me made my cheeks heat because I’d read a sex scene to her and roomful of others. I could imagine what a Chippendales dancer felt like after hours.
I got the hell out of there and went back to Jack and Hannah’s place. Grabbing a can of cat food from the stack on the counter, I pulled open the lid and went to his bowl. The sound of the can opening was like a bat signal for Pancake and he came out of wherever he’d been hiding to weave around my ankles.
“I got the hit on the facial recognition. You didn’t ask me to dig deeper,” he replied, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms.
Nitro was mid-thirties, shaggy brown hair, equally shaggy beard. If he put on a flannel and carried an axe, he’d be set for Halloween. The stereotype for hard core nerds like him was thin, pale, and weak. He definitely didn’t fit that mold.
Not Nitro. I wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley. Plus, he was more dangerous with a keyboard because he could get into any database and fuck up your life worse than any punch.
I ground my teeth together, then rinsed the can in the sink and tossed it into the recycle bin.
“Dig deeper,” I ordered.
“Now?”
“Now.”
He sighed but got to work. I heard the clattering of his keyboard as I freshened Pancake’s water bowl.
“Fiona Whitaker. Twenty-nine. Mother: Anne Whitaker Genovese.”
So she took her mother’s maiden name.
“Dead. Father: Vincent Genovese. Serving a life sentence at–holy shit. She put him away.”
I sighed. “Yeah, we missed a few things. I need you to find out who we know on the inside. Same prison. ”
He knew what I was wanting. “On it. I can dig into her banking, mortgage, car payments, credit cards if you want.”
The doorbell rang and I glanced in that direction. It wasn’t Fiona because she didn’t know I was staying here.
“No. I don’t care about any of that. I need you to look into something else.”
“Sure.”
“The Pickle Hole. It’s a pickle shop here in Coal Springs. It’s a front for Fentanyl running. I want to know everything.”
“I thought you were cat sitting for Jack.”
“So did I.”
When I opened the door, I found Brittany on the stoop.
“I thought you were out of town,” I said to her instead of hello.
She gave me a little wave, then pushed past me and into the house. As Hannah’s BFF and lived in town, she was comfortable here. “There’s only so much talk of plaque and gum disease I can take before I lose my mind.”
“I can only imagine.” I’d rather toss dead bodies off a cliff than be a dentist.
“How’s it going here?” she asked. “Thought I’d check in. I got a text that you’re cat sitting.”
“Pancake is still alive, and Hannah and Jack are coming back early.”
Her eyes widened with panic. “What? Why? Is everything okay?”
I held up my hand. “Hannah and Jack are fine. This town? I was supposed to be taking a break. That didn’t work out.”
“What does–”
Nitro cleared his throat. “Dax, um, who’s your friend?”
I angled my phone toward Brittany. “Say hi to Nitro,” I told her.
She looked from me to the phone. Leaned in. Waved at Nitro. “Hi, I’m Brittany.”
“Hannah’s best friend,” Nitro replied. He knew all the players when it came to Jack and Hannah. “Dentist. Former Texan.”
She smiled. There’d been talk once–really, only once when we’d all had a few drinks–that Brittany and I should get together. The two best friends. We’d shared a look over that topic and without a word being spoken between us, silently agreed it was never going to happen.
She was beautiful. High maintenance, but low key. Dark skin, tall and even taller still in the high heels she always wore. Even in Coal Springs, where none were sold.
There was no spark, and we were both fine with that.
“That’s right,” Brittany told him.
“That’s Nitro,” I added. “He’s my tech guy.”
I recognized the gleam in Brittany’s eye. It was the one all the women who’d come into the bookstore got when they looked at me.
Interest.
But thankfully, that gleam was directed at… Nitro?
“ You’re the tech guy,” she said, sounding impressed. She’d probably heard of him before from Hannah, but had never met, even over a video call. “Think you can get my programmable thermostat to work?”
“You missing some heat? I can definitely help with that.”
I’d never, not once, heard Nitro flirt. I rolled my eyes.
“Definitely.” Brittany sure as hell was direct.
“Dax, I’ll hand deliver the info you want. Pass the phone to Brittany.”
With Brittany giving me gimme fingers, I didn’t have any choice.
After twenty minutes of the two of them talking–and hard-core flirting–I forced them to share numbers so they could keep talking and I could get my phone back. Then, I left. If I stayed, I might be witness to some phone sex and I’d already had enough of that with strangers at the bookstore.