Chapter 6 #2
Then decided she didn’t want to think about either. Ever again.
Daniel cast his eyes up at the house. Julia followed his gaze, taking in the Beaux-Arts mansion that loomed over the manicured grounds.
Four stories of limestone and glass, a palatial display of excess.
Seven bedrooms. Nine bathrooms. A private gym, a cedar sauna, a theater.
And that was just the house. Beyond the tree line were the tennis courts, the staff quarters, and the garage stocked with luxury European cars.
It was the kind of house that looked like it belonged in a magazine, not in real life.
Daniel let out a low whistle. “This place is insane. Your dad own a bank or something?”
She shook her head. Her father had been a musician, brilliant but broke. After his death, when Julia was six, her mother had apparently made a vow never to marry for love again. Because every marriage after that had been for money.
“Glen’s my stepdad,” she said. “And it’s a finance company.”
Daniel nodded, his gaze drifting to the half-finished gazebo where his coworkers hammered and sawed away. “It’s not your wedding, is it?”
Julia blinked, then let out a short laugh. “Oh, God, no. It’s my sister’s.”
Something in his expression shifted. A barely-there flicker of relief. It was subtle, but she caught it. Which was ridiculous. He didn’t even know her.
A quiet settled between them, the hum of drills and distant chatter filling the space. His eyes flicked over her, not in the way men usually looked at her. It was more like he was trying to figure her out, slot her into some frame of reference that made sense to him.
“So,” he said finally, “you’re a ballerina. For real.”
She nodded. “I’m a corps dancer with the Joffrey.”
Daniel considered that, chewing on his thumbnail. “Does it hurt?”
She frowned. “Does what hurt?”
“When you fall down like that.”
A flicker of embarrassment crept in, but she brushed it off with a shrug. “I’ve been dancing since I was four. I don’t think I have nerve endings in my knees anymore.”
His gaze lingered, not on her knees. Any other time, she might have felt a warning bell go off, a sense of unease creeping in. But she didn’t. Instead, a strange awareness curled through her, a tingling beneath her skin, like a million nerve endings coming back to life.
She scrambled for something to say. “So…how’s your, um, Cuba?”
“’Cuda,” he corrected with a smirk. “And she’s finished. Got wheels and everything. You wanna see her?”
She glanced toward the driveway, assuming that was where it was parked.
“Tomorrow night,” he clarified.
She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to work out if she was understanding him correctly. "Are you asking me out on a date?"
Daniel shrugged. "Maybe. Guess you'll have to come and find out."
Her rational mind jumped in first, fast and firm, running through a checklist of reasons to say no.
She had practice in the morning. She shouldn’t be out late.
And after what had happened with Floyd she definitely shouldn’t be getting into cars with strange men, no matter how charming their smile or soft their voice.
Her fingers curled around the necklace in her palm, knuckles tight. She could feel her heartbeat in her throat.
But then there was the other part of her.
The restless part. The part that hated the silence in that big, echoing house.
The part that couldn’t stand another evening with her mother’s polite concern and veiled disappointment.
The part that had always ached for something else, something bigger than routines and early mornings and chasing a dream that felt more like someone else’s idea of success
And it was that part of her—the one that still hadn’t learned, maybe—that opened her mouth and said, “Okay.”
* * *
Daniel turned the key in the ignition, yanked the gearshift into drive and peeled away from the curb, tires spitting dust as he hit the gas harder than he needed to.
His pulse hammered. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.
One fucking job.
All he had to do was put the fear of God into her. Make sure she kept her mouth shut. Make sure she understood that talking—even thinking about talking—wasn’t an option.
Instead, what had he done?
Asked her out.
Like some lovesick idiot.
He exhaled sharply, bracing his forearms on the wheel, shaking his head at himself. He should’ve walked away the second he’d seen her, left her standing there with her wide, unblinking eyes and that trembling little breath she’d taken when she realized who he was.
But no. Instead of fear, he’d seen something else in those baby blues.
Curiosity.
And worse, something dangerous. Something warm.
He should have shut it down. Instead, the words had slipped out before he even thought about what they meant. Before he considered the consequences.
And there would be consequences.
A rustling sound came from the backseat. Then warm, damp breath panted against his neck.
Daniel cut his eyes to the rearview mirror. Tequila was sitting up, her big tongue hanging sideways, her tail thumping once against the seat.
He sighed. “This is all your fault.”
She blinked at him. Then drooled on his shoulder in silent agreement.
* * *
DEA Special Agent Belinda Weck folded her arms and leaned back against the long trestle table, exhaling through her nose. The overhead fluorescents buzzed softly, casting a sterile glow over the war room.
The whiteboard in front of her was a collage of horror—crime scene photos arranged without any regard to anatomical order.
Some of the remains were still half-wrapped in black plastic bin liners, others were unrecognizable as human at all.
Whoever had taped them up hadn’t bothered trying to piece them together. No point.
Belinda’s expression tightened, but not from squeamishness.
She’d spent years in the DEA’s satellite field office in Ciudad Juárez during the late ’90s, when the gang bloodshed was at its worst. She knew what the drug trade did to people.
She’d seen its consequences stacked in morgues, buried in mass graves, hung from bridges.
But there was something about seeing a person reduced to so many chunks that still got to her.
The speakerphone on the table crackled to life, cutting through her thoughts. “What are we looking at?” came the voice of AUSA Malcolm Oates, calling in from his ivory tower at the Dirksen Federal Building.
Belinda exhaled. “Well, right now, I’m looking at about three-quarters of a man formerly known as Floyd Monaghan.”
A pause. Then, dryly: “Where’s the last quarter?”
She glanced at the photos again. “Still digging him out. Thankfully, the dumpsters on the South Side don’t get emptied too often.” She reached for a manila folder and flipped it open. “Doubt they’ll ever find the hands or the teeth, though.”
Oates sighed. “Of course not.”
“Luckily,” she continued, “the guy had titanium screws in his left tibia from a skiing accident a few years back. The coroner traced the serial numbers and got an ID that way.”
“So who was he?”
“Floyd Monaghan. Twenty-eight. DJ from Salt Lake City. Popular, apparently.”
“I’ve never heard of him.”
Belinda resisted rolling her eyes. Oates was a forty-three-year-old Black man who wore tailored suits and listened to Coltrane. He was hardly the target audience for whatever Monaghan had been spinning.
“He had a hit last summer. Remix of that Bee Gees song,” she offered.
“‘More Than A Woman’?”
“‘Stayin’ Alive’.”
A short, amused exhale from the speaker. “You want to say it, or should I?”
“It’s been said,” she muttered. “Several times today.”
She flipped another page. “Monaghan was touring, doing clubs and festivals across the country. Three shows in Chicago. Last one was at a club in the Loop called Code. His manager reported him missing two days later. That was a week and a half ago.” She turned her gaze back to the photos on the board.
“Fast forward to two days ago, and he’s in a bunch of trash bags in Canaryville. ”
Oates sniffed. “Tragic. But what’s it got to do with us?”
“It hit our radar because the last place Monaghan was seen was a well-known LMN shooting gallery in South Lawndale. Place has a reputation for wild parties.”
A pause. Then she added, “And it’s also known to us as the long-time abode of one Daniel Castano.”
Silence.
Belinda could feel Oates sitting up straighter in his chair.
“You have witnesses placing Monaghan there?”
“Not good ones,” she admitted. “Most of the people at that house that night were in no state to remember their own names, let alone who came and went. And those who do remember?” She shook her head.
“Not exactly lining up to talk. Even the ones who don’t owe LMN a damn thing aren’t willing to get involved. ”
Oates let out a slow breath. “And yet, you’re telling me we do have something.”
Belinda tapped the folder against the table. “Not yet. But we will. Someone saw something. Someone always does.”