Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Sunday morning dawned gray and drizzly, the kind of November weather that made you want to stay in bed with the covers pulled over your head. I might have done exactly that if Edwina hadn’t decided that seven-thirty was the perfect time to start whining.
“All right, all right,” I muttered, throwing back the duvet and padding across the carpet in my bare feet. “Give me a minute.”
Edwina’s complaints intensified, accompanied by the scrabbling of paws against the hardwood.
I opened the door and she shot past me like a furry bullet, heading straight for the stairs.
I followed more slowly, wrapping my robe around me as I went.
The house was cold—I’d turned the heat down before bed—and I made a mental note to have someone come out and check the furnace before winter really set in.
By the time I made it downstairs, Edwina was doing her little dance by the back door, the one that meant nature was calling and it was calling urgently.
“I’m coming,” I told her, hurrying across the kitchen to let her out into the backyard.
She darted through the door the second I opened it, barely waiting for the gap to be wide enough to accommodate her compact body. I watched her race across the terrace and onto the grass, then turned away to measure grounds and fill the reservoir of the coffee maker with water.
The appliance gurgled to life, and I moved on to filling Edwina’s bowls with food and water while I waited for the Boston Terrier to finish her business and come back to the door.
I should call Rachel, I reflected, and let her know what had happened. She deserved to hear it from me rather than reading about it in the paper or seeing it on the news, and unlike Zachary, it probably wouldn’t ruin the rest of her weekend.
Edwina let out a peremptory bark, and I let her back in. She trotted past me to her food bowl, and I retreated to the kitchen island with my phone while the coffee finished brewing.
Rachel answered on the third ring, sounding slightly breathless. “Gina? Is everything all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Sorry to call so early. Were you in the middle of something?”
“Nothing I’m going to tell you about,” Rachel said.
Ugh. “No, please don’t. I don’t want to know what you and Daniel get up to in your spare time.”
“Then don’t ask,” Rachel said. It sounded like she was getting comfortable. “What’s going on?”
“It’s about the Costanza case. I need to fill you in on what happened yesterday.”
There was a pause. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“It isn’t.” I took a breath. “Nick’s dead, Rachel. Someone killed him.”
“Jesus.” The word came out as a whisper. “Who? It wasn’t Jacquie, was it?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I found the body yesterday morning. I went to his place to look for him, or rather, to see if Megan was there with him.”
“And was she?”
“No. And that’s something else I need to tell you. But first—”
“Yes,” Rachel agreed, “let’s stick to one thing at a time. So you found Nick.”
“Dead in bed with a bullet hole in his forehead.”
Rachel made a sound, almost as if I’d socked her in the stomach. But she didn’t say anything else, so I continued. “I called Mendoza, but he couldn’t take the case, because he’s working undercover at Sambuca. He brought in his lieutenant, and then he and I went to tell Jacquie about Nick.”
There was a pause while Rachel processed all this. In justice to her, it was a lot of information.
“Jaime’s working undercover at a restaurant?” she asked eventually. “When did you find that out?”
“Last night, during dinner with Greg. It wasn’t pretty.”
I could tell from her voice that she was smirking. “I can imagine. That’s also part of the other stuff you have to tell me, I assume.”
I agreed that it was.
“Later, then. So you called him, and he called his lieutenant, and then the two of you went to talk to Jacquie about Nick being dead. And how did she take it?”
“Not well.” I paused. “Or she’s a really good actress. Mendoza seems to thinks she might have killed him.”
Rachel was quiet for a moment. “What do you think?”
I could tell that the idea that out client might be guilty didn’t sit any easier with her than it did with me.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “She seemed genuine to me. Then again, the girlfriend is always a suspect, right?”
Rachel grunted.
“But there’s more to it than that,” I added. “Turns out Nick was mixed up with the mob in some sort of money laundering operation, and—”
“Mob?” Rachel’s voice rose, and I winced. “Gina, what have you gotten us into?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “I mean, yes, the mob, but we’re not involved. Mendoza’s working on it. And there’s an undercover cop at the Body Shop too—the blonde, Megan. She’s Mendoza’s partner. Or so I assume. He hasn’t actually confirmed that. But it all hangs together.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Rachel said.
“Good.” Because I didn’t feel like explaining it in more detail than I’d already done. “The point is, this is way bigger than Nick possibly cheating on Jacquie. But that, or his murder, is not our concern. I just wanted to let you know what happened.”
There was a beat. “What about Zachary?” Rachel asked. “Have you told him?”
“About the mob connection,” I said. “It scared him.”
“I’m not surprised. It scares me too. And after what happened in September…”
I nodded. “I told him to take the weekend off and that we’d withdraw from the case on Monday, and give Jacquie her money back. That was before I knew about Nick, obviously.”
“Obviously. So what do we do now? Do we call and tell him?”
I thought about it. Zachary did need to know, of course. He was part of the firm and had been working on the case the same way I had been. But was there any point in ruining the rest of his weekend with news that would only scare him further?
“Let’s wait until tomorrow,” I said. “If we tell him now, he’ll just spend the rest of the day feeling guilty about following Nick home Friday night and not doing anything to prevent him being shot.”
“As if there was anything he could have done,” Rachel huffed.
“Even so. You know what he’s like.”
“I do. All right. Tomorrow morning, then. You’ll fill us both in on everything?”
“Every detail,” I promised.
“I can’t wait.” Rachel’s tone was dry. “All right. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.”
“Bright and early,” I confirmed. “Enjoy the rest of your weekend.”
“You too. And Gina? Be careful.”
“Always,” I lied, and hung up.
The coffee was ready by the time I put the phone down.
I poured myself a cup, added cream and sugar, and stood at the counter sipping it while I stared out the window at the mostly bare branches bisecting the gray sky.
The whole day stretched in front of me with nothing to do but mull over the murder and take Edwina for walks.
How had I ended up here? Four months ago, I’d been a happily married trophy wife with a reasonably-doting husband and a full life.
All right, so maybe my husband had had a mistress on the side that I hadn’t known about, and maybe I’d been bored a lot because he always ‘worked late’…
but I hadn’t realized any of that. And now here I was, with only a Boston Terrier for company while Rachel had Daniel and Zachary had whoever his current roommate was, and Mendoza had his undercover job, and Elias and maybe Megan, and Jacquie…
And that’s where I ran out of self pity.
I might be alone, but at least my boyfriend hadn’t been killed yesterday.
David’s death had happened months ago, and I hadn’t grieved much then.
I was better off now than I’d been six months ago in almost every way.
So what if I was bored and alone on a Sunday morning?
I had my life and my health—and my dog—and we could find something to do if we tried.
There were people much worse off than me.
My phone rang again, and I glanced at the screen expecting it to be Rachel calling back with a follow-up question.
It wasn’t. It was Greg instead. Someone I hadn’t thought to mention in my mental lineup of blessings. What did that tell me?
Nothing I wanted to ponder at the moment, I decided, as I answered the call. “This is Gina.”
“Morning, gorgeous.” His voice was bright and warm and sunny. “How are you?”
“Tired,” I admitted. “It’s been a long weekend already.”
“I can imagine. Listen, I was thinking—” He cleared his throat.
“I don’t have any plans for today, and I’d like to spend some time with you.
If you need company for your surveillance, I’m available.
I make an excellent lookout, and I promise to bring better snacks than you usually pack for these things. ”
I had to smile despite everything. “That’s sweet of you, but I’m not doing any surveillance today. The case has sort of... imploded.”
He blinked. I could hear it even through the phone. “Imploded how?”
“Nick’s dead,” I said bluntly. “Shot in his bed two nights ago.”
There was a beat of silence. “Christ, Gina. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Shaken, but fine.”
“Did you—” He stopped, then started again. “Were you there when it happened? Outside, I mean? Did it happen while you were watching him?”
“No.” And thank God for that, because then I really would feel guilty. “No, I found him after he was dead. The next morning. When I went to talk to him.”
Another pause. “That’s the second body you’ve found since I met you.”
Yes, it was. There had been a couple before that, too.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Greg asked.
“Not particularly. Not right now, anyway.”
“Fair enough.” His voice was warm, understanding. “How about dinner instead? We can go somewhere nice, somewhere that isn’t Sambuca. We’ll have a good meal, and you can either tell me all about it, or we can talk about literally anything else.”
I hesitated. Part of me wanted to say no, because going out and having frivolous fun with a nice man while my client was mourning the boyfriend I’d been tasked with keeping an eye on felt disrespectful somehow.