Chapter Four
Nico silently groaned, and he looked at Callie to explain. Only to realize he couldn’t. Not fully anyway in front of Dante and his father. But he could give her a small portion of what he wanted her to know.
“Estie is my ex-girlfriend,” Nico clarified, emphasizing the ex part.
Why he bothered to do that, Nico didn’t know. It was obvious that Callie wasn’t interested in rekindling anything with him.
Well, her mind and heart weren’t anyway.
Her body might be. He’d seen that heat in her eyes. But just because there was heat, that didn’t mean they were going to pick up where they’d left off.
Even if his own body was interested in that as well.
That heat and the possibility of rekindling it were off the table. And it’d stay off as long as they had a killer breathing down their necks.
A killer who might be standing right in front of him.
Nico didn’t trust Dante one bit, and it was obvious the asshole was trying to put a wedge between Callie and him. But why? Was this just part of his general asshole behavior, or was Dante trying to distract them on this investigation? Nico wished he knew the answer.
Dante’s phone rang, and when his cousin glanced at the screen, some alarm seemed to wash over his face. “I need to take this,” he said, moving quickly to the door to step out of the office.
Nico considered going after him but figured no way would Dante actually say anything incriminating with him around. Besides, Nico had some damage control to do here. Not just with Callie but with his father.
“Estie and you?” Stefano questioned, and there was no doubting from his expression that he not only knew Estie but disapproved of Nico having a relationship with her. “The woman’s bad news,” he tacked onto that.
She was indeed, but Nico couldn’t spell out that without also explaining why he’d hooked up with Estie in the first place. “I ended things with her months ago,” Nico settled for saying.
“You should have never started up with her in the first place.” Stefano huffed. “Do not follow in my footsteps. It’ll get you killed.”
Yeah, and so could being an undercover FBI agent, but Nico couldn’t voice that. Instead, he went with a nod and slipped his arm around Callie. He wanted to kick up this pretense some and hopefully get the word out to The Fixer that Callie wasn’t a target.
“I’m back with Callie now,” Nico said. “I’m hoping once Estie realizes that, she’ll quit calling and texting me. That she’ll quit telling people that she’s my fiancée. I think she’s doing that to try to tap into your former circle of friends and business associates.”
His father’s eyes narrowed, and he nodded. “I can set her straight.”
Good. That’d been exactly what Nico had hoped for. Maybe it would be enough to protect Callie, and it’d have the added benefit of perhaps stopping Estie’s attempts to stay in touch with him.
Stefano’s phone beeped, and he frowned when he glanced at the message. “It’s an alert from my security system. Apparently, Dante left the house and is now driving away.”
Hell. Nico wasn’t done questioning him. Dante must have gotten some urgent news in that call.
His father glanced around his office. “Dante was alone in here while I went to the front to let the two of you in,” he whispered. “Why don’t Callie and you step out while I sweep the room for bugs?”
“Bugs?” Callie repeated, also whispering. “You’d think your nephew would plant a listening device…” But she stopped and waved that off. “Of course, he would.”
Nico couldn’t agree fast enough, and while he hadn’t said anything he wouldn’t have wanted Dante to hear, he also didn’t want him privy to the conversation he needed to have with Callie.
“This way,” Nico said, motioning for Callie to follow him.
“Your ex-girlfriend, Estie, sounds like a real prize,” she commented as they made their way out of the office. They left his father behind to scan for that listening device.
“Along with being a ruthless wannabe crime boss, she’s probably a psychopath,” he muttered.
He didn’t add anything else until they were in his favorite spot in the house. The game room that his mom had set up for Jemma and him when they’d been teenagers. It still had a huge screen TV and wide leather chairs where they’d spent plenty of time battling various game villains.
“A psychopath?” Callie questioned.
Nico held up his hand in a wait a second gesture, and he took out his phone. He hit the app that was labeled as an exercise tracker, and he used it to scan the room.
“No bugs,” he concluded when he didn’t get the taletell beep to alert him to one. “I didn’t want to use this around my dad because then I’d have to explain why I have it.”
She made a sound of agreement, but it had an impatient ring to it. Perhaps because she wanted him to get on with his explanation.
Nico complied. “And, yes, Estie’s likely a psychopath. My relationship with her was an assignment to gather info on a business deal she was trying to put together.” The sale of illegal arms and other assorted things. “I got the info, and the deal was shut down in a way that didn’t point back to me. Then, I ended things with her.”
Callie stared at him. “And how did Estie take the breakup?”
He was a little surprised that was her first question. Nico had thought she might want to know more of the details of the undercover part. Especially the part about his playing the woman’s boyfriend.
“Estie didn’t care much for it,” he admitted. “I was serious about her calling and texting me, but it’s not because she wants to get back together with me. Just the opposite. In her last text she called me a heartbreaking asswipe and she hoped my dick fell off.”
Callie didn’t outwardly react to that, but she latched right on to a possibility that Nico had already considered. “Maybe Estie’s the one who tried to kill you. And since Morrelli had worked for her, she could have had him murdered and then used it to try to set you up?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. All of that was possible, and he’d need to fill Owen in on that so he’d have all the key info for who might have murdered Morrelli.
His phone rang, and since he was still holding it, Nico immediately saw the name on the screen. Bob. “It’s my handler, Yancy Dylan,” he explained to Callie.
He didn’t put the call on speaker, but he also didn’t step away from her when he answered.
“That time and date work for me,” Nico said, code to let Yancy know it was safe for them to talk.
Callie was no doubt listening to his side of the conversation anyway, but she also took out her own phone, and he saw her type in Estie’s name. Callie was running the woman’s background.
“Thanks for the text heads up about Morrelli,” Yancy said. “You managed to hit send before you were arrested?”
“I did.” Barely. Callie had been damn fast getting to him. “I had to fill the arresting officer on…some things.”
“Deputy Callie Brandon,” Yancy provided. “Yes, Owen explained. You can trust her?”
Nico refrained from saying something overly dramatic like “I trust her with my life.” But it was true. Callie was a cop to the bone, and now that she knew he was a target, she would take a bullet for him.
Of course, Nico had no intention of letting that happen.
“I trust her,” Nico assured his handler.
“Good. But share only as much as you have to with her and no more.”
Nico had figured Yancy would say that. But he didn’t like keeping Callie in the dark on any of this. He’d have to walk a fine line with her and hope it didn’t come back to bite him in the ass.
“Dante’s vehicle was just spotted on a traffic camera so I know he’s no longer at the estate,” Yancy continued a moment later. “Did he give you anything useful before he left?”
“Maybe. He seemed eager to put a wedge between Callie and me. That could be because he’s worried she’ll be able to connect him to Morrelli’s murder.”
Yancy was quiet a moment, and Nico saw Callie begin to scroll through whatever it was she’d pulled up on Estie. “Can she connect Dante to the murder?” Nico came out and asked.
“Possibly, especially if Dante is the one who actually killed him. The timing is suspicious for him to be at your family’s estate. According to my sources, he hasn’t visited there in months, and the day he shows up, we have a dead informant.”
“An informant who might have wanted to spill something about Dante,” Nico tacked onto that.
Yes, the timing was indeed suspicious.
But there was also a problem with it.
Nico just couldn’t see Dante doing his own dirty work. His cousin was more likely to hire a hitman. So, why not put some distance between himself and the person he had hired? Why show up less than a mile from where Morrelli had been murdered?
It made Nico wonder if Dante was the one being set up here and if so, who was trying to get him in hot water?
“Owen and I have agreed that any updates I get on the Morrelli investigation should come through you,” Yancy continued. “That’ll minimize the chances of someone at the police station there overhearing him talking to me. Owen insists he trusts every one of his cops, but it’s a huge risk to your life if your cover is blown.”
Nico couldn’t argue with that. It would be a risk, a potentially deadly one, but he didn’t believe there’d be any leak coming from someone who worked for Owen. The man was the top dog at a multimillion-dollar security company. Emphasis on security . Nico trusted Owen as much as he did Callie.
“What’s your next move?” Yancy asked him. “Where are you going when you leave the estate?”
“I want to have another look at the murder scene. I obviously can’t just show up there without drawing a lot of attention so I was going to ask Callie to do it. Maybe record it or get some pictures.”
The bottom line was they needed to find out who murdered Morrelli and then try to link that back to the Guardian Angel who was protecting Seth.
“Update me when you have something,” Yancy told him in his usual all-business, no-nonsense tone, and he ended the call.
Callie immediately held up her phone to show him the search she’d done on Estie. “As your father said, the woman is bad news. Linked to more than a dozen illegal operations and other assorted crimes.” She paused only long enough to pull in a quick breath. “You actually had sex with her while you were pretending to be her boyfriend?” she asked.
Nico nearly smiled. Why, he didn’t know. Callie probably wasn’t requesting the info because she was jealous.
“No,” he assured her. “There wasn’t any sex.” Though Estie had pressed, and pressed, for it. “I convinced her that I had a medical problem with that and that I was in treatment.”
Callie stared at him. “And she believed you?”
“She did after I let her access a fake file set up with a sex therapist,” Nico explained.
Callie stayed quiet a moment. “That must have been hard to let her believe you couldn’t…” She stopped, muttered some profanity when she realized her word choice.
“Get hard?” he finished for her.
Nico smiled.
And it was obvious she had to fight one, too, but she quickly regained her composure. “Yes, that. I’d imagine that isn’t something a guy would want to admit even if it’s for the benefit of an undercover assignment.”
“True. But I also knew she wasn’t with me primarily for sex. It was to try to tap into my father’s connections. So, we were both using each other. Estie just didn’t know that. Well, probably not,” he amended.
“And if she had known, she could have killed Morrelli and tried to set you up,” Callie finished for him.
Yeah, and that was going to chew away at him until he had a definitive answer about that. The problem? Getting the truth from Estie was never an easy assignment, and it would be next to impossible now that he had ended their so-called relationship.
Callie’s phone rang, and she muttered, “It’s Owen,” when she looked at the screen. Thankfully, she put the call on speaker. “Nico’s here with me,” she added to her boss.
“Good. It’ll save me from having to brief him. We might have gotten lucky,” Owen immediately said. “Ida Wortham was out looking for her dog that got loose again, and she spotted an older model dark blue Ford truck less than a half mile from where Morrelli’s body was found.”
Nico knew the woman since she owned a small horse ranch not too far from the estate. Technically, she was their nearest neighbor.
“Did she see the driver?” Callie asked.
“She got a glimpse of him,” Owen replied. “It was a white male. Bald. With a muscular build. Ida didn’t recognize him, but she recalled the four numbers on the license plate were the same as the first four digits of her zip code. I had my techs do a search on that, and they came up with a vehicle matching that description that belongs to a Tucker Langston.”
Nico repeated the name and shook his head. Callie didn’t seem to recognize it either. “Who is he?” Nico asked.
“A bouncer from Austin. Age twenty-eight. He did a two-year stint in prison for cybercrimes and hacking.”
Well, that time in jail would explain his using the term, stainless steel ride. It could have been something the man had picked up there.
“We can’t find any immediate family or business connections for him in Outlaw Ridge,” Owen went on, “but the techs are digging. I’ve also got people trying to track him down so we can interview him. FYI, according to Tucker’s latest DMV photo, he’s not bald so if he was driving that truck, he must have shaved his head.”
Nico considered the man could have done that as sort of a disguise. Though it wasn’t very bright to use his own vehicle if he had driven to Outlaw Ridge to go after Morrelli.
“You want me to help locate this man?” Callie asked.
“No. I’ll handle that. For now, I want Nico and you off the radar for a bit. Not here at the station either. I don’t want anyone getting suspicious about why Nico might be hanging around. Find a private place to work, and I’ll start sending you the data we have on this Tucker Langston.”
“We can use my house,” Callie muttered, and he heard the dread in her voice. She had probably hoped to put some distance between them, but that wasn’t going to happen until Nico was sure word was out that would prevent The Fixer from coming after her.
“How’d the interview go with Dante?” Owen asked.
“A mixed bag,” Nico explained. “But Dante did give us a lead. He claimed that Morrelli had worked for Estella Harrington.”
“Jesus,” Owen grumbled. “How the hell did he tangle up with the likes of her?”
So, Owen knew her. Of course, he did. Anyone who ran a security operation like Strike Force was aware of the criminal elements in the Austin area, and Estie was as criminal as they came.
“You think Estie had Morrelli murdered?” Owen asked.
“It’s something we’re considering,” Nico verified. “It’s also possible Dante threw out her name to get suspicion off himself. We just need to do some more digging.”
And being under the radar would help with that. It’d give him the time to hopefully ID a killer and get him or her behind bars.
“Watch your backs,” Owen reminded them before he ended the call.
Gathering his breath, Nico put his phone away. “Your place,” he said.
She pulled in a breath, too and nodded. Yeah, there was dread in her eyes, and he wished he could guarantee that the old attraction between them wouldn’t rear its head when they were sharing close quarters.
But he couldn’t.
Nope.
He might have years of training and experience, but that wasn’t a match for what he’d once had with Callie.
Cursing that fact and his idiot dick that still wanted Callie, bad, Nico and she went out of the game room and immediately saw his father making a beeline toward them.
“That sonofabitch did plant a bug,” his dad let them know, and he clearly wasn’t pleased about that. “I can have it neutralized if you want to come back into my office.”
“Thanks, but Callie and I need to get going,” Nico explained. “But do me a favor and don’t confront Dante about the bug. Not yet anyway.”
Some of the anger vanished from his father’s eyes. “You want to try to feed Dante some info that’ll dick around with his life?”
Nico smiled. “Something like that.” He gave his dad a pat on the arm, and Callie and he headed toward the front door.
“How are you thinking about using that bug?” Callie asked as they stepped outside and went toward the Hummer.
Nico didn’t get a chance to answer.
Because of the gunshot.