Page 81 of The Golden Hour

She smirks. “And you look like such an upstanding citizen.”

I grin, well aware that with my tattoos on display and my hair a week past the boundary between disheveled and derelict, I look like I belong back here.

“Now now, Detective, by this point in your career I’m sure you’ve learned not to judge a book by its cover.”

She sobers immediately, her gaze flickering to Callisto. “Damn right I have.” She shakes her head, eyes back on the road. “She sure doesn’t look like undercover material, but I gotta say her performance that night was flawless.”

“So you’ve said.”

I’m still sore about Callisto leaving with no word and putting herself in massive danger, but I’m learning to live with it. She saved my mom’s life and probably mine. And she did it the right way, calling Wilson from her burner phone after she left the loft.

But there’s still a lot I don’t understand.

Seizing the opportunity, I ask, “How did you know?”

Her brows lift. “What do you mean?”

“You had to have known something was going down that night. Don’t bother trying to convince me you called the cavalry and had them in place within twenty minutes of Callisto calling you. So, how did you know?”

After a weighted pause, she says, “This stays in the car, understood?”

“Absolutely.”

“A tip came in a few hours before Callisto received that text. It came to my desk because the call was placed from the Avellino home. The person identified themselves as a member of the staff and said they’d seen an unconscious woman being dragged upstairs, and that Enzo and Franco Avellino were carrying guns.”

“Selina Hernandez?” I guess.

Wilson scowls. “I’m not going to ask how you know that.”

“Good idea,” I agree. “And I’ll forget her name.”

“Good.” After a long silence, she adds softly, “It’s not her real name, actually. She came to the station a few days ago to give her statement, and apparently you’re not the only would-be vigilante with a grudge against the Avellinos. Her mother nannied for the girls for almost seven years. Most of her childhood. One day, her mother didn’t come home from work. When she and her father raised hell, the family’s lawyers released a statement that the nanny had been fired for stealing and probably run off. The missing person’s case was buried.”

“Christ, that family is fucking evil.”

Callisto stirs in response to my sudden tension. I force my shoulders to relax and stroke her soft cheek until she settles.

“They are,” agrees Wilson. “But at least Los Angeles is free of them. And we won’t have an Avellino in charge of our state.”

Her words make me think of Callisto’s second cousins. One murdered for being gay, the other for running away from the family.

“What about the other Avellinos? In Chicago?”

Wilson shifts in her seat, putting on the blinker. I recognize the area—we’re almost there. Sure enough, when we turn a corner, I see a row of news vans. Reporters and cameramen mill thickly near a chain-link fence.

“I know you’re worried about them retaliating, Finn, but trust me, you don’t have to be. Even before Rafael’s death, the families rarely spoke. And since Vivian has been in charge there’s been no contact. I don’t think they approved of her.” She must notice my frown, because she adds, “That’s classified information straight from the FBI wiretaps, by the way.”

It helps. A little. I still want to take Callisto away. Chop off her hair. Change her name. Tattoo her face. Okay, maybe not that. But I might make her wear fake glasses again. Be my Nerdy Snow White.

Wilson passes a police barricade and navigates the long driveway, then pulls to a stop between two police cruisers. Car in park, she turns to face me.

“I want you to know that when Callisto called me and told me what she was doing, she wouldn’t listen to reason. I was livid. I would never put a civilian in that kind of position willingly.”

I smile in spite of myself. “She’s kinda stubborn, huh?”

“To put it mildly.” Glancing at Callisto, her gaze softens with admiration. “She knew she was being tracked via the cell phone Vivian gave her, so I had to jump in the car with her at a stoplight to get the wire on her. It wasn’t pretty, but it did the trick. Her idea, by the way. Thanks to her, we have a crystal clear recording of Vivian’s multiple confessions.”

I kiss the top of Callisto’s head.

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