Page 109 of Saving Serena

“Hi, guys,” Winston said.

We echoed the greeting.

Duke leaned forward. “What did you get from Rossi?”

“Nothing,” Winston said. “And we’re not going to. She’s dead.”

A coworker had been murdered. My stomach twisted, and breakfast threatened to come back up. I held my mouth and rushed to the bathroom.

Duke

I staredat the cell phone on the counter for a second. Sophia Rossi being dead upped the stakes.

“The circumstances?” Lucas asked.

Winston sighed. “I can’t know for sure until I get the coroner’s report, but she was found in a canal that the Bratva here likes to use, so draw your own conclusions.”

I stated mine. “It sure points to Yaroslavsky’s brother doing the dirty work and getting the intel out of her. And it would explain why he said he couldn’t double-check his information.”

Lucas asked the next logical question. “Any clues in her apartment?”

“It’s all been boxed up and sent to her parents in Oxnard.”

“I don’t like it,” Lucas said, obviously pissed off. “We need access to that.” He sounded a bit like Lloyd Benson.

“It’s in transit,” Winston said. “And unless you want to track down a UPS truck and hijack it, we’ll have to wait until it arrives and ask her parents to take a look through it.”

Lucas grumbled. “Serena, this makes it fairly certain that Rossi left you something.”

“She isn’t here,” I said, looking toward the bathroom. “The news hit her pretty hard.”

“Okay,” Lucas said. “It’s up to her and Constance to do a thorough check of her workspace for that drive.”

“I’ll tell her.”

Serena returned, still a little green, but better. “Tell me what?”

“This means the search this morning with Constance is very important.”

“I understand.”

As we wrapped up the call, I had the feeling we’d missed an important connection.

Mid-morning,after dropping Serena off at work, I sat in my fake lawyer’s office and doodled factoids on a piece of paper.

My phone rang. It was Lucas.

“What’s up?” I asked in greeting.

“You sure know how to make enemies, Brother.”

“Who did I piss off?” It could be either Zolotarev, because I humiliated his son, or Benson, because I supported his daughter against him.

“Lloyd Benson came to see me.”

“Figures.”

“I just turned down an offer of a million dollars to pull you from the Benson case.”

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