Page 34 of Craving Vengeance
She nodded. “I’m sure. Sorry.”
He believed her. He also believed she mourned Tony’s death more than she let on, and he understood.
Sonny made his way back to their end of the bar. “Sorry, it’s kind of busy in here tonight.”
“No problem,” Spinelli cut to the chase, “any chance you know anything about the escort business Tony was running?”
Sonny shot Judy a sideways glance then he looked back at Spinelli. “I’d heard rumors.”
“So, you don’t know for sure?”
Sonny shook his head. “Not my business. I hired him to tend bar, and, as far as I’m concerned, as long as he did that well, we had no problem. If you don’t need me for anything else, I’ll get back to waiting on my customers.”
Spinelli was confident Sonny knew something about Tony’s extracurricular activities but probably not much. He seemed like the kind of guy that would just look the other way as long as it didn’t affect him, and evidently, from Sonny’s abrupt end to their conversation, he was done talking about it.
Spinelli, Walker, and Shannon climbed back into the unmarked. Spinelli and Walker debated what to do next. Perhaps if they talked with Mike Carter’s sister again, she could shed some more light on what he’d been doing with his time lately. At least they could now link the first three cupids together, but there was still no link between them and Joshua Meyers.
Walker signaled and pulled into traffic. Spinelli glanced down at his watch; it was nearly 10:00 p.m. He’d call Cindy Carter first thing in the morning.
Shannon sat silently in the backseat. She’d hardly spoken a word since they’d left the precinct.
This wasn’t at all the Valentine’s Day Spinelli had planned. He thought about the ring in his pocket. He thought about Shannon kissing Dr. Joshua. His chest hollowed as he recalled the sight of her soft sweet lips touching those of another man. He squeezed his eyes shut hoping to extinguish the unbearable image in his mind. Her lips were meant for him, and only him, as his were for her. He believed her when she said she told Joshua she was seeing someone else, yet his heart still ached at the thought she’d been engaged before. Why did it bother him so much? After all, he had a life before he met her as well.
Spinelli’s cell phone buzzed, knocking him out of his trance. He pulled it from its holder on his hip. Marsh’s face flashed across the screen. “Spinelli here.”
“Yeah, Spinelli, I think I found a connection between Carter and Rosso,” Marsh said in a proud tone.
“We got lucky on this end as well. Both Sonny Tomes and one of his regulars have seen Carter and Williams at the bar talking with Rosso at one time or another.”
“Oh,” Marsh responded with a tinge of disappointment in his tone. Spinelli figured Marsh was hoping he’d be the hero.
“We’re only a couple of minutes out. We’ll talk when we get back.”
“Okay.”
Walker glanced over his shoulder. “You’re kind of quiet, Shannon, you doing okay?”
Spinelli turned his head slightly and caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye. She looked pale, sad, and exhausted. He knew he was being a dick and should have been the one to ask her if she was okay, but he just couldn’t seem to bring himself to do so. He caught a sideways glance from Walker, confirming his dick status.
Shannon sighed. Her shoulders slumped. “I’m fine. It’s all just a bit overwhelming.”
“Yeah. Try not to worry. We’ll get to the bottom of this,” Walker assured, beating Spinelli to it again.
Big fluffy snowflakes fell from the sky as Walker parked the unmarked. The second Spinelli slid out of the car, the crisp, cold, raw wind picked up and slapped him in the face, sending the falling snowflakes sideways and into his eyes. A small set of hands wrapped around his bicep. He didn’t need to be able to see to know whose they were. An electrical sensation shot through his arm and then whipped through the rest of his body, instantly warming him in the blustery wind and twenty-degree temperature.
He looked down, catching a glimpse of Shannon’s tall red boots, sexy as all get out, but not really made for walking on ice. He slowed his pace to help steady her. He wished he could erase this day and start over. He imagined she wished the same.
Marsh looked up from his table full of laptops when they pushed through the door of the precinct.
“What did you find?” Spinelli asked as he shrugged out of his coat and flung it on the back of his chair.
Marsh pointed at some papers on the table. “Lisa in the IT Department actually found it. After she ran the keystroke program on Chad Williams’ computer, she decided to add some sort of filter or query to look for repeat words. Evidently, the word ‘angelfish’ kept showing up. She traced the word to several email files addressed to ‘Angelfish.’ Now, the emails are pretty vague, almost as if the people were typing in code or something, but every email seems to reference dates and times. So then I checked Carter’s laptop for similar emails, and voila, he had some email correspondence with this ‘Angelfish’ as well. And in the last email between the two, ‘Angelfish’ told Carter to dress as cupid for his meeting.” Marsh sighed. “Oddly, Rosso’s laptop shows no emails to or from ‘Angelfish,’ but maybe he has another computer or device we didn’t find.”
Marsh paused and looked at Spinelli as if he should know exactly what he was talking about.
“How exactly then are you tying Rosso into these emails?” Spinelli asked.
Marsh rolled his eyes. “For chrissake. Don’t you get it? He’s ‘Angelfish.’ It’s so evident.”
