Page 62 of Golden Touch
“I should be there,” he says.
“Twenty-four seven?” I counter. “That’s not practical. We need cameras and motion-sensitive lights. So I took care of that today. New locks, too.”
He scowls. “How much of my money are you spending?”
“I spent what was necessary,” I say firmly. “The place is a tinderbox—full of old wood. And starting over from nothing but ashes is not how a man stays relevant.”
Now he looks thoughtful instead of angry, so I guess that’s progress. “All right. You call the police?”
“Of course. Benito added a couple cameras to my order—on his tab. Apparently, he wants these guys for some drug deal or something. They’re dangerous people. This isn’t a drill.”
He closes his eyes. “Wish I knew that when I hired that girl.”
“Seriously? Tell me with a straight face that you wouldn’t have hired her anyway. She’s the backbone of your operation.”
“Fuck.” He blinks his eyes open and sighs. “Yeah, I guess I would have. Just don’t need this right now. Sounds complicated. And expensive.”
“But youdoneed these upgrades. And Dad? I know how receptive you are to my ideas…”
He snorts.
“But if you ever want to hear a few other ways you could save money by making your operation more efficient…”
“No,” he says sharply. “Nothing wrong with my operation.”
Right. “Glad to hear it,” I say drily.
Some things never change.
CHAPTER 26
LIVIA
“The club is based in Rutland, and I worked out of their offices.”
Officer Benito Rossi sits across the table, scribbling notes on a legal pad. And I use the moment to take a gulp of water.
He’s not interrogating me by any stretch, but talking about Razor is excruciating. And talking about what I put up with in Rutland makes me feel wildly uncomfortable, even sitting here with a cop in my own kitchen.
“Can you tell me the exact address of the office where they keep the books?” he asks.
I wipe my clammy hands on my jeans under the table and then rattle off the address. “The office is in the same building as the repair shop with a separate entrance in back. Razor lives in the little house next door—to the right, if you’re facing the shop. There’s a driveway separating the two properties. And the clubhouse is on the opposite side—to the left of the repair shop.”
“Okay…” Benito taps his pen on the pad. “Would you say the shop is busy? Lots of customers?”
“Yes, and no?” I shrug. “There were always a couple of bikes in the service bays. But it’s hard to tell how much business gets done, because there are always guys dropping by just to chat. And I wasn’t very interested in the repair business.”
“Not a motorcycle girl?” He smiles warmly.
I shake my head. It’s obvious that he’s trying to appear calm and open. Like this conversation isn’t a big deal. It is, though. I live for the day when Razor goes to jail, yet my stomach clenches every time I think about taking the witness stand. He’s a slippery guy with lots of violent friends, and I’m not sure how this situation can end well for me.
“Let’s back up. How did you meet Razor, and how did you end up working for him and the motorcycle club?”
Now we’re getting into the meat of the story. “I met Razor in a bar a year ago last fall. He asked me out, and we started casually dating. He was…” I search for the right words. “He wasverygood to me. Attentive. Fun. Flattering. Generous. Now I recognize it as love-bombing.”
Benito’s pen pauses on the page. “What does that mean to you?”
“Um…”It means I’m a fool. “He laid it on thick. Said I was the most interesting woman he’d ever met. Told me I was smart and pretty. The whole package…” I can feel my face burning as I say this. “I fell for it. I wanted to believe everything he said. But he was really just buttering me up. In the spring, my lease was up, and he’d asked me to move in with him. At the same time, he also brought up the possibility of doing the books for the club’s Rutland shop.”
