1 Dog Collar Crime (29 page)

Moving slowly, she placed her hand over his. “I’m sorry. I knew this would be hard.”

He stayed silent, his head drooping toward the table. Clearly, he wanted to fight the realization that his father had done this, but he didn’t know where to begin.

After a moment of blazing silence, he looked at her with stormy eyes and she understood, down deep, she understood the rage brewing inside him.

Their fathers had disappointed them in horrible ways.

“I don’t understand how your mother knows my father did this.”

This wasn’t fair to Frankie. He was a journalist. He liked facts—and these facts concerned his family. “My mom said your father asked her to accept a package he would ship from England, and she did. When she opened the package and saw the stones, she got scared. She sealed the box and never told him she had looked.”

“And your mother didn’t tell your father about this package?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I can’t say.”

He dropped his head and let out a huff.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what, Luce? For not trusting me enough to tell me what you’re holding back? Or for accusing my father of lying to me when I asked for his help with the dognappings?”

“I’m sorry for all of it. I didn’t know what else to do, so I came here, hoping we could put our heads together.”

Frankie straightened, closed his eyes and his mouth started to move. Talking to himself. He held up a finger. “Let’s back up.”

“Fine.”

“Even if my father did this—and that’s a big if—why would your mother be involved?”

A reasonable question that he had a right to have answered. The life now pitted her mother against Frankie’s father and, with Frankie’s ironclad loyalty, Lucie didn’t foresee a good outcome. Twenty years’ worth of deception had landed between them. Someone around here needed to be honest.

“Twenty years ago my mother had an affair.”

Frankie’s head snapped back. “No way. Saint Theresa?”

“Yes. With Butcher Bob.”

He burst out laughing. “Butcher Bob? You’re kidding?”

“No. She told me. That’s what started this whole thing. Somehow your dad found out.” Lucie hesitated, put herself in Frankie’s place and tried to imagine hearing about her parent’s filthy blackmail scheme.

My God. She couldn’t get away from the people in this life. How did their bad decisions constantly bring her to a dark place? For years she’d been trying to run, and somehow, she always wound up being reduced to Lucie Rizzo, Mob Princess.

And Frankie never understood her aversion to it. Maybe now he might.

The air in Lucie’s body evaporated. She slapped a hand to her chest to get something, anything, moving.

Then, for some reason, her mind flashed to her missing spreadsheet. Frankie’s father was probably the one who took it. Obviously, he’d used his key to enter the house and hid the bag of stones there. What was to stop him from coming back and grabbing her spreadsheet?

Bastard
. The stolen dogs, the Sammy Spaniel robbery, Frankie’s concussion. His own son. The man was a monster.

Boiling hatred of the life spewed inside her and burned every inch. These damned twisted people. “
Your
father put this whole dognapping mess in motion.”

Frankie, trying to maintain his go-to-guy persona, folded his arms and leaned against the veneer cabinets they’d repainted together. He’d picked a chocolate brown because he thought it was manly. Manly. Thinking back on it, maybe she should have taken that as a sign she’d never live here with him.

On top of those manly cabinets, they now had stolen diamonds and the fact that his father had put her family in harm’s way. The legal implications of harboring stolen property aside, how could she get beyond it all? How would she ever again be able to share a meal with the man knowing what he’d done?

And suddenly, the pressure in her chest erupted. Her heart was literally coming apart and the sharpness of the pain cut into her, forcing a low moan in her throat. She loved Frankie and now it was done. Over. The decision finally made because his father could only think of himself, and not about his son or the people his son loved.

“Hey.” Frankie snapped his fingers in front of her. “You okay?”

No. She wasn’t
okay
. She and Frankie could battle a lot of things, but this one? No chance.

She glanced up, saw the concern in his eyes and realized that once again he had become wedged between her and his family. She wouldn’t ask him to choose. She loved him too much for that. Besides, even if he chose her, she’d have to live with the idea that his father had done this to her. Their children would never know their grandpa because she would refuse to let him be part of their lives.

No win. Not even close. She would have to deal with this alone, because telling anyone what Frankie’s father had done would only cause more hardship. Her father was absolutely out. Who knew what he would do? Particularly about his wife’s affair.

Then there was Joey. He’d go insane, and she couldn’t risk the type of violence that might employ. Not with Frankie caught in the crossfire.

The complications ran deep and left a hollow cavity where Lucie’s stomach should have been. She fisted her hands and her nails bit into the soft flesh of her palms. The prickling brought tears to her eyes. She blinked. Once, twice, three times. Still the tears.
Dammit.

Then she was in Frankie’s arms, sobbing against his chest, her heaving gasps tearing through her, leaving the emotional ruin of her life in a sloppy heap. Finally, the release. “How can this be happening?”

“I’m so sorry,” he said over and over again.

She knew it was true. Frankie didn’t apologize unless he meant it. And really, it wasn’t for him to apologize.
He
wasn’t the one who had literally left her holding the bag.

And yet, here they were, and she had nothing to say. It was all too muddled. She had to think.

In one giant step, she backed away and swiped her palms across her eyes to blot the tears. More fell. She hated it. Hated the weakness. “I have to go.”

“Luce—”

She put up a hand. “I’m sorry I ever involved you in this. I have to figure out what to do.”

He grabbed her before she could scoot out. “Luce, wait.
We
will figure it out. I promise you.”

No. They wouldn’t. She turned back to him, looked into those dark eyes that had always been part of her life, the lean, angular face that had captured her heart at fourteen and then again at twenty-three. So many years together, first as friends, then as lovers. Now it was over. She’d never be able to look at him and not think about what his father had done. Frankie’s loyalty would drive him to find a way to make peace, but in the end, that loyalty would keep him from completely taking her side. And they’d be back to the same old issues.

She squeezed his hand. “I love you, but I need to do this alone.”

“Luce,” he said, his voice more determined. “It’s a shock, no doubt, but we’ll get through it. Don’t throw everything away.”

Silly her, but she wasn’t the one throwing it away. The crazy people in their lives did that. No, this way of life would never fit. Enough was enough.

If she wouldn’t make Frankie choose, she had to. She slid her hand from his.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

Chapter Eighteen

“Dammit!” Frankie roared, the pressure behind his eyes so fierce he pushed his fingers into them and miraculously found no blood seeping through.

Lucie had just walked out of his house—probably his life—and he wasn’t even sure he understood why.

He stuck his bare feet into running shoes and ran the three blocks to Petey’s.

“Ho!” Jimmy said when Frankie stormed through the door. “You’re a mess, kid.”

Ignoring the comment, Frankie, hands on hips and his breath coming in bursts from the sprint, turned to his father. “I need to talk to you. Outside.”

Pop stood, motioned Frankie to the door and followed him to the sidewalk. Not wanting to risk being overheard by any listening devices planted outside Petey’s, Frankie turned left and they strode in silence for a solid block.

Their steps chewed away at the cracked concrete as cars ambled by. Feeling secure that they’d walked far enough, he stopped.

“Straight out. Did you plant stolen diamonds in Joe Rizzo’s house?”

As expected, his father’s face, lit from a street lamp under a darkening sky, remained impassive. Nothing. Frankie waited. One of them would have to give in. Dad stood on the sidewalk, completely at ease after Frankie had just accused him of being a thief.

“What, Frankie?”

Bingo. Evasive action. A non-answer to a simple yes or no question. Suddenly, the frustration and exhaustion from the past weeks curled inside him, shifted to a slithering rage that consumed him. His father had lied.

“All these dognappings. You putting me off when I asked for information. It’s making sense now. Guess what? Theresa found those stones and hid them.”

His father held up his hands. “Whoa.”

Whoa nothing. Frankie was beyond that. “You stole those stones and hid them in Joe’s house. In
Joe’s
house!”

His father held his arms out in a, who-me? gesture. “Frankie.”

Frankie stepped back. He had to. Never in his life had he thought about putting hands on his father. Never. But the fury inside scrambled his brain and thoughts of pounding on the man railed at him.

He bit down hard, sucked the cold evening air through his nose and closed his eyes. “Tell me what you did.”

“Hang on.”

He opened his eyes. “No. Tell me. Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you lied to me when I asked you for help. Worse, you put Lucie in danger.”

Silence stretched between them and the relationship Frankie thought he had with his father began to crumble. Frankie waited. His father finally shook his head and looked at the sidewalk.

“There’s no way around it,” Frankie said. “Not if you don’t want me taking a bag of jewels to the cops.”

That got his father’s attention. He looked up, his eyes burning into Frankie’s. “You’d do that? To your own father?”

“If you brought this mess to Lucie, yes, I’d do it.”

His father stayed quiet for one, two, three seconds. “I hid them there.”

The whooshing of cars on the street, the awning of the hardware store flapping overhead, a bus horn, all amplified inside Frankie’s head and he pressed his fingers against the throb. As sure as he had been that his father was guilty, he wanted him to deny it. Wanted him to explain this insanity.

“You robbed that castle twenty years ago? You’ve been hiding those stones ever since?”

“Frankie—”

“Answer me.”

“Yes.”

“You and who else? The article Lucie found said it was two men.”

“The guy you asked me about? Neil? I did it with his father. His father died last year, told Neil where his share was.”

“Does Joe know?”

His father snorted. “No. It was a side job. Neil’s father came to me with the idea. The castle had just been turned into a museum and didn’t have good security. We jumped on it and split the stash.”

A fierce thought slammed into Frankie. “When we were there, in London, you had me hold a box closed while you taped it. You told me they were souvenirs you were sending home. Did you have me help you pack those diamonds? Your nine-year-old son?”

No answer. He’d take that as a yes. His father had made him an accomplice. At least in Frankie’s opinion.

Frankie folded his arms as the last of his adrenaline rush faded and the cold air blasted his bare arms and legs.
Forgot a jacket
. “You robbed the place, blackmailed Theresa,
then
twenty years later used a house key Joe trusted you with to hide the stuff?”

Silence.

“When did you hide diamonds?”

“After Joe got locked up, I figured the feds would come after me next and since they’d already searched Joe’s house, I thought my share was safe there. All I needed was to hang on to the stones for a while longer. I’ve been holding them, letting time pass so when I fenced them no one would remember the heist. The cash from those jewels would be a nest egg for your mother and me.”

“Don’t think you’ll play me by bringing Ma into this.”

“Just give me the bag and I’ll put it somewhere else.”

Frankie spurted a laugh.
Classic
. “What am I supposed to tell Lucie?” He held his hands out and in a singsong voice said, “Gee, honey, this has been a whole misunderstanding. My father broke into your house, hid the stuff, terrorized you and now I need the bag. Oh, and don’t tell your father.”

“How much does she know?”

“About your involvement?”

His father nodded.

“All of it. Theresa told her when a detective working the dognappings came knocking on their door. You didn’t count on Theresa finding the diamonds and holding out on you. She’s had them the whole damned time. Lucie used
one
stone on a test coat. She never even sold it. Theresa found the rest and swapped them with fakes.”