A Righteous Kill (29 page)

He blinked at her, feeling like a sentimental chump.

“I do not allow jackets at my table.” Her smile was penetrating and a little sad, as though she’d just been inside his thoughts.

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” He looked down at his suit coat as though he’d never seen it before. Then undid the buttons before remembering something. “What are your rules regarding firearms?”

Her look said it all, and he stepped out to put his gun holster and jacket on a hook in the entry next to Rown’s. Returning, he stepped around his own seat, pulling it under him and set his napkin on his lap.

“Let us pray.” Izolda reached out and gently took his hand. Hero took the other one.

They lifted their faces, rather than bowed their heads. Luca stared at his hands, encased in the soft palms of two women, and wondered how much deeper down the rabbit hole he could get.

Eoghan prayed. “Oh Mary, conceived without sin, mother of mercy and hope, help every human being of every race and culture find and embrace peace on this, your day of feast. Amen.”

Even Luca mumbled an “amen,” because regardless of his lack of faith, who couldn’t agree with such a request?

Izolda gave his hand a gentle squeeze before she let it go, and Luca couldn’t make himself move until the lamb dish was handed to him.

“The more rare cuts are on the left,” Knox said. “And the medium ones are on the right.”

He dished himself a rare portion and passed the food along, then dug right in.

“So Luca, tell us about your family, do they live close by?” Eoghan asked.

Luca almost choked on the lamb melting in his mouth. Beside him, Hero stiffened. These were questions he was supposed to answer, right? Parents usually asked boyfriends this kind of stuff.

“My mother is buried in El Paso, and my father—lives in New Mexico,” he supplied. They’d never need to know more than that.

“Oh, I’m very sorry.” Eoghan crossed himself for the loss of his mother, and glibly moved over a sensitive topic. “What sort of work does your father do?”

Not the best place to bring up a New Mexico chain gang or drug-running for the local cartel. “He owned his own auto-body shop,” Luca couldn’t taste the perfectly cooked potatoes as he took his next bite.

Eoghan’s face lit up. “I’m sure Hero’s mentioned I own a European import machine shop myself.”

“Yeah, she did. I’d like to see it some time.”

Hero’s father seemed pleased. “What kind of cars did your father work on?”

Stolen ones.

Luca fixed a smile on his lips, deciding to redirect the conversation. “You know what I noticed? Hero’s just about the only white person I’ve met with a name as long as mine, do you all have middle names to go with the hyphenated last name?”

Connor groaned, earning a sharp look from his mother.

“
Romeo
’s middle name is Valentine,” Izolda supplied, letting him know what she thought of her eldest son using his surname as a first name.

He’d known Connor’s name was Romeo, of course. They all had files on them back at the office. But he had to get them talking about something—
anything
other than himself. Though, it took all of his considerable training to hide his amusement at Connor’s somewhat ironic name.

Izolda gestured down the table. “Then, Berowne Fortinbras”

Rown sent him a look that said if Luca spread that around the office, he’d retaliate.

“Timandra Perdita.”

Andra shrugged and smiled.

“Demetrius Balthazar.”

Demetri seemed more interested in what was going on with his plate than conversation.

“Lennox Goodfellow.”

Knox gave a grinning salute.

“And you know our Hero Viola.”

Luca smiled at Hero. “Shakespeare fans, huh?”

“You could be sayin’ that,” Eoghan laughed.

Hero tapped her fork against her teeth, considering Luca. “Did I hear you say you had a long name? You’re not just Luca Ramirez? How did I not know that?”

“Sure do.” Luca wiped his mouth with his napkin.

“Well, let’s have it then, son,” Eoghan prodded.

“It’s Luca Rodrigo Ramirez-Dimas.”

Hero’s parents turned to each other, their faces radiant with a secret pleasure. Izolda grinned, and Eoghan threw his hands up in a ‘eureka’ movement. “Rodrigo!” they chimed in unison and kissed each other soundly.

For not the first time that evening, Luca was rendered speechless and confused.

Hero leaned in to him, her warm breath brushing against his ear. “Shakespeare,” she whispered.

“Shakespeare?” Luca asked tightly.

“Rodrigo is in Othello,” Izolda informed him before biting the head off an asparagus.

Luca swallowed, alternately hating and loving the way the fine lines on her still-lovely face crinkled at him. He saw expectation in that smile. She was a woman who believed in omens and in her world, his hastily given middle name was a pretty fucking big one.

“Must have missed that,” he said, and took another bite of his own, chewing furiously.

Glancing to Hero on his right, he watched her cut into her tofurkey. Her eyes sparkled over at him as she chewed and Luca knew that even though this entire evening was a sham, he’d leave a little bit of his heart at this table.

Conversation drifted comfortably this way and that, driven mostly by Rown, Andra, Knox, Hero, and their parents. Luca chimed in around bites of incredible food. Topics included Knox’s upcoming Pay per View bout in Canada, a million dollar Italian car Eoghan had in his shop, Hero’s Friday art exhibit, and a myriad of more inconsequential topics. No one brought up the case. No one mentioned the impending divorce. All inflammatory conversations were saved for another time. Seemed like a cardinal sin to fuck with family dinner. Serial killers, trauma, and relationship failures came second to chocolate Guinness potato cake. As it should, Luca decided, helping himself to a second piece while Hero handed him a tiny steaming cup of espresso.

Deep in his trouser pocket his work cell beeped unobtrusively, but the longer vibration grated against the wood of the chair, piercing the conversation. Luca leapt on it, taking from the look on Izolda’s face that technology at the table was another cardinal sin.

“Sure,” Andra teased. “The new guy gets away with it.”

It was Vince. “Excuse me, its work.” Luca stood, ignoring Rown’s intent stare. He stepped into the hallway and accepted the call.

“Getcha ass down here, we may have nabbed the motherfucker.” Vince’s excited proclamation was almost lost in some kind of surrounding chaos. “And he’s losing his damn mind, so hurry.”

Luca cringed and looked back into the dining room. There’s no way they could have heard, but still. He clutched the phone tighter. “What are you saying?” he demanded.

“Are you deaf? I’m saying we may have John the
fucking
Baptist in custody!”

Chapter Nineteen

“And thus I clothe my naked villainy;

With odd old ends stol'n out of holy writ,

And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.”

~William Shakespeare

Hero could have been in any cop film. A dark room. Concrete walls. Large, one-sided window set deep into the wall in front of her, and bordered in silver. Intercom and speakers to the right, two agents in suit coats on the left. She rubbed the scars along her palms, trying not to look away from the scene unfolding in the interview room.

She looked over at Rown and Vince, and bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. “What’s wrong with him?”

Rown’s mouth pulled into a tight line as he squinted through the window at the grimy, hollering bearded man that strained against the cuffs imprisoning his hands behind him. “What’s
not
wrong with him?” He flicked a look at Vince. “Who is he?”

Vince shook his head. “He was nabbed by a surveillance team while lurking in the woods around Hero’s house. He won’t give his name, and it was a
bitch
getting a fingerprint from him. Once Ramirez gets a hit, he’ll go in and grill him.”

“Are you going to go in there too?” Hero asked Vince fretfully. She didn’t like the idea of Luca in there alone with someone so obviously unhinged.

“Naw, this is what Ramirez does best. He’s a mutha fucking maestro in there. It’s some kind of God-given talent.”

“Interviewing people?”

“Breaking people.” A demonic glint sharpened the Southie’s smile. “I just like to watch.”

Hero stepped closer to the mirror and whispered, “I think he’s already broken.”

Rown put his arm around her shoulders. “Do you recognize him?”

Hero studied the man’s face, barely distinguishable behind a layer of grime. His brown hair and beard hung to the middle of his chest streaked with grit and grey. As he screamed and squirmed, little strings of spittle caught in the unkempt bush. She couldn’t exactly get a good idea of his size as he was sitting and layered with the requisite homeless winter uniform of sweaters and an oversized jacket. “I don’t—I don’t think so.” She flinched as he surged powerfully against the chain, but it held fast.

“Let me out of here! I can’t be in here! I have to be outside!” The chair he occupied faced a cold copper table with an identical chair on the other side, minus the restraints. He faced the door, and the window through which they watched was situated so the voyeurs would see the side profiles of both interviewer and suspect.

“What about his voice?” Rown prodded gently. “Anything?”

Hero shook her head. “John the Baptist didn’t scream that night… not once. He chanted, almost sang. He whispered.” She held her hands up. It seemed that her head just wouldn’t stop shaking side to side, as though rejecting the memory, the sight in front of her, the screams, and the whispers.

The man turned his face toward the window and for a moment, all Hero could see was the desperation in his ice-blue eyes. “Let me goooooooo!”

Rown stepped forward and pressed the mute button on the intercom. “You don’t have to listen to that.”

The interview room door opened just wide enough to admit Luca. He carried nothing but a file folder and a sinister expression that was equal parts hostile and hopeful.
Try something,
it said.
I dare you.
Even from behind the window,
she
was ready to confess. He would have broken her without saying one single word.

Hero reached past her brother and depressed the mute button again, turning the sound back on. “I want to hear this.” She didn’t, really. But couldn’t seem to help herself.

“Get me the fuck out of here, man.” The prisoner snarled and lunged for Luca, but grunted as the metal of the cuffs bit into his wrists. “I don’t deserve to be here. Get me Agent Orange. Get me
out
!”

Luca looked different then he had at the house. Gone was any trace of the unsure, overwhelmed boyfriend. Or later, the relaxed and charming dimpled man who’d settled into his place at her table with amazing ease. Like he’d always been there. Like he belonged there.

This Luca was someone else entirely. Suit jacket off. Sleeves rolled up. Gun and badge nowhere to be found.

“Sergeant First Class James Mazure,” Luca read softly from his file, his voice like snagged silk even through the com.

At this, the struggling Sergeant quieted, though he didn’t stop straining against his restraints as far as Hero could tell.

Luca continued reading. “United States Marine, 2
^nd
Division. Veteran of Operations Desert Storm
and
Desert Shield. Awarded the Purple Heart for injuries suffered at the battle of Khafji and again, along with the Medal of Bravery, at the Kuwait airport in nineteen-ninety-one.” Luca closed the folder, slapped it down in front of Mazure and took a long moment to inspect every inch of the man’s garb as though less than impressed before adding without a trace of inflection, “Your country thanks you for your service.”

Beside her, Rown hissed in a breath and Hero grabbed his hand.

“Hey,
fuck
you!” Mazure snarled.

“No, fuck
you
.” Luca got right into his face, which was a gutsy move, in Hero’s eyes. The man had already established he wasn’t too ashamed to spit. “Fuck
you
, Jimmy, for killing those girls.”

“I
didn’t
kill those girls!” He was yelling again, looking like he could already hear the bars slam behind him, locking him forever inside.

“Really?” Luca smiled. There was a hint of the devil in that smile. “You didn’t leave a bouquet threatening one of your victims? The one who got away?”

The beard twitched a few times. Hero couldn’t tell what emotion that conveyed on a face like his, but the sun-browned forehead wrinkled. “I did that. I left the flowers. But I didn’t hurt no one.” Though the admission made her lungs suddenly feel heavy, the trembling in the man’s voice tugged at Hero’s heart. It reminded her of the tremors her own terror had caused as she’d pleaded for her life. She marveled that Luca could look so cold in the face of such a lack of human dignity.

“I know you did. You left a partial print on the plastic. Sloppy work. We couldn’t tell it was yours for sure until we dragged you in here and reprinted you. You’ve dropped off the grid.” Luca leaned against the table and studied the gleam on his expensive boots with an unaffected, rather satisfied air. “I have a feeling you don’t like enclosed spaces, Sergeant. You want to see the outside of this room sometime in the next forty-eight hours? Tell me something I
don’t
know.”

“I wasn’t threatening Hero.” James Mazure’s voice strengthened with conviction.

Luca slammed his palm on the table with the speed of a viper, causing not just Mazure, but both agents and Hero to jump. “Don’t
fucking
say her name.”

Her heart kicked into overdrive. Not just because of the startle, but because of her name on the lips of a stranger. One who’d left her the beware bouquet. The one who’d nearly taken her life?

“I-I wasn’t.” The desperation was back in his eyes. “I was
warning
her. He’s after her still. I wanted to protect her from him. Just like you, man.”