The Hitwoman and the Family Jewels (19 page)

I smiled at the irony of that statement. Not only was I a semi-professional hitwoman, I actually believed I could talk to animals.

Griswald was not amused. “But you weren’t.”

“The most stable?” I asked.

“The only living child who hadn’t been arrested. At the time your father went to prison, your other sister was still alive, wasn’t she?”

I nodded.

“Which would explain why they made a move on your niece,” Griswald surmised.

“They think a barely-out-of-a-coma little girl knows where my father hid some discs?”

“They were probably trying to send a message,” Griswald said.

“But I didn’t know where the discs were,” I protested.

“Maybe it was a message for your father,” Griswald countered. “I’d ask him, but according to a text I got from my men, he’s in surgery and there are no guarantees he’s going to make it. I need you to tell me where the discs are before anyone else gets hurt, Miss Lee.”

“He didn’t tell me where they are,” I told him, again sticking to the strict truth.

Griswald stared at me intently, I met his gaze levelly, knowing I’d told him the truth.

“Did your brother screw up the case?” I asked.

He blinked. “What?”

“My father’s escaped from prison before and I don’t remember marshals camping out on my doorstep,” I said calmly.

Griswald looked away.

I flicked my gaze in Patrick’s direction. He gave me an almost imperceptible nod of approval, letting me know I was handling the situation well.

Griswald sighed and then looked back at me. “He’d been building a case against the Lubovsky crime family. You’ve heard of them?”

“They’re the real deal,” God called from the other room. “Hardcore hooligans.”

“Hardcore hooligans?” I mocked.

Startled, Griswald stared at me. “I guess you could say that. Anyway, Glen, my brother, builds this case and then suddenly, the evidence gets lost in a bank robbery.”

“Hang on,” Patrick interrupted. “What the hell was the evidence doing in a bank?”

“You remember hearing a story about how a Federal building blew up because of a faulty gas line a few years back?” Griswald asked.

Patrick nodded.

“Evidence was there. Got blown to smithereens. But Glen had been worried there was a leak in the Bureau, so he’d made copies and stowed them in a safe deposit box under an alias.” Griswald turned his attention to me. “The bank your father and his crew robbed.”

“He didn’t usually work as part of a crew,” I said slowly trying to process this latest revelation. “And he says he didn’t kill that bank teller.”

Griswald nodded. “You believe him?”

I shrugged. “He sounds convincing.”

“He’s probably telling the truth,” Griswald confirmed.

It was my turn to stare at him. “You really think so?”

“The teller was a cop’s wife,” Patrick said quietly.

Griswald frowned. “The cop’s wife was a key witness in Glen’s case. It was her idea to stash the duplicate discs at her place of work so they’d have easy access to them.”

I sat back in my chair. “And you think she was killed for it?”

Griswald nodded.

Patrick let out a low whistle.

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “There’s a leak in the FBI, cops let Kowalski get away after he attacked me, and you don’t trust your own men.”

“That’s only part of it,” Griswald said. “You’re forgetting that the robbery was performed by three men, but only your father was caught. It’s suspected that the two other robbers were Frank Velicky and Sergei Dubrof.”

“The three prison escapees,” Patrick reminded me quietly.

“My working theory is that Sergei got himself thrown into prison, recruited Velicky to help him, and they broke your father out,” Griswald said.

“Why?” I asked.

“That’s the million dollar question. For the life of me I could never figure out why he didn’t make a deal for his freedom with those discs. If he’d handed them over to the Bureau, he’d never have had to go to trial for the murder. It would have been pled down to next-to-nothing. Instead he chose to do time. Why?” The US Marshal stared at me as though he thought I knew the answer.

I shrugged. “It doesn’t make sense. My father spent his entire life trying to get around the system. He’d try an easy scheme instead of doing hard work. If he had something that would make his life easier, he would have taken it.”

“Unless he was protecting someone,” Patrick murmured.

Surprised, I looked to him, but he stared steadfastly at the container of stale cookies.

“Protecting who?” Griswald asked sharply.

Patrick picked up a cookie. “His daughter.”

“Me?” I gasped, shocked.

Raising his eyes to meet mine, he shook his head. “Marlene.”

“The hooker! Of course!” Griswald crowed.

I looked from one man to the other. “I don’t understand.”

“The Lubovskys are heavily into the sex trade,” Griswald said.

I still didn’t understand, but I didn’t want to look like an idiot by saying so. I nodded as though I understood.

“If someone in the Lubovsky organization,” Patrick said quietly, as though he knew I was still in the dark, “had their hooks into Marlene, they could have used that to get your father to rob the bank.”

“Which would explain why he worked with a team,” I murmured as the pieces started to fall into place.

Patrick nodded. “And it might explain why he didn’t cut a deal to save himself. He may have been trying to save her.”

I sat back in my chair, absorbing that possibility. Was my father really capable of that kind of sacrifice? I’d always seen him as a selfish man always looking for a quick fix, unable or unwilling to put the needs of others before his own. But what if I’d been wrong about him, like I’d been wrong about so many others?

“But that doesn’t explain why things are hitting the fan now,” Patrick said.

“Maybe she wants out of the life,” Griswald suggested. “According to the visitor’s log she’d been visiting him regularly for the past year. If he was going to make a move to trade the discs for her future, now would be the time.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because tomorrow a Grand Jury convenes against the Lubovsky family.” His phone buzzed and he glanced down at the display, but didn’t stop talking. “Without those discs, years’ worth of work goes down the tubes. With them, the good guys could win one.” Standing, he flashed his phone at me. “I’ve got to take this.”

He moved away, the phone pressed to his ear.

Patrick and I stayed at the table. When Griswald had moved outside, Patrick leaned closer to me and whispered, “Are you okay?”

“Do you really think he’d do that for Marlene?”

He shrugged. “I think some people are willing to do just about anything for those they love.”

Something about the intensity of his tone made my stomach flutter.

Leaning back, he asked. “You know where the discs are, don’t you?”

I squinted at him. “What makes you think that?’

“Because, sweetheart, you said you
didn’t
know where they were, not that you
don’t
know where they are. Plus, you sort of told me you did back at the restaurant.”

“I have a theory,” I confirmed slowly.

“But you’re not sure you trust Griswald?”

“I feel like I should get something for turning them over,” I confessed.

“Like a reward?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“How sure are you, about the location?”

“Pretty sure.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Tell him you want your dad to get a pardon and if he lives to be put into Witness Protection.”

“They’d do that?” I asked, amazed.

“I’ve seen bigger deals cut for less. Your father is a small fish, a pawn. You give them a bigger catch to land and they’ll go for it.”

I glanced at the doorway of my apartment to confirm Griswald wasn’t within earshot. “Paul works for the Lubovsky family?”

Patrick nodded.

“That’s why Delveccio wanted him taken out?”

Patrick shrugged. “The Delveccios are old timers. They have a code. The Lubovskys don’t.”

“What do
you
think I should do?”

He frowned. “In a perfect world, Griswald would find the evidence on his own. Then the Lubovskys would have no reason to retaliate against you or your family, but short of drawing him a map to the location, I don’t know how to do that.”

My front door opened and Griswald stepped back inside my apartment.

I winked at Patrick. “I think I do.”In addition to being a con man and a thief, my dad has always imagined himself to be a bit of a modern day pirate. Not the kind with a peg leg, an eye patch and a shoulder parrot, but the kind that would gladly fly a skull-and-crossbones flag, bury treasure, and make a map where X marked the spot.

When I was a kid, I thought it was one of his best qualities. He’d hide treats for my sisters and me in the B&B, or The Barn or the yard and leave us a map to find them. It was fun when we were little girls, annoying as we got older, and now it was the very thing that put the lives of his family in danger
and
offered us the best chance at survival.

That’s what he’d done with the discs. He’d hidden the discs (treasure) and left a map (clues) for me to follow, not because I was the most “stable” member of the family, but because I’d always been the one to figure out where he’d hidden our treats.

I didn’t tell any of this to Griswald though when he walked back inside my apartment. If I had, he would have asked me point-blank where I thought the discs were and I didn’t want to be the one to tell him. I thought Patrick’s idea that Griswald finding them was a much wiser plan so, instead, before the marshal could even sit down again at my kitchen table and eat any more of my olives or stale cookies, I asked, “Why do you think my father wanted to meet at Artie’s?”

Griswald paused mid-step. “I don’t know. Was it a special place to him?”

I pretended to think about that for a moment. “I guess so. He was friends with the former owner. They used to go deep sea fishing once a year…when my dad wasn’t locked up.”

Griswald digested the tidbit of information. “So maybe he hid something there?”

“Maybe. I seem to remember him taking Theresa there the night he was arrested. Afterward she complained for weeks that he’d taken her for a steak and lobster dinner, like he’d known it was going to be his last meal as a free man.”

Griswald nodded.

I could practically see the gears turning in his head.

“It’s a good guess, but I’ve got my people there now and they haven’t turned anything up yet.”

I just nodded, knowing they weren’t looking in the right place. “So, my telling you this, is it enough to get my father’s conviction overturned?”

“Afraid not,” Griswald said. “
Maybe
I could do something if you told us where the discs are.”

I sighed, maybe a tad too dramatically if the sharp look Patrick gave me was any indication. “I told you, he didn’t tell me where they are.”

Griswald nodded.

“Maybe you should ask Rob, the owner of Artie’s if he has any ideas?” I suggested helpfully.

“Owner’s dead,” Griswald informed me flatly.

“Oh!” I widened my eyes so that I’d appeared sufficiently shocked. A month earlier Aunt Loretta had attended Rob’s funeral and sniped incessantly about how
old
his widow looked.

Griswald glanced at his watch and then looked at Patrick. “You can keep an eye on her?”

Patrick nodded.

“Okay,” Griswald decided. “I’m going to go back to the restaurant to supervise the search myself.”

I swallowed the self-satisfied grin that threatened to split my face. It had worked. He was going to where the discs were hidden. Once he was there, it wouldn’t be too hard to push him to look in the right place.

“If you think of anything else,” Griswald said to me, “have Detective Mulligan call me.”

“Of course.” I promised.

Patrick locked the door behind the marshal and turned back to me. “You should never pursue acting as a career.”

I innocently batted my eyelashes at him. “Whatever do you mean?”

“What the hell was that act about?”

“We have to go to the hospital.” I got to my feet.

“Why?”

“Because,” I grinned. “I’m going to tell him exactly where the treasure chest is, but I’m not giving him the key to it until I get what I want.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The discs are at Artie’s,” I explained. “But it’s not going to do Griswald much good because I’m guessing that they’re going to need a password to read them.”

“And you know where the password is?”

“Pretty sure I do.” I was feeling pretty proud of myself for figuring it out. “I have to call for a cab.” I reached for the phone.

“No you don’t.”

“Both our cars are still at the B&B,” I reminded him.

“
One
of my cars is there. I’ve got another nearby.”

“You are
not
leaving me behind this time,” God thundered from the other room.

“Ride?” Doomsday yelped excitedly from the bedroom.

Patrick glanced in that direction.

“She heard you say C-A-R,” I explained to him.

She loped into the room, all set to go.

“You have to stay here, sweetie,” I told her. “You need your rest.”

She hung her head.

“Can I come?” Piss asked.

“I need you to stay here too,” I told her gently.

Realizing Patrick was staring at me funny, I glared at him. “Talking to my pets is no weirder than talking to anyone else in my family.”

“
That
, I believe,” he said with a boyish grin.

“Let me just check and make sure Godzilla is okay and then we can go.” Hurrying into the bedroom, I scooped God out of the terrarium. “You’ve got to be quiet,” I whispered, as I placed him on my collarbone.

“Just try not to get us killed.” The little lizard crawled down my chest and settled himself between my breasts.

“Careful,” DeeDee whined, having followed me back into the bedroom.

“Up,” I said, patting the bed.

Leaping up, she gave me her saddest puppy-dog eyes.