And so was I.
Anil started up his drone and sent it into the middle of the warehouse. I heard an “ow,” a shriek, a grunt of pain.
“What’s going on?” Bella shouted. “Where is it coming from?”
“Go.” I tipped my chin toward the door. “Now.”
Chloe shot me a last desperate look before following the rest of the crew into the shadows.
Gunshots echoed in the warehouse; a bullet pinged off the ceiling. Sweat beaded on Anil’s forehead as he made the drone swoop and dive.
“You have to leave,” I insisted. “The van needs to be gone before the police arrive.”
“They might come for you,” Anil said. “I think it’s time to let The Butcher out to play.”
“Anil . . . no.”
In the distance, sirens wailed.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
?“Hi, Garcia.”
“Simi.” Garcia moved off the sidewalk while the paramedics lifted Ben onto the gurney. “Fancy meeting you here at a crime scene.”
“It’s a funny story.” I glanced behind me, caught the back of the van hurtling down the road.
“I look forward to hearing it.” He shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around my bloodstained dress. “I think you know the drill by now.”
“I’ll call Riswan and ask him to meet us at the station.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
?“Let me see if I’ve got this right.” Garcia leaned back in his steel chair across from me and Riswan. We were in the same interrogation room as the night we’d first met. If I hadn’t been so worried that I’d forget our cover story, I would have been touched.
“You started a wedding planning business and got a last-minute gig salvaging the wedding of Mr. Angelini’s daughter. She told you she was being forced into the marriage, so you and your friends decided to help her escape so she could be with her boyfriend.”
“We’re a full-service business,” I said. “There isn’t anything I won’t do for my clients.”
“Escaping from the mob?”
“My client has no knowledge of whether or not her client’s family is involved in organized crime,” Riswan said.
“She does because I told her.” Garcia tried to stare down Riswan. A normal mortal would have crumbled, but Riswan had a core of steel that made even the sternest prosecutor tremble.
“I believe you used the words ‘allegedly’ and ‘rumored’ in that conversation.” Riswan flipped through the notes he’d made in our pre-Garcia meeting. “Your speculation does not constitute actual knowledge on the part of my client.”
“Um. Hmm.” Garcia tapped his fingers on the table. “You said Mr. Angelini called you to his office to ask if you’d seen his daughter. Subsequently, you spoke to Mr. Angelini’s head of security, a man named Gino. He told you that Bella had taken something valuable from her father. Do you know what it was?”
“Bella mentioned a necklace when we were in the warehouse.”
Garcia lifted an eyebrow. My lips quivered with a smile. Riswan cleared his throat and we got back down to business.
“Gino issued a threat, saying there was a price for betrayal, so you took it upon yourself to track Bella down to warn her after already having helped her escape from a forced marriage.”
“I’m sure you’ve watched a Mafia movie or two.” I drew a line across my throat. “Although I had no direct knowledge of any Mafia connections, your comments did raise some red flags that made me concerned for my client’s safety. I couldn’t let her get killed by the mob.” I caught Riswan shaking his head and made a quick correction. “Alleged mob.”
“I see.” His face suggested he didn’t see at all, but I wasn’t going to do all the work for him.
“It would destroy my reputation,” I continued. “Event planning is a cutthroat business, Garcia. No pun intended. Reviews are everything.”
“Indeed.”
“And I believe in true love,” I said quickly. “She wanted to be with Ben. I wanted her to have love and life and all the happiness in the world.”
“Ben,” he said dryly. “The man she shot in the chest.”
“Gino shot him in the chest, but she approved the hit by nodding.” I wasn’t above breaching client confidentiality after what she’d done to Ben. If there had been a bus nearby, I would have thrown her under that, too. “Gino is a nasty piece of work. I hope you find him and lock him up for a long time.” Somehow Gino had managed to escape before the police rounded up Bella and her accomplices.
“How is Ben?” I asked while Garcia wrote in his notebook.
“In surgery,” he said. “I’ve been told he’ll make it.”
“It’s kind of symbolic if you think about it. Maybe true love doesn’t exist after all.”
Garcia didn’t seem to be interested in philosophizing about the meaning of love. Instead, he continued in the same monotone he’d been using since he’d joined us in the interrogation room. “Did you see the necklace that was allegedly stolen?”
“No.” I’d seen Anil’s replica but never the real thing.
Garcia stared at me. I stared at him. How had I forgotten how gorgeous he was? He had a dimple at the corner of his mouth that only appeared when he smiled. I was pretty sure he didn’t run away when bad guys showed up or disappear when you needed him most. I tried to imagine him without any clothes, but my mind kept going back to Jack, who was still MIA.
He picked up his black notebook and continued his recap of my story. “You tracked Bella to the warehouse alone in a vehicle that has since disappeared . . .”
“It’s not a safe neighborhood,” I said. “You might want to ask the uniforms to add a foot patrol. I was there only a few hours and now my van is gone. A serial killer probably has it. You might want to check your database for serial killers in the area.”
Garcia lifted an eyebrow. “Mmm-hmm.”
I shifted in my chair, trying to get comfortable. It was basic interrogation room issue—cold, hard metal with a slightly slanted seat. I wondered if he would oblige if I asked for a pillow.
Garcia poured himself a glass of water and took a long, slow sip. “You walked into the warehouse and warned Bella that her father had sent someone after her,” he continued. “You were surprised when that very person—Gino—suddenly showed up. There was an altercation. Gino shot her boyfriend. Her associates captured you and tied you up with five sets of duct tape and five sets of rope.”
“What can I say? They must have sensed I would be a formidable opponent. You learn a lot when you have three brothers. Menace must have oozed from my pores.”
He hesitated, frowning. “Not the kind of gratitude one would expect for the incredible service you’d done for her.”
“I witnessed an attempted murder,” I said. “I suspect she didn’t want to take the risk I might tell someone about her nod of approval.”
“Why not just ask Gino to shoot you, too?”
“Maybe she had friends who were getting married, and she wanted them to have the best damn wedding planner in Chicago. I got her an elephant, a family of ice swans, a last-minute dress alteration, an escape plan, and an expedited ordained minister after she poisoned her priest.”