Lethal Legacy: A Novel (Guardians of Justice) Read online

  “Proof you have an iron stomach.”

  “I won’t tell her you said that.”

  “Thanks.”

  While Mitch placed his order, Cole stifled another yawn. Once the waitress departed, his partner for the day turned to him. “By the way, I ran into Alan at the copy machine yesterday. I got the feeling he wasn’t happy about being left out of the loop on this.”

  Cole shrugged. “Sarge wanted some fresh eyes on the case. Besides, Alan’s got enough on his plate with the homicide. He was probably just tired and stressed. I can relate.” He took another sip of coffee, waiting for the jolt of caffeine to kick in.

  “All I know is he wasn’t too friendly.”

  “Hey . . . if he’s put out, he’ll get over it. In the meantime, he’s got plenty of other distractions. Trust me, the last thing he’s thinking about right now is the John Warren case.”

  Why did her jaw hurt? Could she be getting a toothache?

  Why was she shivering? Her favorite sleep sweats always kept her warm, even if the fleece was worn and the fabric was beginning to shed.

  And why was it so hard to wake up? She couldn’t even raise her eyelids.

  Kelly shifted her head, and pain exploded on the side of her face, radiating up to her temple. She moaned and pried open her eyes, trying to orient herself in the darkness. This wasn’t her old bedroom at her father’s house. She was in his living room. On the couch. That’s why the fabric against her cheek felt nubby rather than smooth. But why . . .

  “So you decided to wake up.”

  As a shadowy figure appeared at the edge of her vision, she gasped and struggled to sit up.

  That’s when she realized her hands and feet were bound.

  The figure moved closer. Squatted beside her.

  Alan Carlson.

  Her father’s murderer.

  “It was you.” Even as she said the words, she struggled to accept them. He was a law enforcement officer. A respected detective. Cole’s colleague. The man assigned to investigate her father’s death.

  And also the perpetrator.

  No wonder he’d closed the case so quickly.

  “You never had to know that, Kelly. And you wouldn’t have, if you hadn’t kept pushing. Now we have a little problem.”

  She watched his eyes. In the shadowy darkness, it was difficult to see much. But one thing was clear. The initial panic and desperation she’d glimpsed in them in the moment before he’d slugged her had hardened into cold, ruthless calculation. He’d already decided what he was going to do about their “little problem.”

  He was going to get rid of it.

  Of her.

  Terror sucked the breath from her lungs and jolted her heart into overdrive. Her skin grew clammy, and she shivered.

  “Cold, Kelly?”

  “No.” She hated the shakiness in her voice. Hated giving this murderer the satisfaction of seeing how frightened she was. To compensate, she lifted her chin and stared him straight in the eye, her gaze unwavering.

  His lips curved into a humorless smile. “You’ve got spunk, I’ll give you that.”

  As he started to walk away, she jockeyed herself upright and swung her legs to the floor, trying to ignore the excruciating pain in her jaw.

  At the sound, he turned. “We’re not going anywhere for a while. You might as well make yourself comfortable.”

  Thanks to the adrenaline rush, her mind was now firing on all cylinders. She needed information. As much as possible. It would be difficult to thwart him if she didn’t know his plans. And difficult even if she did, considering how incapacitated she was. But she stifled that last disheartening thought. She needed to maintain a positive attitude.

  “Why did you do it?” Her voice was stronger now.

  He lifted one shoulder. “I needed money to pay off some gambling debts. Your father was dying anyway. I just hurried the process along. It was a no-brainer.”

  At his cavalier attitude, bile rose in her throat. She swallowed past it, determined to disengage her emotions as much as possible—as Carlson had. “How did you make it look like suicide?”

  A smile tugged at his lips. “I pulled that off well, didn’t I?”

  The touch of pride in his voice sickened her. But she did her best to mask her revulsion. “How?”

  A smirk twisted his features. “It was almost too easy.”

  And then he told how he’d won her father’s confidence under the guise of his badge. How he’d drugged him and left him to die in the garage. How he’d made sure he was assigned to the case.

  As he recounted his reprehensible plan, Kelly’s terror morphed to an anger as cold as Carlson’s heart.

  “Next to that, setting you up for anaphylactic shock with a couple of ground peanuts was a piece of cake.”

  She blinked, jolted by his concluding statement. “You were the old man in the coffee shop?”

  A smile toyed with his lips. Genuine, this time. “I learned a lot about disguises as an undercover detective, and I’m trained to observe. To notice details. To listen. I used all those skills during the investigation after your father’s death. I learned about your allergy. I learned you carried an auto-injector. I learned the security at your house was pathetic—and I’m very familiar with breaking and entering techniques. It was easy to slip in one night, take your injector out of your purse, go outside, and rap it against a rock. They’re very susceptible to leakage under stress, as my wife discovered.”

  He’d been in her house while she slept.

  She stifled the shiver threatening to ripple through her. “What if I hadn’t gone for coffee that Saturday?”

  He made a dismissive gesture. “There was always the next Saturday. I studied your habits, and you’re very predictable. As for getting into your father’s house tonight, I watched you enter the security code several times during our investigation of your father’s death, and I memorized it. But I didn’t expect to find you here. That was an unpleasant surprise—for both of us. Where’s your car?”

  “In the garage.”

  “You always park in the driveway.”

  He had done his homework. She hadn’t been in her father’s garage since the night he’d died.

  “I was afraid it might get damaged by blowing limbs or hail.”

  “So in protecting your car, you put yourself at risk. Too bad.”

  He turned toward the kitchen, ending the conversation. But she hadn’t learned enough about his plans yet.

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  He pivoted back toward her. “I think we both know the answer to that.”

  She swallowed. “Then why are you waiting?”

  “Because this isn’t the time or place. And I have things to do first.”

  He crossed the dark kitchen. She heard the basement door open. A few seconds later he came back, walked to the couch, and leaned toward her.

  She shrank away, but all he did was sling her over his shoulder. When she squirmed in his arms, he tightened his grip.

  “Hold still. I’m just putting you downstairs so you don’t cause any problems while I’m gone.”

  He was leaving?

  Relief coursed through her, and she quieted at once. That was an opportunity she hadn’t expected. Left alone, she might be able to figure out a way to escape.

  Once at the bottom of the basement stairs, he headed toward a heavy-duty shelving unit her father had had installed years ago. After lowering her to a sitting position on the floor beside it, he used a sturdy piece of metal wire from her father’s workbench to secure the rope binding her hands behind her to an upright post. He jerked it tight, immobilizing her against the post. She braced, expecting the rope to cut into her wrists. But it didn’t.

  Confused, she checked out her ankles. Odd. He’d wrapped a thick layer of hand towels around them before tying her up.

  He stood, following the direction of her gaze. “I don’t want any telltale marks. When I’m finished, no one will ever know you were tied
up. I’m very good at details—and planning.”

  The man was bragging about the meticulous arrangements he was making to kill her.

  How sick was that?

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a strip of cloth. It looked like a piece of one of the rags her father had always kept in the garage.

  Before she understood his intent, he knelt and whipped it taut around her head, covering her mouth.

  She clamped her lips together as tightly as she could, and he gave a sharp tug. “Open up—or we’ll do this the hard way.”

  When she didn’t respond, he kneed her in the rib cage.

  Hard.

  She gasped.

  He pulled the strip of cloth between her teeth, so tight it stretched the corners of her mouth back. The cotton clung to her tongue, sucking out all the moisture.

  She gagged.

  A muscle flexed in his jaw. “You brought this all on yourself, you know. You should have let the dead rest in peace.” He rose, crossed to the stairs, and started up. A few seconds later, she heard the basement door shut, then the creak of floorboards overhead. The security system began to beep. A faint shudder in the house told her the back door had been closed.

  She was alone.

  Her body sagged, and she began to shake. Violently.

  When at last the trembling subsided, she tugged on her wrists. They didn’t give. Nor was the heavy-duty shelving going to budge. It had taken two burly men to set it up. She wasn’t going to be able to free herself, and there was no chance she’d be able to overpower Carlson. He was big and he was strong.

  That left her just one weapon.

  Her brain.

  She’d have to outwit him.

  And she’d have to do it as soon as he returned. He’d made it clear he didn’t intend to take her life here. But once they left, all bets were off.

  Kelly took a deep, shuddering breath and forced herself to shift into analytical mode. Psyched herself up for a battle of wits. Carlson had bragged about his attention to detail. To planning.

  Well, he was about to meet his match.

  18

  “Nice place.” Mitch surveyed Rossi’s house as Cole pulled behind a late-model BMW parked at the curb.

  “Not by his previous standards.” Cole scanned the tidy brick two-story colonial as he shifted into park. “Before he went to prison, he lived in a sixty-five hundred square foot mansion that sold not long ago for close to two mil. I checked.” He set the brake and scoped out the quiet neighborhood of upper middle class homes. “This is quite a comedown.”

  “Maybe prison changed his priorities.”

  “Or maybe he just wants to keep a low profile.”

  “If he does, he can’t be looking forward to our visit.”

  “He isn’t. When I called, he passed me off to his attorney faster than Alison can throw a zinger.”

  Mitch grinned. “That fast, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Cole turned off the engine. “So are we clear on the plan?”

  “You’re taking the lead, I’m jumping in as needed—or if I see an opportunity to press an issue. Like we tag-teamed that felony assault case a few months back.”

  “Let’s hope the technique works as well today.”

  Mitch gestured to the BMW. “Wanna bet that’s the lawyer’s car?”

  “I don’t bet on the obvious.” Cole opened his door, circled around the back of the midsize rental, and met Mitch at the end of the brick walk that curved toward the front door. “Ever dealt with a former big-league crime boss?”

  “Nope.” Mitch matched him pace for pace as they walked toward the door. “But a bad guy is a bad guy. And most of them don’t change.”

  Cole stepped up onto the small, white-columned porch and pressed the bell. “That’s why we’re here.”

  At the discreet knock on the door of his study, a nerve in Vincentio’s hand spasmed, and he linked his fingers on his desk to disguise the tremble. “Yes?”

  Teresa cracked the door. “The gentlemen have arrived, Mr. Rossi.”

  He glanced at Lake, who sat in a wingback chair across from him, placed a bit behind the two less-comfortable visitor chairs facing the desk. The attorney’s location allowed him to be part of the conversation if he wanted to step in, but it was far enough back to facilitate discreet nonverbal communication with his client. The detectives would see through that strategy at once—but there wasn’t a thing they could do about it. This was his house. His furniture. His world. That’s why he’d had them come here.

  On his turf, he was in control.

  “Show them in, Teresa.”

  The housekeeper exited. Half a minute later, when he heard her open the front door, Vincentio’s pulse accelerated. So different from the glory days. Nothing had fazed him then. But he was still a Rossi, with roots planted deep in the Sicilian soil. Part of a powerful family that had been feared, envied, admired, and respected. He might have lost that legacy of power thirty-one years ago because he’d trusted the wrong man. Because he’d been soft, as his father had always said. But there would be no mistakes today.

  He took a deep breath. Straightened his shoulders. Lifted his chin.

  This was a game he did not intend to lose.

  When the two detectives came in, Lake rose. Vincentio didn’t. If they noticed his lack of hospitality, however, they gave no indication.

  One of the men stepped forward. “Mr. Rossi?”

  “Yes.” He recognized the voice from their phone conversation.

  “Detective Cole Taylor, St. Louis County PD.” He withdrew a business card and laid it on the desk. As if he suspected his host wouldn’t take it if he held it out.

  The man had sound intuitive skills. The kind Vincentio had once found valuable and still respected.

  Taylor gestured to his companion. “Detective Mitch Morgan.”

  The man’s sidekick gave a perfunctory nod.

  “Thomas Lake, my attorney.” Vincentio indicated the fourth man in the room.

  Once greetings were exchanged and Lake shook hands with the two visitors—displaying the courtesy his client had neglected—Vincentio gestured toward the chairs across from the desk. “Let’s get started, gentlemen. I’m sure you both have better places to be the day before Thanksgiving.”

  Morgan took a seat, leaned back, and crossed an ankle over a knee. Taylor opened a notebook, settled it on his lap, and pulled out a pen.

  “Mr. Rossi, as I told Mr. Lake on the phone, we have reason to believe a John Warren who died in St. Louis in May was, in fact, the James Walsh who once worked for you—and whose testimony helped secure your conviction for racketeering and money laundering. Mr. Warren’s death was originally ruled a suicide, but we’ve reopened the case. Could you tell me where you were on the evening of Thursday, May 20?”

  An odd question. This detective was smart enough to know he wouldn’t have carried out a hit himself. But he played along.

  “Here in Buffalo. I haven’t left the city since I was released from prison.”

  “Have you seen James Walsh since your release?”

  “No.”

  “Even when he came back to New York in April to visit his dying brother and attend his funeral?”

  “Like I said . . . I don’t leave the city. And the last I heard, his brother lived in Rochester.”

  “But you knew his brother had died.”

  He shrugged. “It came to my attention.”

  “Doesn’t it seem an odd coincidence that a month after James Walsh surfaced for the first time in thirty-one years, he wound up dead?”

  “Supposedly surfaced. I don’t believe you have a definitive link between John Warren and James Walsh.” Vincentio lifted one shoulder. “Even if you did, stranger things have happened.”

  “Did you know he had lung cancer?”

  He stared at the detective, trying to mask his shock. James Walsh had been afflicted with the same disease that had taken his beloved Isabella?

  How ironic.

 
; And given the poor survival rate for that iteration of the disease, the man might have died on his own in a few months. Suffered a lot in the interim too, as had Isabella. If he’d known, he could have waited for nature to carry out the death sentence.

  But then he wouldn’t have had the satisfaction of exacting revenge.

  “A difficult way to die.” He kept his inflection noncommittal. “At least he was spared that ordeal.”

  “Have you ever done any business in St. Louis, Mr. Rossi?”

  The sudden shift in topic didn’t surprise him. He knew how cops operated. They liked to keep people off balance.

  He lifted the corners of his mouth in a smile that held no humor. “My business days are ancient history, and a seventy-four-year-old memory isn’t reliable. Details of things that happened three decades ago aren’t always clear.”

  “I was thinking of more recent business.”

  “Such as?” A chill crept into his voice.

  “You tell me. It’s difficult to believe a man who once led a mob dynasty would give up his old life completely.”

  Vincentio considered the comment, keeping an eye on Lake in his peripheral vision. The detective was getting more direct now. But they’d agreed the attorney wouldn’t intervene unless the questioning took on an accusatory tone.

  A point he suspected they were fast approaching.

  “I went to prison for almost three decades, Detective. Things change. Power shifts. Life goes on. The world I came back to was very different than the world I left. In many ways.”

  His gaze strayed to the family picture on the credenza, taken a year before his incarceration. Isabella, with her long black hair, had looked beautiful that day. And grinning five-year-old Marco had been so proud of his first suit. Those had been the happiest days of his life, though he’d only recognized that in hindsight.

  “Your family?”

  At the query from Taylor, he turned his attention back to the detective. “Yes.”

  “I understand your wife is deceased.”

  “Yes.”

  “But your son lives here.”

  “Yes.” His chest tightened with familiar regret.

  “From what I’ve been able to gather, you two aren’t close.”