скачать книгу бесплатно
David’s gaze dropped to the boy. The tears in Mark’s large green eyes, so like those of his aunt, filled him with guilt. “I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t be asking these questions with…ah…him here.”
“You shouldn’t be asking them period,” she said.
“Amen,” added Radford.
Although their objections didn’t have the same meaning, David got where they were coming from. He shot the cop an apologetic glance, but then his attention flew back to the woman and child in the blink of an eye. “Maybe you shouldn’t be talking ghost stories, either.”
To his satisfaction, she glanced down at the boy, and frowned. “You’re right. I’m going home.”
“Not so fast, lady,” Radford said. “I need your name, address, telephone number, and the full name of that maybe-dead, maybe-not-so-dead brother of yours.”
David didn’t let his gaze stray as Lauren responded. But then, when she got to her brother’s name, a touch of recognition tickled the backside of his memory.
Ric DiStefano.
He knew the name. But he couldn’t quite place it. Not right away, at any rate. He’d have to think about where he’d heard it, how he came to know it.
Then, to his surprise, after Radford’s okay, Lauren walked to the large, three-story brownstone mansion two doors from the corner, unlocked the door and slipped inside. She lived there and she complained about funeral bills?
Something still didn’t add up.
While he stared at the double mahogany doors, someone tugged on the back of his shirt. He turned around and groaned.
“You okay, Davey?” his grandmother asked.
Oh, boy. Was he ever in trouble now! His grandmother at the scene of a crime.
“I’m fine, Gram. What are you doing here?”
“Sure you’re fine?”
“Yes, I’m sure. So why are you here?”
At nearly six feet of statuesque height, Dorothea Stevens Latham rarely looked anything but her usual competent, eccentric self. Right now, though, under the weak glow of the streetlight at the other corner, his grandmother looked shaken.
Guilt filled him. He opened his arms wide, and she stepped into his hug. He felt her shivers in the deepest corner of his heart.
“Aw, Gram,” he said as he patted her sturdy back. “You shouldn’t’ve worried. I’m fine. It’s just that I witnessed a hit-and-run.”
Then she shuddered, took a deep breath, and stepped away. “And just how was I supposed to know that, David Andrew Latham?”
Now this was more like it. “Because I called you and told you Dan would pick you up. Then I bet he told you the same thing.”
She tossed her head of snow-white spiked hair. “Well, Davey dear, I like Danny just fine, but he’s every bit as much of a spook as you are. How’m I supposed to know when he’s telling me the truth and when he’s feeding me Bureau gobbledygook?”
“Ahem,” said the alluded-to spook. “I’m not given to lying, Grandma Dottie.”
David’s friends all wound up adopting his grandmother as their own. The world’s very own professional grandmother turned to Dan Maddox. Her canary-yellow full-length wool duster coat swirled around her.
“Maybe not, Danny, but you’ll be the first to bend the truth to cover for Davey or any of your other fellow agents. And you can’t deny it.”
Dan met David’s gaze. The two men exchanged a knowing look. There wasn’t much either could say to the older woman. She knew them too well.
“So I’m right, then,” she continued. “Not only did I have to come see that you really were in one piece, but I also had to check to make sure you hadn’t cooked up a goofy excuse to not come and pick me up. I don’t know what you have against my friends. They’re such lovely gals.”
Now she’d started in with her guilt-inducing poor-me deal. “Hey, Gram, give it up. You may as well quit while you’re ahead. I’m not buying that ‘what you have against my friends’ stuff. You know I don’t have a thing against your friends. I just have a problem with your devious ways. I can find my own dates, you know.”
She snorted. “Well, you’re doing a lousy job of it, if you ask me. And I know some swell girls.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“Ask you.”
Gram stuffed her fists in the pockets of her outrageous coat and pushed out her bottom lip.
Now, really. Who else wore nearly neon-yellow in December?
Who else wore nearly neon-yellow at any time?
She lowered her head.
Anyone else would’ve thought she was contrite. Not David. He knew she was busy scrambling in her troublemaker brain for another plan of attack.
It was time to deflect the skirmish. “Well, listen—”
“So did you get the pretty blonde’s number?” she asked.
Without thinking, David said, “Her name, address, phone number…”
At the gleam in his grandmother’s brown eyes, David let his words die a merciful death. She’d tricked him well and good.
“Is there any reason to think this rises to the level of a Federal situation, Latham?” Radford asked.
David had forgotten the officers. “Ah…no. I doubt it.”
Sherman nodded. “Then we’ll take it from here. As a courtesy, we’ll let you know if we learn anything different than what we know now.”
“That’s fine. And thank you for your quick response. I appreciate it.”
Radford chuckled. “At least someone does. It doesn’t look like Ms. DiStefano thinks much of us.”
David glanced at the expensive house down the street. “Don’t take it personally, Officer. It strikes me that she doesn’t think much of law enforcement period.”
“I’m with you,” Sherman said.
“D’you mean that pretty girl?” his grandmother asked. “Are you boys saying she’s a crook?”
Her disbelief struck David as somewhat naive, but he didn’t have much to go on. “No, Gram. We have no evidence that she’s anything but what she says she is—a grieving sister who’s been left to raise a miserable little orphan boy.”
“So where’s the but?”
Nothing much got past her. And she wouldn’t let up on him until she learned what she wanted. So he said, “But something’s not quite right about that ghost story.”
“What?” she squawked. “Don’t tell me she’s one of those séance-happy nuts. She sure didn’t look like one.”
“And just how do people who’re into all that spiritist junk look, Grandma?” Dan asked, humor laced through his words.
Grandma Dottie shrugged. “Oh, the ones I’ve seen on talk shows wear yards of filmy fabric, too much eye makeup, and talk like spaced-out teenagers. And they haven’t been teens for decades, you know.”
David had a sudden vision of a well-upholstered matron, a cloud of lavender chiffon in swathes around her…upholstery, raccoon-black goop around turquoise-shadowed beady eyes, her hair a perfect Miss Clairol shade of champagne and giant gobby rings on her every finger.
“That’s it,” he said. “It’s late enough that my mind’s begun to do a Grandma Dottie meld. Reality check, folks. And time to head home.” He turned to Dan. “Hey, thanks for everything, man.”
Dan chuckled. “Are you kidding? I live for this kind of thing. I called Eliza, told her what was up with you, and what wasn’t happening at my post, and she couldn’t send me after you fast enough.”
“Great. Now I’ll have to face the dragon lady first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Make sure you have your Wheaties,” Dan said with a wink. “You gotta walk into the dragon’s lair well fortified, you know.”
“First ghosts, and now dragons,” David said. “Let’s go home, Gram. You can tell me what’s wrong with your Hummer on the way.”
He drove the short distance to his grandmother’s elegant town house in a historic district of Philly only half listening to her tale of Hummer woe. To his disinterested ear, it all sounded like a cooked-up excuse to drag him to the cosmetics party, after all. And that didn’t particularly bother him. He knew his grandmother very, very well.
He didn’t, however, know Lauren DiStefano at all. But he did know he was going to get to know her a whole lot better. And soon.
Because he’d just remembered where he’d heard the name Ric DiStefano. DiStefano was a big-time venture capital guru.
And his business, DiStefano Enterprises, was under investigation for SEC violations. It’d been all over the news. To make matters worse, it seemed the guy’d had possible connections with Mat Papparelli, a dead money launderer for the mob.
A late mobster whose widow had turned state’s evidence. The very same woman Dan Maddox was supposed to be keeping in protective custody.
Why would Eliza Roberts, Dan and David’s boss, pull Dan from his assignment? Why would she send him after David’s ghost-loving hit-and-run victim?
Organized crime was David’s shtick.
What was Lauren DiStefano’s game?
THREE
“What’s this about ghosts, Agent Latham?”
David looked at Eliza Roberts, a brunette knockout with blazing green eyes. “Trust me, Eliza. There’s nothing to it. But something’s up with that DiStefano woman, and I’m going to find out what it is.”
“Good. Because as of now, she’s all yours.”
He gave her a nod. “Thanks. I was pretty sick of pushing papers between real jobs.”
She smirked. “Can’t keep you field guys in one place for long, can I?”
“Do you really want to?”
“Someone’s got to keep up with your paperwork, and no one can read what you guys call writing. But I’ll admit it’s a waste of manpower when you sit around for too long.”
That comment didn’t sit very well with David, but he knew better than to call her on it. Eliza Roberts was not one to mess with.
“What’s the scoop on Ric DiStefano?” he asked instead.
Her superior smile got under his skin. She wasn’t very likable.
“Here’s the file we have on him.”
The slim manila folder landed right in front of him on the vast expanse of polished wood. The Bureau didn’t provide such luxuries, not even for their Supervising Special Agents. The desk’s provenance, as well as that of Eliza’s pricey leather chair, was the subject of much speculation in the office.
“Not much here, is there?” he asked after he leafed through the few sheets.
“What you see is what you get. We got a heads-up from the SEC guys about six weeks ago. That’s what they faxed us.”
The tight electric rush he got at the start of an investigation zipped right through him. “So it’s a fresh one. Is anyone else on it?”
“No. I saw no reason to assign it. From where I stood, it looked like a typical SEC case. They’d just copied us on it because of the possible organized crime connection. I’m sure if they’d found more, they would have sent it on. And the connection looks pretty weak to me.”
David gave her a skeptical look. “Then why’d you send Maddox over last night?”
She turned to avoid his gaze—or so it seemed.
“He wanted to go,” she said. “And he said something about picking up your…grandmother. That doesn’t sound right, does it?”
“Maybe not, but yeah. I was on my way to pick her up when the deal with DiStefano’s sister came up. I’d been on the cell phone with Maddox, and I asked him to call 911 and to make sure she got home safe. And, sure, he did call 911, but then he also showed up at the scene.”
Alarm filled Eliza’s face. “But not with an elderly woman, right?”
“Sorry. Maddox brought her along.”
“What was he thinking? The cops had a hit-and-run and a five-year-old child to contend with. And Maddox went and made matters worse by bringing a frail senior citizen to the scene?” She shook her head. “I’m going to have to talk to him—”
“Don’t bother,” David said. “My grandmother’s anything but fragile. She’s nearly six feet tall, built like a battleship, has the instincts of a fox and the nine lives of a cat. She was in no danger. Believe me.”
Eliza’s frown didn’t ease. “That was a serious lapse in procedure, Latham. And you know it. Maddox does, too.”
“Cut him some slack, will you? I asked him to take care of my grandmother, and you sent him to a scene that was already under investigation by Philly’s best. I was there, too. Why would you want to divert Dan’s attention from his merry mob widow?”
Again, Eliza’s green eyes danced away from David’s gaze.
His instincts weren’t much shabbier than Gram’s. Something was happening. And Eliza knew it as soon as Dan called to tell her what David had witnessed. He doubted she’d had the gray Lexus under surveillance. That only left one other possibility.
“Why are you keeping tabs on Lauren DiStefano?” he asked.
