Page 74 of Night Prey
“Any good at it?”
“All star,” Carlo answered, and he and his dad both straightened their shoulders.
Londyn reached out to the table, grabbed a decorative ball from a metal bowl, and tossed it to him. The boy knocked the pillow down and caught the ball with a bandaged hand. He winced when contact was made, though from pain or fear, Ian couldn’t tell. The bandage covered the spot where the end of his index finger had been.
“What happened to your finger Carlo?” she asked.
The kid looked panicked and glanced at his dad. “I can’t do it. Not after what I’ve been through.”
He jumped to his feet and fled from the room.
Olivo got up and stepped into the hallway. “Carlo, come back here.”
Ian’s phone chimed, and he looked at the text from the ME.Fingerprint for the finger matched a juvie record for Carlo Olivo.
He held the screen out to Londyn.
She narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice. “We press the son if he comes back. If not, we lean on Olivo.”
Ian nodded. “You keep taking lead.”
Olivo returned and directed his focus on Ian. “I’m sorry my son was rude. He’s had a rough time.”
“I would imagine so,” Londyn said. “Since someone cut off his finger and sent it to you as proof that he’d been kidnapped.”
Olivo whipped his gaze to Londyn. “What?”
“You heard me,” she said. “We intercepted the package containing his severed finger.”
“When? Where?”
“It was delivered by drone but wound up at the wrong address,” she said. True, though perhaps not the full truth.
“You have it? You have his finger? You must give it to me so we can see if it can be reattached.”
That would never work, but now that they’d confirmed the finger belonged to Carlo, they would return it to the family. “We’ll be glad to arrange for you to pick it up at the medical examiner’s office.”
Olivo gave a quick nod, his lips pressed so tightly they were white.
“Must make you mad to see the way your son was tortured,” Ian said.
Olivo curled his fingers but didn’t speak.
“And you would want to get back at the person who took him,” Londyn added. “I know I would.”
“That would be human nature.” Olivo stared at her, his gaze hooded.
“And if you knew who cut off his finger, perhaps you even ordered a hit on that man’s life.”
Olivo scoffed. “You must be nuts if you think I have those kinds of connections.”
“Not nuts,” Londyn said quietly, making the man lean forward to hear her. “But we do know you run the biggest drug operation in the area and have for years. That kind of position gives you all sorts of resources to take out the person who harmed your son.”
“Even if what you’re saying is true, which it is not, you’re assuming I know who kidnapped him.”
“Of course you do,” Ian said. “It was one of your lieutenants. Gilbert Flagg Jr. Known to all as Junior. The man you had killed four days ago.”
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