Page 34 of Bare
In for a penny, in for a pound.
“Have you been to both warehouses?” she asked.
“Yes. I make it a point to visit every construction project when it’s completed. Sal is quite proud of his accomplishments. Visiting the completed buildings is good for client relations.”
“Are there any elevators in the Penrose warehouse or the Girard warehouse?”
His eyebrows winged up. “Elevators?”
“Yes. Elevators.”
“No. They are standard single-story warehouses. I’ve been inside both of them multiple times. I assure you, there is no elevator in either.”
Weary irritation laced his tone. She needed to get to the punchline.
“When I decided to give up trying to figure out what was stuck in the back of my brain, I thought about using the elevator to return the files.” She fought to keep her hands in her lap. “And I had the ‘aha’ moment. I remembered seeing an invoice in the Penrose files for an elevator. I hunted through the files and found it. It was for almost $600,000.”
“Are you certain?” he asked.
She was a hundred percent certain.
“Absolutely.” She paused. “I’m pretty sure there’s an elevator invoice in the Girard files, too. I never got to look for it, because I bumped into Lily. I didn’t want to get in trouble, so I decided to stop looking.”
Color leached from Armando’s burnished skin. He angled his head toward the files on the credenza.
“Show me.”
Chapter Eleven
The cool air in the attic above his mother’s garage chilled his fingers as Aleksei stared at the little blue notebook, the cardboard cover firm against his palm. It was a miniature version of the marble-style composition books he’d used in elementary school. He fingered the edge of the cover, bracing himself against what he knew he would see when he opened it: Phillipe’s barely discernible scrawl and intricate doodles.
“Your boss was here yesterday.”
Even after nearly forty years in the US, his mother’s speech retained the long vowels of her first language. Hearing her voice usually warmed his belly like a cup of hot chocolate after a long snowball fight, but now, her words stiffened his spine.
He was a consultant. An independent contractor. He didn’t have a boss. Anyone claiming otherwise was full of shit.
And probably dangerous.
He should have come earlier. He hadn’t thought there was a need to rush. His mom was allergic to dogs, so he’d dropped Jaka off at his sister’s place and stayed longer than he intended. Kids changed so fast when they were young, and hers had grownlike weeds. They’d climbed him like a tree, demanded he play basketball on the new hoop they’d gotten for Christmas, and then his sister had brought out his old bow and arrow.
What he thought would be an hour stop turned into a two-night stay. It had been too long since he’d visited Zina. Far too long. After Phillipe died, spending time with the people he loved was terrifying. Bone-bendingly, heartbreakingly terrifying. All he could think about was how it would slice up what was left of his heart if he lost them.
He was a fool. And a fucking hypocrite.
He’d sat talking to Rosemary in his apartment in Philly, judging all the people who’d been laser-focused on Phillipe’s death, holding onto the holier-than-thou attitude that had smoldered in his gut for the past two years. Yet he, too, had allowed his loss to control his actions every day. He’d been doing the same goddamn thing as the people he criticized, just in different packaging.
Now it seemed his obsession with Phillipe’s death might have put his mother at risk.
“Who was here? What did they want? What did you tell them?” he demanded.
His mother narrowed her dark eyes and clicked her tongue. “Do not speak to me like that. I am no fool. Do not insult me by suggesting otherwise.”
His mother had always been fierce. A strong wind that pushed obstacles out of its way by sheer force of will. He’d teased her, calling her RBG after she’d told him she was in the running for a federal judgeship—until she’d given him one of her lethal stares and said, “Enough of that. Do not joke about Justice Ginsburg. She is too good for that.”
He’d never used the nickname again.
Still, his throat went thick. His mom was a force to be reckoned with in the courtroom, but the size and strength of herpersonality seemed to make her forget she was a 5’3”, 115-pound woman in her early sixties. She’d have no chance against a grown man, especially a professional. What if Moresco had sent someone impersonating an FBI agent to his mother’s home? To get close to her. To send him a message.
