Chapter 18

© Copyright 2007 by Elizabeth Delayne



Jason walked with Nicole into the diner and pointed toward the dim area that ran along the far edge of the room.

“Sit there,” he ordered, “and stay.”

Nicole looked over at Trisha who stood behind the counter, then moved reluctantly over to the far booth as Jason walked into the back, through the swinging door behind the counter. Looking over at Nicole, Trisha followed him into the back.

Nicole watched as the door swung closed, then sat down facing the long glass window and watched one car, then another, drive past on the town’s Main street. She was in the shadows, but she wasn’t hidden away. She refused to sit with her back to the entrance. She had to be prepared just in case ...

The FBI agent assigned to watch her had gone off to do something FBI. They were looking for her father, but knew, as she knew, that her father knew how to hide. So whatever they may do seemed fruitless.

She glanced over to where Gabriel waited by the door, his hands in his pockets. His eyes were blank—hidden by the shadows. He was watching her, she thought. Watching her ... waiting for her to ... what? Join her father? Have a melt down?

Rob the joint?

Flee?

She should. She should run, far away. If she fled, her father might assume she’d taken the jewels with her. He would follow, or try to.

But she was in Jason’s custody and if she left, it didn’t guarantee her father would go as well. She would be back in trouble with the law. Again. Jason might be in trouble with the law, which could send Dusty back up to New York.

And Gabriel would feel gratified that he was right in judging her.

She looked away. He’d already questioned her, but he hadn’t talked to her, hadn’t tried to tell her things would be okay or say or ask anything beyond the expected police issue questions.

She didn’t care, she told herself.

She really didn’t care.

Moments later, Trisha joined her in the booth with two cups of coffee.

“You okay?”

“I don’t know,” Nicole frowned into her coffee. “I mean ... after Jason left, he was ... I thought he was all I had.”

Trisha reached across the table and took her hand. She didn’t say anything. Nicole stared down at her hand, at the ring on her finger, at the ruby surrounded by diamonds. It was a non-traditional engagement ring, but then, their family seemed a little non-traditional ... at least in how it had manifested itself.

Jason had Trisha, and Trisha was good for him. Dusty was in a good place. Maybe this time her judgement would prove to be on track.

Nicole pulled her hand back. “I shouldn’t be here. Not here as in this town, but here with you in the middle of town.”

“Why?”

“My father tried to kill me. I never thought he was a murderer. What would he do if he comes in here?”

“Jason wouldn’t have brought you here if he thought it put anyone in danger. Neither would Gabriel. Especially Gabriel.”

“They don’t know my father. I don’t even know him. I thought I did ... I thought ... all I wanted was for him to ...”

“Love you. Pay attention to you.” Trisha interpreted. “Don’t feel bad, Nicole. In my own way, it’s all I wanted from my own father, and from Jason.”

“That’s different.”

“Why? Because he’s worthy? He hasn’t always been worthy. He hasn’t always been worth my time. I wasted a lot of time devoting too much time to the hurt and the anger, to a man who wasn’t capable at that time of giving me this ring.”

She held it up and examined it. “I put us both through a lot of arguing when neither of us were ready.”

“Still.”

“Still,” Trisha nodded. “I mean, it worked out, this time. But it wouldn’t always. We all have a need Nicole. Every single person on this planet has a need. For someone to love them. For someone to look them in the eye, or smile, or whatever it takes for them to feel validation. Don’t berate yourself for being human, for wanting from your father what you should have had.”

Nicole looked over as the kitchen door opened and Trisha’s dad appeared, followed by Jason. Jason headed out. At the door turned and looked at Nicole and Trisha, then he and Gabriel left.

“Should you be working?”

“Oh no. Jason’s not intrusting you with me, he’s intrusting both of us with my former special forces marine father,” Trisha said as Nicole watched he wiped down the counter. It reminded her a little of her job in New York, except, she would have been the one with the cloth.

Trisha’s father was far from the Italian boys she knew back home. He was big, for sure, but his skin was pale and rough, his white hair a little shaggy under the baseball camp he wore.

“My dad’s hasn’t gotten over my mom’s death,” Trisha said at last. “Sometimes ... I don’t know. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t have him anymore, either. I quit school to come back and help him with this place, and now it’s like I can’t leave. I bring it up every so often and he just ... I’d just like for him to say go for it instead of I really need you right now.”

“He’s letting you get married.”

“Yeah.” Trisha chuckled and studied her engagement ring. “Which will keep me in town. I’m not worried about it. God has something else planned for me. A promised land of my very own.”

“How do you know?”

“That there’s more?” Trisha shrugged, “I guess because I believe that God made some promises and He keeps them.”

“Yeah–the treasures in heaven. My mother talked about that,” Nicole tried, as she did on so many occasions, to remember her mama’s face just the way it had been. “I have my treasure in my children and the wealth that waits for me in heaven.”

“Not just that ... joy and love and peace. Those are pretty big things.”

Nicole thought of Reverend Lewis’s words. Could she accept a God of judgement and a God of love? She just wasn’t good enough.

* * *

Gabriel closed his phone and leaned his head back. His deputies were good men, but they didn’t have the training or experience he would have had in New York City. And Joe Rossi had been watching Nicole. He likely saw her tell Jason what she’d been told.

But it had been a hunch.

“What did they say?” Jason asked.

They were parked down the street from the library. Jason had good eyes, and he knew his father as well as anyone in town.

“He didn’t show.”

“That’s not all.”

Gabriel shook his head. “Joe Rossi road under the radar, but apparently he has a couple of aliases with extensive files. One of them is only known by Stan.”

“His brother was Stan. Uncle Stan. He died when I was a kid.”

“You remember how?”

“Something ...” Jason ran a hand through his hair. “No. Just vague impressions.”

“Would it surprise you he was stabbed?”

Jason met Gabriel’s eyes. “By my father?”

“They don’t know. But several murders have turned up in the last ten years, matching the same profile. Each matches the blade used on Nicole.”

“Which was my father.”

Gabriel nodded. “The cops missed him. They were looking for someone else.”

“And he let others take the fall.”

“Including Nicole.”

“And she let him,” Jason noted. “She didn’t know about the murders.”

“No. And if he got away with those, he could have gotten away with other things. The murders were quick. And over money. Lots of it ... at least at first.”

“It’s getting easier for him to kill.”

Jason knew his father had done bad things. He knew his father had hurt Nicole. But he’d never pictured his father as a murderer.

A thief, a liar ... someone with probable connections to the mob, but low level, thrifty connections.

“Why do you think he wants these jewels so badly?” Gabriel wondered. “Something easier. He could move on to something else.”

“Joe Rossi won’t move on until he gets what he wants,” Jason murmured. “He’s going to stay. Now that he knows where I am.”

“It’s not about Nicole.”

Jason shook his head. “I took the broke the jewels up the first time, when I took my part with me. Mama was gone. She’d given them to us before she died. I don’t think he knew where they were, or if she even had them until he discovered Nicole’s earing.”

“And knew he could get his hands on them.”

“He would have sold them. I did it to make him mad. I did it because it was the last piece I had of mama.” He met Gabriel’s eyes. “I’m afraid he isn’t just here for the jewels. Whether he gets them or not ... he, or his alibi, will make good on a number of threats I heard my entire life.”

And with Trisha as well as Nicole and Dusty ... he had more to loose then ever.



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