“Lambert,” Alessa replied slowly, as if his obvious anger surprised her. “Are … you okay?”
Rocco dragged in a breath to keep the growl from his voice and switched the call to speaker so he could text Ignazio. The question he asked was simple enough. He just needed to know if Lambert was still breathing. “Yeah. Sorry, what was it you needed?”
“Right, of course.” Alessa barely paused, but her tone slipped into something more professional as she continued. “It would help a lot if someone on your tech team could narrow the list down to who is currently, and was as far back as two years ago, operating out of that neighborhood. I want to tighten my search. I’ll take any names on the prison list with active connections, too.”
“You’re underequipped to do a door-to-door in the Westside,” Rocco said, though he shifted back to the computer to draft the request anyway.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m saying you need more manpower and more artillery. And at least one other car.”
“It’s not like I’m planning a raid.”
“And if the SUV gets jacked while you’re questioning someone?” Rocco challenged. “If an armed gang of five or more punks pops out of a side-alley and surrounds you? Ignazio’s big, and capable, but he’s not a fucking ninja.”
Alessa drew an audible breath.
Ignazio’s response came in.
Lambert is fully functional.
Rocco ground his teeth.
“I happen to need a change of shirt, and I’m getting hungry,” Alessa said simultaneously. “I’ll delay starting in the next zone until those needs are met. If you could get me the updated information, I would even be grateful.” She disconnected before he could respond.
He might have laughed at her brazen behavior if he weren’t still seething. Instead, he closed out of everything, pushed to his feet, and practically stomped from his private office.
As usual, Em was sitting back in a carefully positioned chair, giving him a birds’ eye view of the wide walkway leading up to Rocco’s workspace. His head snapped Rocco’s way when the door opened and he was on his feet before it shut. “Rocco? What’s going on?”
Rocco didn’t break stride. “I have to pay a visit to a dead man.”
Alessa was nearly to the casino-side entrance, her mind still more than a little distracted from her conversation with Rocco, when she thought she heard someone shout up ahead.
Two males were fast-walking toward the parking lot, angled to walk right past her, both with ear-splitting grins on their faces. Neither looked like they could be even as old as she was, but they were walking steadily and appeared generally sober.
Behind them, the shouting voice grew louder. Distinctly female and vaguely familiar. “Littering is a sin! He’s watching, you know!”
The two twenty-somethings snorted with laughter and one of them clicked a key fob, triggering a reaction from a shiny newer-model Mustang with rental plates.
Alessa watched them for a moment longer, then swiveled her focus forward and felt her brows leap up in recognition. It was the strange woman from the hallway earlier that morning.
The woman stood at the edge of the curb; an empty Frappuccino cup gripped tightly in one partially raised hand.
“Shit.”
Alessa nearly jumped out of her skin at Ignazio’s sudden, verbalized curse. She whipped around, glancing up at him before sweeping her gaze over the parking lot beyond. She’d gotten so used to him just grunting or nodding that she had to assume an actual spoken word meant trouble.
Except she didn’t see any of the usual tell-tale signs.
No vehicles raced through the aisles. No swarms of shady men rushed at them. She heard no squealing tires, no gunfire. She saw no swerving vehicles with tinted windows. Not even a hastily dropped corpse.
Just Ignazio, typing out a hurried text. He was using both thumbs this time.
Alessa let herself relax again, opened her mouth to ask him about whatever the hell that had been, and someone latched on to her opposite arm. She pivoted in place and raised her free hand in a warning fist—then came up short. Not because she wasn’t wholly willing to punch the woman out, but because she honestly hadn’t expected the strange woman to have been the one to grab hold of her in the first place.
“Oh, I thought I recognized you,” the woman said. She had one of those smiles that felt placating and demeaning. “Sweet girl, you really need to get away from him.” Her gaze cut for a half-second to Ignazio before she took a small step back and gave a tug on Alessa’s arm.
“I—”
