Mixed Up with the Mob

He raised his hands and blushed. “That wasn’t at all what I meant, Gram, and if that’s how it came across, I apologize. Please forgive me for the dumb statement.”

“Of course, I forgive you, David.” Her tight hug filled him with a shot of pure love. “And I’m sorry I took offense. Now, go! Get yourself to work with the rest of your pals.”

On the way to the office, he had to deal with the sloppy streets. It was early enough, cold enough and wet enough that last night’s slush hadn’t melted but was enhanced with more of the same. If the thermometer dipped even a couple of ticks, the streets would turn wicked. He hoped the salt trucks came out in hordes.

The elevator to his floor crawled up at its usual slow pace. When it finally got there, he grabbed a cup of what they dubbed FBI sludge from the nearly empty coffee machine and went straight to his desk. After the bitter brew scalded his tongue, he sat back, then closed his eyes.

Ric DiStefano.

He’d scanned the file Eliza gave him, and the pathetically few facts he found there made him wonder. Had the Bureau failed to get more on the guy? Or had someone withheld vital information?

Something reeked.

If he were a betting man, which he wasn’t, he’d bet on the latter. For some reason someone didn’t want Ric DiStefano’s activities, contacts, whatever, turned into common knowledge—well, common within the Bureau. That raised a multitude of problematic flags.

A few months ago, J.Z. insisted someone in the office had turned. No one could explain how the mob buddies of the money-launderer whose death J.Z. was assigned to investigate had known where to find him no matter what he did to keep his plans secret.

David doodled on a notepad, flipped through the few papers on DiStefano, drank his poison, grew more frustrated with every passing minute. He glugged down his last gulp of lousy coffee, threw down his pencil, grabbed the papers, and rose.

If Eliza was only going to give him these lousy crumbs of info, he was going to have to come up with what he needed on his own. And the first step would be to talk to J.Z., see what he knew that Eliza had either withheld or neglected to include in the file.

He called his friend and fellow agent, just to see if he’d come in that morning. J.Z. invited him down.

“What’s up?” J.Z. asked when David walked into the cubicle.

“Did anyone fill you in on what happened last night?”

J.Z. gestured for David to sit, which he did in the beat-up, 1950s vintage, putrid green chair on the opposite side of the desk.

“Dan was here when I came in to work. He mentioned something about a hit-and-run and your grandmother. I couldn’t make it add up, but he had to head out, so I didn’t ask. Protecting Carlie Papparelli is not the snoozer job he’d expected.”

David grinned. “That mob widow struck me as a handful. And when she teamed up with your wife…watch out!”

“Don’t remind me. I still have nightmares about that day. They could’ve been killed, and it’s only by the grace of God that they’re still here.”

“Amen, brother.”

The two men thought back to the day when J.Z., David and a group of other agents rounded up a handful of mobsters. Innocent lives had hung in the balance, but they’d carried out the arrests with no one seriously harmed.

“So what’s the deal?” J.Z. asked.

David dropped the folder on the paper-littered desk. “Take a look. It won’t take you long.”

J.Z. opened the manila folder, then let out a long whistle. “How do you get from witnessing a hit-and-run to Ric DiStefano?”

“The victim was his sister.”

Another whistle. “Think it might have been a setup?”

“I think if I hadn’t deflected the Lexus, she’d be as dead as DiStefano.”

“So the question is—What did the ‘accident’ have to do with her brother?”

David stood and shoved his hands in the back pockets of his khaki pants. “I want to know why she gave me this song and dance about the driver being her dead brother’s ghost.”

“You’re kidding. She didn’t really say that, did she?”

“Worse. Not only did she say that, but then she also insisted we didn’t need the police, that she was fine. She chalked it all up to exhaustion and stress after her brother’s death.”

“Is there a rule somewhere that says we get all the crazy women?”

“Hey, you married one!”

A goofy grin brightened up his friend’s normally intense expression. “Yeah, I guess they do have some redeeming qualities, don’t they?”

“Maryanne does—lots of them. But Lauren DiStefano, with her bogus ghost story? Give me a break, man. Along with these scraps Eliza tossed at me, it adds up to trouble.”

“I wish I could disagree, but I’m on that page. And Eliza assigning you to tail the DiStefano woman? That’s the kiss of death.”

“You know it. Something’s up, and I’m being thrown up against Goliath without a clue.”

J.Z. closed the folder and held it out to David. “Have faith. That David did okay by leaning on the Lord. You can’t go wrong when you do that, you know.”

“In our line of work?” David snorted. “What I can’t figure out is the guys who go out there day after day without counting on God’s strength. Of course, I’m trusting Him.”

“So what’s next?”

“The grieving sister has a few questions to answer, don’t you think?”

“A few. That’s where I’m headed. And thanks for listening. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being paranoid.”

David drove toward Lauren’s old-money mansion. He wondered how a guy like Ric DiStefano had wound up with a place like that. Usually, those homes were handed down from one generation to the next. The few that ever came on the market did so because the last generation had failed to reproduce. Had that been the case? Or had DiStefano been mixed up with something more sinister than corporate finance shenanigans?

He parked on the street, right in front of the gorgeous old home. It had probably started out as the gem in the crown of a self-made man, maybe a doctor, lawyer, or even a politician—this was Philadelphia, after all.

He rang the doorbell, then he waited out front for what felt like an eternity. The weather was still rotten, and the icy drizzle’s needles stung his face.

Finally, she responded. “Oh!”

“May I come in?” he asked. “I’ve a couple of questions for you.”

She opened the door; her every motion shrieked reluctance.

“Hmm,” he murmured. “You could do a guy’s ego some harm with that kind of welcome.”

Her green eyes flashed. “You aren’t welcome, Mr. Latham. But since you came up with an official ID last night, I don’t have a choice, do I?”

He shrugged, and stepped inside. The interior matched the exterior of the luxurious mansion. Gleaming wood floors, a sparkling chandelier, rich patterned rugs and a spectacular staircase spoke of old money for construction and new money for upkeep.

He had to find out how illegal the DiStefano money was.

Among other things.

He followed her into a grand living room, what must once have been referred to as a formal parlor. Now it housed a huge cream leather sectional, cushy ottoman, dark wood side tables, and a thick creamy brown area rug under it all.

“Hey, the only thing missing is the wide-screen plasma TV.”

She sat at the end of the sectional with the loungy part on the end, then shrugged. “Not me, Mr. Latham. All of this belonged to my brother. It’s—was—his home.”

“And now it’s yours.”

Her sigh held a ton of emotion, but David couldn’t identify it all.

“If I can hang on to it.”

He took note of her comment, and dropped into the curve of the massive couch. “How about if you give me a few more details. This sounds interesting.”

Again, her eyes sparked. “Interesting since it doesn’t affect you.”

“Oh, but it does,” he countered. “You see, you’ve become my new assignment. Or to put it better, last night’s hit-and-run is my business. I need to learn everything about it.”

“And that would be because…?”

“Because, Miss DiStefano, I witnessed something I can’t explain—something you couldn’t explain to my satisfaction. So why don’t we start at the beginning?”

“What do you want to know?”

For such a soft-spoken woman, Lauren DiStefano could put a sharp bite to her words when she wanted to. “How did you come to live with your brother?”

“He was widowed three years ago and left with a two-year-old son to raise. He didn’t want to deal with day care or nannies, and since I’m family and an elementary school teacher, he asked me to help. They’re the only relatives I have left so I moved in.”

“You gave up your own life to become his housekeeper and babysitter?”

Her eyes did their thing again, but her voice didn’t go up, it just took another nip with her words. “If that’s the way you see family, then I pity you.”

Ouch! “That wasn’t exactly what I meant, but—”

“Then what did you mean, Mr. Latham? Your question was quite clear. As an educator, I can understand and carry on a conversation, you know.”

He felt his cheeks warm. He had come pretty close to what she’d understood him to say.

“Sorry,” he muttered. Then he cleared his throat. “How about we start this again?”

She shrugged.

He didn’t blame her.

But he still needed information. “Did you and your brother grow up in this home?”

“Not at all. Ric bought this place when his wife was pregnant.”

“So he’s had it for about four, maybe five years.”

“Just over five now. Mark turned five six weeks ago.”

“And you were willing to give up your work to care for your nephew.”

“Any day, Mr. Latham. I love Mark as if he were my own.”

“I could see that last night, Miss DiStefano. You saved him some serious injuries there. The car just glanced off you, but if it had clipped him, as young as he is, the impact would have done damage.”

She shuddered. “That was the worst part of it.”

“And how do you feel today?”

“I won’t lie to you. I’m sore. Every bit of me aches.”

“I was pretty sure you weren’t anywhere near as all right as you insisted last night.”

“I am all right. I just fell. Feeling sore is one thing, an injury that requires an ambulance and EMTs is another.”

“I’ll give you that.” He felt she’d eased up some, so he went in with another of his questions. “So your brother was quite successful. What kind of work did he do?”

“I don’t really know. Something to do with funding and stocks—money matters. I never bothered to ask.”

So what did she do? Just suck up the bucks the brother brought in?

He tried again. “I imagine he left you well provided, seeing you’ll be raising his son.”

“I wish. It appears what he did leave is a mountain of debt. I have to meet with the bank and…” She gave a vague wave. “I don’t know what you call them. Financial planners? Advisors? Money men, okay?”

“There must be insurance, though.”

“Yes, there is, and it’s a large sum, but if the debts are as serious as the money men say, then it might not stretch far enough for me to keep the house.”

“Then what will you do with your nephew? I mean, I imagine you’ll have to get a job again.”

“Probably. But Mark is in preschool these days. I hope to find a teaching position at his school or another one nearby.”

“That would be nice.”

They fell silent for a few moments, and David tried to come up with an effective way to ask what he needed to know. But in the end, he had no luck. He leaned forward and blurted it out.

“So how about you tell me what really happened last night? And don’t give me that ghost stuff. Where is your brother? Did he die? Or did he pretend he did? Did he try to run you over? And if he did hit you with that car, why? What does he have against you? Why would your brother want to kill you?”

She gasped.

“No!” the little boy yelled from the parlor door. “My daddy dinn’nt do that to Aunt Lauren. I don’t like you. Go ’way! Leave my aunt alone, you ugly…um…nasty…ah…monster!”

And right then, David did feel like an ugly monster. Especially when he saw the pain in Lauren DiStefano’s tear-filled green eyes.

There were times he really hated his job.

FIVE

Lauren ran to Mark’s side. “Hush, honey. It’s okay. It’s Mr. Latham’s job to ask questions, even—” she shot David a poisonous glare “—nasty ones.”

By then, David did feel as nasty as dog slobber and even less welcome. He went to defend himself, but Mark proved quicker to the draw.

“You gotta go do time-out in the corner, mister.” He pointed toward the back of the room. “That’s what Miss Green does at school.”

David took the chance to lighten the moment. “So Miss Green spends lots of time standing in the corner. Wow, Mark. She must sure be a greeny-meany.”

For a heartbeat, the boy seemed to weigh the sincerity of David’s joke. But David saw victory at the quirking of Mark’s mouth. Then he burst into a full-blown grin.

“Hey, Aunt Lauren! He made a good funny.”

“Yes, Mark. He did.”

The look she sent David this time made him feel too many things, too many to identify at once. Yes, she saw the humor in his dopey comment, which made him ridiculously proud of himself. But she didn’t trust him any more than she would an angry rattler, which for some reason made him want to prove himself—to the subject of an investigation. Go figure.

And she hadn’t forgiven his blunt and hurtful questions. Questions he still needed answered.

He sighed. He couldn’t very well badger her with the boy in the room. He’d lost his opportunity, and he’d have to bide his time. Because the opportunity would arise again. He’d make sure of it.

He rose. “I see I’ve overstayed my welcome.”

“Hey!” Mark cried. “Aren’t you gonna stand in the corner?”

The boy’s frown broadcast what he thought of David shirking punishment.

“Ah…sure,” he backpedaled. “I’ll check out the corner of my office. And I will think about all those nasty questions I asked.”

Two pairs of green eyes studied him, very different messages in them.

“You gonna ask ’em again?” The boy’s wisdom caught David by surprise.

Lauren smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “Oh, I’m sure he won’t, Mark. He’s going to come up with new, nastier ones, I’m afraid.”

The boy planted his fists on his slim hips. “You’re gonna spend lots a time in time-out then, mister. You better like your corner a whole bunch.”

David’s cheeks tingled again. “From the mouths of babes…”

“Let me show you out, Mr. Latham.” Lauren’s otherwise polite voice had that nip back again. “Mark and I are busy this afternoon, and we must get ready.”

The boy’s eyes grew big and round. “We are?”

“Of course, we are.” A touch of pink brightened her creamy cheeks. “We’re going to the library.”

“Sudden need for a good book, huh?”

Her chin tipped up, and she strode to the front door. “Always. Reading is an absolute necessity, Mr. Latham. You’d be surprised by how many take the ability to read for granted and don’t even make use of it.”

A blast of frigid air rushed in the open doorway—it matched the temperature of her voice as she added, “It’s by far the best road to true wisdom.”

“Hmm…and here I thought that road ran through God’s Word.”

“And how does one access the Father’s Word, Mr. Latham?”

“Touché!” He stepped past her and into the cold. “But there is one thing you really, really have to do—or stop doing.”

He didn’t let her ask. “It’s that Mr. Latham thing, okay? I keep looking over my shoulder to see if my dad’s standing somewhere behind me. My name’s David, okay?”

She shrugged. “I’m hoping not to have to use either one again.”

“Ouch!” He struck a theatrical pose with a hand over his heart. “You wound me so, Miss DiStefano. And me, a poor wandering soldier on a mission.”

Her snort caught him off guard. “Someone’s called you charming much too often, but you won’t charm me. I’ve seen you at work.”

“Which is where I need to be,” he conceded. “Have a good afternoon at the library. See ya, Mark!”

The little boy turned to his aunt. When she nodded, he faced David. “Bye, Mr. Latham.”

David loped down the front steps, careful to avoid globs of heavy slush here and there. He knew trouble when he saw it; he could lose his heart to the little fellow.

Once in his car, he looked back at the mansion, and caught the curtain’s movement in the front window. He hadn’t seen her, but he didn’t need to. He knew Lauren had watched him get into his car.

Something about that woman intrigued him.

And it had nothing to do with her brother. Or her nephew. Not even his job.

David’s gut told him he was in trouble—big trouble.

He started to pray.

After she told David she and Mark were library-bound, Lauren couldn’t not go. Although she came up with the idea as a way to get the man out of the house, she often did take Mark to Story Hour in the children’s section. It was an every-afternoon event at their small local branch, so her nephew didn’t need much of an explanation.

While the children were busy, Lauren usually satisfied her hunger for fresh reading material. She read all the time—even the jokes and stories on the back of a cereal box made do in a pinch. But that day Lauren just wandered the racks. She didn’t bother to search for anything. She couldn’t focus on her surroundings.

What had really happened on that dark, slushy street? In that moment when the car hurtled toward her, she saw a face she knew almost as well as her own. But it couldn’t have been Ric. And now she had to wonder if stress really had taken over her common sense, as she’d told David.

Her brother’s death had come as a complete shock. True, Ric had been a lot older, but he’d also been in her world her entire life. As a child, she’d always seen him as the hero brother any little girl could want. He’d spoiled her, treated her like a princess. But then he’d finished high school, headed to college, and she’d been left behind.

She hardly ever saw him after that. Sure, she was in his wedding, she visited when Mark was born, but other than that and the occasional holiday, as years went by, theirs became a card-here-and-there relationship. That’s why, after her parents’ deaths, and then that of her sister-in-law, when Ric called and asked if she’d be willing to devote herself to little Mark, she hadn’t hesitated.

“Aunt Lauren, Aunt Lauren!”

She turned, saw him and the other Story Hour kids burst from the room like a circus of fleas run amok.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Uh-huh.”

On the way home, Lauren bought a copy of the evening paper. She did have to start that job hunt. The words of the headmistress at her former school lingered in the back of her mind. “You’ll always have a position here, Lauren. We want you back.”

But to get to that school she had to drive all the way across town. She didn’t think it would be in Mark’s best interest to uproot him from the preschool he liked so much just because she had to commute to work. She hoped to find something closer to home.

If she managed to hang on to the home.

But gloom and doom wouldn’t get her anywhere, so she turned to the Lord in prayer. She asked for wisdom, for strength, for guidance. She couldn’t see how she was going to pull it all off, but she had faith the Father would see her through.

At home, she made a simple meal of grilled chicken, salad and savory seasoned rice. She watched a children’s video with Mark, listened to his prayers, and then tucked him into bed. From the doorway, she watched him doze off, a wealth of maternal love in her heart.

She couldn’t love him more if he were her own.

Lauren frowned. She’d told David those very words, or some very much like those, not so long ago. And just that fast, once again, thoughts of her troubles returned. But the events of the last month had left her tired, drained, exhausted. And then that car…

She pushed the concerns of the day to one side, changed into a nightgown, washed her face, brushed her teeth and crawled under her blankets, Bible in hand.

After a good, long while with the Lord, she set the Holy Book on her nightstand, and turned off the light.

But later on, much later, she didn’t know quite how long, a child’s cry pierced her sleep. Lauren sat up with a start, heart racing, head whirling, temples pounding.

Mark!

“It’s okay, honey!” She grabbed her comfy old chenille bathrobe and ran from the room. “I’m coming.”

His cries didn’t ease, but rather intensified as she approached his open door. She always left it ajar, just in case he needed her—as he did right then.

By the soft glow of his robot night-light, Lauren saw him sitting in the middle of a puddle of blankets. His little boy’s eyes looked enormous in his pale face, and tears shone on his cheeks. Mark leaped right up into her open arms.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Did you have a bad dream….”

Her words trailed off when she felt the wetness soak through where his legs wrapped around her waist. Uh-oh!

Mark hadn’t wet the bed in years. “Oh, sweetheart…let’s get you cleaned up.”

She went to put him down, but his arms tightened in a stranglehold around her neck and he burrowed deeper into her embrace.

“No!” he screamed, his warm, sturdy body shaking. “The lights…they’re coming, Aunt Lauren! They’re coming….”

Sobs overtook him again, and nothing could have budged his hold on her. Not that she really wanted to let go of him, but the night was cold, and by now, they both were soaked. Still, something far worse than wet nightclothes and linens had gone wrong here. And it didn’t take a psychiatrist to figure it out.

“Mark, honey. The lights—the car—didn’t hurt us. Mr. Latham’s car blocked the other one, and it only gave me a little bump. But I’m all right, and you didn’t get hurt one bit. It’s okay. We’re home, and no one’s going to hurt us.”

She hoped.

He shook his head—hard. “No! No-no-no-no-no-no-no!”

Tears flew from his eyes, cheeks, and struck her. His misery was so deep, his fear so intense that her own eyes welled up in sympathy. She perched on the edge of the bed, aware of the soaked middle.

“It’s okay,” she murmured yet again, her voice little more than a croon. “I’m here, and I won’t let the car hit you. You know Aunt Lauren always takes care of you, right?”

Her gentle rocking motion must have helped. His muscles no longer felt like short steel ropes in her arms, and his sobs didn’t sound as though ripped right from his soul. But he didn’t answer her. Evidently, he still couldn’t.

She began to sing. “Jesus loves me, this I know…”

Lauren sang her entire repertoire of children’s tunes, praise and worship songs, and even a hymn or ten, before Mark’s tears ran dry. Finally, even though he’d stopped crying, she knew he hadn’t fallen back asleep. His eyes glowed their clear green in the dark of the quiet room.

“Think you might want some clean pj’s now, kiddo?”

His fingers fisted in her robe.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, a hint of humor in her voice. “At least, I’m not going anywhere without you—you got that?”

His lips took on a slight upward curve. “Promise?”

“Absotively, posilutely, babe. You and me…we’re a team.”

He giggled. “You got it wrong again, Aunt Lauren. It’s abos-No, no! Not abos. Absolittle, pos…posilately!”

“So, tell me, Mark. Are you ready for those clean jammies now?”

Even by the dim glow of the night-light, she saw his cheeks turn red. He lowered his gaze, and whispered, “I’m sorry. I dinn’nt mean to…to—”

“I know, honey. It was an accident, and I bet it happened during that bad dream. Right?”

He nodded.

“So…when an accident happens, we clean up the mess, fix whatever’s broken, and ask God to help us go on. What do you think?”