Page 56 of Avenging Kelly

“Holy fuck,” Casper gasped. “This goes back to the case where you testified against those fucking Rangers before you went AWOL. How is he involved in this shit? We need Gabby,” Casper insisted as he retrieved his phone before I put my hand on his arm to stop him.

“He’s on paternity leave, so let’s keep him out of this unless we find out that the Mangello’s are coming for Dylan and Searcy,” I suggested.

Gabby and Dex should be allowed the time to adjust to the changes in their life and enjoy the newest member of their family with no worries. I considered calling Mateo for an instant, but he and Shay were looking out for Amy, Mia, and Daisy. They had enough on their plates.

Duke and Ace had brought Marianna back to New York with them to keep her safe from any blowback we might have caused by being in San Diego. I didn’t want to bother them.

Rafe had gone… wherever Rafael went, so we’d need to loop in Dominic and Austin. The Torrente family needed to be included in any decisions made because they had the most to lose.

* * *

“I can’t find any trace of Ritchfield’s maiden name anywhere. Her husband’s name was Bernhard Ritchfield. Before that marriage, there’s nothing about her. It’s like her past was erased and any familial references expunged. That’s shit the Company does,” Casper commented before he scooted from the table and stood, walking over to the sliding doors to look outside. Frustration was rolling off of him, and I understood why. He wasn’t one to accept defeat, even for a moment.

Casper had called Dom and left him my address to come over after his husband and he finished kid duty. Dylan and Searcy only had a half-day at that fancy private academy they attended, and then Dom and Austin were driving them out to Long Island, where Gabby and Dex had taken Romeo for the weekend. Dom had promised they’d come by when they returned to Brooklyn.

“Do you still have any contacts at your old job?” I asked Casper.

I’d been told what had gone down when the man had left the CIA, but maybe he’d kept one friend? I still had a few people at the DEA who I stayed in touch with—which I planned to do soon to find out what they had on the Mangello Family’s presence in the US. Maybe Casper had a contact he could depend on still?

“I wish I did, but nope. I torched those bridges and was threatened by my old SAC that if I contacted him again, he’d make me pay. No, that’s not an option. I can’t find half the shit Crossley said he found on Ritchfield, and that really pisses me off,” Casper said as he returned to the table and clasped his hands on top of his head, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Were you able to get anything out of Fleming’s laptop or Devaney’s cell phone?” Kelly asked as he did crunches on the living room rug to burn off some of the pent-up energy he had because of that vile shit he had to shoot into his body every day to keep from detoxing, which was going to be hell itself when it happened.

I was too worried to suggest he go for a run again—last time, he’d brought back a guy who had been assigned to kill him.

“I’m working on both of them. Devaney’s phone really doesn’t have shit—just the number for a couple of friends and Phillippe Trudeau. I got into Fleming’s laptop for a hot minute, but important files started disappearing before I could get into them. Seems the dealer’s Dell was encrypted with a kill switch for sensitive documents. For a junkie pimp, it seems more than a little odd that he knows how to program his laptop to self-destruct if it’s hacked, doesn’t it?” Casper stated. I glanced at him to see he wasn’t joking.

Without waiting for an answer, I turned to Kelly. “You mentioned something about going to The Gambler’s place and hacking into her system from there? Well, we’ve got a hacker…”

I turned in Casper’s direction, seeing his face light up. “You got a way into her place?”

Kelly stood and braced his arms over my shoulders. “I do. You feeling adventurous, Casper?” I thought the man’s head was going to roll off because he was nodding it so fast.

After witnessing Casper’s face, which mirrored a child’s on Christmas morning, Kelly laughed. “I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes.”

Once the bedroom door closed, I turned to Casper. “You didn’t find anything helpful on Devaney’s phone?”

“I got into it, but there’s nothing, really. She’d only texted a number belonging to Phil Trudeau. He’s her nephew, that we know. She called him about two hours before you guys showed up at her place.” That was interesting.

“Yeah, he was in San Diego with that pregnant girl. I wonder if Devaney saw him?” I thought out loud.

Casper pulled out his cell phone and punched in something before he put it next to my laptop. His fingers skittered over the keys at light speed, matching the racing of my mind.

I leaned my chair back and glanced down the hall to see the bedroom door was still closed, so I sat forward and studied Casper for a moment. “You, uh, you’ve had your own demons with… I mean, I heard you went to rehab. I just…”

Casper stopped pounding on my laptop and looked up, resting his hands on his stomach in a somewhat relaxed position. “It’s no circus, but he knows he’s gotta do it. I was in denial about my addiction for a few years. You know, don’t you, that once he’s off the juice, he might be a totally different guy? I met Max after I got sober, thankfully. I don’t think he’d have liked Party Lawry very much.”

“But you guys made it work.” I sounded pathetic to my own ears. Kelly was the love of my life. All the other men I’d been with were completely lacking compared to him. I didn’t know what I’d do if he didn’t want to be with me after he got off that shit.

Casper held up his left hand and pointed to his wedding band. “I’m not trying to be cliché, but if you guys are meant to be, you’ll work it out. How can he not fall in love with you again, Narc? You’re a great guy. I wouldn’t give it too much thought right now. Cross that bridge when you get there.”

We were both quiet for a few seconds before Casper sat forward. “I’ll tell you what I know for a fact. He’s going to need a great support system, and I’d like to be a part of it. The guy is going through hell right now, but once we get this shit handled, he’ll be able to decide what he wants his life to look like. Just be there for him.”

I truly liked Casper, but he was no motivational speaker. He was right, though, when he said Kelly was going to need a support system. I vowed to be the leader of it if he’d let me.

* * *

Kelly’s Ducati was parked at the Victorian, so the two of us piled into my SUV with Casper following us in Max’s Mercedes SUV. He’d recently traded his Nissan GT-R Nismo for “something more geared toward having a family,” as Casper had told us, mimicking Max’s voice. We’d all laughed with him.

---