Page 44 of Mine to Keep

“Nick?”

“Can you please let me and my brothers look into this?”

I sighed and plopped onto the couch. “I don’t want you all taking people out.”

He chuckled and joined me. “I asked if we could investigate it.”

While I knew Officer Mendez was doing the best he could, I was getting sick and tired of everything going on.

“Yes. But only investigate it.”

“Thank you.” He leaned in and pressed a tender kiss to my lips.

“You’re welcome.”

“I do need a few things from you.”

“Okay.” I reached for my previously forgotten wine and sipped.

“I need the names of everyone who got gifts, people you know, people who gave you ‘off’ vibes…basically everyone you know.”

My eyes widened. “Oh, isthatall?”

“It’s a lot. I get it, but whoever this is knows you, or at least has observed you freakishly well. I’m not going to invade their homes or anything, more like run background checks on them.”

That had the potential of ending badly. “I don’t want my friends being upset with me for a stranger digging into their lives.”

“I understand, but I promise to be respectful. Only digging deeper if I think there’s something there. I’ll also update you on everything I find out.”

“No hurting anyone?”

He held his hands up, palms out. “I swear. I won’t impede upon Mendez’s case. I admit this won’t be legal, per se, and likely he wouldn’t be able to do anything in say, court, with anything I find. That said, steering him in the right direction could only help, right?”

He was like a kid trying to convince his parents that the party he wanted to go to wasn’t all that bad when, in fact, it was a nightmare.

“Fine, Nick, but?—”

“I know, I will, yes.”

I smirked. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“Whatever it is, you’re right.”

Laughing, I got up and moved to my desk. “Let me write down some names for you. Not sure I know last names for some, but like where they work, that good?”

“Yes, I can do a lot with that.”

Nick sat back drinking his own wine as I put pencil to paper and wrote the name of every person I knew a lot, a little, and not at all. I wasn’t sure if the pharmacist I used was useful, but he went on the list as well.

It took longer than I’d have thought but once I was done, I handed it to him.

He read each name and when he was done he raised a brow. “What about Steve?”

“Steve?”

“The guy at The Alibi that I scared off.”

“Pfft, if I put every person I had an encounter with, it would be a novel. Most I don’t know their names. All I’d know about him was his first name, nothing more.”

---