Page 80 of Taking Care of the Target

McVee pulled off in an alley and twisted in his seat. “So, Mr. DaMarco. I don’t suppose you know where Cassandra Dalton is?”

“Let’s skip the bullshit and get right to it.” Despite what he just said, the words weren’t as easy to force out as he’d expected. He could hear Carlo and his men referring to rats with disgust. Even out of the biz, he’d often wondered what kind of person turned on their friends and family. Dad had to be rolling over in his grave right now—that dug at him the most.

Sorry, Dad, but he went after Bobby and my girl.

“You guys want Carlo Rossi, and I can help you get him,” Vince said. “You just need to promise you’ll make it stick. I’m not going to put my life on the line for him to turn around and easily wiggle out of the charges.”

McVee pushed Mancini’s arm down so that the gun was no longer pointed at Vince. “Depends on what you have.”

“I can tell you how he runs his protection racket and which storeowners would be the most likely to turn on him. I know the names of his dealers and distributers, as well as where he keeps his product. If you get a warrant to search the restaurant, you’ll find his and his men’s unregistered weapons collection that I’m sure could be tied to several crimes. And I personally witnessed the murder of Eduardo Alvarez. I don’t know the exact place he’s buried, but I know around where.”

Thanks to Sal’s big mouth, Vince overheard him and Dante talking about where to bury the guy who’d dared pull a weapon on him. “Get a few dogs and a team of detectives to the area, and you should be able to find the body. But you guys need to back off until you’ve got enough to arrest him, or he’ll bury every scrap of evidence before you get to it. He’s high-strung right now, and while he’s proud, he’ll run if he thinks he needs to. He’s got the resources to do it, too.”

“I bet he’s breathing easier now that Miss Dalton has disappeared,” McVee said.

Vince ignored it. First he’d solidify this, and then he’d talk about Cassie.

“How do we know we can trust you?” Mancini asked. “That you’re not just getting us to back off soyoucan hide evidence?”

“You don’t. But if you don’t back off, I’m not helping. I’m not getting myself killed for nothing. If you let me do things my way, you’ll catch the guy I’m guessing you’ve been after for years. I don’t think you have a whole lot of options. If you did, you would’ve arrested him already.”

“All right,” McVee said. “We’ll do it your way, but if you screw us over, we’ll return the favor. And I want to know what happened to Cassandra. What made her run into the street like that, and where is she now?”

Mancini folded his arms across the back of his seat. “We know you were dating her. Or at least pretending to.”

Vince sat back with a sigh. “I was keeping an eye on her for Carlo. She witnessed the Eduardo Alvarez murder, but after her accident, she had no memory of it. I tried to convince him to let it go, and yes, while I was watching her, she and I got…close. Then you guys started pushing Carlo, and he got worried about loose ends, so he told me to kill her.”

He swallowed hard, and his emotions weren’t all for show. Thinking about her tore him up inside every damn time. “He sent backup just in case I failed, and since you’ve obviously seen her apartment, you can guess how that went. Which makes you as responsible as I am for her death. Good luck living with that.” In fact, he could reach over the seat right now and knock the guys’ heads together for putting her in danger the way they had. Only that’d make it harder to get their help.

McVee’s face fell, leading Vince to believe he cared about keeping her safe. It made him like him a little more. “She’s dead?”

“The sniper hit her right in the gut. I tried to get her to a hospital, but it was too late, and I knew there’d be too many questions. Then Carlo would just come after me, so I decided I’d make sure he paid for her death instead.”

McVee’s sharp eyes studied Vince. “You’re right about us seeing her apartment. We got there shortly after the shots were fired—fast enough to catch Tony “the Trigger” Castellano coming from the other building.”

“Good. Charge him with her death, too.”

“I think there would’ve been more blood if the shot was fatal. I don’t think you’re being completely honest with us.”

“Well, everyone’s entitled to their opinions,” Vince said. “I carried that girl out of the building, and believe me, I saw plenty of her blood.”

“Where’s her body, then?”

Vince clenched his jaw and blew a breath out of his nose. “I put her to rest.”

McVee pressed his fingers to his forehead and made a tired, frustrated noise. “We’d have a better case with her body.”

“That’s too damn bad. I’m not letting you dig her up. You’ll have plenty of evidence, and she went through enough. Now, do you want my help or not?”

***

Jim watched Vince cut across the alley and disappear.

“You think he’s telling the truth?” Mancini asked.

“About Cassandra, no. Forensics got her blood type from the hospital, and they said the blood at the scene wasn’t hers. My guess is it’s his, but I don’t think he’ll readily agree to a blood test. About Rossi, though…I think Vince is our best bet at getting him, which makes me want to believe him. Maybe a little too much.”

“As much as I hate to say this about the brute who pulled me out of a window, he’s smarter than the rest of Carlo’s guys.”

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