Page 93 of Stella
Cash eyes me quizzically. He looks like he’s ready to jump me, not cooperate. “Will this take long?”
I sigh, but before I can get any words out, Manny comes bursting through the doors. “I have caramel tarts, some eclairs and cookies I made this morning,” he sings. “And three coffees.”
“Manny…” Cash begins, but as Manny places the plate in the middle of the table between us, and lays out the coffees, he thinks better of it.
“Just keeping our guests happy, boss,” he says. “We wouldn’t want the hardworking cops of New Orleans to go away saying our club isn’t hospitable, would we?”
Cash gives him a look that says he doesn’t give a fuck what we go away thinking, but he just takes a long inhale of breath.
As Manny rounds the table, he asks me; “Would Calli like something? A snack, water?”
“She’s fine,” I tell him. “Thank you.”
“Enjoy!” Manny claps his hands together.
“Thanks, Manny,” Willow says, wasting no time in reaching for an eclair.
Cash is still looking at me. “Spit it out, hotshot, I haven’t got all day.”
I clear my throat. “A few weeks ago I received a parcel, a few days later another one came, then, a few days ago, another. Inside the first was a blueprint, the second a key, and then the third a shot glass. I had it tested, and it came back with your DNA,” I say.
Cash’s frown deepens. “What the fuck?”
“Then today, I received these.” I place the photos in front of him, and he picks them up, fingering through them one by one. When he sees the ones of him, Deanna and their kid, I swear his face pales. “Is there anyone who more recently would have a reason to target you?”
He stares down at the images, pausing on the one of Deanna and his little girl at the grocery store. His eyes are murderous when he looks back up at me. “Some asshole is following me and my family?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” I say. “So I need to know if anything is going on you’d like to tell me about.”
“No,” he says, not meeting my gaze. “Nothing is going on.”
“Would you tell us if there was?” Willow raises a brow. “This is serious, Cash, and we’re here to help.”
His gaze flicks to her. “You think I don’t know that? This bastard has pictures of my wife and child!”
Her voice is calm when she says, “That’s why we’re here. This is serious. We need to know, Cash. We can’t protect you if we don’t know what’s going on.”
“My club will protect each other long before we ever involve the police.” He turns back to look at me. “You live by the same motto, right, Detective?”
All clubs have a ‘protect our own’ mentality, and that goes for the police force too.
“Maybe we do, but when it comes to the ones we love, nothing gets in the way. Not loyalty. Not friendship. Actions, Cash. Someone is threatening you through me, and I need to find out why.”
Cash picks up his phone. “I need to call D.”
“She’s in the house?” I ask.
“Yeah, but this asshole has been everywhere,” Cash says. “My kid’s fuckin’ school?”
“I think it’s safe to say we need to take precautions until we figure this out,” Willow interjects.
“D?” Cash says when Deanna picks up. “I’m sendin’ Stella over to you right now. Everything’s fine. Just hang tight until I get there, got me? I’ll be there soon.”
He hangs up, then taps on his phone for a few moments. “I don’t want my wife and daughter alone if there’s some crazy freak around.”
“Understandable, but we need to know if there’s any beef, or you pissed anyone off lately,” I say. “Any small thing could help.”
Cash looks around, searching for something, but he comes up blank. “The club has been at peace for months,” he says eventually. “Things are gettin’ back to normal around here after a long time of unrest, but this shit?” He flings the photos across the table. “This shit fuckin’ pisses me off.”
