Page 69 of Jack of Hearts
Nate tightened the band on his ponytail as he scanned the room. “The night’s not over. If you want a fight that bad, go start one.”
Tempting. He shrugged. “I think I’ll just bug out instead. You and Court can manage a few more hours without me.”
“Are you in love with Madison, baby brother?”
“For what good it’ll do me, yeah. She’s going to hate me, already hates me.” He missed her. There was a hole in his heart that made it hard to breathe when he thought of her, which was every minute of every day.
Nate leaned against the bar, crossing his arms over his chest. “This will be over tomorrow, then you can start winning your girl back.”
If it was possible to win her back. “Someone sitting on Lopez?”
“Yeah, Rothmire’s got a couple of detectives watching him. They’ll pick him up in the morning at the same time we take the Alonzos down.”
“I want to know why he was snooping in the bookstore’s files.”
“We’ll get that answered soon enough.” Nate narrowed his eyes, his gaze on the door. “That fight you’ve been itching for just walked in the door.”
Alex glanced over to see who’d come in. He smiled at seeing Dirty Dan. “He still banned?”
“Yep.”
Cracking his knuckles, he stood. “Just what the doctor ordered.”
A little before dawn, Madison used her mother’s key to let herself in to her uncle’s house. She hurried to the alarm and entered the code that she hoped hadn’t changed since the last time she’d used it. Familiar with the layout, she headed for Ramon’s office with only the moonlight coming in through the windows lighting her way. If she couldn’t find what she was looking for there, she’d have to search her uncle’s office.
After Alex had left, she’d had trouble sleeping. She’d even put the sheets with his scent back on the bed, hoping that would help. It hadn’t. Between the deep ache in her heart from missing him and the questions about her father, she was a hot mess. Since Alex wasn’t around any longer to help her investigate her father’s death, she’d just have to go it alone.
One comment Alex had made had preyed on her mind during those sleepless nights. How had her uncle and cousin known about the accident so fast? The police wouldn’t have contacted them first. And why hadn’t her father wanted to discuss the story he was working on? The only reason she could think of was that he’d somehow found out about their criminal activities and planned to expose them.
There was no more honorable man than her father had been. That the Alonzos were family wouldn’t have stopped him from writing the story, and it would explain why he hadn’t talked about it. She was her father’s daughter, and she owed it to him to find the truth. If her suspicions were right, she would see that his story was told.
She’d decided the best time to search would be early in the morning when she was sure her cousin and uncle would be asleep. She crept into Ramon’s office, closed the door, and turned on a lamp. Where to start? She moved to his desk, easing down onto the chair. The middle drawer was a mess of pens, pencils, paperclips, and sticky notepads, and she resisted the urge to organize everything. In the next drawer, she found a box half full of cigars, a stapler, a roll of stamps, and several pairs of eyeglasses.
“Didn’t know you wore reading glasses, cuz,” she murmured, holding one up and peering through the lenses.
The bottom drawer, big enough to hold files, was locked, but she’d seen a key in the mess of pens and pencils. It fit, and she pulled the drawer open. All the folders had tabs, and she flipped through them.
“What’s this?” she said, seeing a tab with her father’s name on it. The only thing in the folder was an envelope with her dad’s initials on the front. It wasn’t sealed, and she frowned when she looked inside. Why would Ramon have a thumb drive that she recognized as one of the green logoed ones she’d given her father for Christmas? Was this the proof she needed?
Unease slithered through her as she turned on Ramon’s computer, slipping the thumb drive in. Her eyes scanned the document, which she recognized as a draft of one of her father’s investigative reports. After reading Michael Parker’s investigation into Jose and Ramon Alonzo’s illegal activities, Madison sat back in the chair, her heart pounding. It wasn’t proof that her own family members had either killed or ordered her father killed. That the thumb drive—one her father would never have let out of his sight—was in Ramon’s possession was as damning as it got, though.
How could they do such a horrible thing? Tears streamed down her cheeks as she thought of her beloved father. If it turned out to be true, it would devastate her mother. Hell, it was devastating her. She remembered a conversation she’d overhead between her parents a few days before he died.
“Is there anything I could ever do to make you stop loving me, Angie?”
Her mother had laughed. “Of course not, silly man. You are my heart.”
Had her father been thinking of the story he’d written when he’d asked that question? Madison angrily swiped at her tears. She had to get out of here before she did something stupid, like demand answers from her cousin. The thumb drive seemed hot and heavy in her hand, as if it might burn right through her skin.
She had two choices. Go straight to the police or go to her father’s editor. Convince him to run the story with her father’s byline. Would that be sufficient for the police to open an investigation into her father’s death? She needed time to calm down and think.
“What the hell, Madison?”
She jerked her gaze up to see Ramon standing in the doorway, his hair on end, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers.Shit. Shit. Shit.She palmed the thumb drive, and tried to delete the document still up on the screen, but Ramon was on her too fast.
His eyes darted to the monitor, then to her. “Little girls shouldn’t be nosing into things that are none of their business, cousin.” His grip on her wrist tightened, and he pulled her toward the door.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” She tried to pull her arm away, but he dug his fingers into her skin, causing her to whimper.
