Driven to Ink

Chapter 40

As quickly as she grabbed me, she let me go, turning on her heel and walking swiftly down the aisle, like a bride who’d been jilted and wanted to get out as soon as possible before the questions started.

I stood alone at the altar, wondering exactly what she was talking about. How did she know Ray Lucci?

My cell phone interrupted my thoughts, Springsteen singing “Born to Run” in my bag. I dug it out and glanced at the caller ID. Uh-oh. Tim.

I flipped the phone open and said, “Hey there.”

“Forget that crap. Where are you?”

He was angry. Really angry, and I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised.

“I’m across the street.”

“Across-” He stopped as he figured out where I was.

I waited.

“I’ll be over there in a minute. Be outside.”

The call ended, and I stuffed the phone back in my bag, striding down the aisle. As I turned the corner, I bumped into Sanderson, who stepped back slightly and grinned.

“Whoa, where you headed, little lady?”

“My ride is here,” I said, trying to step around him.

He moved so I couldn’t.

“Who’s your ride? Your fiancé?”

“No, my brother,” I said firmly, attempting again to sidle past.

He got in my way again. “Your brother?”

It was time to play my hand.

“Yes, Mr. Sanderson. My brother. A Las Vegas police detective. He knows I’m here, so if I’m not out there in a few minutes, he’ll come in here and make sure I leave safely.”

Sanderson feigned surprise.

“Why wouldn’t you leave here safely?”

I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant, but something about this guy was giving me the willies. “I don’t know. I just know he’s here, and I have to meet him outside.” Again I tried to step around him.

This time he let me squeeze past, so close that I could feel the layers of his flesh against my breasts.

He grinned as he got his cheap thrill.

I scowled. “Thanks for the information,” I said.

“You’re welcome, Miss Kavanaugh.”

I stopped. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, I know who you are. I know you’re here because you think I threatened DellaRocco. It’s not that way. Believe me. It’s the other way around.”

“What’s the other way around?” Tim would be even more furious with me if he had to wait too long, but I couldn’t help myself. “Are you saying he threatened you?”

“He sent his thug over here.”

“Thug?” What? Were we in a Sopranos episode?

“That ex-con.”

“Lucci?”

Sanderson nodded. “That’s the one. Says he can make life difficult for me. Well, I turned the tables on him, didn’t I?”

He didn’t seem to realize what he was saying, but its meaning was not lost on me.

“Did you have something to do with Ray Lucci’s murder?” I asked. Sometimes the direct question is the best one.

Or not.

He grabbed my shoulder and shoved me against the wall. I landed with a thud, the wind momentarily knocked out of me.

“Hey!”

We both looked up to see Tim bounding toward us. He pushed Sanderson away from me, and before Sanderson knew it, Tim had his arm twisted up behind him so hard I could see tears forming in Sanderson’s eyes.

Tim looked at me. “Are you okay?”

I nodded, standing up straight, trying to catch my breath.

Tim turned to Sanderson. “I could take you in right now for assault.”

I rarely saw my brother at work. I was used to him lounging around the living room in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, a beer in one hand, his other hand in a bag of chips, while he watched whatever game was on the big-screen TV. Sometimes there was a woman, usually not the same one from week to week. After Shawna and their three-year relationship, he was playing the field. I didn’t blame him.

But now, his eyes were dark, his face tight, his voice deep with his threat. His muscles bulged in his arm as he strengthened his hold on Sanderson. He was all cop, and it scared me a little, like it was scaring Sanderson. Because, despite the hefty girth on the man and Tim’s definitely thinner frame, Sanderson looked as if he was about to pee his pants at any second. If Tim pulled his gun, it would be all over.

“I didn’t mean anything,” Sanderson finally stammered.

Tim swung him around as if he weren’t any heavier than a bag of potatoes. He let go of Sanderson’s arm and put his hands on his hips, his feet planted on the ground like a cop in one of those TV reality shows.

“You did mean something, and if I ever find out that you did anything like that again, to my sister or to any woman, I’ll come after you. And believe me, you don’t want that to happen.”

Scared the crap out of me, and I wasn’t even on the receiving end.

Sanderson nodded like a bobblehead doll. “Yessir,” he said, even though he must have had at least twenty years on Tim. But cops have that effect on people.

Tim turned his stare to me. “Are you ready?”

I nodded and shifted my bag a little farther up my shoulder.

Tim put his hand at the small of my back and steered me toward the door and outside. The glare hit my eyes, and I squinted, rummaging in my bag for my sunglasses. I slipped them on.

Tim opened the car door for me, and I climbed inside, settling into the seat, pulling my seat belt around me, and clicking it in. He got into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

But then he turned to me. “You’re not off the hook, you know, just because that guy was tossing you around in there.”

I glared at him. “So you’re going to finish what he started?” I challenged.

“Don’t tempt me.”

“He said Lucci came over and threatened him.”

Tim’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Did he say that?”

“I heard that Sanderson was trying to steal the Dean Martins. He got one of them. Alan something or other. I thought maybe Sanderson had something to do with what was going on, but he says it was the other way around. That DellaRocco was threatening him. Using Lucci as muscle.”

Tim snorted. “Someone’s lying.”

It was the way he said it that made me take notice.

“What did DellaRocco say?”

Tim braked at the red light, and we sat idling. He stared straight at the light, as if willing it to change. I opened my mouth to ask my question again, but before I could, he spoke.

“DellaRocco said he found ten thousand dollars in a duffel bag in Lucci’s locker the day Lucci was killed.”