Mick looked at her, and clutched her hand tighter. “Even though it will make me feel better?” he asked.
Roz was touched by his concern, but she had to stay true to herself. “I want to make you feel better.” He smiled. “And not just in that way,” she added, punching him in the gut with her free hand. “But I have to be careful.”
“Careful about what?”
“I have to make certain that I don’t become your whore, Mick.”
Mick was mortified. “My whore? I will never view you that way! You’ll never be that to me.”
“And to be certain of that, I’m going to stay right where I am and we are going to keep doing what we do until . . .”
“Until what?” Mick asked.
“Until we get it right.”
Mick thought about it. Then decided he could live with that. He squeezed her hand tighter. “Just be careful,” he said.
“I will.”
“I mean it, Rosalind. Take no chances with anyone. The same way you treated me when we first met and I offered to give you a lift? That’s the way you treat all strangers.”
Roz smiled. “But you ended up giving me a lift. And a whole lot more.”
Mick couldn’t help but smile himself. “Forget I used that example,” he said, and Roz laughed.
After walking her to her second floor apartment inside her Brooklyn brownstone, with further assurances that she would watch out for herself, Mick got back into his limousine to make the journey back to Philly.
But he had company. Danny Padrone, one of his men who had been working a case for him, had gotten into the limo and was now seated on the backseat.
“Sorry it took so long, boss,” he said as Mick got in.
“What do you have for me?” Mick asked.
Danny handed him the file. “His name is Carmelo Rivera.”
Mick saw a photograph of Carmelo. A very handsome young man.
“They dated for almost three years,” Danny went on. “By all accounts it started out pretty well. Rivera worked as a set designer and Miss Graham was teaching acting and picking up acting gigs. But then Rivera lost his job, and had to result to freelancing, but it wasn’t paying the bills. He relied heavily on Miss Graham during that time. And she did help him a lot. But that’s when the jealousy and over-possessiveness started. That’s when he started accusing Miss Graham of cheating on him.”
Mick continued to look at the various photographs of Roz’s ex. “Was she?” he asked without looking at Danny. Although Mick showed little interest, he was very much interested in the answer.
“We weren’t able to find any instances of infidelity of any kind,” Danny said. “So no sir, she was not unfaithful to Mr. Rivera.”
Mick expected that answer, but he was relieved to hear it anyway. “But Rivera thought so?”
“He thought so, yes, sir. He became obsessed with it. As their relationship began to crumble, his allegations became even more far-fetched. That’s when he posted the nude photos on the internet.”
Danny handed Mick another folder. “These,” he said.
Mick took the second folder and opened it. There were nearly ten different pictures of Rosalind lying naked in her bed. Of Rosalind getting out of the shower. There were a couple shots of Rosalind on top of Rivera, making love. Mick’s jaw tightened as he looked at those last two photographs.
Mick closed the folder and crossed his legs. “Take me to him,” he ordered, and Danny alerted the driver.
Carmelo Rivera grabbed his surf board and made his way back to the small beach house on the Jersey Shore. It wasn’t his place. He wasn’t even renting it. He was house sitting for an out-of-town friend. A lady friend.
But when he placed his board in the garage and entered the small house, he was shocked to see two men in his kitchen. The big bulky one was standing up. The muscular one, the extremely well dressed one, was sitting at the table with a folder in front of him. Since Carmelo wasn’t certain if the men were friends of his friend, he remained calm. “May I help you?” he asked.
“Sit down,” Danny ordered.
Now Carmelo was getting upset. “You don’t tell me what to do. Who are you? Are you looking for Lacy?”
Danny went to Carmelo, grabbed him by the arm, and threw him down in the chair across from Mick.
“What’s going on here?” Carmelo asked angrily. “Who are you people?”
Mick shoved the folder across the table.
Carmelo glanced at the folder. “What’s this?”
“Look at it, prick,” Danny ordered, “and stop asking so many fucking questions!”
Carmelo was more nervous now. These people looked like Mafia. He had no dealings with Mafia types. What was going on?
But he opened the folder. The answer, apparently, was in that folder.
When Carmelo saw the nude pictures of his ex Roz Graham, he actually felt relieved. He looked at Mick. “Nude pics of my girlfriend,” he said. “So what?”