Instantly serious, Jack nodded. “Anything. All these years you never asked for a favor and you got plenty owed to you.”
“I told you before, Ginger’s taken up with a new guy, Gabe. I got a bad feeling about this dude. Gut instinct has kept me alive all these years. Don’t like how he treats Ginger. Don’t like how he looks at my little girl. Can you check into him? See if he has any priors? Any connections? I’ve been a shit dad, but if he’s a danger to my little girl, I want to get her out.”
“Leave it with me,” Jack said. “I’ll see if we can send Social Services around.”
“You guys need a refill?” The waitress stopped at their cracked Formica table, holding her coffee pot above the booth. Shy and pretty, with long blond hair she wore in a ponytail, and wide blue eyes, she rarely engaged them in conversation although she’d been serving them for years.
“That would be great, sweetheart. Thanks.” Ben pushed his cup along the table, and she filled it up.
“Everything okay here?” Her cheeks flushed, and she looked away. Damn she was cute.
“We’re good. Just need the bill.” Ben gave her a smile. If things hadn’t been so crazy, he would have chatted with her a little more, tried to find out how come a pretty girl like her was working the graveyard shift for three long years, but he didn’t even have enough time for Daisy much less for pursuing a woman he couldn’t have. And look how it turned out last time.
“One day, I’m gonna have a woman like her,” Ben said after she left the bill on the table. “Pretty. Soft and sweet. I’ll have a normal life, nice house. Daisy and a couple more kids.”
Jack snorted a laugh. “You’d be bored. You’re an adrenaline junkie, Ben. This job is your fix. There’s only a certain kind of man who could do what you’ve done for ten years, and he’s not the man with a sweet wife, a nine to five job, and a white picket fence.”
“So what? I’m gonna be undercover for life?”
“I dunno.” Jack threw a few dollars on the table to cover the bill. “Maybe you get out and you want back in. Or maybe you’re already in so deep, you’re already gone.”
NINE
“So how was the funeral?” Jules looked over her shoulder when Mia walked into the office on Tuesday morning. Jules had taken Monday off to take a course at UCLA as she slowly worked toward getting her computer-science degree.
“Good.”
“Good? As in it was a big party? People had a great time singing and dancing and boozing it up in church? Aunt May got it on with the priest? Little Johnny drank the Holy Water? Someone pissed on the altar? Or are you just not listening to me?”
Mia dragged her gaze to her irritated friend and laughed. Jules always poured the sarcasm on thick when she was annoyed. “I’m listening now.”
“Funeral?” Jules lifted an eyebrow in censure.
“Same as all funerals.” Mia sighed. “Depressing. Although, I was shocked to see mobsters from rival families in church and no bloodshed. I wasn’t sure if the restraint was out of respect for the church, the family of the deceased, or because everything is so unsettled. Although…” Her lips quivered with a smile, and Jules patted the chair beside her.
“Ah. Something interesting. Sit down and give me the goods, and while you’re talking you can help me with this. I can’t figure it out.”
Mia pulled up a chair beside Jules and stared at the code on Jules’ screen, trying to make sense of the only thing that usually made sense in her life.
“I’m guessing you’re distracted for a reason other than that rush job you did over the weekend.” Jules pulled up another screen to show Mia her various attempts to hack into the client’s system. “My weekend was okay. I’d give it a C-plus rating.” She tapped the keyboard and brought up another screen of code. “I went to a fancy country club with the cousin of a friend of mine. Met a British tennis pro. He invited me to his room for a drink. When we got there, he was painstakingly polite to the point I had to strip down and lay on the bed to get the message across.”
“That’s great.” Distracted, Mia stared at the screen, wondering what she would have done if Nico had invited her out for a drink instead of kissing her on the street. Or had she kissed him? She’d definitely initiated that sordid little encounter. Or had he? After all, he was the one who decided to get her car fixed. But she’d accepted the ride …