Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4)

Michael’s jaw dropped. “That’s got to be the missing link. That must be how it’s all connected. If T.J. worked there, too, the Royal Sinners must have been operating somehow at the limo company.” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “We looked into his employer when the case reopened, and the cops did, too, but nothing came up as a cause for concern. Even the guy who ran the place—he was squeaky clean, and now he’s long gone. Retired in Canada. Not a single blip or issue, but hell,” he said, stopping to blow out a long stream of air. “That’s how they operate. Under the radar.”

“Yes. If they run out of a piano store and have been avoiding capture for years, they’re smart. But you’ve figured it out,” she said with a smile, because she was so damn proud of him. His work had gotten the investigation that much closer.

Michael paced in front of the screen. “Everything must have been flowing through my dad’s company, I bet. Maybe the owner didn’t even know, and it was all right under his nose. And that’s how my mother met Luke in the first place. At a work party. I found pictures. So Luke must’ve been running everything—all these illegal operations through the back of the piano shop, but it was actually being funneled through West Limos. The drugs and the guns. And my mother was a part of it, since she was involved in selling drugs. That must be why the investigation was reopened. My mother was behind it all, but there were other people who had no problem offing my dad. Jesus fucking Christ,” he said, dragging a hand through his hair.

Annalise nodded sadly. “He said something about finding some discrepancies at work. Rides or items that were missing. Maybe they were missing because the Sinners were transporting guns or drugs, through the company and perhaps to the piano store.”

He snapped his fingers and pointed at her, his eyes lighting up with that aha moment. “You know, you’re beautiful and brilliant?”

“So are you.”

“I need to tell John.”

She waved him off. “Go, go. This is important. I’ll see you soon,” she said, and she was ready. Ready to have him come see her here in Paris, to have him in her home, to share some of her life here with him. She wanted to show him the local bakery, wander through the alleys, through the shops, take him to some of her favorite places in Paris. To make new memories with Michael.

“Nothing could stop me from seeing you.”

*

No one was home. Detective John Winston knocked on the door of Luke Carlton’s house at a quarter past ten. But the sound of his fist rapping on the wood echoed without an answer.

He turned around, scanning for Luke’s car on the street. He hadn’t seen it when he’d pulled up, but even so, he looked once more.

Course, the man not being home didn’t mean much. He might be at the piano shop. He might be at the grocery store again. It was hard to say.

John leaned to the right, trying to catch a glimpse through the window into the home. It looked just the same as it had when John was here over the summer. He’d interviewed Luke when the case was reopened. The man claimed to know nothing. He played up the whole fear factor, sticking to his story of being terrified the Royal Sinners would come after him. In truth, they were in his back pocket, and the man probably figured he was still getting away with it. That his long and time-honored practice of hiding behind his fake life and pushing others to take the blame would keep working. Hell, even the handful of gang arrests made recently were for other crimes; none were related to the murder.

And so Luke kept going about his business.

If the man stuck to his schedule, and he sure seemed like the type, that meant John might need to track him down at the piano shop this evening. But as he returned to his car, heading out of the neighborhood, he considered whether arresting the man at that place was the smartest approach.

That would be like walking into…well, into target practice. The shop was the center of their gun trade, and if John wanted to keep this arrest as quiet as he possibly could until he had T.J., too, he needed a different way in.

Food was the path.

*

When evening rolled around, John’s partner headed inside the grocery store, strolled around the aisles, and reported back via text.

John nodded to himself with a small sense of satisfaction. Luke Carlton was indeed a man of routine. That routine was his camouflage. It had shielded him for years. His clockwork schedule had made him appear one way to the world, and that masquerade made it possible for him to live a life of crime undetected.

John waited by the automatic doors of the supermarket—ready.

Tension coiled in him, but a kind of excitement, too. This was why he did what he did. The chance to clean up the streets. Put the bad guys behind bars.

After his best friend had been paralyzed by a drive-by gang shooting when he was fourteen, John had vowed to always do his part to keep this town safe. Sure, Luke Carlton had done so much more than sell guns. But all John needed was probable cause to take the man in. Thanks to Michael’s tip, coupled with the weeks of investigation, John and his men had been able to amass the necessary evidence.

He could taste the possibility of justice in the air.