Jeanie London - Then There Were Three

“We’ve got to clean up this department, Nic,” the mayor had said. “We’ve got to earn the community’s trust again. I don’t care what the good old boys around here say. They’re part of the problem. You’re the right man for this job and the Feds agree.”

What was Nic going to do except trade his title as commander for superintendent and postpone living a while longer?

In the corridor to his office, he reached for the door—

“Wait a sec, Chief. You don’t want to go in yet.”

Nic paused with his hand on the knob and glanced over his shoulder. “Why not?”

“She’s in there.”

Nic shook his head, unsure he’d heard correctly. “Let me get this straight. You picked up a minor in violation last night and she’s not at the curfew center, but in my office?”

Jurado shrugged. “It seemed a good idea at the time.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because she refused to talk to anyone but you.”

“Help me out here, Jurado. Where’d you pick her up?”

“Big Mike’s place on Iberville.”

That got Nic’s attention. He’d taken a stroll to Big Mike’s place on Iberville last night, and since he didn’t believe in coincidences… “You want me to start guessing wildly?”

“Got the call after midnight. Ever since we received that anonymous tip Busybodies Massage Spa was a front for prostitution, we’ve been keeping an eye on the place.”

“That much I already know.” He’d still been Eighth District commander when Big Mike, proprietor of Insane, Ink, had leased space to Busybodies to keep his doors open in the down economy.

“Disturbance in the massage spa. Customer allegedly got handsy with one of the therapists,” Jurado explained. “The owner called in because she thinks we’re looking for some reason to shut her down. She was afraid this customer would cause trouble if he didn’t get what he wanted.”

“Let me guess…Dubos.”

“Good wild guess.”

Not so much. An informant from Nic’s days as commander had tipped him that Busybodies was Judge Hugo Dubos’s new massage joint of choice. Nic had been keyed up after a dinner with the mayor and U.S. attorney last night, so he’d hit the streets like in the old days, walking to take the edge off.

Might have worked, too, until Damon.

“Get anything?”

Jurado snorted. “Statements from the therapist and the owner. That’s about it. Apparently, there was an argument. Dubos left before the duty officers got there. Couldn’t get a statement out of Big Mike. Said he didn’t see or hear anything. Details are in the incident report.” He held up a lumpy folder.

No surprises here. Big Mike had been around long enough to be a French Quarter institution. He’d weathered Katrina when many businesses had gone under or relocated and wouldn’t want attention given to the way he skirted legalities to make ends meet. His infractions were small potatoes in this city.

Until Hurricane Katrina.

When New Orleans had emptied out, the crime had gone with it. That’s why the U.S. attorney and his federal buddies had come to town—to make sure the new mayor and police chief got a grip on the city as it filled back up. That would take some doing because they weren’t only cleaning up the city but cleaning inside the department.

“This juvenile see something?” Nic asked.

“Told you, Chief. She won’t talk to anyone but you.”

Obviously, Nic wasn’t going to get this on his own. He tightened his grip on the door handle, ready to end the suspense. “Anything else?”

“Good luck.” Jurado handed him the file folder containing the incident report. With a sigh, he headed toward Operations. “You know where I’ll be.”

The instincts that had kept Nic alive for so long on the streets suddenly revved into gear. He didn’t know what was on the opposite side of this wall, but Nic knew that whatever—whoever she was—would rock his day.

Not bothering to glance at the report, he opened the door to find a teenage girl dozing in his chair, sandaled feet with brightly polished toes propped on the corner of his desk.

She jerked awake at his entrance. Her head snapped back, and she glanced at him, blinking away sleep.

Nic had been with the NOPD for years. Before the new mayor of New Orleans had appointed him police chief, he’d been commander of the high-profile and highly pain-in-the-ass Eighth District, which included the French Quarter, Central Business District and Harrah’s Casino. He’d seen it all. Nowadays it took something really good to surprise him.

The young girl staring at him through unfamiliar eyes surprised him. Probably because the only thing unfamiliar about her were the eyes. The rest of her, from the top of her tawny head to those brightly painted toenails, was pure DiLeo.

Nic blinked, but the girl was still there, staring up at him from a face all-too recognizable to deny a blood connection.

If the tawny hair and olive-skinned features didn’t give her away, the look in her eyes did—a mix of curiosity and attitude and a little too much pride.

This girl was a DiLeo, no question.

He wasn’t going to catch a break, was he? And here he’d thought he was done cleaning up family messes.

With a mental sigh, Nic calculated her age, trying to guess which one of his brothers might be responsible.

Fourteen, he decided, early high school. She seemed to be poised right on the brink of becoming a real have-an-answer-for-everything, demand-the-car-keys teen. Nic knew the look. Knew it very well, in fact, as the oldest of six siblings. Which took his youngest brother, Vince, out of contention straightaway. Too young. That left Marc, Anthony or Damon.

Nic’s money was on Damon. But to be fair, Marc could have done the deed. He would have been knee-deep in his rock-star phase about the time this young girl became more than a twinkle in her daddy’s eye. Marc’s band had practiced in the garage behind the family house and no matter how often Nic and his mother had patrolled the premises, the groupies marching through those practices rivaled a Mardi Gras parade.

Definitely not Anthony. His girlfriend of the time had spent more time at the DiLeo house than Anthony. Still did. No way could she have kept a pregnancy secret.

So Nic was going with Damon. Just because he was on Nic’s shit list today.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” the girl announced before he’d gathered his wits enough to begin the interrogation. “I didn’t know about the curfew. And if that disgusting old pervert hadn’t been yelling at those women, the police wouldn’t have even come at all.”

Nic noticed a few things straight off. Her accent for one. There, but distinctly not there. As if no one place had taken root, yet many had left an impression. For some reason he wanted to say European, but knew that wasn’t right.

Then there were the glaring flaws in her reasoning. Namely, she would have still been breaking the curfew ordinance even if she hadn’t been caught. So unless there was parent or guardian in possession of a notarized letter in the folder he held, that fresh piercing on her nose also contradicted the part about her not doing anything wrong, too.

Nic was back to his original question.

Opening the folder—no parents or guardians in here—he glanced down at the incident report and…a passport. A few more facts clicked as he snapped open the booklet one handed. The girl was a U.S. citizen, a traveler.

Croatia. Africa. Thailand. He’d been right about the accent. The most recent custom stamp came from Chile, South America.

Raking his gaze over a photo taken a few years ago, when she’d been ten maybe, he glanced at the name—

Violet Nicole Bell.

The hair on the back of his neck crawled, and for a blind instant, he could only stare as every shred of reason rebelled.