Ginny Aiken - Mixed Up with the Mob

He parked on the street, right in front of the gorgeous old home. It had probably started out as the gem in the crown of a self-made man, maybe a doctor, lawyer, or even a politician—this was Philadelphia, after all.

He rang the doorbell, then he waited out front for what felt like an eternity. The weather was still rotten, and the icy drizzle’s needles stung his face.

Finally, she responded. “Oh!”

“May I come in?” he asked. “I’ve a couple of questions for you.”

She opened the door; her every motion shrieked reluctance.

“Hmm,” he murmured. “You could do a guy’s ego some harm with that kind of welcome.”

Her green eyes flashed. “You aren’t welcome, Mr. Latham. But since you came up with an official ID last night, I don’t have a choice, do I?”

He shrugged, and stepped inside. The interior matched the exterior of the luxurious mansion. Gleaming wood floors, a sparkling chandelier, rich patterned rugs and a spectacular staircase spoke of old money for construction and new money for upkeep.

He had to find out how illegal the DiStefano money was.

Among other things.

He followed her into a grand living room, what must once have been referred to as a formal parlor. Now it housed a huge cream leather sectional, cushy ottoman, dark wood side tables, and a thick creamy brown area rug under it all.

“Hey, the only thing missing is the wide-screen plasma TV.”

She sat at the end of the sectional with the loungy part on the end, then shrugged. “Not me, Mr. Latham. All of this belonged to my brother. It’s—was—his home.”

“And now it’s yours.”

Her sigh held a ton of emotion, but David couldn’t identify it all.

“If I can hang on to it.”

He took note of her comment, and dropped into the curve of the massive couch. “How about if you give me a few more details. This sounds interesting.”

Again, her eyes sparked. “Interesting since it doesn’t affect you.”

“Oh, but it does,” he countered. “You see, you’ve become my new assignment. Or to put it better, last night’s hit-and-run is my business. I need to learn everything about it.”

“And that would be because…?”

“Because, Miss DiStefano, I witnessed something I can’t explain—something you couldn’t explain to my satisfaction. So why don’t we start at the beginning?”

“What do you want to know?”

For such a soft-spoken woman, Lauren DiStefano could put a sharp bite to her words when she wanted to. “How did you come to live with your brother?”

“He was widowed three years ago and left with a two-year-old son to raise. He didn’t want to deal with day care or nannies, and since I’m family and an elementary school teacher, he asked me to help. They’re the only relatives I have left so I moved in.”

“You gave up your own life to become his housekeeper and babysitter?”

Her eyes did their thing again, but her voice didn’t go up, it just took another nip with her words. “If that’s the way you see family, then I pity you.”

Ouch! “That wasn’t exactly what I meant, but—”

“Then what did you mean, Mr. Latham? Your question was quite clear. As an educator, I can understand and carry on a conversation, you know.”

He felt his cheeks warm. He had come pretty close to what she’d understood him to say.

“Sorry,” he muttered. Then he cleared his throat. “How about we start this again?”

She shrugged.

He didn’t blame her.

But he still needed information. “Did you and your brother grow up in this home?”

“Not at all. Ric bought this place when his wife was pregnant.”

“So he’s had it for about four, maybe five years.”

“Just over five now. Mark turned five six weeks ago.”

“And you were willing to give up your work to care for your nephew.”

“Any day, Mr. Latham. I love Mark as if he were my own.”

“I could see that last night, Miss DiStefano. You saved him some serious injuries there. The car just glanced off you, but if it had clipped him, as young as he is, the impact would have done damage.”

She shuddered. “That was the worst part of it.”

“And how do you feel today?”

“I won’t lie to you. I’m sore. Every bit of me aches.”

“I was pretty sure you weren’t anywhere near as all right as you insisted last night.”

“I am all right. I just fell. Feeling sore is one thing, an injury that requires an ambulance and EMTs is another.”

“I’ll give you that.” He felt she’d eased up some, so he went in with another of his questions. “So your brother was quite successful. What kind of work did he do?”

“I don’t really know. Something to do with funding and stocks—money matters. I never bothered to ask.”

So what did she do? Just suck up the bucks the brother brought in?

He tried again. “I imagine he left you well provided, seeing you’ll be raising his son.”

“I wish. It appears what he did leave is a mountain of debt. I have to meet with the bank and…” She gave a vague wave. “I don’t know what you call them. Financial planners? Advisors? Money men, okay?”

“There must be insurance, though.”

“Yes, there is, and it’s a large sum, but if the debts are as serious as the money men say, then it might not stretch far enough for me to keep the house.”

“Then what will you do with your nephew? I mean, I imagine you’ll have to get a job again.”

“Probably. But Mark is in preschool these days. I hope to find a teaching position at his school or another one nearby.”

“That would be nice.”

They fell silent for a few moments, and David tried to come up with an effective way to ask what he needed to know. But in the end, he had no luck. He leaned forward and blurted it out.

“So how about you tell me what really happened last night? And don’t give me that ghost stuff. Where is your brother? Did he die? Or did he pretend he did? Did he try to run you over? And if he did hit you with that car, why? What does he have against you? Why would your brother want to kill you?”

She gasped.

“No!” the little boy yelled from the parlor door. “My daddy dinn’nt do that to Aunt Lauren. I don’t like you. Go ’way! Leave my aunt alone, you ugly…um…nasty…ah…monster!”

And right then, David did feel like an ugly monster. Especially when he saw the pain in Lauren DiStefano’s tear-filled green eyes.

There were times he really hated his job.

Lauren ran to Mark’s side. “Hush, honey. It’s okay. It’s Mr. Latham’s job to ask questions, even—” she shot David a poisonous glare “—nasty ones.”

By then, David did feel as nasty as dog slobber and even less welcome. He went to defend himself, but Mark proved quicker to the draw.

“You gotta go do time-out in the corner, mister.” He pointed toward the back of the room. “That’s what Miss Green does at school.”

David took the chance to lighten the moment. “So Miss Green spends lots of time standing in the corner. Wow, Mark. She must sure be a greeny-meany.”

For a heartbeat, the boy seemed to weigh the sincerity of David’s joke. But David saw victory at the quirking of Mark’s mouth. Then he burst into a full-blown grin.

“Hey, Aunt Lauren! He made a good funny.”

“Yes, Mark. He did.”

The look she sent David this time made him feel too many things, too many to identify at once. Yes, she saw the humor in his dopey comment, which made him ridiculously proud of himself. But she didn’t trust him any more than she would an angry rattler, which for some reason made him want to prove himself—to the subject of an investigation. Go figure.