Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“Do you at least have your license?” he asked, a little impatient.
“Yes, here it is,” I said, holding up the precious document with a friendly smile.
He studied it for a long time, but I wasn’t overly concerned. I had hired an excellent forger to do the job. That permit cost me a small fortune.
“Angelica Rougon,” he read out loud.
“That’s me.”
He raised his eyebrows and they almost disappeared under his flat cap, which was a real feat, considering just how thick they were. I panicked for a moment before remembering one small detail.
“The photo’s from my goth phase. It should be illegal to have a driver’s license photo taken on your eighteenth birthday,” I said jokingly, hoping he would buy it.
To my surprise, I finally saw a smile flash across Groucho Marx’s lips.
“For the registration…” he started.
We were interrupted by the police vehicle’s driver’s-side door opening. As the second officer got out of the car, seeing her bulldog-on-the-verge-of-attack demeanor, I realized I had been dealing with the nicer of the two.
My time was officially up.
I had more than one trick up my sleeve, but now I found myself out of inspiration. Maybe it was because of the shock from the afternoon, or maybe I just didn’t have my mojo that day. I knew I was done for. The only question was how badly?
She called her colleague to her, and although their little chat near the car didn’t last very long, it was nonetheless devastating.
Megabrows came toward me, this time with a determined look on his face, and his colleague gave me such a cold look, I felt like I was being turned to stone.
“Can you get out of the vehicle, please, miss?”
In one final bluff, I feigned surprise. “Huh? Why?”
Groucho looked at me like he had a taser and wasn’t afraid to use it. I realized that the longer I made him wait, the worse off I would be. If I didn’t want to ride to the police station handcuffed in the backseat, I’d have to show my cooperation.
I undid my seatbelt, opened the door, and no sooner had my feet touched the ground had the frustrated cop pushed me up against the side of the car and was handcuffing me.
“Hey! What did I do?”
“The vehicle is declared stolen.”
“But it’s a misunderstanding.”
“Oh yeah? Where is the registration?”
“It’s…it’s not stolen. It was a loan!”
“And you were speeding,” she said, hauling me toward their car.
“That’s what I said. I was testing it out to see if I wanted to buy it.”
“Over 50 miles away from where it was sold?”
“You need to think about a car like this before taking out a five-year loan,” I argued weakly.
“You can tell that to my colleague down at the station, but we’re taking you in.”
Taking on the idiot in the red car really was the worst idea I could’ve had today. But… If there was one place Bruno Santoni wouldn’t go looking for me, it was a police station.
26
FINN CHAPTER 3
Finn
“So, your potential witness has just disappeared into thin air,” concluded Leah when I reported the events of the last few hours.
“Yes, and to top it all off, Roxane Robin isn’t her real name. She’s been living at Mrs. Barale’s for four months, and the old woman swears she’s always gone by that name. She even had papers for the lease.
Leah sat back and stared at a fixed point, lost in thought.
Although she was my superior, I also considered her a friend. She was in her early forties, single, or rather married to the job, and had worked her way up in the police force, which not everyone liked. Many of them wanted her position, but she wasn’t afraid to take risks and even put her job on the line when it was necessary. For that alone I admired her.
“You’re sure it’s Santoni?”
“It was his modus operandi. The fact that it was at his great-aunt’s, I’m sure of it. Even though we didn’t get to formally interrogate the witness, when Leonard asked her, she said she was sure it was him. She recognized Santoni.
“She’d already met him?”
“Yes, according to his great-aunt they met occasionally. She didn’t think they got the chance to talk, but she wasn’t sure.”
“Do you think the witness might work for Santoni?”
“Why? If she does, she wouldn’t have turned him in.”
Leah shrugged. “In shock, why not? Maybe she didn’t expect him to shoot a guy in cold blood before her very eyes. She said something, and then realizing she’d made a mistake, she left.”
“That, or she’s working for the competition,” I remarked.
“Meaning?”
“She could very well have been paid by a rival gang to live at Mrs. Barale’s and keep an eye on her nephew.”
“That could also be true, but we still don’t know who she is…”
I ran my hand across my face. “Yeah, we’re at a dead end.”