it.
“Of course.” He moves to the doorway and holds the door open for me.
I kiss his old cheek wrinkled with lines and smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Just before we move on with this though... Are you sure I can’t tempt you into coming back to police work? You’d make my life much easier.”
I grin. “Sorry, but no. It’s way more fun to find things out about people through questionable methods.”
He raises his eyebrows as we descend the stairs. “As always, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
He was right.
Mrs. Russo declined to accept her check back and, much to my annoyance, thrust a second one of the same amount into my hand, demanding that I “find the motherfucker who killed Daniela.”
Honestly, after that, I was a little afraid to argue. I think I took the check, nodded, smiled, and promised I’d do my best.
The police might not know anything, but Mrs. Russo is one hundred percent sure someone murdered her daughter. I’m a little inclined to go with her assumption—mother’s instinct and all that. Every time my mom has pulled that card, she’s been right.
So has Nonna. Not that anyone in their right mind would tell that crazy bat that she was right. We’d never hear the end of it.
Except when it comes to cooking. Her being right about cooking is why I’m sitting cross-legged on my desk chair in my home office, gorging on her cheesy, baked garlic bread and homemade bacon-and-tomato ravioli. Food—it’s Nonna’s answer for everything. Especially when that food is cheese, pasta, or both.
She heard on the bingo-vine that Mrs. Russo hired me, and after a lecture about avoiding murderers, she presented me with this food she cooked.
You know, sometimes, I think we’re even friends. Until she mutters that the rug and the blinds in the downstairs bathroom don’t match perfectly. Then I glare her out of the building.
She’ll bring me a new set tomorrow. I’m no fool. They’ll be on the doorstep when I get home, and I’ll probably only have to nag Drake for three months to do the blinds.
Now, I’m looking over everything I know about Daniela Russo. It’s much harder to comb through someone’s life when their life was lived before the rise of the Internet and social media. Usually, all I have to do for information is hop online, but with Daniela, I can’t. There are very few traces of her except old newspaper articles that have been scanned onto various databases.
I don’t want to, but I’m probably going to have to comb through her personal belongings if I want to get anything even semi-private.
The good news is that printing off and reading through all of these old articles is providing me with information I didn’t know. I didn’t know that Daniela had a boyfriend three years her senior or that, at the time of her disappearance, her parents were on the verge of a divorce, and I didn’t know that her eldest brother left for college early one week after she went missing.
I scribble these three points down in a notepad. The cogs in my brain start to whir, but there’s nothing for them to catch against. All of these points could mean nothing. It could all be coincidence. Stuff like this usually is. That doesn’t mean they’re not worth investigating.
Everything is worth investigating, even if the point in question is whether or not her dog liked her boyfriend.
Dogs are good judges of character.
It’s why I don’t mind being called a bitch so much. I can size most people up in seconds.
Except Jason when I thought he was Alex because he was undercover. I’m still mad at him for that one.
My doorbell rings, and I grab a slice of garlic bread before I walk down the hall.
“‘Oo is it?” I yell through a mouthful of cheesy, bready goodness.
“Jason.”
Whoa. Freaky. “‘Ng on.” Classy, Noelle. Real classy. Can’t even swallow my food before I speak.
At least I’m wearing a bra. Can’t win ‘em all.
I open the front door.
“Of course.” He moves to the doorway and holds the door open for me.
I kiss his old cheek wrinkled with lines and smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Just before we move on with this though... Are you sure I can’t tempt you into coming back to police work? You’d make my life much easier.”
I grin. “Sorry, but no. It’s way more fun to find things out about people through questionable methods.”
He raises his eyebrows as we descend the stairs. “As always, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
He was right.
Mrs. Russo declined to accept her check back and, much to my annoyance, thrust a second one of the same amount into my hand, demanding that I “find the motherfucker who killed Daniela.”
Honestly, after that, I was a little afraid to argue. I think I took the check, nodded, smiled, and promised I’d do my best.
The police might not know anything, but Mrs. Russo is one hundred percent sure someone murdered her daughter. I’m a little inclined to go with her assumption—mother’s instinct and all that. Every time my mom has pulled that card, she’s been right.
So has Nonna. Not that anyone in their right mind would tell that crazy bat that she was right. We’d never hear the end of it.
Except when it comes to cooking. Her being right about cooking is why I’m sitting cross-legged on my desk chair in my home office, gorging on her cheesy, baked garlic bread and homemade bacon-and-tomato ravioli. Food—it’s Nonna’s answer for everything. Especially when that food is cheese, pasta, or both.
She heard on the bingo-vine that Mrs. Russo hired me, and after a lecture about avoiding murderers, she presented me with this food she cooked.
You know, sometimes, I think we’re even friends. Until she mutters that the rug and the blinds in the downstairs bathroom don’t match perfectly. Then I glare her out of the building.
She’ll bring me a new set tomorrow. I’m no fool. They’ll be on the doorstep when I get home, and I’ll probably only have to nag Drake for three months to do the blinds.
Now, I’m looking over everything I know about Daniela Russo. It’s much harder to comb through someone’s life when their life was lived before the rise of the Internet and social media. Usually, all I have to do for information is hop online, but with Daniela, I can’t. There are very few traces of her except old newspaper articles that have been scanned onto various databases.
I don’t want to, but I’m probably going to have to comb through her personal belongings if I want to get anything even semi-private.
The good news is that printing off and reading through all of these old articles is providing me with information I didn’t know. I didn’t know that Daniela had a boyfriend three years her senior or that, at the time of her disappearance, her parents were on the verge of a divorce, and I didn’t know that her eldest brother left for college early one week after she went missing.
I scribble these three points down in a notepad. The cogs in my brain start to whir, but there’s nothing for them to catch against. All of these points could mean nothing. It could all be coincidence. Stuff like this usually is. That doesn’t mean they’re not worth investigating.
Everything is worth investigating, even if the point in question is whether or not her dog liked her boyfriend.
Dogs are good judges of character.
It’s why I don’t mind being called a bitch so much. I can size most people up in seconds.
Except Jason when I thought he was Alex because he was undercover. I’m still mad at him for that one.
My doorbell rings, and I grab a slice of garlic bread before I walk down the hall.
“‘Oo is it?” I yell through a mouthful of cheesy, bready goodness.
“Jason.”
Whoa. Freaky. “‘Ng on.” Classy, Noelle. Real classy. Can’t even swallow my food before I speak.
At least I’m wearing a bra. Can’t win ‘em all.
I open the front door.
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