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Again, she shakes her head. “I’m fairly anal retentive. Everything in my house has a place and I have a routine by putting things away immediately.”
She points to a vase of roses on the kitchen island. “The only deliveries I’ve received that I haven’t ordered myself are flowers every Friday morning from Lorenzo. It started nine months ago after I finished a build for him. At first, when he sent them there was a card asking me out, and I refused every time, but now he keeps sending them with a card wishing me a beautiful week—which is code for him asking me out, but not having to deal with my rejection.”
“Lorenzo?” Luke asks.
“Bianchi,” I finish with a snarl. Thankfully, Josephine doesn’t flinch by how I know this.
Luke’s eyes go wide. “Lorenzo Bianchi, the Italian mob boss?”
My pixie bobs her head and sighs. “Yep. But I wouldn’t waste your time on him. He’s not the kind of guy to break into a woman’s home and run off. It’s not his style. He would break in and be in my bed waiting for me, but not running.”
My eyes roll skyward at the image she described. “She’s right. It’s not him,” I grimace. He wasn’t the perp, but I’m definitely going to pay him a little visit over this business of sending my woman flowers. That shit is going to end.
Luke pulls out his notebook from his coat pocket. “Who have your past clients been in the last year?”
Josephine gives him the names and numbers of her clients. On the list are some shady people. Slumlords, mafia, drug dealers, and a fucking cult. Explains why she never bat an eye when I said I was president of a motorcycle club. She had already been dealing with the worst of the worst. Most people would decline immediately if they thought our club was a gang, but she was building her company from the ground up, meaning she was not in a position to be picky.
Luke’s eyes kept getting bigger and bigger the longer the suspect list became.
“You’re wasting your time with that list,” I tell him.
“How so?” he questions.
“She hasn’t had any issues with her past clients—indirectly or directly. This has to be something more current, someone who recently came into the picture.”
“Like who?” she asks with a quizzical look.
I sigh. “You’ve hired a second crew to help on the build. They aren’t people you know, like the crew you’ve been working with for the past year. You’ve been working them real hard and they’ve been around you a lot. Maybe, tonight being the first night off since starting the build, maybe one of them took a shine to you and followed you back here. Maybe they’ve been waiting for you and Hades to get out of the house, giving them an opportunity to break in.”
Josephine’s mouth falls open. “I’m good to all of my crews. I may have been working them hard the last two weeks, but everyone knows I have an open-door policy and if they have a gripe, they can come straight to me. Not one has approached me on this project, and people have on past ones.”
“I didn’t say any of them might have a vendetta against you, but maybe one formed an unhealthy crush or obsession,” I counter.
Josephine shivers while Luke nods his head in agreement. “It would explain why they haven’t tried anything ‘till now,” Luke says before handing Josephine the notepad. “Can you write down the names and numbers of all your crew members, new and old?”
Josephine shakes her head vigorously. “I’m not getting Jared or my crew involved with this. I don’t believe it’s any of them, new or old. I finally got the manpower I need for my projects. I don’t want to piss any of them off to the point they choose to leave for another job,” she says stubbornly.
I rub her shoulders gently. “Luke is tactful and I’m sure your crew will want to help out in any way they can,” I say in the most reassuring voice I can muster.
Her fear of upsetting her crew to the point of negatively impacting her company is justifiable, but at the end of the day her safety is in jeopardy and I’m not willing to compromise.
With a huff she takes the notepad and goes through her phone, writing down every crew member’s name, number, position, and how long they have been working with her.
“Anyone else you can think of who may have an unhealthy attachment to you?” Luke asks Josephine.
My teeth grind together because I know I’m going to set Josephine off. “Yeah, one more. Her ex-boyfriend, Jacob Klein. She hadn’t talked to him for over a year until two weeks ago. He showed up today on my property,” I say with spite.
Josephine’s head swivels around on me. “I called him, Maceo!” she half yells, half growls, before turning back to Luke. “Jacob reached out via text and offered to give me my old contacts back if I helped with a project in Denver. I agreed and asked him for help in return as a consultant on my project. I did my week on his job and he showed up today to start helping on mine. He left as soon as Maceo made it clear he didn’t want him there. He’s no longer on the project.”
“Did things end amicably between you two?” Luke presses.
“Well, no. He hijacked my work and I left him over a year ago. He wasn’t pleased when I told him it wasn’t going to work out,” she admits.
Luke raises his eyebrows at me. I know the look. He’s thinking the same way I am. “His rental is a black BMW 5 Series Sedan. The prick is probably still in town. I would interrogate him first.”
Luke nods before looking back at Josephine. “Do you know if he was staying in town for a while?”
Josephine sighs. “Jacob is a prick, but this seems…extreme. He invited me to visit him at his hotel tonight. I declined and told him I was not interested and never would be. I assume he would have headed out to Denver to check on his other project instead of sticking around. But I know he was planning on staying at the Hilton in town.”
