AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So you think Diane hung with those certain people. Ended up at the same parties. And Malone got his claws into her…”
“That’s about the gist of it. The timing works so that,ifshe was linked with Timothy Malone in the summer of eighty-seven?—”
“Then her hypothetical child would have been born in the spring of eighty-eight.” I place the image back on my desk and press the pads of my fingers to my eyelids. “Felix was born in March of eighty-eight.”
“Got it in one. That’s not concrete evidence she is his mother, of course, but she went missing after that summer. And our research before now seems to imply that Timothy Malone the Second would knock a woman up, house her, receive the child, then dispose of the woman. The timing works.”
“Yeah.” I draw a deep breath and drop my head back, releasing my air as I stare up at the ceiling. “You did good work. Have you told anyone else what you’ve found?”
“No. I only happened upon Diane last night, after several days ofchasing down other leads. I’d thought I was getting close on the youngest brother’s maternal link.”
“Cato?” My stomach whooshes with painful nerves.
The fact I already know who his mother is, and have not shared her name or my connection to her, is a giant, gaping secret that feels like poison in my veins.
I met the boy.
I metmy nephew.
And I said nothing.
I exhale. “Let’s drop this for now.”
“Drop it?” Dana asks sharply, drawing my eyes back down to meet hers. “You mean drop the whole story?”
“Yes. I’m hitting pause on our Malone exposé while I take time to collect my thoughts.”
“Oh. Alright.”
“Have you…” I rub my temple. “Have you had time to follow up on Pastore’s family yet?”
“Yes.” Re-energized, she pulls a file from the bottom of her stack. “Emilio Pastore seems to be in extreme financial distress. There are whispers going around that his intended wedding was destroyed by the feds, and his fiancée ran off and left him?—”
“At the altar?”
She sniggers. “Literally. She led the feds to her own ceremony, walked the aisle, allowed the officiant to say his piece, then she handed Pastore over to the authorities and disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” I parrot. “As in dead?”
“No. As in went on with her life, left the city, changed her name, and lives happily ever after somewhere else.”
“Do you know her name?” Setting my heartache momentarily to the side, I pick up a pen and poise it above a notebook. “Do you know what city?”
“Nope. I know the name she used when she was engaged and living here, but I don’t know who she is now, or where she’s gone.”
“What was her name when she was here?” I glance up and wait. “First and last?”
“Michelle Mancino. Of the Mancino crime family. One crime familywas engaged to marry into another. But on the day of their wedding, Michelle disappeared, her father was assassinated on-site, thus rendering the family a non-entity within the New York mob, and her fiancé?—”
“Pastore…”
“Was arrested on the spot. Though, press coverage shows he made bail almost instantly.”
“Unfortunately,” I drawl. “Because when he’s not behind bars, he’s free to annoy everyone else.”
“Rumors are that the Malones picked up where Mancino and Pastore left off. Entrepreneurial of them, I suppose. When the other men fell, they left behind business ventures that still needed to be fulfilled. They each had customers whose needs didn’t go away just because the man on the letterhead could no longer meet demand.”
“And thus,” I sigh, sitting back and closing my eyes. “Timothy Malone stepped in, creating enemies who would, at this very moment, like to make them pay.”
