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“Mayoress?” My deputy chief of staff gets to me before I can make another call. This time to a former Air Force buddy. “I’ve found a disturbing trend with the people you’ve asked me to find.” Her brow creases in a worried frown and she fidgets with the folders in her hands.
“What’s the problem?”
“Well…you see, more than a few died in suspicious ways.”
“Were their deaths recent?” I don’t understand why, but I don’t like hearing this after talking to Decker’s sister. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but now I must consider the possibility that I’ve somehow stumbled onto something bigger than myself.
“No, not at all. I just…I get these gut feelings and my gut is saying you probably don’t want to reach out to any more people.”
Although our instincts are in agreement, I need more than a feeling to dissuade me from pursuing my investigation. “Let me see the list.”
She hands me a list of twenty names. Five of the people she’s called are former one-night stands with whom I maintained a pleasant acquaintanceship afterward. Next to each name is a note stating their manner of death and a date. She has another five left to track down. One of them I’ve slept with. I want to reject the pattern materializing in my brain.
“Okay, we’ll pause this for now. We’re already running behind today’s schedule as it is. What’s next on my agenda?”
“You have a co-appearance with the mayor, afternoon tea with the Ladies Against Domestic Violence group. You only have to socialize as no speech was requested.”
“Thank you.” I rush to my stylist who dresses and dolls me up.
We arrive at the event with one minute to spare. I do my best to put the calls out of my mind, but at the end of the event, Valentino escorts me to his car instead of mine.
“Something’s bothering you and I doubt it has anything to do with your new duties.”
I sigh, happy to share my frustration with Valentino. For a second, I’m stunned by an epiphany. Whereas I’ve lived a life in which I kept my thoughts private, I not only find peace with involving Valentino and Tácito with my worries, I now seek them out.
As soon as I mention my issue is about the investigation, Valentino raises the partition separating us from the driver. He listens while I explain the pattern I saw. The more I point out the men I’d been with before, the more his beard bristles.
“But Decker breaks the pattern. I never slept with him,” I say, concluding my argument.
Valentino shrugs and gazes out of the tinted car window. He is stiff. A dark aura surrounds him. Belatedly, I realize the subject is probably not suitable for his temperament. A man who needs to stake his claim because of an innocent, very platonic embrace won’t like my fuck and dump past being shoved in his face. Which is why his silence niggles at me.
“Why aren’t you mad and throwing your weight around, demanding appeasement?” I stare at him for the slightest reaction.
He pinches his lips. The gesture is small, innocuous, really. If someone other than Valentino did it. He doesn’t have many tells, but whenever he avoids a subject in this way, I know…
“What did you do, Valentino?”
“What did I do when? I’ve had a full schedule. You’ll need to be more specific.”
“What did you do to those men?”
He swings his head to face off with me. “Nothing they didn’t deserve for touching what doesn’t belong to them.”
“But some of these men died shortly after I enlisted.”
“Your point being?” He asks with no remorse.
“And I never did anything with Decker.”
“Your jewelry would disagree.” He rests his back against the seat. Cool, calm, and collected.
Only now do I recall what I thought was Valentino asking an innocent albeit intrusive question. Almost immediately after I told him about my piercer, he disappeared for a week. The guilt from my earlier conversation with Decker’s sister returns with a vengeance. “That was purely business! We never crossed the line.”
“Oh? Did he use a machine? Blind himself? Can he pierce via echo location? Next time, hire a woman if you don’t want anyone to die.”
“What…what if I went around doing the same thing to all the women you’ve slept with?”
He shrugs. “I’d miss getting their vote.”
