Vendetta by Nancy Holder Read Free Book Online

Tess knew that until that very second, Cat
hadn’t
meant him personally. But his defensive reaction was the stuff of a detective’s dreams. There was more going on with Lizzani than met the eye. Could be something as minor as cheating on his time card or even on his diet, could be conspiracy to commit a major crime. Something had caused that guilty reaction, though. Now they had something to look into. It was fuel for their case. That was how detectives worked—looking for something that didn’t fit, or something they could question. That was exactly how Cat had found Vincent, despite J.T.’s success at keeping him hidden for nine years.
    And that was how Tess had busted Cat and Vincent’s secret wide open a year later.
    “This is a flawed system,” Tess observed. “If all it requires is one person who’s been cleared to ride the elevator, anybody could force—”
    Then the doors opened, and a trio of men in black suits faced them with weapons drawn. As soon as their eyes darted toward Tess and Cat’s badges, they holstered their guns and stepped out of the way. The middle one spoke into a radiophone.
    “You were saying, detective?” Lizzani pointed downward and lifted his foot. A small black button was revealed. Then he gestured to the handrail that ran the perimeter of the elevator. “I step on this, I make contact with this”—he pressed the black button with the toe of his shoe and circled his thumb and forefinger on the rail—“and security is summoned.”
    “What if you do it by mistake?” Tess asked.
    He shrugged his shoulders. “Better safe than sorry. Mr. DeMarco doesn’t have a problem with mistakes like that. Only with the kind we’ve got now, with his son snatched in his own home. We run drills for every possible emergency. Blackout was on the list. So was home invasion. This shouldn’t have happened.”
    “Does the FBI have any working theories about how it went down?” Cat asked.
    “You really need to talk to Mr. DeMarco about that,” Lizzani said.
    A man who looked like a professional wrestler approached. “He’s ready,” he told Lizzani. “Detectives, this way, please.”
    She and Cat stepped out of the elevator and Lizzani followed closely behind, almost like he was tailing them. Maybe he was. Judging from the expression on the faces of the security guards they passed, NYPD on the job wasn’t all that welcome here. Wasn’t the first time.
    Wouldn’t be the last.

CHAPTER SEVEN
3.10 A.M.
    “ T his is like a
Godfather
movie,” Tess murmured to Cat as a phalanx of even
more
security guys gave them the once-over before they were escorted into the DeMarco family penthouse. “Look over there. Doesn’t that guy look like Al Pacino?”
    The front door opened, revealing the ostentatious heights that alleged corruption could lift one to. The two detectives were treated to a vast panorama of white marble floors veined with gold, gilt furniture cradling mountains of black velvet upholstery, and a forest of fluted gold columns. It was blinding: gold picture frames and mirrors, gold vases containing chunky yellow flowers, and copies of classical statues—including Michelangelo’s
David
adorned with a jewel-encrusted golden fig leaf.
    “No way,” Tess murmured, and Cat could feel her partner trembling to keep from bursting into laughter. Cat had the same dilemma. The room looked a cross between an over-decorated casino and their favorite intimate lingerie boutique, Easy Pickin’s.
    Among the scatter of statues and profusion of furniture, Evidence Recovery Unit techs were out in force, their dark blue windbreakers stamped with FBI in two-foot-tall letters on the back. A young dark-skinned woman took one look at the detectives, grinned slyly, and made a point of taking a close-up of the fig leaf with her camera.
    “Happy to email it to you, detectives,” she said.
    Tess handed her a business card. “Appreciate the help.”
    “Do you know where Special Agents Robertson and