Frankie's Back in Town, page 8
“You have a busy job here. Remember that I see how hard you work up close now.”
Francesca dismissed her observation with a wave of her hand. “This job is no different than my last job, or the one before that. Except now I run the Hilton for old people instead of a health care facility. Once I settle in, I’ll manage my schedule better. Just going to take some time. Oh, and the weather is different, too.” She cast a glance out of Nonna’s living room window, the open drapes revealing the sloping expanse of snow-covered forest. “Did I mention how much I enjoy warm sunny days?”
But Nonna was on a roll. “The lodge has everything here. Transportation to get me to doctors’ appointments and church and shopping. I take an elevator downstairs to the salon to have my hair done. If I lived with you, you’d have to take me everywhere. That would mean time away from Gabrielle and your job. Should I mention that you don’t have any life besides your daughter and your job?”
“No.”
“I never hear about you spending time with friends.”
That would be because her friends were all in Phoenix. “I talk to them all the time. Kimberly’s number three on my speed dial. Judith is number four. And Stephanie is number five.”
“That’s all well and good, but you need friends here.”
“I’ll make some. Until then, you and Gabrielle are my friends, and I’ll do anything you need with pleasure. I’ve always gotten Gabrielle where she needs to go without any trouble.” Or help from her ex. But she kept that thought to herself. “I’ve been parenting my daughter and running a house for a long time. I can multitask. That’s one of the things that makes me good at my job. Besides, Nonna, you’ve got to remember that I’ve been caring for my family all these years. You’ll simply be taking Nicky’s place and not creating extra work.”
And Nonna could never be as demanding as Nicky had been with his constant discontent that had everything to do with his own stubborn refusal to acknowledge he didn’t want to be bothered with anyone’s wants and needs but his own.
She didn’t share that thought, either.
“Whether or not you’re capable isn’t the question, dolly. I know you are. But you deserve a life, too. You’re young and beautiful. You should have a special man.”
Francesca shook her head. “Not now. My daughter is even younger and more beautiful. She needs my attention.”
“I won’t argue that. Gabrielle deserves your time. I remember what it was like when you were that age. I was always working and missing out on too much of your life. Maybe if I’d been around more…” She let that thought trail off.
“Nonna, please don’t go there,” Francesca said softly.
The past would always be between them, and it didn’t seem to matter what Francesca said. Nonna considered herself responsible. If only her husband hadn’t died, then she wouldn’t have had to work so much. If only her son and daughter-in-law hadn’t died, then Francesca wouldn’t have been left alone. If only Francesca had had more supervision, or a more normal family life, or more structure in school….
A lot of if onlys.
“Life happened the way it was meant to,” Francesca said gently. “If I hadn’t made the choices I did, I wouldn’t have grown to be who I am. And you just said you like me.”
Nonna considered that. “True. But it’s also true I need help and I’m only going to need more help in time, not less.”
Reality check.
As Francesca opened her mouth to reply, the radio at her waist crackled, a startling interruption that exactly illustrated Nonna’s point about the divisions between work and family.
“I’m sorry.” She reached for the radio.
“Without your job, dolly, none of us would have a place to live,” Nonna shot back.
Francesca scowled. She’d lost this round. “Raffa here.”
“Chief Sloan dropped by,” Yvette said.
Exactly what she didn’t need right now. Although Francesca couldn’t decide if she meant revisiting the Case of the Reappearing Wallet or facing Jack. Not when she still hadn’t cleared her head of their run-in this morning. What was it about Jack that made her rehash every word they’d said to one another? What was it about him that kept unraveling all her hard-won calm? On the upside, at least she looked and smelled better now.
“I’ve got to run.” She set the demitasse cup back on its saucer. “Have fun reuniting with the china. You’re going to have it all to yourself for a while.”
“Chief Sloan is here about the captain’s wallet?” Nonna asked.
Francesca shrugged. “Won’t know until I get downstairs and find out what he wants. But I trust you’re supporting my efforts to keep this place sane by not fanning the fires of curiosity.”
“Francesca Celeste Marie! As if I would gossip.”
Francesca knew this trick. “If you mention Jack, people will start wondering why he came by and speculate. The Hickmans don’t need more drama. This situation is dragging on forever. I’m sure the captain would like it done and over, so he’s not constantly reminded that he lost his wallet.”
Out of that entire rant, Nonna latched on to only one word.
“Jack?”
“Jack Sloan. The police chief.” Francesca hoped this wasn’t a symptom of Nonna’s forgetfulness. “You’ve heard of him.”
“Of course I’ve heard of him. Seen him, too. On the TV. He’s very handsome.”
Francesca wasn’t going there. “I won’t be able to make it for lunch today, I’m afraid. Love you.”
Swinging around the wall that separated the kitchen area from the living room, she gave Nonna a kiss.
“Ever forward,” she repeated Nonna’s oft-spoken words as she walked out the door.
Shoulders back, chin up. Ever forward.
Good advice she intended to follow today because Francesca would have avoided Jack if she could have.
She’d been convinced her awareness of him was nothing but a throwback from years gone by. After all, while everyone in high school had been living the Jack Sloan mystique thing, she’d rebelled—no news there—and missed her chance to build any immunity against lethal charm.
She was a woman with a proven penchant for charming men, and she hadn’t dated since high school. The charming rogue had probably scented her vulnerability like smoke on the wind. She was a new face in town, and he was single. It was entirely possible that her own past notoriety was making her seem a lot more interesting than she really was.
Made perfect sense.
But understanding wasn’t giving her any control over her reactions to him. She should feel matter-of-fact. Even if she didn’t—yet—Francesca knew that Bluestone’s golden boy was taboo for a woman intent upon forging a new reputation and life for herself in a place where she had a history. There was nothing low-key about Jack. Whoever became involved with the chief of police would be all over the town’s radar.
Nope, definitely not the place for her.
So, Francesca ignored the crazy flutter of excitement deep down inside, and hoped Jack had come to tell her that he’d solved the mystery. Bracing herself, she strode into the reception area of her office to face the man within.
He was still in uniform, only now he’d shed the outerwear and looked the impressive part of a police chief in his crisp blues with all the gold ornamentation. Stars at his throat. Bars on his chest. All that was missing was the flag flying in the background and the national anthem swelling in crescendo.
Francesca wanted to salute, but the impulse vanished as soon as she met Jack’s gaze. One glimpse, and she knew he hadn’t come to wrap up his investigation.
“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting long.” She didn’t give him a chance to reply but motioned him toward her office. The best offense and all that. “Come in.”
“You don’t look so happy,” she said without preamble once they were behind her closed office door.
“I’m not.”
“Is it time to worry about my staff?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “It’s time to take a look, but with any luck I can spare you the worrying.”
Nice of him to offer but Francesca was going to worry, thank you—for a number of reasons. “What can you tell me?”
Chin up. Shoulders back. Ever forward.
She could handle this.
When Jack slid an envelope across the desk, all thoughts evaporated. Francesca recognized the official-looking document before she even reached for it. “Oh, no.”
“I need the personnel records of everyone with physical access to the Hickmans’ apartment.” He held the paper firmly in place when she would have pulled it away, forcing her to lift her gaze to meet his. “Don’t worry, Francesca. Your employees aren’t the only ones with access to the Hickmans’ credit cards.”
Staring into this man’s face made thinking nearly impossible. “I’m so sorry for the Hickmans. I was really hoping for a speedy resolution.”
Jack lifted his hand and let her take the document. “You keep right on hoping. I intend to make that happen.”
“I appreciate that.” She sought refuge from his gaze inside the subpoena, which appeared to be in order. Would she have expected any less from this man? “So, you want personnel records for everyone with physical access to the Hickmans’ apartment. Since the captain’s wallet went missing the first time?”
He nodded. “I assume you keep service logs.”
“Yes.”
“If they’re on the property, I want to take them with me. If not, we’ll need to make some arrangements.”
“They’re here.” Francesca did not like the sound of this. Jack was well aware that his request would mean dropping everything to comply. She also knew he wouldn’t have asked without good reason.
No, she didn’t like the sound of this at all.
She pushed away from the desk. “With Yvette’s help, we can probably pull everything together fairly quickly.”
And she could send him on his way. Right out the door.
Goodbye, Mr. Too Handsome. See you after I’ve got my head screwed on straight again.
Then Jack gazed up at her, and from this vantage she could see his handsome face from an entirely new perspective. The striking cut of his jaw. The closely cropped hair that made the hard lines of his face almost severe. “Thank you, Francesca.”
“Of course, Jack.” And she almost sounded normal.
Hightailing it toward the door with Jack in her wake, she stepped out of her office to find…“Nonna?”
“Hello, dolly.” Nonna tilted her cheek for a kiss, and Francesca automatically obliged.
“Is everything all right?”
But Nonna was staring at Jack, eyeing him from head to toe with interest.
“You’re the police chief.” Not a question. She extended her hand, and he brought it to his lips in a move designed to melt hearts. “You’re even more handsome than on the news.”
“Thank you. You’re Francesca’s grandmother.”
Nonna beamed approval. “You can call me Etta. All my friends do.”
“A pleasure then, Etta.” Jack’s smile had her eating out of the palm of his hand.
For a woman who’d claimed to be slowing down, Nonna had made it down to this office with impressive speed.
“Nonna, I just left you. Is everything okay?”
“No worries, dolly. I wanted to meet Jack.”
Francesca wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Turned out she didn’t get a chance anyway because Nonna gave Jack a high-beam smile and told them, “I’ll be on my way then. You kids get back to what you were doing.”
“Hope to see you again, Etta,” Jack said.
“Me, too, Jack. Me, too.” Then, with a toss of her white curls, Nonna headed out of the reception area.
No worries? Francesca wished.
CHAPTER NINE
“WE’VE GOT NADA, JACK,” Randy complained, shoving a hand through his hair.
Jack spun away from his makeshift desk in Randy’s cubicle and met the detective’s tired gaze. “Wrong. What we have has just brought us back around to where we started.”
Randy snorted in disgust. “It’s no wonder they made you chief. Damn diplomat. You’re like a little ray of sunshine. Nada, Jack. Nada.” He scowled. “The Hickmans’ family checked out. Both employees who found the wallet checked out. Emelina checked out. The other cleaning lady checked out. The maintenance man. The pest control guy and five different food service people. Say what you want. We’ve spent two days chasing our tails.”
“We’ve eliminated all the obvious suspects.”
“And wound up with nada.” Randy didn’t bother trying to hide his frustration.
“You didn’t think this would be easy, did you?” If this case were going to be easy, Jack wouldn’t be working it. This meant he wouldn’t have met the beautiful director of Greywacke Lodge. Funny how things worked out sometimes. Wasn’t that what Frankie had said? “Look at these lists of purchases. I don’t see service people jetting around the country buying high-ticket items then racing back to Bluestone to clock in.”
“My money was on the family.”
That got Jack thinking. “You know, Francesca mentioned Captain Hickman had been in the hospital recently. He also did a stint at the nursing center for rehab. We need to check out who had his wallet during those stays.”
“Way ahead of you, chief.” Randy’s suddenly upbeat tone made Jack brace himself. “You’re spending too much time parading around in those dress blues. Thought of that already. Had an answer within an hour.”
“And,” Jack prompted.
“Hickman’s daughter took all her father’s personal items when she met her parents in the emergency room. She brought everything home and locked it in her own fire-safety box. Only she and her husband have keys, and both of them checked out.”
“Interesting that she didn’t give those things to her mother.”
“Her mother’s loopier than her father.” Randy looked pleased with himself. “The daughter’s words, not mine.”
Jack sank back into his chair and rubbed his temples, where a dull headache lurked. He definitely should have caught that sooner. But Randy was wrong about why Jack was so distracted.
The only reason he’d even remembered the captain’s hospital stay and subsequent rehab was because Frankie had mentioned it and he’d been busy thinking about Frankie.
The way she’d looked the day she’d arrived to run interference for her residents with the police, all friendly professionalism and no-nonsense business.
The way her cheeks had flushed in embarrassed pleasure when she’d run into him at Wal-Mart.
The way her gray eyes had flashed when she’d thought he’d been accusing her residents of…what had she said that day?
Bonnie and Clyde.
He almost smiled. He might have appreciated the humor more had his preoccupation with Frankie not had him missing the obvious. Jack was many things—single-minded and career focused among them—but he was not sloppy. Right now he needed to be on the top of his game because this investigation needed to be yesterday’s news. He wanted to explore why one lovely woman was preoccupying him in a way he’d never been preoccupied before.
The first measures of the national anthem blared over the background noise of the station and into his thoughts. Jack glanced in the direction of the sound as Randy snatched his cell phone off his desk.
“My son,” he said in explanation as he snapped the phone opened and asked, “Hey, what’s up?”
Jack glanced back at the stacks of information covering the table that served as his workstation. Scanning the hard copies of collected data, he pulled the Greywacke Lodge resident list from the stack and tuned out the sound of Randy’s conversation.
The time had come to refocus the investigation, and the place to start was with this list. Using his laptop, he pulled up Credit Alert, a national law-enforcement database with a feature that would grant him access to a view of a person’s credit status, a handy tool for law-enforcement agencies, even if it didn’t provide detailed information.
A superficial view was all Jack needed right now, just enough information to know whether or not he needed to worry about the one commonality of the names on the list.
Greywacke Lodge.
With any luck, clearing names off the residents’ list would guide the investigation in the proper direction. Preferably away from the lodge and its staff.
Methodically, Jack keyed the names into the search function, starting on page one of the alphabetical list.
Lawrence Abbott of D-712.
No match found.
Ellen Acton of A-401.
No match found.
Rebekah Anderson of I-114
No match found.
Joseph Angelica of B-603.
No match found.
By the time Jack had gotten through the Cs with no matches, he began to breathe easier. Then he hit the Ds. The first two were okay then…
Richard Drew of F-327.
Delinquent.
One hit did not an identity theft make, but it did have Jack sitting up straighter in the chair, keying names in faster, exhaling a breath each and every time the words flashed on his screen: No match found.
Evangeline Humble of G-611
Delinquent.
Robert Garfield of F-707.
Delinquent.
Nicholas Montague of C-505.
Delinquent.
Sylvia Owen of I-532.
Delinquent.
Neil Patrick of A-204.
Delinquent.
Eleven in all and Judge Pierce among them. With a sick feeling, Jack pulled up the Clearinghouse Alert, a database that coordinated nationwide law-enforcement efforts about active investigations, and he was still staring dully at the monitor when Randy ended his call.
“Damn kid is being deployed to Afghanistan next week.” Randy ran his hand through his hair, clearly rattled. “He’s thrilled, Jack. Can you believe it? I didn’t even know what to say. I suppose it was just a matter of time, but hell…His mother is going to melt down.”
Jack dragged his attention from the computer, forced himself to face Randy and focus. “You okay?”
