“Why do you live here, Bracco?” Angelina muttered aloud.
She knew Mick paid him well. He overpaid everyone. She felt certain the hotel hadn’t made a dime since he opened it, but the paychecks kept coming. Soon she’d have to investigate, gain access to Mick’s account and unravel the place. She hoped Mick would wake up before it came to that.
Angelina opened her glove compartment to retrieve a can of pepper spray and dropped it into her purse. Once she found Bracco she’d feel safe. No one in their right mind would step to that mountain of a man. But on the way there...
Locking her car, she headed up the open-air stairs to the second floor, where she guessed apartment two-oh-nine would be. She found it at the back of the building overlooking yet another parking lot. Below, a pair of raccoons worked at chewing through a dumpster lid.
Angelina’s lip curled.
I wonder if he pays extra for the view.
Angelina knocked on the door. The peephole darkened and she heard Bracco say something that sounded like cakewalk. He opened the door wearing an old Ozzy Osbourne t-shirt and a paint-splattered pair of cargo shorts.
She pointed. “I didn’t peg you for an Ozzy fan.”
He smiled and shrugged, but his brow remained knit.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here?”
Bracco pointed in the direction of the ocean, looking concerned. Angelina guessed his meaning.
“Everything’s fine at the hotel. Can I come in?”
He grimaced and looked behind him.
“Please?”
He opened the door wide enough for her to enter. It didn’t take long for her to surmise why he’d been reluctant. A torn, black leather recliner and what Angelina guessed to be a thirty-two inch television propped on a pair of plastic bins served as his only furniture.
“I love what you’ve done to the place,” she said, too late to stop herself. She poked her head into the kitchen. It was clean, but equally old and sparse. A frozen pizza box poked from a trash can against the wall.
“Did you just move?” she asked.
Bracco shook his head. He motioned to the only chair.
“No, I’ll stand.” Angelina frowned. “Where’s your wife?”
Bracco’s expression darkened and his shoulders snapped downward, as if he’d given up trying to remain tall. He disappeared through a door at the back left corner of the room. Angelina saw a made bed inside, but nothing else. He returned with the largest shoebox Angelina had ever seen.
“You know what they say about guys with big feet,” she said, waggling her eyebrows. “Big shoeboxes.”
He chuckled and opened the lid to reveal a pile of papers and photos. From it, he pulled some bundled documents and handed them to her. She rolled them open to read the blue cover.
Divorce Decree.
Ah. Ex-wife.
She looked around the apartment. “Looks like she cleaned you out pretty good.”
He plucked a photo from the box and handed it to her. In it, a woman sat smiling with a dark-haired boy on her lap.
“You have a son?”
He nodded.
Angelina kept her expression relaxed, but she saw more than a boy in the photo. She saw leverage.
Angelina handed him back the papers. “Kids do complicate things. You’ve been living here ever since?”
He nodded.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
He hooked his mouth to the side and gave her a withering glance.
“You know what I mean. Are you going to therapy? I mean, I assumed you had a support system at home—”
Bracco pulled a therapy pamphlet from the box and thrust it at her.
“Broca Aphasia,” she read the title aloud. “So you do go to therapy.”
He nodded.
“Bracco has Broca,” she murmured. “Maybe I should call you Robert from now on. Calling you a name so close to your condition feels a little like calling a dwarf shorty.”
He laughed, one loud bark and then touched her hand to make her look at him.
“Here?” he asked. The effort it took him pained her to watch.
Angelina gaped. She’d never heard him utter an appropriate comment before. “You’re asking why I’m here?”
He nodded.
“You’re getting better?”
He held up pinched fingers.
“Do you play it up a little at work?”
Grinning, he shrugged, seeming embarrassed.
“Because it makes us laugh?”
He nodded.
Angelina sighed as Bracco scowled and pointed to the ground several times.
“Oh. I’m here because we do have a little problem at the hotel.”
Bracco straightened, and Angelina put a hand on his arm.
“Nothing urgent. But I have to ask you a question.”
Bracco pressed his lips together, waiting. Angelina hesitated. She didn’t like doubting the man’s loyalty.
“Has anyone approached you about Mick? About hurting Mick, or helping them get to him?”
Bracco’s eyes flashed with what looked like anger.
“No,” he said.
“Maybe they threatened your kid?”
“No.”
Angelina believed him. His fist clenched, but she didn’t feel threatened. He seemed frustrated.
“I’ll tell you why I ask,” she said, saving him the need to speak again. “Shee talked to Viggo Nilsson—”
Bracco’s eyes widened.
“One of Mick’s team, we know.”
Agitated, he tapped his chest.
“Right. Part of your team, too. Well, someone threatened his grandkid and forced him to set Mick up. That’s what got him shot. He was the person in Minneapolis.”
Anger flared anew across Bracco’s expression and he continued to pound his chest, now with a flat hand.
“I know you think you’d never do that, but they threatened his grandkid, and you—”
She motioned to the box,
