The phone only rang once before he picked up.
“Are you naked?” Nick asked.
“That would be awkward,” I said. “Especially on these leather seats.”
“Leather,” he said. “That’s sexy. Tell me where you are. I can be there in ten minutes.”
I snorted out a laugh. “I’m running errands. And I need to visit my mother.”
“And…you killed it,” he said with a sigh. “Do you think we’ll ever get to have sex again?”
“It’s only been two days.”
“That’s something a married woman would say. You never would’ve said that while we were just shacking up.”
I could usually tell what kind of day Nick was having by his level of sarcasm. Dealing with murder and the casually wasted lives of human beings was never easy, and I knew from dealing with my father that every cop handled it differently.
“You’re running errands before nine o’clock in the morning?” he asked.
“It’s a long story.”
“Why are you going to your mother’s?”
I turned right out of our driveway and headed toward Savannah. I’d told Nick I was doing errands, which I was, but my mother’s house wasn’t my first stop. I’d been putting off seeing Savage since I’d been back from our honeymoon. Savage had been shot at my wedding going after a criminal priest, and we’d delayed leaving for our honeymoon until Savage was out of the woods and on his way to a full recovery.
He was my friend, and I felt bad about not stopping by to check on him after we’d gotten back from Tahiti. Maybe it was awkward because he’d had feelings for me at some point. Or maybe it was awkward because I was married now and that put our friendship in limbo, especially since he’d taken a promotion to head up the South Dakota field office. I didn’t know where we stood, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t take him a fruit basket and pay him a visit.
“Hello? Addison?” Nick asked.
“Sorry,” I said. “I zoned out. I want to check out my dad’s old shed behind the house before I go any farther looking for Vince. Mom said Vince had been spending a lot of time out there lately, and she also said that’s where Dad’s old case files were kept.”
“Let me know if you find anything promising,” he said. “I can always check on things from my end. See if he was talking to anyone or if anyone knows anything. Vince hasn’t been retired that long. Only a few years. So he’s still got a lot of friends on the force.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said. “Honestly, I just want to get this over and done with. I feel kind of skeezy after digging around in his past last night. I don’t mind doing it on strangers, but it’s weird when it’s someone you know.”
“You’ve never run a background check on me?” Nick asked.
“Well,” I said, cornered. “That doesn’t count. It was early in our relationship. You can’t be too careful as a single woman in this world. There are all kinds of creepers out there. What if you’d been married? Or a pervert? Fortunately, you passed the test.”
Nick barked out a laugh. “I’m glad to know I made the cut.”
“You know how happy you are to hear my voice right now?” I asked.
“This should be good,” he said.
“I just want you to remember that happiness as I proceed with the conversation.”
“Again,” he said. “This should be good.”
“This is important,” I said. The gravity in my voice must have put him on alert.
“If it’s that important I can take some personal time and meet you somewhere,” he said. “Is something wrong? Is it the baby?”
“No, nothing like that,” I assured him. “Honestly, I’d rather have this conversation on the phone. Don’t be mad.”
“Okay,” he said. “But we’re not naming the baby Scarlet. No matter how much she said she’d pay you.”
“Funny,” I said. “Though we should probably circle back around to that conversation at another time. No, this has to do with Vince and how Mom asked me to bring him back so she could kill him.”
“I don’t recall you mentioning anything about how she was going to kill him.”
“I might have let that part slip my mind when I was filling you in,” I said. “And there’s a good chance she was only kidding anyway.”
“I’m glad she has limits,” he said.
“Not many, but they’re there on occasion,” I told him. “Anyway, I know you’re wanting me to take it easy because of the baby, and technically, I’m not really working for the agency anymore, so it shouldn’t even count as a case.”
“But you agreed to do whatever it is you need to do to find Vince,” Nick said, guessing where I was going.
“Right,” I said.
“That’s understandable,” he said. “She’s your mother.”
“I’m glad you said that,” I said. “Because I need to go to Miami.”.
“Wait…what?” he asked. “What’s in Miami?”
“The woman whose number was in Vince’s pants pocket,” I said. “Her name is Angelica Vega. Maybe Vince is there with her. And if not, I want to talk to her. Obviously, she knows Vince. I just hate leaving Mom in the dark. I know the half of her that doesn’t want to kill Vince is really worried about him.”
Nick sighed. I was a trial at times. “I know you’re going to go anyway,” he said. “But do me a favor? Take Kate instead of Scarlet or Rosemarie.”
“I was actually going to ask you to go with me,” I said. “I’m not a complete dummy.”
“I never thought you were,” he said. “And I actually would go if I wasn’t up to my eyeballs in dismembered body parts. But Kate’s the next best thing. I know she won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Dismembered body parts?” I asked. “The news didn’t mention anything about that last night.”
“They will tonight,” he said. “We thought it was a pretty cut-and-dry case. Your standard domestic dispute. Husband and wife take their argument to the front yard so the neighbors have courtside seats. Wife pulls gun on
