Gabriel - Jessie Cooke Page 0,41

in Portland. Blackheart had had a background run on Grossman and although it came back pretty tame, a couple of arrests for being drunk in public and one for growing marijuana in his dorm room at his university in Maine, the biker still had a lot of questions. For one, the background said that he was married with two children. The date of his marriage and the birth of his first child would have been prior to his meeting Kasey. Which wouldn’t have meant much except there was no record of his ever having gotten a divorce. The other thing that bothered him was that Grossman and his wife jointly owned a home in Portland, Maine and the apartment that he and Kasey lived in was rented in her name, but from the real estate company he had been working for at the time. When Kasey died and didn’t return from New Orleans, it would seem like her live-in boyfriend would have shown up, wanting to know where she was. Blackheart had spoken to Patrice’s “aunt/mother” on the phone, and although the woman wasn’t happy to hear from him, he thought she’d been as helpful as possible. She told him she’d never heard of Paul Grossman, except for in her sister’s diary, and that no one from Maine had contacted them, at least as far as she knew, after her sister’s death. She didn’t know if he’d spoken to the police, but he’d had Logan do some digging and all Logan had been able to find was a notation about a phone call the NOPD had made to Grossman the day after she died. They’d found his number had been the last one Kasey called from the hotel. After talking to him on the phone, they’d cleared him almost immediately of any involvement, and there didn’t seem to be any follow-up to that. Patrice’s aunt assured him that no one but immediate family had been at the burial. She wouldn’t even call it a funeral, since they’d had no services. Her sister had simply been interred in the plot next to her father’s in the family cemetery, and that was that.

So Blackheart had to question why this guy wasn’t more interested in finding out exactly what happened to Kasey, and her child. They’d lived with him for almost six months at that time, which would indicate that their relationship was more than a fling. Blackheart had tried hard, but to no avail, to get the man’s home address. Finally he’d settled for the office address; it was the one right across the street from the restaurant where they were now sitting. When Patrice first came to him, saying her mother didn’t kill herself, he’d just assumed that was what the girl wanted to believe. But the more he looked into things, the stranger it seemed to him. He didn’t exactly feel guilty for not being in Patrice’s life, since he didn’t think that was his fault...but he did figure he at least owed her an attempt at finding out the truth, so she could rest easy once and for all.

The men all ordered the lobster and eggs and while they ate, they made small talk until Lowlife suddenly said, “Boss, I forgot to tell you last night, Gabe called. He’s out of the hospital and staying with that Patrice girl. Says he has the burner if you need to get him.”

Blackheart put his fork down. Le Singe had texted him the day before, letting him know that Patrice was asking if he’d gone to Maine. He cursed himself for not passing that on to Lowlife but he hadn’t even considered that Gabe would work against him. “You didn’t tell him where we were, did you?”

The color drained from Lowlife’s face and Blackheart had his answer. He cursed under his breath even before his road captain said, “Jesus, boss. Fuck. I’m sorry...” Blackheart put up his hand and Lowlife bit back the rest of his apology. It wasn’t Lowlife’s fault, it was his, and the more stubborn he found out that blue-eyed girl was, the more he was becoming convinced that he had taken part in creating her.

“Gabe can apologize to me,” he said, “if he’s dumb enough to show up.”

The conversation was stilted after that, each man lost in his own thoughts. They sat there drinking their coffee until Blackheart noticed movement across the street. Whoever was in the office must have parked in back and come in the back