Silas (Dirty Aces MC #4) - Lane Hart Page 0,1
similarly is hot on his heels carrying a leather portfolio. She closes the door behind her, the audible click sealing the three of us inside. “I’m so glad you could finally make time to meet with us.”
“Well, you didn’t give me much choice,” I remark when the two of them sit down in the chairs on the other side of the small metal table. The jerk called and asked for me at the restaurant where I work, telling me I could either come down and talk to them voluntarily or they would show up at the restaurant and drive me back to the station in the back of their cruiser. Since I love my job at Donatello’s and want to keep it, I decided that driving myself rather than raising suspicions about my involvement in some sort of criminal activity was the way to go.
Not that I committed any delinquent acts this time.
All I did was stupidly agree to cook a very expensive, private meal for a man who turned out to be a mob boss with very violent enemies.
How could I have known that? He offered me a ton of money, which I desperately needed.
“I’m Detective Rollins and this is Detective Ashby,” the woman informs me. “I bet you know why you’re here. Want to take a guess?”
“Not really, no. Could you just tell me what this is about?” I reply rather than admit to anything.
“The restaurant where you work was the last number Harold Cox called. Your manager, Donatello De Luca, has already informed us that Cox called looking for a private chef just a few days before his death, and that you took him up on his request to come to his home and cook for him. We also know that the date of his reservation was the same night he was shot, along with several of his employees, before the residence was burned down with them inside.”
I try not to flinch or show any kind of response at the reminder of that horrible night. Big scary guys coming in with guns blazing, shooting everyone they found except for me and the other girl who was there. I hid in the pantry and thought I was going to die too when one of the men pointed his gun right in my face and asked the others, “Should I kill her?” The way he said it so calmly, I know he would’ve pulled the trigger without an ounce of hesitation. But the others thankfully talked him down, so here I am, still alive and just as invisible and insignificant as I was that night. The detectives don’t care about me or what I survived. All they want is for me to do their jobs for them so that they can arrest the criminals responsible and pat themselves on the back.
“You have two options here, Miss Walsh,” Detective Rollins starts. “You can either cooperate right now, tell us everything you saw or heard, or we can go ahead and charge you for failing to report a heinous felony that killed six men. Or better yet, we could charge you as an accomplice and arrest you right now.”
“That’s right,” Detective Ashby says. “We know all about your prior record, your history of committing arson. Did you know the men who did this? Were you helping them? You do have a thing for bad boys, don’t you?”
“What…I-I didn’t have anything to do with what happened that night!” I exclaim when they start talking about locking me up, charging me for the violence when I was almost murdered too. “All I did was cook the man a meal!”
“And then what happened?” Rollins asks. “You were still there when the killers showed up, weren’t you? Why did they let you live if you weren’t working with them?”
“I-I don’t know,” I tell them honestly, brushing my red curls out of my face.
“So you did encounter the killers that night?” Rollins says.
“Yes, but…”
“How many of them were there?” Ashby demands.
“I’m not sure. Five or six maybe. I didn’t really have time to do a headcount with bullets flying everywhere!”
Rollins opens her portfolio and scribbles down that information on the notepad inside. Then she asks, “What were they wearing?”
“Dark clothes. I didn’t see much or remember exactly…”
“Did you see any of their faces?”
“No.”
“They were wearing masks?” Ashby guesses.
“Not masks, no.”
“So then why couldn’t you see their faces?” Rollins demands.
“They had on big, black helmets.”
“Helmets?” both detectives repeat in confusion.
“Yes.”
“What kind of helmets? Are you referring to