An Offer You Can't Refuse by Sal Bianchi (best beach reads .txt) 📕

“Maybe he dropped it when Rothschild fought back?” I suggested. “The preliminary investigation indicated that there were traces of skin under her nails.”

“So he grabbed the closest thing, the blender.” Nick nodded as he scanned the crime scene. “It seems personal to me. The need to kill her as quickly as possible, and the fact that nothing else was taken all points to that.”

“I agree.” I sighed. “But that doesn’t really clear much up. Rothschild upset a lot of people during her time as a senator. Any one of them could have wanted her dead for a reason other than just petty theft.”

I walked through the kitchen, careful not to disturb any of the evidence markers the police had left. There was a small stack of mail on the island in the middle of the room. I picked them up and glanced through them.

“What’s that?” Nick asked as he came to see what I was looking at.

“Maybe nothing,” I replied. “It was right here on the kitchen island. The victim might have been distracted when she was attacked.

“Uh-huh…” Nick muttered as he took the stack of envelopes from me. I could tell from the look in his eye that something was going through his mind. “Hey, why don’t you go investigate in the living room?”

“What?” I asked blankly, confused about why he would suddenly suggest something so random. “I took a glance earlier. Like it said, it seems like most of the action took place in the kitchen.”

“Just go look,” he grumbled petulantly, his gaze still glued to the stack of mail in his hands. “I saw some wine glasses in there earlier. They might have DNA evidence.”

I wanted to retort that even if there was, that would be forensic’s job, and there wasn’t much I could do about it right here, but he seemed adamant, so I decided to just roll my eyes and go with it. I’d barely turned around when I heard a sharp tearing sound directly behind me.

I spun back around to look at Nick, who was now pulling something out of one of the envelopes.

“Nick,” I hissed. “What did you just do?”

“It was like this when I found it.” He shrugged easily as he began to read through the letter. I glared at him in disbelief. Was that really the best excuse he could come up with?

“Looks like we might have a motive.” He smirked as he finished scanning through the document. “Apparently, she and her lawyer were discussing going to the police with allegations of domestic abuse against the ex-husband.”

I sighed in frustration. What he had just done was very illegal. Not that I wasn’t used to it by now, but as a federal agent, my legal responsibility was to report him to the director. Or it would be if I’d actually seen him do it.

“Let me see that,” I grumbled as I took the letter from him and read through it. Now that the deed was done, it would be dumb not to use it to our advantage.

From what I could tell, Rothschild wanted to go forward with the accusations despite her lawyer’s warning that doing so might drag out the divorce proceedings and draw even more media attention to their situation.

“I bet he wouldn’t have liked this,” I noted. “What was the husband’s name?”

“Ryan,” Nick responded after looking through the case notes that Flint had sent him. “He’s currently staying at an upscale hotel a few minutes from here.”

“Let’s go pay him a visit,” I suggested. So far, an angry, vengeful ex seemed like the most likely culprit, and I was a little disappointed at the thought that the case might be solved so quickly.

8

Bette

I was barely able to keep from rolling my eyes as I watched Agent Park and that mobster leave the office together. Agent Park was okay on his own, but when paired with that idiot, it was like they both became dumb frat boys. Sometimes I felt like I was living in the Twilight Zone with the way that literal criminal just waltzed into the office whenever he wanted to steal cases from actual, qualified federal agents.

And not just any criminal either, but a former member of the mafia. One of the main purposes of the SDCT was to keep tabs on organized crime organizations and other domestic threats, but here we were just giving him access to our information.

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, he was always walking around hitting on all the female agents and tossing around those stupid pickup lines, and they all ate it up! I couldn’t possibly be the only one who saw through that stupid, fake, nice-guy act of his.

“What’s got you so riled up?” A voice broke me out of my thoughts. I looked up and found Chloe staring down at me with a look of concern on her face. “You looked like you were ready to kill someone.”

“It’s nothing,” I muttered. “Just wondering what the point was in getting my degree and going through the academy if anyone could just waltz into a federal agency and start investigating cases.”

“Oh, Nick was here?” Chloe whined as she glanced around the room. “Shoot, I always miss him. I need to ask Jase to help me set up a time to talk with him.”

“What?” I balked. “Why would you want to?”

“Don’t you think it’s interesting?” Chloe frowned. “Mafia society has always been shrouded in mystery, and he has inside knowledge. I’d love to have a nice, long chat with him about it.”

I scoffed at the wistful look on Chloe’s face. She was a former anthropology professor who had been recruited by the SDCT for her insane behavioral analysis skills. She was obsessed with studying people and figuring out how their minds worked, so of course, she’d be fascinated by a former career criminal.

“And he isn’t just some guy off the street,” she argued. “He has a criminal justice degree. You can’t