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

a foot away from us. Josh cheered with joy when his managed to soar just a few inches further.

We spent the next few minutes making more planes and battling to see who could send theirs the furthest until the chime of a timer suddenly went off and interrupted our game.

“Josh, it looks like it’s dinner time,” Linda informed him kindly. “I think your friend needs to get back to his work now.”

The crestfallen look that Josh hit me with broke my heart, but Linda was right. I couldn’t stay here playing with him forever.

“Will you come to visit me again?” he asked hopefully.

“I’ll try my best,” I answered him honestly. I had no idea how much longer he’d even be in this safe house, so there was no way I could guarantee that I would be. “You’d better keep practicing on those planes in the meantime, okay?”

“Okay,” he replied before turning to Linda to take his sister back from her.

“I’ll walk you gentlemen out,” Linda offered as she stood up from the couch. The three of us walked toward the door, and I could see through the windows that it was completely dark out now.

“Thank you for letting us speak with him,” I turned around to speak to her once I was on the porch.

“I know it was necessary,” she sighed. “I hope it helped your investigation. I should also be thanking you, truth be told. That’s the most he’s spoken since he got here. I guess he really resonated with you, Costa.”

I faltered at the way she’d said my name. It was an alias, since I obviously couldn’t walk around introducing myself as DiFiore, but aside from a select group of people at the SDCT, no one knew it wasn’t my real name. Jase must have caught it too, because his posture tensed beside me.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” Linda smiled mysteriously. I could sense any ill intentions from her, but I still didn’t like being in the dark. “I guess that’s not really surprising. Well, have a good night, gentlemen.”

“Wait--” I called, but she’d already shut the door in our faces.

I felt conflicted. On the one hand, she clearly knew something about me that she wasn’t saying. On the other, she obviously wasn’t my enemy. I’d been trained from a young age to read body language and recognize signs that someone might be about to hurt me, but I didn’t get any of that from her.

“You know her?” Jase asked as we turned around and headed back to the car.

“No,” I replied immediately. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, she seemed to know you,” Jase hummed accusingly.

“I don’t like your tone.” I frowned. “What are you trying to imply?”

“Listen, I knew you were a womanizer,” Jase sighed, “but I didn’t think you were the kind of guy to just forget the names and faces of women you’ve hooked up with.”

“What?” I barked, loud enough that it echoed throughout the quiet neighborhood. “I’m not. I’ve never seen her before. I would have remembered if we’d slept together.”

“I’m just messing with you,” Jase laughed as he got back into the car. “Though I do think that’s the most obvious explanation. I mean, she seemed to know that ‘Costa’ was a fake name.”

“Then she can’t be someone I hooked up with,” I retorted. “I don’t introduce myself as DiFiore to women I pick up in bars. Do you think I’m an idiot?”

“Yeah, I do,” Jase teased. “But I guess you have a point. Should we be wary of her then?”

I hesitated before answering. I wasn’t sure what to make of the peculiar interaction.

“I don’t know,” I replied. The entire interaction had been so bizarre.

“All right,” Jase shrugged. “Why don’t we go for a drink? It’s been a long day, and it’ll be nice to just chill and unwind.”

“Yeah, good idea,” I nodded as he started the car. It had been a long day. It was hard to imagine that the peaceful breakfast I’d had with Roxanne had happened just this morning. Jase was right. A couple of drinks sounded great right about now.

14

Jase

I could tell that Nick had been rattled by the weird interaction he’d had with Linda. To be honest, I really had thought that she must be some old conquest that had slipped his mind, but he’d seemed so insulted by the thought that I’d brushed it off as a joke in the end.

He couldn’t really blame me, though. I don’t think I’d ever met a woman that wasn’t Nick’s type. It was frustrating, sometimes, watching him dazzle every girl he wanted any time we’d go out drinking. Though, being his wingman did have the perk that I usually ended up going home with someone at the end of the night as well, so in the end, there wasn’t much to be jealous of.

“The killer was definitely a hitman,” Nick declared as he finished off his beer. “Well, hitwoman, I guess. Josh said she disabled the door alarm before she left, right? She must have gotten it from Ryan. That doesn’t really give us anything new to go on, though.”

He had drunk enough by now that he was rambling a little more than he usually did. The bar we’d come to was one of our usual haunts. It was pretty close to both of our places, and it never got too rowdy, so it was the perfect place to come when we just wanted to relax.

“Don’t you think so?” Nick asked me expectantly. I stared back at him blankly. “You spaced out again, didn’t you? What was the last thing you heard me say?”

“Something about the door alarm?” I shrugged. “Stop worrying about the case for a minute. It’s nearly midnight. I thought we were having drinks to unwind.”

“Yeah.” Nick sighed. “I just keep thinking about that kid and the way he was holding onto his sister.”

Of course. I can’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me that he’d be hung up on that. Nick didn’t like talking about