But two Sundays after he moved in, he had major break through in the case. Lacey had left early in the morning. Where? He didn’t know, since it was her day off. He’d been tempted to follow her, but decided to use the opportunity to search her office instead.
The good thing about trying to get under someone’s skin was that he didn’t have to bother being discreet.
He moved papers and furniture, looking for clues, making it so Lacey would definitely know he’d been snooping around.
Lacey had shown Dexter and him the contents of the safe in her office while giving them the tour. It consisted of stacks of the money she’d referred to as “miscellaneous funds” but was no doubt money being laundered through the club. And there was nothing of note on her computer.
However, there was a locked drawer.
Suro easily picked it and slid open the drawer to reveal nothing except a stapler, some rubber bands, and other office supplies. He slammed it closed in frustration, but then allowed his usual calm to steal over him.
Why would someone lock up office supplies?
He opened the drawer again, this time pulling it all the way out and looking underneath. He tapped its bottom and his mouth quirked up when the wood emitted a hollow sound. The bottom was false.
He made quick work of getting into the hidden space and finding its contents: a solitary safety deposit box key. It was a small thing, but Suro had the feeling it held more importance to Lacey than its size conveyed.
He slipped the key into the pocket of his jacket. He’d just hold on to it, he decided, and see what happened next.
CHAPTER 11
“I’M eighteen now, Daddy, you can’t tell me what to do!” she screamed at her father. They were having yet another argument about Hector.
“Maybe, but I still get to decide who I serve up in my shop. Don’t you bring that boy around here again!”
“You embarrassed me so bad. I can’t believe you kicked him out!”
“I’m going to do more than that if he ever show his face around here again. Now lower your voice. We don’t need the customers all up in our business. I’m already embarrassed about you bringing that hoodlum here,”
They were in the backroom of the restaurant, but her father’s place was small. It’d be easy for the customers to hear their argument if she didn’t do as he said.
But she rolled her eyes. Her father acted like his business wasn’t located on Hermitage Avenue, one of the most notorious areas in West Trenton. “You mean unlike all these upstanding gangstas you get coming through here?” she asked, only slightly lowering voice. “And he’s not a hoodlum. He got into Rutgers, just like me, and he’s made the Dean’s List every year he’s been there.”
“Just cuz he dress nice and talk like a white boy don’t mean he ain’t a hoodlum.” Her father folded his beefy arms across his chest.
She let out a strangled sound of frustration. It was like talking to a brick wall!
“You can’t judge him on who his father is,” she said. “Hector junior is a good person, an upstanding student, and he loves me! The rest of it doesn’t matter.”
Her father shook his head at her. “This is my fault. I let you read all them romance novels when you was a kid, and now you gone and lost your damn mind. That boy’s father is the head of the Dominican mafia, Tasha. I got to pay him protection money just to keep his gangstas from busting the place up.”
“Hector said he’d talk to his father about that. You won’t have to pay anymore.”
“So now you think I should be grateful you seeing that little good-for-nothing, because I might not have to pay money I shouldn’t been paying in the first place?”
“No, you’re putting words in my mouth,” she smoothed a hand over her relaxed hair, which was pulled into a ponytail. “I’m saying Hector is kind and thoughtful and nothing like his father.”
Her own father picked up his mixing spoon and pointed it at her. “Apples don’t fall far from the tree, cher. Especially when that tree be rotten to the core. You listen to me on that now.”
Lacey awoke with a gasp, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. Memory dreams were the worst, especially this particular one involving her father. She always woke up from them feeling both sad he was no longer alive and guilty she hadn’t had the good sense to listen to him.
She looked over to the other half of the bed, which was now empty. At least she didn’t have to deal with Suro. He was already up doing his morning exercises.
She got out of bed and gathered up her clothes for the shower. She was still kicking herself, because it hadn’t occurred to her until the night before, while once again having trouble falling asleep across from a naked Suro, that she could go stay with Tony.
Tony had a two-bedroom condo in Edison Park, and he probably wouldn’t mind the company. One thing was for certain, something had to give. As much as she’d tried not to show it, the sudden return of recurrent memory-dreams proved it. Living with Suro was driving her crazy.
It wasn’t just his insisting on coming to bed naked, or that he was always there, which meant she hadn’t had sex with anything human or mechanical for almost two weeks, but she was also getting used to having him around.
She hadn’t realized how lonely she’d been living by herself until Suro came along and somehow filled up the apartment with his mostly silent presence. To her surprise, she’d easily gotten used to seeing his grooming products in their mostly black and grey bottles next to her pastel-colored ones on the bathroom sink and in the shower caddy. She’d also gotten used to having company while she watched television to unwind at night and had even started picking programs she thought they might both enjoy, even though Suro never said anything either way. And though she acted like she was put out by the fact that he ate everything she made with great gusto, it secretly gave her a thrill.
Sparkle didn’t like any kind of spicy food, so it was good to see someone else appreciating her father’s recipes. He’d raised her on traditional New Orleans cuisine, and cooking it helped alleviate some of her guilt that his recipes hadn’t died with him. Now somebody other than her knew what a great cook he had been.
She found herself wondering what her father would have thought of Suro, who came from the other side of the world but had the same quiet steadiness he did. Then she pushed those thoughts away.
Suro, whether he knew it or not, was wearing her down, and that more than anything struck her as dangerous. So on Sunday morning, she got up, pretended to ignore Suro doing his morning exercises, and made a special trip to Tony’s favorite donut shop.