The Frame-Up (The Golden Arrow #1)(97)
His arms are still wrapped around me like a vise, and he leans his chin against my head. “She did it because she loves him. His health is bad—very bad. He won’t live to see his sentencing, I don’t think. Dementia is a terrible thing, even worse when you’re a kingpin. From what I’ve heard in the hearings you missed, he had started to make business mistakes. His mind was going. She didn’t want him to get caught, so she took on more and more gradually. At first just to keep him out of jail, and then . . . well, money can be a powerful motivator. Unfortunately, she was good at what she did.” He pauses for a moment.
“I don’t think she knew that he had killed Casey until we discovered it. Then she knew for certain he’d die in jail if the case was solved. She was just trying to protect her father. In fact, had she not been falsifying the test results from this specific case, I don’t know that we’d have enough to hold her on. Officer James agreed to identify her in exchange for a plea deal, and that helps. Though he’ll still get close to life for killing Yee. His only chance is to hope he drops that sentence for parole.”
“All of this has been so crazy. The costumes, the crimes, the real-life superheroes. I’m ready for my life to settle down a bit.”
A rumble starts in his chest, and his shoulders shake beneath my cheek. He still hasn’t loosened his hold on me. “It’s been pretty crazy. But I have a feeling that life with you isn’t calm and boring.”
I grin against his chest and slip my hands into his. “No, probably not. Actually, did you see the latest copy of The Hooded Falcon?” I look up to gauge his reaction.
Matteo’s mouth presses into a line. “Yes, we’ve seen it.” A month ago, an independently produced comic showed up online and in retail stores bearing the name of The Hooded Falcon. Instead of it being a rip-off of ours, though, it was a slim comic containing the cleaned-up sketches of the original Falcon. The sketches from the journals that had been in the frame. The Golden Arrow had presumably managed to somehow take the journals, clean them up, and publish them as close to what Casey would have done as possible.
“You’ll go after the Golden Arrow now?”
Matteo eyes me. “Are you sure it’s not you?”
I laugh. “I’ve been cleared by the courts of men and God.”
“I mean, yes . . . but we have no leads at this point, although we’re looking. We’re still busting the drug rings involved with the White Rabbit. I think things will quiet down a bit with Sosa and her father behind bars.” Matteo looks shell-shocked as he shakes his head in wonder at me. “Anthony was the purveyor of heroin in LA for thirty years, and we never knew.”
I nod. The waves of this case touch every part of the LAPD. Everyone has been in for questioning, Matteo and Rideout included.
“How are Lawrence and Ryan?” Matteo’s question pulls me back to the present.
I shrug, and he wraps his arms around me and rubs slowly up and down my back with one hand. “Okay. Everyone’s shaken up about this. No one’s acting normally. But I think we’ll get there.” Lawrence and Ryan had the charges of aiding and abetting dropped when their alibis panned out. Lelani had actually been a huge help in backing up Ryan’s story. I guess she wasn’t just good in the boardroom; she was good in the courtroom too.
I’m hesitant to share my next bit of information, but Matteo has just said that honesty is everything. “I have to admit, I kind of like the idea of our masked avenger still being out there. Instead of these journals rotting in evidence, they’re seeing the light of day. I know it’s not how the case should be. But it’s a little bit like Robin Hood, don’t you think? Rob from the rich—er, police, and give to the masses? Everyone gets to find out how the comics would have ended. Anyhow, I told you I’m not a suspect anymore. I don’t want to talk about the case.”
I want to talk about us. I want to talk about how my hands don’t ever want to stop holding his. I want to talk about our partnership and where we’re going to go from here.
Matteo pulls me to the sofa and scoots closer until our thighs are pressed together. “No work talk?”
My heart races, and I have trouble focusing on his actual words.
“No.” I reach out, wrap my arm around his neck, and pull him to me. I breathe him in, so happy to find that he’s real and warm and willing to forgive me. We sit like that, cozy in the couch corner, for a long moment, and I drink in his presence. I feel like I’m home, something I’ve never felt with anyone else. I take the time to sort through the fact that Matteo isn’t my type. Instead, he balances me out. He doesn’t have to fit into my standards for a boyfriend . . . He cares about me. He may not know enough to ask me to watch a Doctor Who marathon yet, but he’ll watch it with me because he knows it will make me happy. I spent so much time pushing people away because they didn’t fit what I was looking for, and in the end what I needed was someone to bring me out of my prejudices. Open my eyes to the world. To realize that the perfect person will support my fashion design, my wacky hair, my comics, my job, because those things are all a part of me.
Thank God for the Hooded Falcon. Yet again, he knew exactly what I needed in my life. He led me from original and unhappy MG to MG 2.0, who kicked ass at Genius but was a little lonely. Now, through this case, and through Casey Senior’s presence in my life yet again, MG 3.0 is ready to be released into the world.