Jacked Up (Bowen Boys #4)(29)

“I knew she would win,” James muttered.

“By the way,” she said to him, “have you already updated Jack on the family addition?”

“What family addition?” Jack asked, frowning.

Nope. They hadn’t.

“We inherited an old locker and a new sister,” Max chimed in.



Nico was settled in the Irish pub where Marlene’s wake was taking place. That Marlene had been Cuban and most of the assistants were too didn’t seem to matter one bit to this crowd that were toasting her with whiskey. Typical Florida. A total mesh of people and cultures. He knew; his sorry Russian ass had been working for a Colombian since what seemed like for-f*cking-ever.

He really hoped this little incursion would bring some results, because he’d cast a wide net but nothing had panned out. He’d followed all the possible leads, checked on the pilot and Aalto’s driver. From what he’d discovered so far, neither of them had talked, texted, or e-mailed about Maldonado or the trip. The police were keeping the witness’s name and whereabouts well under wraps, and none of his contacts knew squat.

The wake had gone on for a while, but he’d started working the crowd just recently, after enough alcohol had flowed to muffle uncomfortable questions like “Who the hell are you?”

He’d gone through the group of frat boys from her school, the airport personnel, her family and friends, being as inconspicuous as possible.

He approached an African American woman who seemed to be a bit tipsy. Sad and tipsy, the perfect combination to loosen a woman’s tongue. And blur her memory.

“For Marlene,” he said lifting his glass.

She followed suit and took a sip. “I’m sorry, I don’t know you.”

“A friend from the neighborhood.”

“Ah…yeah,” she said, dabbing her reddened eyes.

“So horrible,” he mumbled, repeating what he’d heard a thousand times tonight.

The lady nodded. At least this one was not trying to score with him. How people thought a wake was a good place to pick up partners was beyond him.

“We worked together at the airport.”

Damn. He’d already snooped around the airport crowd and gotten nothing.

As he was already moving to leave, she said, almost to herself, “I still can’t believe it. I worked a shift with her two days before it happened. In the morning she was driving back to Florida after spending the weekend with her sister and that night she was dead.” Her voice broke at the last word.

Nico stilled. If Marlene had been driving back to Florida in the morning, who had dispatched the flight?



The day had been hectic, but not as much as the previous one, so Jack wasn’t the least surprised when Elle came downstairs in the wee hours in her pajamas, fetched her ice cream, turned on the TV, put her feet on top of the table, and opened her laptop.

Jesus, how many things did she need to have going on in order to calm down and fall asleep?

Jack walked to the TV and turned it off. Before she complained he sat on the sofa by her side and said, “I mounted a security alarm on the door and the windows. Just in case you’re thinking about going out for a spin.”

She laughed. “Why?”

“I think it’s self-explanatory,” he said, taking a pill and flushing it down with a sip of water.

“What’s that?”

“Antacid. You’re giving me a ulcer.”

“It’s not me. It’s eating at one a.m. It takes some getting used to.”

“Says the lady gorging on ice cream. You should be five hundred pounds, gulping down food the way you do.”

Elle shrugged. “Fast metabolism.”

Yeah, and running herself ragged every day.

“Besides, tomorrow I have gym,” she added. “I’ll train an extra half hour.”

Which brought him to his next question, no matter how badly he dreaded the answer. “What’s in store tomorrow?”

“Gym, classes, work. The usual.”

Fuck him. The usual was a killer.

“What? Too much for you?” she asked, reading him perfectly. “Because I’ll remind you I was up on my feet all evening while you were sitting with the Bowens having dinner.”

True. She’d been running all over tending to patrons and still had had the time and energy to visit with the Bowens as they’d been telling him about the freaky news of their lost sister.

Elle studied him for a long second before she spoke again. “You didn’t answer when Cole asked why you were taking my side.”

No, he hadn’t answered and he wouldn’t now. The truth of the matter was he hadn’t liked seeing Elle pushed against the wall. Sassy little thing that she was, the Bowens didn’t understand that she thought too much of them to give them her wrath.

Pity she didn’t have the same issue with Jack.

“You could have gotten rid of me today very easily, yet you didn’t. You like having me around; admit it,” she said with a smirk.

He dodged her statement. “You like pissing me off; admit it.”

“Wrong, Borg. I looove pissing you off.”

It figured.

She pondered for a second, then added, “I think it’s that don’t-f*ck-with-me vibe of yours. It makes me, you know, want to f*ck with you.”