Bodyguard Read Free

suit thing.”
    “You want me to get a couple of the boys from the squad room to help you carry him out to your car?”
    “No, thanks. He’ll walk.”
    “Are you sure? One of the detectives wanted this room, shook him, but couldn’t wake him.”
    George smiled. “I can get him on his feet.” He leaned closer to Harry and whispered, “Michael Trotta.”
    Harry lifted his head. “What? Where?”
    George spread his hands, gesturing See? “The task force worked so well, we’re keeping it intact but moving it out onto the Island. Our next target’s out nearMineola. A gentleman named Michael Trotta. He’s allegedly hip deep in illegal drug sales, prostitution, and graft. To name but a few potential charges—leaving out little things like murder one.”
    “So it is true. You’re actually going for Trotta,” the lieutenant mused. “And apparently you don’t care who knows about it, huh?”
    “We like to make ’em nervous,” George said.
    Harry took a slug of his coffee then spit it back into the cup. “God!” He looked up at George accusingly. “How long did you let me sleep?”
    “I’m not exactly sure.” George looked at his watch. “Two, maybe three hours, tops.”
    Harry rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “What’s the medical status on the clerk from the market? He all right?”
    “He’s gonna be okay,” the lieutenant told him. “It was just a flesh wound. The blow to his head’s nothing major either. He’ll be released in the morning.”
    “What about the perps?”
    “All have lived to waste precious taxpayer dollars,” George said.
    “What were you saying about Trotta?” Harry asked, rubbing his eyes with one hand.
    “Just gossiping with the lieutenant.”
    “You know, something came in about Trotta only an hour ago,” the lieutenant told them. “Some B&E report from the Island. Guy who recently showed up dead—word’s out he made Trotta unhappy. No proof tying him to the murder, though.” He snorted. “Of course not. Anyway, this guy’s house was just trashed. Somewhere in … Farmingville, I think it was.”
    “Farmingdale?” Harry stood up. “Is the dead guy Griffin Lamont? ’Cause Griffin Lamont lives in Farmingdale. Lived.”
    “Yeah, Lamont, I think that’s the name,” the lieutenant stood up, too. “I can check if you want.”
    “Yeah,” Harry said. “Please. Check the name. And the address, while you’re at it.”
    “Oh, shit,” George said. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you sleep.”
    Harry rolled his head, trying to work a crick out of his neck. “Farmingdale’s not that far. We could get out there in about an hour, this time of night.”
    “No,” George said. “I’m not driving out to Long Island tonight. Absolutely, positively, definitely not.”
    Alessandra stood in the kitchen, shaking.
    Whoever had done this had been thorough. As far as she could tell, there was little left intact in the entire house. Her couches and draperies had been knifed and torn, the wooden furniture splintered. Every piece of clothing in her closet had been shredded, her cosmetics crushed. Drying paint coated the once-expensive wall-to-wall carpeting and stained the walls. Here in the kitchen, her china had been smashed and ground into the Mexican tile floor along with broken jars of food from the pantry and refrigerator.
    The devastation was complete. The quiet old house that had once been her sanctuary had been overrun by violence and chaos.
    She closed her eyes as she bent over the sink, afraid she was going to vomit, silently cursing Griffin’s immortal soul to hell. In life, he’d treated her as little more than a possession. In death, his grip on her was still as tight as ever.
    Where’s the money?
    Alessandra couldn’t begin to guess.
    “Mrs. Lamont?”
    She quickly straightened up, automatically checkingher hair in the broken glass of a photo of Cold Spring Harbor that still hung crookedly on the wall. “In the kitchen.”
    The police