Barefoot Bound: A Barefoot Bay Undercover Prequel Read online

  “You been stalking her long?” Gabe asked.

  “I’m not stalking her.” Nino scooted his chair in, letting it scrape noisily over the concrete. “But I like to know where she is.”

  “Which is also called stalking.”

  Nino gave a yellowed smile. “Or spying.”

  “Why are you spying on her?”

  “I’m not.” He swallowed hard. “Not really.” He averted his eyes. “Not that much.” He plucked an imaginary thread from his pants. “I’m curious about her, is all.”

  That made Gabe smile. “I trained you well, old man.”

  Nino rolled his eyes. “Give me a break, young boy. I trained you.”

  “If that were true, I’d be a better cook. So, I take it she works at the Sheppard Center?” Gabe notched his head to the brick building with the understated sign.

  “She’s a merciful angel.”

  “They all seem like that when you first meet them.”

  Nino gave him a sharp look. “No, dumb shit, that’s what they call the chemo volunteers. Mercy Angels, or something like that. She sits with people going through chemo and talks to them. Makes them feel better. Makes them laugh and…” Nino closed his eyes and sighed. “She makes people feel hopeful. That’s her gift.”

  “Does she make you feel hopeful?” Gabe asked.

  Nino let out a slow sigh. “For the first time in a long time, yes. She gives me something to live for.”

  He knew that’s what Nino needed. “Which is the same reason I offered you the job in Florida.”

  Nino acknowledged that with a classic Italian one-shoulder shrug. “You’re not as pretty.” He laughed at his joke. “I’ll be honest. I’ve never met anyone like her.”

  “Grandma?”

  Nino looked away again. “You just reminded me it’s been thirty years since my Monica died and that I could lose precious parts if I don’t use them.”

  “Nino Rossi, you old bastard.” He held up a fist to get a bump. “I did teach you well. Is that why she’s keeping you a secret? Afraid family would be scandalized because you’re doing the nasty with an angel? ’Cause I’m pretty sure we’d all be high-fiving you.”

  Nino just shook his head and shifted his gaze to the side door on the brick building. “She wants to take it slow.”

  “Divorced or widowed?” Gabe asked.

  “I’m not sure. She hasn’t said.”

  Another red flag. “Isn’t that, like, question number one at your age?”

  “Well, she doesn’t have kids or grandkids, so it seemed rude to ask. I actually think she’s never been married. We don’t talk about stuff like that.”

  “What do you talk about?”

  “Everything. Nothing. And food. She took that cooking class I teach on Thursday mornings at the senior center, and that’s how we met.”

  “That’s conven—”

  “There she is!” Nino leaned forward, his whole body on high alert. “Quick, get a look.”

  Gabe followed Nino’s rapturous gaze, spying a woman with coppery red hair and a hella expensive Burberry raincoat wrapped around a narrow frame. She moved with purpose and confidence, the posture belying her age. Even from this distance, Gabe could tell she was likely in her sixties, but his guess was she had enough money to ward off the worst of age’s ravages.

  “My angel, Patricia Colleen Sullivan.” Her name rolled off his lips with reverence. “I just call her Patty.”

  “So, not an Italian girl,” Gabriel said dryly, tracking Patty as she adjusted her coat and made her way to the sidewalk. “I imagine half of the cemeteries in Naples are rocking as the entire Rossi clan does a family roll-over.”

  Nino looked like he didn’t care if she was from Mars. “She’s born and raised in Southie, as Irish as the Blarney Stone.”

  “Made for kissing.”

  “We haven’t yet,” Nino admitted.

  “What?”

  “We’ll get there,” Nino assured him. “But look at her, Gabriel. Look at that hair, that dew-drop skin, and she’s got the sweetest green eyes you’ve ever seen.”

  “And not a bad body for her age. Which is what, may I ask?”

  “No, you may not ask, and I haven’t either.”

  Wait a second. He didn’t know her age, marital status, or whether she kissed with tongue, and he was claiming to be in love? Gabe shifted in his seat. “How long have you known her?”

  “Three weeks, four days, and…” He glanced at Gabe’s watch. “About six hours, give or take a couple of minutes.”

  And he didn’t know if she was divorced or widowed or spent her life single?

  Still, he didn’t want to totally deflate his grandfather. “She still live in Southie?” Gabe asked, about one hundred percent certain a woman who could afford that coat and the designer bag on her arm lived somewhere tonier than the old Irish sections of South Boston.

  “Not sure where she lives.”

  Gabe fired a harsh look at his grandfather, his gentle intentions exploding. “So you come down here often enough to know her schedule to the minute and where she’s headed every Wednesday afternoon, but you don’t know her marital status, where she lives, or how old she is? Maybe I haven’t taught you much after all.”

  “I do know that her house has this special secret room that’s round, like one of those princess things in a castle.”

  “A turret?” Gabe asked, immediately imagining an old Boston Victorian that might have a circular room at the top.

  “She told me she likes to go up there and think…maybe about me.”

  “But you don’t know for sure.”

  “We haven’t gotten that far,” Nino said. “But I like to think of her pacing back and forth up there. She told me she paces.”

  Gabe pulled his phone out and tapped a favorite app. “You probably don’t have her Social, but I can find out where Patricia Colleen Sullivan lives, if and when she’s shared someone’s last name, how much she owes, what kind of ice cream she likes, and where she buys her undies. Last one might come in—”

  Nino pushed Gabe’s hand down, smacking the phone against the glass table. “No. Don’t even think about it.”

  “Nino, you can’t go all gaga over a chick when you don’t know a thing about her. She could have done time. She could work for the Irish mob. She could be a gold digger.” None of which he thought for a minute would describe her, but the principle of the thing irked.

  Nino’s look was fierce. “She’s never been in jail, I don’t care that she’s Irish, and I don’t have any gold to dig. And, for crying out loud, did you see her? She’s not a chick.”

  “But you are gaga over her.”

  That he didn’t dispute. “Gabriel, do you think, after five years of hanging around the break room kitchen at the Guardian Angelinos office, that I don’t know a little bit about a background check? You don’t think I couldn’t get all that information with one whisper in Chessie’s ear?”

  “Shit, Chessie’ll get every secret that woman ever hid and a few she doesn’t know she has.”

  “I want to get her secrets,” Nino said, patting his barrel chest. “I don’t want you to dig them up from some database, and I don’t want her life hacked into by my granddaughter. Don’t you understand? I want to peel back her layers and discover her. Haven’t you ever met a woman like that, Gabriel? Someone who intrigued and mystified you? Where the entire process of discovery is part of the seduction?”

  Gabe swallowed hard, immediately thinking of one. The only one. And the whole reason he was upending his life and moving a thousand miles away. “You must really dig her,” he said, knowing it was more of a musing for himself than Nino.

  “Oh, I more than dig her. I told you I love her.”

  “After three weeks and more unpeeled layers than one of your Vidalia onions? That’s kind of impulsive, Nino.”

  He lifted both shoulders and stuck out his lower lip. “Let’s put it this way, I want to love her.”

  Which was a huge diffe
rence. Gabe’s tipped his head toward the redheaded woman, still waiting for the light to change. “Let’s go talk to her.”

  As Gabe stood, Nino’s jaw unhinged. “She’s not expecting me.”

  “Best time to bump into her. Catch her off guard.” Gabe reached for Nino’s arm. “You coming with me, or am I going over there and introducing myself to her alone?”

  Nino didn’t answer, turning to look at his girl again. “I do want you to meet her, but she’s been so determined that no one know about us.”

  “What ‘us’?” Gabe asked. “You haven’t even kissed yet.”

  “We held hands and shared ice cream.” Nino watched the woman crossing the street, his expression dreamy. “She’ll turn at the next corner to go to the Charles Street T station.”

  “Let’s head her off at the pass.”

  Nino frowned, slowly shaking his head. “No, I would never do that to her.”

  “She wouldn’t want to see the man she’s”—what would you call an unhooked hookup?—“sharing ice cream with?”

  Nino stayed firmly in his seat. “She only likes to see me on her terms.”

  “And that doesn’t bother the crap out of you?”

  Finally, as the woman disappeared around the corner and into the crowds headed to the train station, Nino redirected his gaze at Gabe, but this time his eyes were moist and sad. “I’m lonely, Gabe. I take what I can get. And she’s friendly.”

  The admission, soft and tinged with the barest hint of a native Italian accent, sliced right through Gabe’s chest. “And here I thought you were just dying,” he said, trying to sound light. “There are cures for loneliness.”

  Nino pointed to the street. “She’s mine.”

  “Then why don’t you go after her? Full-court press? Flowers and shit? Jesus, make the woman a plate of manicotti. She’ll be on her knees by the second bite.”

  “I did one better,” Nino said. “I let her borrow my Saladini.”

  Gabe almost choked. “The olive-wood-handled chef’s knife I brought you from Florence? The one I had engraved with your initials? You gave her that knife?”

  “I let her borrow it,” he repeated. “She loved cooking with it. Said it made her food taste like mine.”

  “Get it back,” he said glumly, dropping back in his chair.

  “I will, but having her use it makes me feel like…I know I screw these kinds of words up, but I think they call it a soul mate. Is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Someone who…” Nino’s voice cracked, and he looked away. “Never mind. Get me home and I’ll make that manigot for you.”

  “No,” Gabe said, surprising himself. “I mean, yes to the food, but not until you finish your thought. Someone who what?”

  Nino pressed his forehead into the heel of his hand, sliding over his bushy brows as if he could hold the words in there. But Gabe refused to let him off the hook.

  “Someone who what, Nino?”

  “Someone who…needs me.” He swallowed and shook his head.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” Gabe said, even though the raw confession made him a little uncomfortable. He fucking hated emotions. But he loved this man, and he couldn’t let him go on in some kind of fantasy relationship with a woman he had dessert with once. “Of course you want to be needed.”

  “It’s past want,” he said softly. “That pain in my chest I told you about? That’s a big black hole of empty. When my Monica died, your parents took me in, just like they took in Zaccaria and Viviana a few years later. I was as much an orphan as those kids. But there were mouths to feed, and errands to run, and vegetables to grow. One by one, you all left, and I was just…existing. Which was fine,” he added quickly. “But, Gabriel, I am getting old. I’m going to die.”

  Gabe inched back. “Not soon.”

  “Soon…er rather than later. I don’t want to die alone.” He turned back to the street, no doubt imagining his redhead there. “She caught my eye. She makes me laugh. She has a spark. I want to love her, but…”

  “But what?”

  He shrugged. “She’s not telling me everything,” he finally said.

  She wasn’t telling him anything, Gabe thought. “Want me to find out what she’s hiding?”

  Nino didn’t answer.

  “Let me put it this way,” Gabe said. “I’m going to find out. Do you want to know?”

  Nino let out a sad exhale, a heartbreakingly forlorn sound. “It depends what it is.”

  Chapter Six

  It killed him, but Gabe said no to the manicotti when he dropped off Nino in Sudbury. Instead, he headed back to town, relatively certain the Guardian Angelinos offices would be dark for the night. He’d called Vivi to assure her again there was nothing to worry about, but didn’t give any details on Nino’s bingo babe.

  Once he parked in Back Bay, he grabbed a sandwich from DeLuca’s and headed up to the suite to let himself into the empty offices. While he ate, he logged on to the intern’s computer, using his access code to get to the main database that Vivi and Chessie had been building steadily for years.

  No surprise, there were quite a number of Patricia Sullivans in Boston. He worked through the first three, eliminating them based on age or photos, but then found a retired nurse who looked promising.

  Only her name was Patricia Sullivan Browne.

  Right age. Right general location. And even worked as a hospital volunteer. There was just one little discrepancy…she lived with her husband of forty-five years, a senior partner in a successful venture capital firm. God damn it.

  Before he clicked on the link, female voices echoed in the hall, and the front office door unlocked, popping open. Vivi and Chessie both did a double take at the sight of him.

  “I didn’t know you were up here,” Vivi said, tossing her handbag on one of the chairs as she crossed the reception area. “Tell me more about Uncle Nino? Are you sure everything is okay?”

  Chessie followed close behind. “She told me,” she confirmed, probably at the unsure look on his face.

  “Of course she did.” He spun around in the chair and narrowed his eyes at his cousin. “You suck donkey nads when it comes to keeping a secret.”

  “Suck donkey nads? Is that any way to talk to your boss?”

  Gabe looked down, already knowing what he had to do, rooting for a reason to wait. There was no reason, except he knew just how bent out of shape Vivi was about to get.

  “You aren’t my boss anymore, Vivi. I’m handing in my official resignation right now. And I don’t have any assignments pending, so consider this my notice.”

  Her jaw dropped as she stared at him, paling even more than her normal alabaster. “I was kidding! You can say suck donkey nads. I want you to say suck donkey nads. Say it to me every day—” But she must have read his expression, because she suddenly stopped, sliding into the closest chair. “You’re not kidding, are you?” She had just enough certainty in her voice that he knew she knew, and probably had for a long time. “You’re really leaving.”

  “I am, sweetie.” The endearment sounded flat.

  “Just tell me you’re not going down to work for the Bullet Catchers. If you do, I’ll die, Gabe.”

  He didn’t look directly at Chessie, who suddenly became extremely interested in the zipper of her handbag.

  “I am not,” he confirmed. “I’m starting my own thing and joining forces with an old friend who used to be in the French Foreign Legion. He needs a security consultant, and I need a cover.”

  “What in the hell are you talking about?” She leaned closer, her brows drawn over dark brown eyes that rarely missed a thing. Which made him think this couldn’t be that much of a surprise to her. Maybe what he was doing, but not that he was leaving.

  He took a minute to think of the best way to explain it to her. “How many times have you—we—had a client who needed a safe house or even a whole new ID?”

  “A few,” she replied. “We have a safe house, and we were able to get
that informant of Lang’s a new ID when the FBI wouldn’t.”

  “But our safe house is in Jamaica Plain, which is safe but not exactly off the beaten path, and getting that ID was a nightmare because the feds were all over it. I think I can solve that problem if I’m set up in the right place with the right cover. And I found it in Florida.” She listened while he explained the details, but he could see her mind whirring. “I can’t do it here, Vivi, but when I get set up, you can send me those cases. Think of me as an extension of your business.”

  “You could do it here,” she insisted.

  “No, I can’t. It’s not…” Close enough. “Private and secretive enough.”

  “And you need to be on your own,” she said softly.

  He gave a smile and didn’t argue. If that’s what she wanted to think, fine. He wasn’t flying solo because of some need to be in business on his own, but because it was the safest way to do what he wanted to do.

  She leaned back, taking it all in. “I don’t like you leaving, but it’s a good business model.”

  “It’s a great business model,” he assured her. “And I am counting on you to feed me business. Think of it as a new service the Guardian Angelinos can offer clients who need to just disappear for a while and not have any chance of being found. If they need new IDs and homes, I’m going to do that, too. You know I have the contacts.”

  Vivi regarded him, thinking. “Judge Kingston’s daughter,” she finally said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Chessie agreed. “That’s exactly who could use something like what Gabe’s talking about.”

  Gabe frowned. “Dad’s friend Phil Kingston? What does his daughter need?”

  “According to her, nothing but a library to study for the bar,” Vivi said. “But the judge dismissed a case for lack of evidence a while ago, and ever since, he’s been getting some nasty threats targeting her.”

  “She flat-out refuses a bodyguard,” Chessie said.

  “So he’s asked us to hide her somewhere safe and out of sight for a while.”

  “Send her down,” Gabe said. “We’ll all make money.”