Topaz Heat (Christian Romance) (The Jewel Series) (20 page)

The breath sucked out of Derrick's body. "What?"

"One might say that he choked on his money."

"Wait."

"Where were you ten years ago on the night of January eleventh?"

Derrick lowered his head and rubbed the back of his neck. "I told you, I spent the night next to the Dumpsters outside of the Viscolli hotel."

"You're telling me that you spent the night outside, in January?"

Barry interjected. "That's what he's told you three times, gentlemen."

Derrick held up his hand and smiled. "You think that was the first time I had to sleep near a Dumpster in the winter?"

"That isn't answering my question." Wilson opened a file in front of him and pulled out a picture the size of a sheet of paper. He slid it across the table to Derrick.

A skeleton lay folded inside of a wall. Some clothes still remained on the body. Derrick recognized the leather bag slung over the shoulder. He wasn't going to play stupid. "Where did you find him?"

"In the basement of the building where you had your old apartment. Jake's Bar. Demolition crews uncovered it three days ago."

Derrick looked at the skeleton, ever thankful Tony had provided a way out of that life for him, a way to avoid a death similar to what he beheld. "I don't know how he got there, but it wasn't my doing."

A rapping sound came from the mirrored glass. Detective Wilson stood and went to the door. He opened the door a crack then slipped out. Curious, Derrick watched Beaumont file the picture and the letter away. He put the lid on the box and slid the box down the table out of reach. "Let's go back to this meeting with Tony Viscolli."

Barry answered. "That isn't relevant to this conversation."

"I think it is."

"I don't see how."

Beaumont opened his mouth to speak again but the door opening interrupted him. A small man with a balding head and a bulging briefcase tumbled into the room. "We're done here, gentlemen," he said in a voice that sounded like a radio announcer.

Barry stood and held out his hand. "Clifford. Thank you for coming."

Clifford shook Barry's hand then took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his sweating head. "You should have waited until I got here before any questions were asked or answered. Well, water under the bridge. Let's go, Mr. DiNunzio."

Beaumont stood. "Cliff, I haven't finished questioning my suspect."

"Are you arresting him?"

"Not yet."

"Then you're finished." He put a hand on the back of Derrick's chair and pulled it back as Derrick stood, following Barry's silent nod of assent. "If you decide to arrest him, contact my office and we'll make arrangements for my client to turn himself in. Make a spectacle of the arrest and I will make you experience lasting regret. I hope you hear me."

Derrick followed Barry and Clifford through the police station to the bright lights of the afternoon outside. Clifford turned to Derrick as soon as they were on the sidewalk. He held out his hand. "I'm Clifford Lowry. Barry's office called me."

"Nice to meet you. Derrick DiNunzio."

"Yes. Let's get to my office and go over this, shall we?" He turned to Barry. "I know you're friends. I don't need you, but I'll understand if you want to be there."

"Tony's coming, too."

"Mr. Viscolli is already there. Apparently, there are some women there, too. These friends of yours … do they grasp the concept of attorney client privilege?"

Barry chuckled. "We'll do whatever you need us to do, Cliff. I'm really glad you're on this."

"You won't be glad to get my bill. My secretary's bringing lunch in. Viscolli's buying so I went all out. We need to get a lot done before dinner."

Despite the circumstances, Derrick felt light. He thought maybe everything was under control. He thought maybe God was going to use this for some good. "Lunch?" he said. "Good. I'm starving."

SARAH
sat next to Derrick at the big conference table in the middle of the twelfth floor of the Lowry, Lowry, Beachum, and Parkinson law firm. He looked exactly the same as he had looked four hours ago. Somehow, she expected him to come back weary and worn.

She pushed her salad around on her plate but had no appetite to eat. No one else in her family did, either. Robin and Maxine had come as soon as they received Sarah's texts, and with Tony they all congregated at Clifford's office and waited for his arrival.

"I can't comprehend why anyone would think you would do this," Sarah said to Derrick.

Clifford shut the file he had in his hand and replied. "They have evidence. Mounds of it."

A surge of angry heat went through Sarah's chest. "I know he couldn't have."

With a flighty flip of his hand, Clifford said, "Love and sunshine and butterflies … all that isn't going to mean anything in a court of law. The fact is that they have enough of a case that a law student could get him convicted."

Sarah gasped. "How is that even possible?"

"Obviously someone set me up," Derrick said.

"Who would do that?" Sarah asked.

Tony answered from the head of the table. "Sarah, I love your sheltered innocence."

Sarah bit her tongue to keep from countering with a sarcastic, angry retort. She felt her cheeks burn with embarrassed hurt while Tony directed his attention explicitly upon Derrick. "What can you remember about competition? Any personal enemies of yours? Any grudges?"

Derrick rubbed the back of his neck. "Nothing specifically bad is really standing out. I mean, before today if you'd asked me I would have said James Castolli. But other than him…"

The way Derrick paused made Sarah think there might be something occurring to him. "What?" she asked, reaching over and touching his hand. "What is it?"

"Well, maybe Gianni Castolli."

Sarah wrinkled her brow in confusion. "Isn't that his dad?"

"Yeah." Derrick turned his hand so that their palms touched. "Not a nice guy."

"No," Tony agreed, "not a nice guy. You think he's capable?"

"Of killing his son? Maybe. I overheard an argument they had once. If I were his son, I think I would have believed he could kill me at that moment."

Clifford interjected. "And you crossed Gianni?"

With a shrug, Derrick wrapped his uneaten sandwich in its original wrapper. "Sure. I refused to go pick up a drug shipment. Then I disappeared."

Sarah looked at Derrick. "I thought James asked you to do the drug run thing."

Derrick smiled at her. "James told me to do it."

"So James was working for Gianni?"

"Everyone was working for Gianni."

Clifford nodded. "Ah. Okay."

Tony spoke, "And in that type of environment, it's logical to assume that no one would do something as extreme as kill Gianni Castolli's son without his permission."

"Well, he might have been killed, but it would have been very public. A statement."

"We also have to consider something else," Derrick said. Sarah watched his face change with an almost excited expression. "I might have been able to kill James and run away. But I couldn't have killed James by shoving a bag of money down his throat. Not alone. That would have taken a couple of people helping me, then putting him in the wall and closing the wall back up. All the people I knew on that street, all my acquaintances and supposed friends, would never have had the courage to not only do that, but to stay around after. It's all about survival out there, and Gianni Castolli offered survival. At a cost to your soul, yes, but survival nonetheless."

"So we assume that this Gianni Castolli guy killed his own son?" Sarah felt a wave of helplessness. "If he's who you say he is, then there's no way we can do that, is there? In fact, he's sure to have witnesses to say you did it." She laced her fingers with Derrick's. "So what do we do about that?"

Derrick turned his body so that he could face her directly. "We trust God. We stay faithful and strong and trust Him. What will happen will happen, and we'll be able to get through it because that's what we do."

Emotion clutched Sarah's throat. "I don't like this."

With a squeeze of her hand, Derrick turned back to the table and reopened his sandwich. "Join the club," he said with a laugh, and took a hefty bite.

SARAH
rushed to the door when she heard the powerful engine of the Mustang as Derrick’s car pulled into her driveway. She opened her door and saw Derrick coming up her walk. He had changed into khaki pants and a dark blue cable knit sweater. He looked up and smiled when he met her eyes. He held up some plastic bags. “I brought dinner,” he said, “I didn’t think either one of us would be up to going anywhere.”

Guessing how grueling his day must have been, Sarah smiled and held the door wider. “It will be nice not to be interrupted every fifteen minutes by a waiter, too.”

As Derrick brushed by her, she caught a whiff of his after shave. He smelled very masculine to her – something she had never noticed before. Then she smelled rice and vegetables and felt her stomach rumble. She knew it was pushing nine o’clock, and long hours had passed since the lunch she couldn’t stomach in Clifford’s conference room.

She followed Derrick into her kitchen and headed straight for a cupboard to get plates while he unpacked what looked like take out from her favorite Japanese restaurant. “Any news?”

Derrick’s hands paused briefly before he shrugged and continued to remove cartons of sushi and rice. “Clifford expects a warrant will be issued for my arrest.”

Sarah’s heart gave a nervous flutter and she felt tears sting the back of her throat. “I don’t understand how this can be happening.”

When Derrick took the plates from her hands, he purposefully brushed the palms of his hands over the tops of hers. “It’s okay.”

With her hands free, Sarah slipped her fingers under her glasses and pressed them to her closed eyes, battling back the tears. “It’s not okay. You couldn’t have done this.”

“You know, less than a week ago you would have helped Beaumont throw me under the bus, then brushed your hands off and walked away.”

Pressing her lips together because she knew that her attitude and behavior toward him would have led him to believe such a terrible thing, Sarah went to the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of water. “I’d like to think that I would have at least trusted Tony’s judgment if nothing else,” she said. “I know I treated you terribly, but I never thought you were a bad person. Not once.”

Derrick held her chair for her. “It’s okay, Sweetheart. I know.”

“Don’t –” she started to give her typical reply to his calling her sweetheart, but she couldn’t make her mouth form the words. With her brow knit in confusion, she sat down and set a napkin on her lap. She waited for Derrick to sit then held her hand out to him, knowing that he would want to bless the meal. He took her hand, the rough calluses formed by rock climbing scraping against her smooth skin. She bowed her head and listened to his petition for God to bless the food they were about to receive, and chorused his “amen” when he was done.

“Don’t?” he prompted as he dished sushi onto his plate and started smearing it with wasabi.

Sarah cleared her throat. “Nothing.”