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I wasn’t able to shake anything loose at work, although it wasn’t from lack of trying. I reached out to every contact I could think of, tracked down every lead. Rossi had dozens of connections both powerful and simple. The mayor himself was on my list of people to talk to, and after battling my way through gatekeepers, I finally managed to get him on the phone.
“Thank you for taking the time to speak with me,” I opened diplomatically.
“Anything I can do to help Denver’s finest,” he responded, equally as politic.
“We’re looking for Silvio Rossi,” I explained.
“I heard,” he said, making it clear that I knew he was checking up on us. “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything to offer. Mr. Rossi and I attended some of the same functions, but we were hardly what you’d call friends.”
He was distancing himself from the gangster, and with good reason. There was a lot of speculation in the media about how deep Rossi’s influence ran. The mayor didn’t want to lose his career over someone he’d only met a few times.
Although I couldn’t be sure that there wasn’t more to the story, I thanked him and hung up. I didn’t want to spend too much time barking up the wrong tree. There might have been something else to their relationship, but I didn’t think the mayor would help escape prosecution. Even politicians had to draw the line.
I had equally fruitless conversations with several other notable people in Denver. All of them said the same thing. They were shocked that Mr. Rossi was anything other than a legitimate businessman. He seemed so normal.
At the end of the day, I was no closer to finding him, and I was starting to worry that he had left Colorado altogether. If that was the case, I wasn’t going to be the one to find him. I would have to wait for the nationwide BOLO (be on the lookout) to work its magic. But on the off chance that he wasn’t smart enough to run, I had to keep looking.
I chipped away at the problem until five, when the chief suggested that I go home.
“We’ll let you know if there are any significant discoveries,” she said.
“I don’t mind putting in extra time,” I argued.
“The department minds,” she replied. “We can’t pay for overtime.”
“I’ll clock out,” I offered.
“Go home. Come back fresh tomorrow,” she ordered.
I had no choice but to comply. Since Travis was working an overnight shift, I didn’t have anyone to go home to. Instead of returning to the empty apartment, I decided to drop in on my mother.
Until Travis and I had started getting serious, I’d lived in an apartment over my mother’s garage. It wasn’t strictly a cost-saving activity. I was worried about her. She’d taken my dad’s death hard, and despite the fact that it had been almost a decade since he passed, she had never been quite the same.
Drifting in and out of clarity, she had moments where she broke down in tears. I didn’t want her to live on her own, so I asked our neighbor to check in on her frequently. My sister-in-law did the same, and between the three of us, we kept our eyes peeled.
Not that I thought my mom would take her own life or anything so vile. But she would spend the entire day locked up in a private hell, grieving for a man whom she had loved more than anything. I didn’t want to see her in pain, so I went to see her whenever I could. It was going to make it more difficult to officially move in with Travis. I wanted a life together, but I couldn’t leave my mom. Not in her condition.
I still had most of my stuff at her place, and I decided to spend the night. The dogs could run around the backyard all they wanted, and I could take over the cooking duties. Ever since Dad died, Mom hardly touched the stove. If I left her to her own devices, she would forget to eat.
“Mom?” I asked, opening the back door and letting myself in.
She didn’t answer, but that was typical. She was usually lost in thought. I dropped my keys on the kitchen counter and went into the living room to check. She was right where she always was, sitting in front of the television with the sound off.
When Dad was alive, she used to watch television on mute so as not to wake him up after a long day at work. He was a cop, just like me, and he put in the hours. He would come home, kick his shoes off, and fall asleep on the couch.
Wanting to be close to him, Mom would sit down beside him and turn her favorite show on with the volume all the way down. She never broke the habit, although there was no one to care for anymore.
“Hey, Mom,” I announced myself, giving her a kiss on the top of her head.
She didn’t respond, and that was typical as well. Lost in her own thoughts, it sometimes took her a while to realize that someone else was in the room. Slowly, she looked over at me, her face transitioning through many stages of grief before finally dawning with recognition.
“Alaina,” she said flatly.
“Hey, Mom,” I repeated myself. “How are you doing?”
“Okay,” she replied. Her cheeks were dry, which meant she hadn’t been crying. She was just very far away, torturing herself by thinking about Dad.
I wondered if I should tell her that I knew the name of the man who had murdered her husband. Would it be any comfort? He was still at large, which meant that he could kill again. I decided to wait until I had the criminal behind bars. That way, I could put her mind at ease.
“I’m going to make something for dinner,” I announced.
“Okay, sweetheart,” she replied.
I moved into the kitchen, wishing there was something else I could do to connect with her. It had been so long since I’d seen my mom the way she used to be. Occasionally, she would smile when my brother brought his baby girl over. Her grandchild was the only light in her universe, it seemed, despite the fact that there were multiple people left who loved her.
I wasn’t sure what to make. I hadn’t been grocery shopping for my mom in quite some time. Living with Travis had its perks, and one of them was that I could raid his fridge. I struggled to find something nutritious to make, and finally settled on soup. There were several cans of the pre-made variety that wouldn’t take long to heat up. It wasn’t home cooking, but at least it was something.
I reached for a can and opened the pop top. Pouring it into a pan, I lit the burner. Just as the liquid began to boil, there was a knock on the back door. I wondered who it could be and went to open it.
Samantha, Mom’s neighbor and my childhood best friend, stood out in the cold. She seemed surprised to see me. I knew from experience that she had just walked through her own back yard to get to ours, bypassing the street. That meant she hadn’t seen my car in the driveway.
“Alaina,” she said, pleasantly shocked.
“Sam,” I replied warmly, opening my arms for a hug.
When she complied, I realized how much I needed the physical contact. I missed Travis, even though we’d only been apart for a few hours. It was so hard seeing my mom day after day, unable to snap out of it. I tried not to be judgmental, but it was difficult. It made babysitting her one of my least favorite things, if I was being honest.
“Come in,” I said, finally stepping back. “Thanks for checking on us.”
“Every day,” she responded, walking in. “I see you’ve got dinner started.”
“Soup,” I explained.
“I was going to go shopping tomorrow,” she said.
“Please do,” I asked. “We’re out of almost everything.”
Samantha popped into the living room to say hello to my mother before joining me at the kitchen table. I turned the soup off to let it cool, reaching for a glass from the cupboard. There was nothing to drink but a tiny bit of milk, so I just drew water from the tap.
“I don’t have anything to offer you,” I told my friend.
“That’s okay,” she replied. “I didn’t come over for a drink.”
“I could make some tea,” I offered.
“Sure,” she agreed.
I filled the tea kettle with water and set it on the fire to heat. With that task done, I went to sit down. Samantha watched as I went through all the motions, her eagle eye missing nothing.
“Are you going to tell me about the fire two nights ago?” she asked.
I glanced at her in surprise. Sometimes I forgot that civilians were equally as capable of keeping up on police news as we were. Just because she didn’t have access to police band radio didn’t mean that she couldn’t read the paper. There was a lot of interest in the arsons and now in Silvio Rossi, who was in the wind.
“No,” I said. “I mean, I was in my first standoff.” I found myself recounting the night as much as I could without compromising the case. “It was intense.”
“I can’t even imagine,” she replied.
The tea kettle whistled, and I got up to pour our drinks. Grabbing a box of assorted tea bags, I set it down on the table along with two mugs. Samantha perused the offerings before landing on Orange Pekoe. I picked Earl Grey, and we both lowered our teabags into the water.
“The man responsible, Silvio Rossi, I haven’t been able to locate him,” I told Sam.
“I know,” she answered. “I saw it on the news. The whole city’s terrified.”
That didn’t make me feel any better. I was the one charged with bringing him in, but all I’d done so far was to create a panic. I stirred my tea angrily. “There’s something else that’s happened.”
“Go on,” she prompted when I let the conversation drop.
“Travis’s ex is back in the picture.”
“Oh no,” she said, having no idea how bad the situation really was.
I didn’t go into all the details about how we thought the woman was dead. That wasn’t central to the story as far as I was concerned. The real problem was that he had never gotten over her, not really. And now she was back, and he was going to visit her in his free time. I didn’t want to admit that I was worried, but how could I avoid it?
“I know that he loves me, and that we’re good together,” I moaned, letting it all out. “But how can I be secure when he’s going to visit her in the hospital? What if it’s not over for her? What if she tries to get him back?”
“Don’t let her,” Samantha advised.
“Easier said than done,” I complained.
“I don’t think so,” she shot back. “Just make sure that he knows you’re the better option.”
“How?”
“Well, there must have been some reason they broke up in the first place,” Samantha reasoned.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was because Travis thought Stacia was dead. “I guess,” I answered, not convinced.
“I don’t know her, but I know you,” Sam said. “Any man would be lucky to have you.”
“Don’t go there,” I whined.
“It’s true,” she asserted.
“Yeah, but you sound like my mom or my big sister.”
She smiled, reaching across the table to put her hand over mine. “If you have to fight for him, fight for him. You deserve a chance at happiness.”
“Okay,” I said, breaking contact and standing up. I busied myself with dishing out the soup so that I wouldn’t have to take part in the heart-to-heart any longer.
Once I had three big bowls, I transferred them to the table. Then I went into the living room to tell Mom that dinner was ready. She hit pause on her show, apparently planning to resume it as soon as she was done eating. Without smiling or expressing any kind of gratitude, she followed me into the kitchen.
We sat down, and Samantha chattered brightly about her flower garden. She planted roses and tulips and a bunch of other things I couldn’t care about. She was weeding and she’d stumbled on a nest of baby rabbits, hidden just below the surface. I laughed when she described her shock and was pleased to see my mom crack a smile too.
My phone beeped just as I was cleaning up.
Fire in progress. 500 King Street.
It was Travis, letting me know that there was movement on the case. I couldn’t believe Rossi was still lighting fires. Had he graduated to burning everything? Or was this another property that he owned? I’d been over and over his list of real estate holdings, and I didn’t remember King Street being one of them. But I could have been mistaken, and I didn’t have time to go back to my notes.
“I have to go,” I told Samantha.
“Leave the dishes,” she instructed. “I’ll do them.”
“Thanks,” I grabbed my keys, remembering to give my mom a kiss at the last minute.
