One-Eyed Royals by Cordelia Kingsbridge

Author:Cordelia Kingsbridge [Kingsbridge, Cordelia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Published: 2018-09-01T16:00:00+00:00

“You okay, Dom?” Carlos asked. “You seem distracted.”

“Huh?” Dominic looked up from the ceremony programs he was folding. “Oh, yeah, I’m fine.”

After work, he’d headed to Carlos and Jasmine’s apartment for dinner and wedding prep. His project was spread across the coffee table, while they were on the floor next to it, hunched over the poster board they were using to plan the reception’s seating chart. Rebel lay a few feet away, happily gnawing an enormous rawhide bone that could have been plucked from some prehistoric megafauna.

The shifty sideways glance Carlos and Jasmine exchanged was telling. For once, though, it wasn’t gambling cravings that had Dominic so preoccupied.

“It’s one of my cases,” he said to reassure them. “The client’s been avoiding me for a day and a half, and I can’t move forward the way I need to until I talk to him.”

Royce’s ducking of Dominic’s calls and even a visit to his office had become so pointed that Dominic had revised his opinion on whether Royce was totally oblivious to what was going on. Still, he was hesitant to go to the expense of putting Juliette under serious surveillance without Royce’s go-ahead.

He’d dug deeper in the meantime, however, and he was certain Royce had been paying Juliette’s living expenses for months—not something a man did for a meaningless fling. He’d also gotten Juliette’s picture out to Paulie and his other criminal contacts, along with the name Bennett, to see if that stirred anything up.

Carlos and Jasmine accepted his explanation without argument. He returned his attention to folding the programs, which featured abstract watercolors in pale peach, earthy green, and sunset orange against a white background. While a tattoo artist by trade, Jasmine was skilled in multiple visual art mediums, and she’d designed all of the wedding’s paper items herself, from the invitations down to the escort cards.

“How’s Levi doing?” Jasmine asked after a few moments of industrious silence. “You know, with . . . everything. I called to check on him the day after he found that guy in his car, and he was even more wound up than usual.”

Dominic shrugged. “I wouldn’t be the one to ask.”

He was concerned that Levi hadn’t updated him on his side of the case since that morning. Levi must not have found anything on the gas station security cameras, after all. Or maybe he was still looking—he tended to get wrapped up in a case to distraction the same way Dominic did.

“So,” Dominic said, aiming to shift the focus of the conversation off himself. “Bachelor party tomorrow. You excited?”

“If by ‘excited’ you mean ‘nervous,’ then sure,” said Carlos. “You really aren’t going to tell me anything about it?”

“Nope. It’s a surprise.”

“As long as it doesn’t turn into The Hangover.”

“I’d never roofie you,” Dominic said solemnly.

Carlos and Jasmine both snickered.

In the morning, Dominic would have to try confronting Royce at home; the man had left him no other choice. Carolyn Royce had helped force her husband to act like a human being once before, so she might be of assistance this time as well.

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