Colton's Twin Secrets. Justine Davis
the shooting, or the investigation?”
They hadn’t been in the car. Thank all the gods there be, they hadn’t been in the car. “No,” he finally got out. “Personal... Family.”
Duke eyed him. “Look, get out of here. I’ll handle this.” Dante blinked. His friend shrugged. “You shouldn’t be here anyway, with your brother and all. So whatever it is, go deal with it.”
He didn’t often let his heart take the lead over his gut-level cop instincts, but this...this was huge. Too huge to be denied. No matter what or who his brother had become, no matter the problems that had caused Dante in his life, this was bigger than any of it.
“Thanks, Duke,” he said, called for Flash and ran for his car. He hit the button on the fob for the liftgate and got the dog in the back of the big black SUV. Seconds later he was behind the wheel.
It only took a few minutes to cover the distance to Dominic’s. He spent every second of it thinking about the tiny, helpless babies his brother and sister-in-law had brought into the world, perhaps unwisely, just six months ago. For a short while, the arrival of the tiny girls had smoothed things out between them all, but it sadly hadn’t lasted, for even that small pair of miracles apparently couldn’t change Dominic’s chosen path. He continued with his crooked ways, and Dante had had to back away once more.
The place stood out on the quiet street; Agostina’s taste for flashy things didn’t stop at vehicles. Amid the wood-sided houses with big trees, lawns and carefully tended flower beds in the neighborhood, the tiled roof, stone walls and concrete yard stood out glaringly. And even if they hadn’t, the statuary would have done it. He’d thought Agostina was going for the feel of a palazzo in Florence, although he knew she’d never set foot in Italy. Problem was she’d missed it by a very long shot; the statues were cheap copies lacking the life and vitality of the originals. He was all for respecting his Italian heritage, but this didn’t look impressive or grand, just completely out of place.
The house was locked, which he’d expected. But the fact that no one answered the door made him wonder where the girls actually were. Agostina might not be the nicest person around, but surely she wouldn’t have left those two tiny children home alone.
He walked around the side of the house. Most of the windows were shuttered, or masked with the showy ceiling-to-pooling-on-the-floor draperies his sister-in-law had chosen. Every possible point of entry was secured with high-quality locks, which he also expected.
He took the flat stone path around to the back of the house, where the kitchen looked out on yet another courtyard full of statuary he thought would make a meal rather unappetizing. This was where Agostina had chosen to put the more brutal art—gods fighting with each other, warriors running through their enemies or beheading them. He’d expected—maybe hoped—she would lighten up a bit after the twins arrived, but there had been no visible changes yet.
And now there never will be.
He pried loose one of the larger stones from the pathway and used it to break a window in the kitchen door. He wasn’t worried about an alarm system; the very last thing his brother would have wanted was to have the police responding to his house when he wasn’t there. He’d told Dante more than once that while his brother was welcome in his house, the cop was not. And certainly not that ugly, drooly thing he called a dog, Agostina always added.
He knew he was thinking about those things to avoid fixating on the images that were etched into his mind, probably permanently. When he’d first reached into the crumpled vehicle to touch his brother, he’d already known. The unnatural angle of Dominic’s head had warned him, and when he’d been unable to find a pulse, it only confirmed what his gut was already telling him. And one look at his sister-in-law had told him there, too; Agostina must have hit the windshield hard. She’d always hated seat belts, for they wrinkled her elegant clothes. And even becoming a mother, having two innocent souls depending on her, had made no difference.
So you avoided wrinkles but ended up blood-soaked.
He shook his head sharply as the kitchen door finally swung open. He stood just inside for a long moment, simply listening. The house was quiet.
Dead quiet.
He looked around the kitchen, hoping to find a notepad or something, maybe with a helpful phone number. No such luck. He repeated the action in the large room adjacent, which looked more like a museum than a home. He made his way to where he knew Dominic’s office was; there, at least, his brother had refused to allow his wife’s taste to dominate. It was a functional room, with a large desk holding a computer and a file cabinet behind it. He could only imagine what might be in there. Dominic wasn’t stupid enough to keep paper records of his illicit activities, was he?
He walked to the desk, again looking for some kind of clue that might tell him where his nieces were. Nothing.
He sat down, booted up the computer. It was, as he’d expected, password protected. He tried the obvious ones first—names, birthdates, including the twins’. No luck. There did not appear to be any password-generating software present, although it didn’t have to be on the machine itself. He was sure Katie Parsons, the RRPD’s tech whiz, could crack it in a matter of hours, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to go there yet.
Right now all that mattered was finding the girls. Once he knew where they were, that they were safe, he’d be able to think straight. It would be something to focus on, something productive. He and Dominic had no other family left—at least not out of prison—except an elderly uncle and some cousins back in New York. Now he just had to—
The knock on the front door was faint all the way back here, but definite. It was followed by the loud clang of a doorbell that sounded disconcertingly like church bells from a cathedral. He made his way carefully, watchfully down the hall and through the drapery-darkened living room to the rather grand foyer. A glance out a window had told him there were no police cars in sight, but then, a good cop wouldn’t park in view anyway. And he still didn’t believe Dominic would have risked a burglar alarm, and there had been no control panels visible anywhere in the house.
The sidelight windows next to the door were a rather garish stained glass portrayal of...something, but they enabled him to see onto the porch, although distortedly. A short someone, with a frizzy-looking shock of gray hair. And a rather shapeless dress.
He put a hand on his weapon, and with the other pulled the door open. An older woman stood there, and her expression when she saw him was one of surprise. He saw her eyes flick to the K9 unit patch on his jacket.
“Oh! I knew it was the police, I saw the car...but you’re Dominic’s brother, aren’t you?”
“I... Yes.”
“I thought so. I recognize you from the picture, although you look very different out of uniform.”
Picture? Dominic had a picture of him? Somewhere this woman would have seen it?
“Who are you?” he asked carefully.
The woman smiled briefly, and in that moment she looked like someone’s kindly grandmother. “I’m Louise Nelson. I live next door. But I’m very glad you’re here. I got a phone call a while ago, and my daughter is ill. I have to go to her.”
“I’m...sorry,” Dante said, not sure what else to say, or why she was telling him, a total stranger, about this. Then, because it was his nature as well as ingrained, he asked, “Can I do anything? Drive you somewhere?” With my luck she’ll say yes and the daughter lives in Sioux Falls, about as far east as you can go and still be in the state.
She looked startled. But then she smiled again, and it was steadier this time. Worry, he realized. She was worried. “No, but that’s so sweet of you. You’re as nice as Dom said you were.”
It was his turn to be startled. “He...did?”
“Oh, often.” She hesitated, then added, “He said sometimes you were too nice for your own good.”
Well, that