Bounty (Page 98)

“Good news, gypsy,” Deke replied.

“And Chace called too,” she went on. “He says he heard word from your Decker friend as well as the cops in LA. During autopsy, they’re gonna do a DNA test on Caswell so it can be compared to the DNA they got from me. That way Chace says all the T’s are crossed and I can breathe easy. Though he said it’s highly likely I can already breathe easy because I might not have seen the guy’s face, but I gave a physical description of his body, and that all matches. Not to mention the other stuff,” she mumbled her last sentence before taking another big bite of sandwich.

“That’s good too.”

Her phone beeped with a text, she looked at it, her brows drew together and she dropped her sandwich on her plate, quickly wiped her hands on a napkin and nabbed it.

“Fuck,” she murmured.

“What?” he asked.

Her thumbs flew over the screen and she didn’t answer him.

“What?” he clipped.

He heard her text go and she looked at him.

“Lacey,” she stated.

“Doesn’t answer my question,” he informed her.

“And Anton Rojas.”

She said no more, her phone beeped again, she looked down at it and immediately started replying to the text.

“Gypsy,” he growled his warning.

“Two seconds, honey,” she muttered, hit send and looked to him. “Anton Rojas. A black, sharp-dressed man.”

Deke’s shoulders went straight. “You think you know the guy with Bianca?”

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t. But Lacey thinks she does.”

Another beep came from her phone and he exercised patience with difficulty as she read and returned the text.

The second he heard hers go, he grunted, “Explain.”

She again gave him her attention.

“Okay, Anton, Tony, he’s…well, he’s a good guy. We knew him years ago. Years and years. Like, we were in our early twenties when he was in our lives.”

“And?” Deke pushed.

“And, he met Lacey first. Head over heels she went for him. He was totally her type. They’d been dating a few weeks before she introduced him to us and that is not her MO. We always got feedback from the posse before we went in deep with a guy. She did not do this. She was way in deep before Bianca or I ever laid eyes on him.”

Christ, was he in for that in his future?

“I got why when we met him,” Jussy continued through his thought. “Like I said, he was a good guy, her type. Handsome. Smooth. A gentleman. Really good with Lacey who can be a handful. The weird thing was that, although he was with Lacey, the longer he was with her, the deeper she got, but as an outside observer, it seemed to me what was happening was that he was getting in deeper and deeper too. Just not with Lace. With Anca.”

“Shit,” Deke muttered.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding, tossing a Frito in her mouth, chewing, swallowing and again talking. “Anc would in no way go there. Girl code. Not gonna happen. Especially with how into him Lacey was. But Tony, he wouldn’t do that either. I got the impression he stayed with Lace for as long as he did just because he didn’t know how to let her down easy. He knew he’d break her heart and he didn’t want to do that. But I also got the impression he wasn’t going to go there with Anca after he let Lacey down. They were just…well, both of them were that kind of people.”

Another text beeped and Deke focused on eating while she read it and returned it.

Then she came back to him.

“How’s this got anything to do with this shit now?” Deke asked. “This guy stick around?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s been at least a decade since I’ve seen him.”

“Bianca?”

“Far’s I know, same thing with her. She started inching away from us well before Dad died but she was still in contact. And that’s totally something she’d share. At least with me.”

“She give you the heads up she was into this guy too while he was with your other girl?”

She was chewing sandwich and nodding.

When she could, she told him, “She confessed all. It was sad, honey. Because, honestly, love my Lacey girl, but Tony and Bianca suited each other. She has this…” she paused, “fragility. Lace and me, we could take on the world. Bianca was ballsy and she had attitude but under that, well, obviously since she sunk into the life she did, there was a disconnect. There was something missing. Something she needed. I was young and I obviously didn’t know much about the world, I still sensed that something she needed was a man in her life like Tony. He was sweet but he was strong. And when it came to a woman in his life, it was all about her. I mean, he managed to do that being with Lacey at the same time falling in love with Anc.”

She shrugged and finished.

“It’s weird but true.”

“Okay, babe, not gettin’ why you two are on this bent about this guy,” Deke told her.

She got another text. He clenched his jaw, ate more chips, waited for her to get through it, something she did nodding like she was agreeing with whatever her girl was saying, then she looked to him.

“Lacey knew,” she declared. “She’s not dumb. She felt it, saw it, what was happening with them. I think after it was all over, she kinda felt shit about it, not stepping aside for them. We never broached it. All of us or Lacey with just me. But things didn’t end for her with Tony because of that. Things ended with Tony because Terrence put his foot down that Lacey needed shot of him.”