“Nah, we didn’t get to that until after junior prom.”
“Lovely.”
Everett straightens. “Evie’s going to junior prom this year.”
“Yeah”—Carlotta shrugs—“but she’s going to the Winter Formal before that.” She gives a wistful tick of the head. “I may have gotten knocked up during junior prom, but the Winter Formal was my introduction to Harry’s—”
“I think we get the picture.” I motion for the bartender. “Whiskey neat for him,” I say quickly. Hopefully, if I can get Everett nursing a drink, I might get a moment alone with Rocky. Everett is pretty intimidating. I don’t see a tough mobster opening up about his feelings around a man built like he could step onto a college football field and toss the ball.
“Nice try, Lemon. It’s not happening.” He cuts the air with his hand at the bartender and kills all of my whiskey dreams in the process. “I’ll need all my senses about me.”
“Don’t worry, Lot. Give me your coat.” Carlotta helps me strip off my outer layer and quickly chucks it behind the bar. “Now go on and walk around a bit. These men are doling out the big bills to the full-figured gals, and right now you qualify. I’ll let you borrow a couple of feathers, but we’re gonna have to split the take.” She quickly pokes three elongated feathered plumes into the bowtie in the back of my dress before I can protest.
Everett leans in. “Keep the feathers, Lemon. I can work with those.”
I bite down on a naughty smile. “Looking forward to it. And for the record, you are a generous tipper.” It’s true, even though we use a whole other currency behind closed doors.
Meg and Noah pop up at the same time, and I say hello to them both and give my baby sister a hug.
She’s donned black leather pants and a matching bustier. Her midnight-colored hair is bushy and wild, and her eyes are sirening out like a couple of icy glaciers.
She pulls back and makes a face at the feathers poking up from my rear.
“You’re going for a mother-daughter act, I see. We’ll move it back about forty-five minutes. That gives the boys a little more time to sauce up. How are you doing, Judge Baxter? You look like someone ran you over with a steamroller.”
“A sexy steamroller,” Carlotta adds.
“Tough day in court?” Noah smacks him on the back before landing a kiss to my cheek. “How’s the baby?”
“The baby is doing great.” I wince over at Everett. “I, however, may have tried the judge’s patience once again.”
Carlotta chuckles. “Fess up, Sexy. What did she do? Show a little knee while making her way to the jury box?”
Meg waves her off. “Knowing Lottie, she was blowing him kisses the entire time.”
“More like blowing me off.” Everett dips his chin as his eyes narrow in on mine. “Lemon had a case of the whispers. And when I asked her to stop, she just kept right on going.” He gives a short-lived smile, and I can’t help but giggle.
“Good for you, Lottie.” Noah sheds a dimpled grin. “It’s about time you gave him hell.” He shakes his head over at his old stepbrother. “You’re not holding this girl down.”
Everett’s lips flicker. “Lemon, you do realize just one more outburst, and I would have been forced to hold you in contempt.”
Carlotta slaps her hands together. “There’s still time. I say you throw the book at her.”
Noah slips an arm around my waist. “Cut her some slack. She’s carrying my child.” He gives a little wink.
Noah is positive I’m having his baby.
“Believe me”—Everett plucks me out of Noah’s arms and reels me in—“I did go easy on her.” He lands a kiss to my cheek before tucking his mouth to my ear. “Although I haven’t taken disciplinary action off the table just yet.”
I bite down hard on my lower lip to hold back that sultry laugh begging to bubble to the surface.
“All right, Lot.” Noah breaks up the slightly perverse party. “What’s going on? Everett said you’re meeting up with a suspect?”
“Ooh.” Meg wiggles her fingers my way. “Hit me up with his name, and I’ll make sure to get you in front of him.”
“Rocky Romero, Flo’s ex.”
She frowns out at the crowd. “Cocky Rocky? He’s here somewhere. I’ll fish him out for you.”
“I’d appreciate that.” I lean in. “If you know Rocky, you must have known Flo,” I say it low in the event a certain perky poltergeist decides to pop up from behind.
“Oh yeah.” Meg’s expression sours on a dime. “Flo is Jimmy Canelli’s niece or something. She was always sassing off and making the girls here crazy. She was way too into herself, if you ask me. But what can you expect? She was given everything she ever wanted on an Italian silver platter. In short, she was a brat. And the annoying part? You couldn’t trust a word she said.” She shrugs. “But overall she was a good person, I guess. I don’t like talking ill of the dead. Especially not the Canelli dead. If anyone could find their way back to haunt this place, it would be her.” Meg takes off, and both Everett and Noah exchange a look.
“Lemon”— Everett takes a breath—“I believe certain favors are due to you in exchange for a certain favor we did for her.”
Noah nods. “When is this big turf war going down and where? If I want to keep one step ahead and save lives as I intended, I need the details in advance—and they need to be accurate.”
Carlotta swills her fruity drink our way. “I can always ask Cadillac or Connie.”
“No,” Everett, Noah, and I say in unison.
“Sorry, Carlotta.” Everett shakes his head. “We’re not dragging anyone else into this. If they get suspicious, they might just do a little digging, if you know what I mean.”
Noah’s chest bounces with a silent laugh. “You’d better do what he says, Carlotta, or he’ll hold you in contempt.”
She leans toward Everett. “Promise?”
Meg comes back. “I found him, Lot. He’s near the front. He just ordered up a beer,” she says as she waves to the bartender, and a cold frothy brew is quickly slid her way. “Why don’t you take it to him? And since you’ll be in view, your muscle men can keep an eye on you from a safe distance.”
“Ooh, sounds good.” I zip off before any one of my muscle men can stop me, and Carlotta is right on my feathered tail.
I haven’t seen Rocky since the day of the murder, not that I knew who he was that day, but I remember his greasy blond hair, his puffed up chest, and that look he gave Flo while she was still living. It wasn’t a good one, but I’m not sure it was a look that could kill either. They were just having an intense conversation.
But I don’t need to worry about identifying the right man in this dizzying low lighting because a pink spray of stars just popped up to my left as Florenza Canelli floats my way looking giddy as a schoolgirl in her pink dress, matching glossy pink lips, and let’s not leave that crunchy curly hair out of the equation. She has on enough gel and hairspray to create a fire hazard, or at least she would if she were living.