“I’m not hungry.” She moved to the computer eagerly, already putting his suggestion out of her mind.

He slammed the laptop lid shut. “I didn’t ask; I’m telling you. This case is going to be ugly, and it’s going to take a lot out of you. It already is. Eat a meal. Keep up your strength.”

“You’re being bossy.” She glared at him.

“Get used to it. I’m also right.”

“Fine.” She rolled her eyes, but he saw a hint of a smile there. She might rebel against his care for show, but she liked it.

He prowled toward the kitchen on bare feet and was scrounging through the refrigerator when his phone rang. PRIVATE CALLER displayed again.

“What’s up, Xander?”

“You two lovebirds settling in?”

“We’re fine.”

“Am I interrupting anything?” He sounded almost hopeful.

Tyler didn’t know whether to laugh or beat the guy’s face in. “Not at the moment.”

“Damn, I usually have better timing.”

“How’s Javier?” That ought to stick in his craw.

Xander’s sudden silence bled across the line. “The same, with his head still mostly fermented. So I’ve been spending my time more productively, digging for shit on Carlson. This is interesting. I obtained all of his financials about two hours ago—”

“How?” Bank records were notoriously hard to get unless you were law enforcement. Granted, Xander had contacts, but . . .

“Easily. I would have had them sooner if I hadn’t had to rip a bottle out of Javier’s hands and send him off for a sobering shower. Dumb ass. Anyway, besides being an ADA, which doesn’t pay for a family of three to live in the kind of luxury he does, he also has a business called Communications Redirect. It’s supposedly a multimillion-dollar-a-year business and the source of most of his income. Their website talks about the latest in personal communications, so I stopped by their ‘corporate headquarters.’”

“Yeah?”

“It’s a storefront in a strip mall in a lousy part of town,” Xander said. “Know what they sell? Beepers. When was the last time you saw a beeper?”

“God, ten years ago, at least. No cell phones or mobile hotspots?”

“Nothing of the sort. And this corporate headquarters had one employee. She barely lifted her head at me enough to say that they weren’t taking on new customers at this time.”

“What? Who the fuck says that to a potential customer, especially in these economic times?” Tyler sighed as the truth hit him. “Unless your business isn’t legitimate.”

“That’s my thought, too. Nor can you make millions and millions of dollars a year selling old technology to no one.”

“So he uses the business to launder the money he gets from his scam with the 18th Street gang.”

“Precisely. I’ll fax you over all the financials I’ve got. I also had my driver take some discreet pictures of Communications Redirect. It won’t prove anything except that something odd is going on, but it’s a start.”

“That’s more than we had. Thanks, man.”

“My pleasure. If I get more, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, take care of that pretty girl. You never know how valuable she is until you don’t have one.”

Did he speak from experience, or in riddles, just to piss him off? Tyler shoved the question aside. He had bigger fish to fry.

“Believe me, I know exactly how valuable she is.”

“Damn, I was hoping you were stupid,” Xander teased.

Or was he teasing at all?

“I appreciate all your help. Now leave us the hell alone.” Tyler hung up, grabbed a few things from the kitchen, and headed back to the office down the hall.

As he got closer, he heard Del’s high-pitched, singsong conversation with their son. Her baby talk did something to his heart. She loved that boy and didn’t try to hide it in the least. That amount of loyalty and love was somehow a huge turn-on.

Seth gurgled something back, and Del waved. Tyler stepped behind the computer to see Luc bouncing Seth on his lap, Alyssa bustled around in the background with Chloe.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Great,” Luc responded. “Your boy is a healthy eater.”

“So I’ve heard.” Tyler turned his attention to Seth. “Hey, little man.”

Seth smiled wide, like he understood, then shoved part of a crumbling biscuit in his mouth.

The exchange opened up his chest and poured more love in. Shit, he wanted to be with Seth right now, able to pluck the little boy into his lap and tickle him or talk to him. He had to start finding ways to ingrain himself in the toddler’s life because he intended to be a father—and a damn good one.

“You want to talk to him for a bit?” Del asked.

“Yeah.” He almost choked on the word.

“I’ll go in the other room to start making my phone calls.”

Tyler nodded as she said good-bye to Seth, then walked out. He turned his attention to the little screen in front of him. “So my boy is being good?”

“Yeah. He’s really fun. A little temperamental.”

“I wonder who he gets that from?” Alyssa called out with a grin from the background.

When Seth looked away for a moment, Tyler gave her the one-fingered salute.

“Our biggest problem is getting him to sleep,” Luc admitted.

“Is he ready for bed now?”

“Yep. Fresh diaper, full belly, the whole nine yards.”

An idea crossed Tyler’s mind. When he’d been a little guy himself, he’d spent a few precious weeks a year with his grandmother. Unlike his own mom, she wasn’t displeased with her lot in life, didn’t smoke all the time, and hadn’t preferred party life to parenthood. And he remembered one thing that had comforted him more than anything else.

“Put him in his playpen and set the laptop just outside, at eye level, will you?”

Luc frowned and groused about the amount of work Tyler was causing him, but he complied. There was a lot of bouncing and muffled sounds as Luc dragged the laptop through the house and into a guest bedroom. With a brush of a soft hand over Seth’s hair, Luc laid him down in the playpen. Seth started wailing immediately.

The chef set the laptop on a little stool and leaned down in view of the webcam. “Are you sure about this?”

No, but he had to try. “Sure.”

With a shrug, Luc got out of the way and pointed the built-in webcam at Seth’s little face, currently turning red from all his exertions.

Tyler did the only thing he could think of. He began to sing.

***

DEL paced the kitchen, grabbing a few spare grapes from the refrigerator. She was so tempted to call her boss, Preston, and find out what he knew about Lisa’s murder. But she didn’t dare. At this point, she didn’t know who she could trust, and she had to focus on tracking down people would could help her implicate Carlson and make all this go away.

Eric might be a source of information, but no way was she going there again. She didn’t hate him for what he’d done; in a weird way, she understood. He’d always had a lot of pride, and she’d trampled over his by being “unfaithful” and enjoying Tyler’s lovemaking so much. He’d always been a golden boy and didn’t know how to process such a slight. But his hungry ego wasn’t her problem, and no matter how badly she needed some phone numbers to get started on her quest, she’d have to start somewhere else.

Just before the car bomb had destroyed her phone and all her contact information, she’d received a voice mail from Lobato Loco. Maybe she’d saved it. The phone was gone, and it was a long shot, but the only possibility she had at the moment.

Dialing her cell phone’s voice mail number from Tyler’s phone, she retrieved her messages, including one from Lisa that had her near tears. She’d been one of her closest friends for two years, always there when she needed something. Del could always use more money, but she didn’t understand how Lisa had simply sold her out, knowing the people paying her would more than likely kill her.

She closed her eyes and deleted the message.

Two more incidental messages, and she heard what she needed. A muffled, hurried voice with a heavy Latin-American accent rambled on about Double T, Carlson, and all the “shit going down.” He didn’t leave his name or any details, but she’d figured out his identity based on the information he’d left. And he’d left a phone number for a restaurant in the Pico-Union district—a little hole-in-the-wall burger joint. He instructed her to call back on Thursday between seven and ten p.m.

Del winced. She was over a week late, and who knew if he’d talk to her anymore or if anyone there would even know to expect her. Still, she dialed.

On the seventh ring, a woman picked up and greeted her in Spanish. She knew only enough of the language to be dangerous.

“Se habla Inglés?” she asked hopefully, because that was about the extent of her Spanish.

“Of course,” the heavily accented voice on the other end of the line answered.

Crap, how did one ask for a known gang member over the phone? “I received a voice mail from a man asking me to call here. I’m a reporter for the L.A. Times. The man didn’t identify himself but said he had information I needed and he was willing to share.”

The woman started sobbing and babbling incoherent curses in Spanish. Del recognized a few street terms that made her wince.

“I’m sorry if I’ve caused a problem. I’ll call back.”

“No, it is not you who causes the problem, yes? It is my son.”

“Your son? Is he called Lobato Loco by all the other . . . homies?” God, she hoped that asking the question wasn’t going to upset this woman more.

“That name is estúpido! Esteban was a good boy until all those others come around. Now he gets into all the guns and the drugs.”

“I understand, señora. Is there another way I should reach him?”

The woman sniffled and rattled off ten digits. “This is his phone number.”

Del jotted it down, thanked her, and ended the call, then ran for the office in the back of the massive house—and stopped abruptly to find Tyler singing into the computer, his rich baritone voice a deep, soothing presence in the room.

He lifted his head to stare at her and stopped abruptly.

Gripping the doorframe, she blinked, stared. She’d had no idea Tyler could sing so beautifully, such a haunting, gentle lullaby. “What are you doing?”

“Seth is asleep,” Alyssa’s voice sounded over the computer before he could answer. “That’s amazing.”

“Thanks.” Tyler flushed. “Glad I could help. We’ll call again tomorrow.” He quickly severed the connection with Alyssa, looking almost embarrassed. “What? It’s just a song.”

No. To Del, it was much more than that. He’d been singing their son to sleep, trying to be a father to Seth, even though they’d barely met and were over a thousand miles apart. A fresh bolt of love ripped through her chest. If she’d had any hope of getting through this tough time without losing her heart altogether, it had just died a fiery death. She closed her eyes.

“Is something wrong?” He pushed out of the chair that rolled across the floor. “Del?”

She blinked. Focus, damn it! “I have the number for my informant inside the 18th Street gang, someone who might be able to give us some information or proof—someone who can help us.”

Tyler smiled and patted his lap, indicating that she should sit there. “You’re brilliant. Let’s call.”

Chapter Fifteen

THREE rings later, someone answered the phone. “Bueno?”

The heavy beat of Latin dance music pounded in the background, and Del could hardly hear. “Esteban?”

“Quien habla?” he barked.

Del thought he asked who was speaking. “I’m the reporter from the Los Angeles Times. You called and left a message a while ago?”

“Sí. I did.” He paused. “Took you long enough.”

Del was aware of Tyler hanging on her every word. He looked ready to grab the phone out of her hand and rip the guy on the other end a new one.

“Someone put a bomb in my car, and it exploded in front of my eyes. I’ve been shot at, escaped across the country and traveled back, and spent a lot of time just trying to stay alive.”

On Esteban’s side of the line, Del heard rustling. The music began to fade. Then she heard a door squeak once, twice, followed by blessed silence in the background.

“Carlson knows about you,” Esteban said. “You still want to take him down? You still want that information?”

“Yes.” Desperately.

“I got everything you need, names, details. If I get rid of him, then business goes back to usual, yeah? Meet me at midnight at Desnuda. It’s on Ninth. I’ll be inside the club, near the front.”