Page 51 of Return of the Spider

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I got home aroundseven that night to find Damon playing with his fire truck and blocks.

When my little boy saw me, he dropped his toys and waddled fast toward me, arms up, crying, “Daddy!”

I scooped him up and whirled him around, which made him crack up, then carried him like a football into the kitchen, where Maria was cooking chicken marsala in a deep-sided skillet. She tapped the spoon on the side of the skillet, covered it, and turned to me with her heart-melting smile.

“The love of my life returns and look who he’s carrying!”

I grinned and hugged her with one arm. “What a difference a few days make.”

She snuggled up to my chest with Damon, who laughed, thensaid he wanted to get down. I set him on the floor and he went back to his blocks.

“I just decided to let it go,” Maria said, rubbing her belly. “Besides, you were right to head up to Beltsville that night. If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t know a serial killer was at work.”

“Maybe, but I didn’t handle it well. Given you were weaving a spell and all.”

She tilted her head back and gazed at me with sparkling eyes. “I was?”

“As I recall,” I said, and kissed her.

“Okay, now I kind of remember,” she said. She winked at me and slipped from my arms. “Wash up, dinner’s almost ready.”

When I came back from the bathroom, she had plates of steaming chicken marsala and fresh fettuccine on the table, along with a cold glass of beer for me. She cut up Damon’s food and I lifted him into his high chair, and he immediately started shoveling dinner into his mouth.

“Tell me about your day,” Maria said, sitting down and smiling at me.

After I’d taken several bites and moaned about how good everything was, I said, “Went out to Chesapeake Beach with Sampson, ate crab, and met Patrice Prince.”

Her smile disappeared. “How did that go?”

“Crab was great. Prince was as dark and unsettling as you described him.”

“I told you. Like there’s no soul there,” Maria said. “Get anything from him?”

“He denied everything. Involvement in the murders. LMC Fifty-One’s existence. He claims to be an import/export guy who’s a humanitarian at heart.”

She snorted. “Let me tell you another fairy tale.”

“I hear you. But he’s definitely aware of Los Lobos Rojos. It upset him when we said they were watching him.”

We ate quietly for several minutes.

“Arethey watching him?” Maria asked.

“Good chance, anyway,” I said and drank some beer.

“Did you tell Pittman all this?”

“When we got back to the squad room. He gave us a copy of the most recent report from an officer working undercover inside LMC Fifty-One. She included an analysis of the number two and number three men in the gang and how they might be turned against Prince.”

“Philippe LeClerc and Valentine Rodolpho?”

That surprised me. “You know them too?”

“LeClerc was shot in the leg last year in a drive-by and spent some time with us. Rodolpho is the one I told you about, Prince’s cousin, the guy Prince came to see after he was beaten and left for dead in Southeast. I helped get him into a rehab unit.”

That made sense, especially in light of Officer Nancy Donovan’s report that Rodolpho was the weakest of the gang’s leaders. Evidently, he had never fully recovered from the beating, and he still walked with a pronounced limp. “The undercover officer said Rodolpho isn’t the smartest tool in the shed, but he’s wary, always on the alert for possible threats.”