Hard Rock (A Hardboiled Private Investigator Mystery Series): John Rockne Mysteries 2 Read Online Free
engineer, the mother a school teacher. Amanda was his only sibling.
After the plane crash, the kids had moved in with their only living relative. He was the father’s brother, a divorced stockbroker with a drinking problem. When Amanda was sixteen, she left home. Benjamin had stayed with the uncle, but was known as a loner at school. He hadn’t played sports, didn’t belong to any clubs and had virtually no friends to speak of.
A thorough investigation into the uncle had revealed nothing. The man worked all day as a financial consultant and drank himself to sleep while watching old movies. For Benjamin, he had been both useless and harmless.
I stayed at it until most of the coffee was gone and what was left had turned ice cold. A glance at the clock told me it was time to go home.
Instead, I called my best friend. His name was Nate Becker and he was a reporter for the Grosse Pointe Times.
“Lunch tomorrow?” I asked, after he finally picked up.
“Where?”
The thing about Nate is that he should have been a restaurant reviewer, because all he thought about was food. If you were having lunch with him, halfway into the meal he would make a comment about what he was doing for dinner. It was almost like the minute he realized a meal was in his grasp, he started planning for the next one. So instead of saying hello to me and asking how I was, he asked first about the restaurant. It was kind of a half-joke. Okay, it was maybe one-percent joke, ninety-nine percent serious.
“I don’t know,” I said. “How about that new Thai place?”
“Are you writing it off?”
I sighed.
Reporters didn’t make much, especially small town reporters like Nate. Plus, he had a kid with special medical needs. If my lunch request had something to do with a case I was working on and I was getting information from Nate during the meal then it was tax-deductible. Or so the theory went.
“Yes. But it’s only lunch. Let’s be reasonable.”
“Reasonable is not an option. I ate there yesterday. It’s really good food.”
Which was high praise from Nate. Usually, he was a pretty big food snob.
Suddenly, my company credit card and I both became very nervous.
“Okay, meet you there at noon, straight-up,” I said.
We disconnected, I locked up the office and headed home.
The Collins file was tucked underneath my arm.
Chapter Seven
If there is a better smell than my wife’s hazelnut pesto it has yet to be discovered. To walk in the door and be greeted with the smell of basil and garlic, the warmth of a welcoming kitchen, the sight of my gorgeous wife and the sound of my daughters’ voices never failed to remind me that fate has been far too kind to me.
“As usual, your timing never fails to impress,” my wife, Anna, said to me as I walked into the kitchen. She stood, leaning against the counter with a glass of red wine in her hand. Everything great about Italy is represented in my wife. Dark hair, beautiful, expressive brown eyes, and a body more beautiful than the hills of Tuscany. And probably just as bountiful.
Of course, the cliché of the Italian temper actually applied in Anna’s case. When Vesuvius blew, you had better run for cover.
I went over, kissed her, spied the bottle of wine and poured myself a glass.
“It’s a sixth sense,” I said, referring to my wife’s conviction that I somehow instinctively know when dinner is ready because I have a knack for arriving just as she’s about to put the food on the table.
“Girls!” Anna called out.
I heard the footsteps racing down the hallway upstairs, and then Isabel and Nina came rushing down the stairs and into the kitchen. Isabel, the first born, came and gave me a hug. Nina, as befitting the baby of the family, ignored me and went straight to the food.
Both girls had inherited my wife’s fine Italian features, all dark hair and big brown eyes.
I forced a hug on Nina and we sat
After the plane crash, the kids had moved in with their only living relative. He was the father’s brother, a divorced stockbroker with a drinking problem. When Amanda was sixteen, she left home. Benjamin had stayed with the uncle, but was known as a loner at school. He hadn’t played sports, didn’t belong to any clubs and had virtually no friends to speak of.
A thorough investigation into the uncle had revealed nothing. The man worked all day as a financial consultant and drank himself to sleep while watching old movies. For Benjamin, he had been both useless and harmless.
I stayed at it until most of the coffee was gone and what was left had turned ice cold. A glance at the clock told me it was time to go home.
Instead, I called my best friend. His name was Nate Becker and he was a reporter for the Grosse Pointe Times.
“Lunch tomorrow?” I asked, after he finally picked up.
“Where?”
The thing about Nate is that he should have been a restaurant reviewer, because all he thought about was food. If you were having lunch with him, halfway into the meal he would make a comment about what he was doing for dinner. It was almost like the minute he realized a meal was in his grasp, he started planning for the next one. So instead of saying hello to me and asking how I was, he asked first about the restaurant. It was kind of a half-joke. Okay, it was maybe one-percent joke, ninety-nine percent serious.
“I don’t know,” I said. “How about that new Thai place?”
“Are you writing it off?”
I sighed.
Reporters didn’t make much, especially small town reporters like Nate. Plus, he had a kid with special medical needs. If my lunch request had something to do with a case I was working on and I was getting information from Nate during the meal then it was tax-deductible. Or so the theory went.
“Yes. But it’s only lunch. Let’s be reasonable.”
“Reasonable is not an option. I ate there yesterday. It’s really good food.”
Which was high praise from Nate. Usually, he was a pretty big food snob.
Suddenly, my company credit card and I both became very nervous.
“Okay, meet you there at noon, straight-up,” I said.
We disconnected, I locked up the office and headed home.
The Collins file was tucked underneath my arm.
Chapter Seven
If there is a better smell than my wife’s hazelnut pesto it has yet to be discovered. To walk in the door and be greeted with the smell of basil and garlic, the warmth of a welcoming kitchen, the sight of my gorgeous wife and the sound of my daughters’ voices never failed to remind me that fate has been far too kind to me.
“As usual, your timing never fails to impress,” my wife, Anna, said to me as I walked into the kitchen. She stood, leaning against the counter with a glass of red wine in her hand. Everything great about Italy is represented in my wife. Dark hair, beautiful, expressive brown eyes, and a body more beautiful than the hills of Tuscany. And probably just as bountiful.
Of course, the cliché of the Italian temper actually applied in Anna’s case. When Vesuvius blew, you had better run for cover.
I went over, kissed her, spied the bottle of wine and poured myself a glass.
“It’s a sixth sense,” I said, referring to my wife’s conviction that I somehow instinctively know when dinner is ready because I have a knack for arriving just as she’s about to put the food on the table.
“Girls!” Anna called out.
I heard the footsteps racing down the hallway upstairs, and then Isabel and Nina came rushing down the stairs and into the kitchen. Isabel, the first born, came and gave me a hug. Nina, as befitting the baby of the family, ignored me and went straight to the food.
Both girls had inherited my wife’s fine Italian features, all dark hair and big brown eyes.
I forced a hug on Nina and we sat
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