Free Betrayed: A Rosato & DiNunzio Novel (Rosato & Associates Book 13) by Lisa Scottoline Page A

Do you ever get raided?”
    “We don’t get raided because nobody files a complaint, and the local police tend not to give us too much trouble.” Scott glanced over at a clock on the wall. “Well, I better get back to the floor. Can I show you ladies out?”
    “Yes, thanks.” Judy put an arm around her aunt, who looked suddenly thoughtful.
    “Come with me.” Scott motioned toward a brown metal door near the office area. “And please, accept my condolences. Iris was a very special lady, and we’ll say a prayer for her tonight.”
    “Yes, thanks,” Aunt Barb said quietly. “Good night.”
    “After you, Aunt Barb.” Judy opened the door to let her aunt out, and they walked together toward the car.
    “I think we need to text your mother again. We’ll tell her we decided to go out for an ice-cream sundae.”
    “What? Aren’t you tired yet?” Judy chuckled, in surprise.
    “Hell, no.” Her aunt pulled down her knit cap and shoved her hands deep into her pockets. “I’m just getting started.”

 
    Chapter Ten
    Judy pulled up, cut the ignition, and looked around. The apartment complex where Iris lived was too run-down to be well-lighted, and the only light came from a street lamp, which dimly illuminated a large, square parking lot that seemed to be the focal point of the apartments, a connected series of two-story buildings wrapped in a U shape around the lot. Old cars filled the parking spaces, some with missing hubcaps and others with dented doors, and the lights from the apartments showed people leaning on the cars and sitting on their front steps or on plastic beach chairs, visible only in silhouette, laughing, talking, or smoking, the red tips of their cigarettes glowing in the dark.
    “Judy, you ready to go?”
    Judy looked over. “Sure, but what are we trying to accomplish, again?”
    “I told you, you’re not going to talk me out of this. I have one day of freedom left. Even if the police follow up, there’s things they might miss. They didn’t know Iris the way I know her. And I’m sure the roommates will be much happier talking to me than the local constabulary.”
    “On it.” Judy pulled the key out of the ignition, and they both got out of the car and walked to the driveway of the apartment complex, where she took her aunt’s arm.
    “I can walk, you know.” Aunt Barb’s gaze slid slyly to Judy under her knit cap. “My legs are fine, it’s my breasts that are the problem.”
    “Yes, but if I hold your breasts, people will talk.”
    Aunt Barb laughed. “Look around you, they already are.”
    Judy looked at stoops and beach chairs, where heads were turning. The residents had grown quiet as the two women made their way down the center of the square parking area, and a short man nearest them flicked his cigarette into the air, where it arced like a falling star.
    “It’s because we’re gringas, ” Aunt Barb said, lowering her voice. “By the way, like my accent?”
    “Nice. How good is your Spanish?”
    “Let’s put it this way, your mom is the linguist, not me. But I understand it better than I can speak it.”
    “Which apartment did you say it was again?”
    “This one, right here.” Her aunt turned right between two parked cars and walked until they reached a path of cracked concrete that served as an interior sidewalk.
    “Aunt Barb, do you realize they might not know about Iris’s death?”
    “I know. I’ll do the talking, okay?”
    “Fine with me. You’re on a roll.” Judy squeezed her arm, and they turned onto a crumbling concrete path that led to the front door of one of the buildings. Everyone on the step or the beach chairs fell silent, and in the lights from inside the first-floor apartments, Judy could see that they were younger than she had realized, maybe in their twenties and thirties, a group of men and women, all of them Hispanic, in an array of T-shirts, sweatshirts, and jeans.
    Her aunt stopped short in the middle of the path. “Hello, my name is