He glanced away sharply, features twisting, and Jenna saw tears glisten in his eyes…real damn tears. In her FBI agent. “God,” he whispered, not daring to look at her. “You have no idea…absolutely no idea what that does to me.”
“Tell me,” she said softly, reaching out, cupping his jaw, turning his face back to hers. “Tell me about your mother, Lex. About your father.”
He inhaled deeply. “Mercedes Epstein claims to be my mother, Jenna.”
“What?”
“She said she paid Sara Duncan to register me in Reno and to raise me as her own son.”
Her mouth fell open. “I…I don’t understand. Does that mean Frank Epstein is—”
“My father? No. Mercedes apparently had an affair with a man named Tony Ciccone. You ever heard of him, Jenna?”
“Yes,” she said very quietly. “He was the gangster who disappeared, the subject of one of the FBI’s biggest manhunts at the time. He had a crazy temper, was a violent mob enforcer.”
“And he was my father.”
She looked at him, dumbstruck.
“Yeah,” he said with a wry twist in his mouth. “Ironic, huh? The straight-shooting, button-up law enforcement officer has one of the most infamous mobsters in Nevada history as his dad. How’s that supposed to make me feel, Jenna? What of that monster lurks in my DNA, under my skin, in the beat of my heart?”
“Lex, listen to me. That single-mindedness, that ferocity that was apparently Tony Ciccone, you might have it in you, but you chose to use it for good, for justice.”
“It’s weird, isn’t it? They say that the profile of a cop is often closest to that of a criminal.”
“But one is for good and the other bad.”
He snorted. “If it were so simple.”
“Hey,” she said, leaning forward. “I know how blurred those lines get, remember? I was the one hiding stuff from homicide investigators. You showed me there was a line though and that I had to pick a side. I did, Lex. And you yourself, long ago, picked your side, too—the side of justice, when that Reno sheriff…what was his name?”
“Tom McCall, Washoe Country sheriff.”
“Yes, when Tom pulled you back from trouble, he showed you where that line lay, Lex. He set you on track, and just think of all those kids that you’ve done the same for. You might have your father’s genes in you, but maybe he never got the same chance that you did back in his own childhood.” She gazed at him intently. “Maybe he didn’t find a Tom McCall, but he found a Frank Epstein and mob family instead. What you do, Lex, is honorable. And you told me yourself that you do it because you love.”
And God he loved her for reminding him of this, telling him what he so desperately needed to hear. For being here for him, nothing to hide between them any longer.
“Tell me, Lex. Everything.”
She sat quietly and listened to the rest of his story, the whole story, including how he’d seen the man he believed had murdered Sara Duncan.
“How come you didn’t go after him right away?”
“Because I need to do it right—I want a charge of murder, and I want it to stick. For that to happen, I still need evidence. All I have is a memory of a voice, and a conviction that Markowitz is the man I saw.”
“What about Mercedes’s story?”
“She could deny she said anything. Besides, she doesn’t know who actually killed Sara, or so she says.”
“What are you going to do?”
“First I see if Ciccone’s remains really are down in that mine shaft. That’s step one, hard evidence that can be used to have the Sara Duncan homicide case reopened. Then I hand this case over, because I am a victim and a witness. Next Ciccone’s body goes for autopsy, and Mercedes is brought in for questioning based on what she told me. It’ll have to be done soon if she’s as ill as she claims to be.”
“So Epstein doesn’t know any of this?”
“Mercedes says she kept it from him.”
Jenna snorted softly. “That’s so ironic—Roman Markowitz, Tony Ciccone’s old henchman, now working for Epstein as his security head…and neither Mercedes or Frank Epstein know.”
“It looks that way.”
“It’s weird. Because I know a little about Roman Markowitz through the event planning business,” said Jenna. “And from what I understand, Markowitz got his break in the security business at the old Frontline.”
“Well, if he was working for Epstein back then, he’d have had to have been doing Ciccone’s bidding on the sly, the bastard.”
Jenna shook her head. “Mercedes is your mother…I still can’t believe it. Do you think that’s why she came to my auction, to see you?”