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I swelled with pride. “My grandfather built it.”
He patted the wood. “We’ll take good care of her.”
Casa di Rossi was in good hands with this man. I rolled up the carpet and put it behind the couch before I left.
Chapter 8
Nicole
With the traffic,the drive downtown took even longer than I’d figured, and the second cup of coffee was taking its toll on my bladder when I finally parked at Three-B.
Inside, I waved to Celia on the way past her to the bathroom.
She smiled back. “Long time no see, Nicole.”
It was pretty damned pathetic that I was on a first-name basis with somebody in the bail-bond business.
Everything about this place was incongruous to the name on the door. The bathroom was spotless. It even had a basket of travel-size toothpaste tubes, mouthwash bottles, and new toothbrushes in plastic. My first time here, I’d expected bus-stop grungy, with a urinal that hadn’t been cleaned in a year and perhaps a condom vending machine on the wall.
After washing up, I made it back to Celia’s desk and took the hot seat.
She perused the papers on her clipboard. “She certainly is a handful, isn’t she?”
“She’s had it hard. She’ll come around.” Having her father run off with his mistress had soured Lara on men at an early age, and then finding her boyfriend dead in my backyard five years ago had led to the downward spiral that had become her life.
“Dear, it’s bad this time. You might want to consider another approach.”
I shook my head. “Not yet. What is it?”
Lara had already graduated from a simple DUI the first time to worse offenses, but she was still my cousin and my responsibility.
Celia passed over the clipboard. “Good thing you’re sitting down.”
My mouth dropped open when I looked down.
“Bail is one hundred and ninety-five thousand. How do you want to handle that?”
She wasn’t kidding.
“I don’t understand.”
She read off a paper on her desk. “One hundred twenty thousand for section five-oh-seven and another seventy-five for section two-eight-zero-zero point two.”
I put my hand to my forehead. “That’s so much.”
Before, we’d been talking twenty-five thousand, and now it was just short of two hundred? How was I going to afford this?
Celia looked over her glasses. “I’m sorry, dear. Do you want a few days to think about it? The extra time locked up might help her reconsider her course in life.”
I shook my head. Lara was blood, and my responsibility. “Is there any chance we can get this reduced?”
“That’s a question for the lawyers, dear, but in my experience, no. These numbers are straight off the county bail schedule. You could talk to the lawyer and come back.”
I took in a breath. “No, I want to post it.” I smiled. “Any way I could get a break on the fee?”
She waved over at her husband in the glass-enclosed office. “That would be up to Billy.”
Billy opened the door. “What’s up?”
