As promised, here is another chapter. Let me know what you think about the direction House and Jess are going. I'd love to hear from you all.

Chapter 77.

"I guess we should have dinner with Nina tonight after all," Jess said as we headed back to our offices after lunch.

I didn't mind because we had a lot to talk to her to convince her to try the ideas we had for her new venture. "We should take her to your uncle's restaurant," I told Jess.

She shook her her head. "Let's talk to her first before we broach that possibility. I'm more and more convinced that it's a lousy idea, a move that will infuriate my father even more, and none of us need that."

"You're not really afraid of him, are you?"

"Well, afraid might be a little strong, but I'd rather not have to deal with him when he's angry."

"OK. So where should we go instead?"

"We can still do Italian, just not my uncle's place. How about Mario's?"

You could always get a good meal at the place she mentioned. Even their pizza was great. "Call her and tell her to meet us there at six thirty. I'll make a reservation."

Her eyes narrowed in speculation. "I wonder if they ever considered going into the catering business."

I shrugged. "They do home delivery, but I guess that's not the same thing, is it?"

"They also often have parties going on in one of the dining rooms." She scratched the side of her mouth. "Something to consider. Well, I've gotta get back to my stats." She put a hand on my shoulder and kissed my cheek. "See you later."

I watched her walk off, then made to my office. Jess had given me something else to investigate, the ownership and finances of Mario's restaurant. I would check into the Greek place, too, while I was at it. Nothing beat being prepared.

On the surface, Mario's appeared to be owned and run by the Mancini family. Their bottom line was in the black and their customer base had remained constantly good for many years. Digging further, I got my first big surprise. They bought their produce from none other than Johnny Giordano. I wondered if that was all they got from him. If so, his empire was even bigger than we thought.

Since it wasn't a publicly held company, much of the financial data wasn't available. I'd have ask Jess whether she knew of ways to get at it. Meanwhile I moved on to The Taverna. It, too, was a family-owned business. After what I'd learned about Mario's, I tried to find out about their suppliers, but the information wasn't accessible. It was good to know that there were still some family-owned and -operated businesses in this country that were doing well.

I decided to approach this from another direction. Although Johnny had firm control of his companies, they were publicly held, so there was more financial information available, at least to anyone who owned stock in the companies. I wondered if anyone I knew did. Imagine my surprise when I found that three percent of the stock in the produce company was owned by none other than Peter Giordano. Now this was getting even more interesting. Why would he own stock in his brother's firm? Was he planning something? And if so, what? Three percent wasn't a whole lot, but it did give the holder voting rights.

I didn't find any other stockholders that I knew, but that didn't mean anything. I'd have to investigate all the holding companies listed to find out who sat on which boards. Not my kind of puzzle solving. I'd leave that to Jess, too.

What I'd learned meant that, if Nina formed an alliance of any kind with her uncle, she'd be almost as connected to her father as she'd always been. Did she want to do that? Did I want her to do that? Hell, yes, especially if I wanted to know what Peter Sr. was up to.

I wondered whether Johnny was aware that his brother was one of the hundreds of people who owned a piece of his produce company. There was no way to know what he'd think or do if he found out.

My pondering was rudely interrupted by the appearance at my door of the short one. "House, we're just about finished examining all of the test subjects. We can recruit some more, but I think we have enough data to prove the connections between the two forms of the disorder and two chromosomal aberrations."

I nodded once. "Good. It's time we finished this study."

"We'll start writing up the results. Did you want to review what we've got?"

"Of course I do. You're not going to publish anything with my name on it that I haven't vetted."

"It'll take a few days, but Jess is almost finished with her part."

"Make sure you acknowledge her part in the study."

He smiled. "Of course." He turned and left.

It wasn't much later that Jess knocked on his door and entered. "Did you hear? We've finished with the patients and now it's all over but the writing."

"And rewriting."

She nodded. "And rewriting. But it won't be much longer before the world knows what we've proven."

"And your work here is almost over, too." That was both a good thing and a not so good one.

"Well, yes. I guess so. Unless you have some other stats you want me to process."

"No, I have something else I'd like you to do."

"Well, I'll do that anyway." She gave me her sultriest look.

"That wasn't what I mean. Mario's buys some of their produce from your uncle, but I can't find out any more about it. The kicker is that your father owns a piece of your uncle's produce company? I mean you were daddy's accountant, you should know where his money is invested."

"Are you accusing me of something?" She frowned and her eyes shot daggers at me.

"No!" I held up a hand. "I'm just asking whether you can tell me more than I can get out of online information."

She sighed and her entire body relaxed. "I never handled my father's investments. He had someone else for that. I think he might have worried that it would give me too much power. Does he really have stock in Uncle Giovanni's company?"

"Only three percent, but who knows what I couldn't find."

Understanding shone in her eyes and she finally smiled. "You want me to get information on where else he made investments."

"Exactly."

"Greg, if Nina decides to work with our uncle, will that give Dad any hold on her?"

"As far as I could tell, his investments are only in the produce company and she'd be working with the restaurant side. But who knows? And maybe she'd be able to ferret out some info we could use."

"All the more reason for me to find out how tied my father is to my uncle's companies. You don't have to twist my arm. I'm curious myself now. Maybe this will give us a way to force him to release our trust funds, not that I really need mine."

"You haven't invested in Giordano Produce too, have you?"

She laughed. "No, but if I'd thought of it, I might have. The little I have is invested in very safe mutual funds."

"Spoken like a true accountant." I'd often marveled at how she could be so conservative about her money and work and such a tiger in bed. The fact that she'd taken up with me spoke volumes about what chances she'd take.

Jess shrugged. "There's no reason for me to play fast and loose with my money."

I wasn't one to fling mine about either, but I did like to make bets, usually when I had a good idea I'd win. "I don't think any of this should change what we're going to propose to Nina."

"I'll just check my father's holdings in Uncle Giovanni's restaurant business, and while I'm at it, look into Marios' connections."

"You know your uncle uses the name Johnny Giordano."

She nodded. "Somewhere along the line I heard that. OK. I've got an hour or two of work to finish on the study and then I'll start investigating the brothers Giordano." She looked at her watch. "See you again at five? I'll have Nina meet us at six thirty."

"I already made the reservation. And that'll give us plenty of time for pre-dinner fun."

She was laughing when she left.

I knew I could trust Jess to get all of the information we'd need. How much we'd share with Nina would depend on her reaction to our proposal. One more thought occurred to me and I was surprised that neither Jess nor I had come up with it before. Boomers had to get produce from somewhere, too. I wondered whether it was from Uncle Johnny's company.

There was nothing online to help me. Jess might know, but if she did, she would have said something by now. Then again, she wasn't the one who had worked there. I stood and headed out in search of someone who had, Ellie Giordano.