A Fare To Remember: Just Whistle\Driven To Distraction\Taken For A Ride (12 page)

CHAPTER THREE

“Y
OU’RE OUT EARLY
.”

Mario looked up guiltily, his mind grasping for an explanation for Iris, who’d caught him in the act of working out the pain in his sacroiliac. Rachel had called him just after midnight and for whatever insane reason, he’d decided to forgo his comfortable bed and instead spent his night off in the backseat of his cab, parked around the corner from his usual spot near Iris’s coffee stand. He’d paid a night’s wages to his pal Sam to meet him before sunrise and wait outside Rachel’s building. This Roman Brach person had piqued his curiosity. He didn’t want to see Rachel hurt.

Unfortunately, pulling all-nighters in the backseat of a cramped vehicle wasn’t as kind to his old body as it used to be when he was on the force. Stakeouts had been his specialty back then. Now, they were literally a pain in the ass. And the back. And the neck.

“Morning,” he said by way of greeting, trying to look as nonchalant as any man who was hanging out on the sidewalk long before the sun came up over Manhattan. “How you doing?”

“I’ve been up since three baking, that’s how I’m doing.”

Even when she was grousing, Iris’s melodious, accented voice caused a thrill in the center of Mario’s belly. Suddenly, sleeping in his cramped backseat didn’t seem so bad.

“You smell great,” he said, inhaling the sugary scent of the fresh baked goods clinging to her worn pink sweater, the one she wore every morning until the sun came up, when she’d toss it over the back of the stool she kept near the cash register.

“I smell like lard.” She smoothed a hand over her thick, bunned black hair as she moved in the direction of her stand.

“More like fresh-baked dough sizzling with creamy butter and a dusting of cinnamon.”

She stopped, the rolling cooler she tugged behind her knocking against her heels.

“That was almost…
poético.
”

He knew little Spanish, but he got her point. Besides, he was fluent in Italian and the languages weren’t so different. Just like the cultures. Just like the people.

“I can wax with the best of them when it comes to food. Can I help you set up?”

She resumed her walk, and like the dog he was, he followed. The minute they reached the front of Rachel’s building, she immediately started unlocking the door with the impressive collection of keys she extracted from inside her blouse.

Oh, to be those keys.

Stop it, Mario! Have you lost all your respect for women?

He cleared his throat and looked away, suddenly feeling more like sixteen than sixty. He glanced up at what he thought was Rachel’s window. The lights were off. Or perhaps, on in the adjacent room only.

“Where’s your cab?” she asked, once she had the coffee brewing and had tossed him a roll of paper towels and some Windex to clean the front of her display case.

“Around the corner. I didn’t want any fares this morning.”

“You still on the clock?”

“Nah, it was my night off.”

She eyed him suspiciously but didn’t ask any more questions until she had her stand nearly ready for operation. He’d helped her set up once before, about three months ago when she’d sprained her wrist. She hadn’t accepted assistance easily, but Mario could be fairly stubborn when he wanted to be.

He could remember the first day he saw Iris again, the fateful morning three years ago when he’d picked Rachel Marlowe up outside a real estate agent’s office. She’d promised him a big tip if he drove her around so she could find a new place, but the twenty she’d slipped him that day in addition to her fare had been nothing compared to what she’d really started. The first question out of her mouth had been, “Where can a girl get a decent cup of real Cuban coffee around here?”

The answer had brought him to Iris, a woman he hadn’t seen in years.

The whole scenario—his attraction to Iris, his friendship with Rachel, his inability to keep his half-crooked Italian nose out of other people’s business—had led him right here after getting little sleep the night before, his adrenaline buzz spawned by an attraction he didn’t know if he could ignore much longer. And then there was his cockamamie plan to find out if Roman Brach was who he said he was.

Which Mario doubted. His cop instincts wailed that Brach wasn’t just some liar leading on his latest squeeze, or a married dude who wanted Rachel on the side. He’d had a friend at the precinct run the plates on the car that had picked Roman up yesterday and got nothing but one of the million car services available throughout town. And a quick search of the guy’s name scored nothing by way of priors. What little he’d told Rachel checked out.

Still, Mario had a strong feeling that this guy wasn’t on the up-and-up. And if the man turned out to be the worst kind of con, Mario would be there. He owed Rachel, since she’d been entirely responsible for Iris coming back into his life.

“If you’re off duty, why are you here?” Iris finally asked.

He put on his best, most appealing grin. “My morning’s shot if I don’t see your smiling face first thing.”

She rolled her eyes, but her tiny grin revealed the effectiveness of his compliment. “You’re full of it, Mario Capelli.”

“Full of what? Infatuation for you? Full of an irresistible need to maybe—” he took a deep breath “—sometime soon, see you somewhere other than on this street corner?”

He waited a full minute, watching Iris’s dark eyes narrow as she considered what he’d said. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of someone coming out of Rachel’s building. On instinct, he grabbed Iris’s elbow and tugged her down so they were both concealed by the cart.

“What are you doing?”

He glanced around the side of the cart. Roman quickly surveyed the street, probably looking for Mario’s perennially parked-at-the-end-of-the-block cab, then took off toward Avenue of the Americas, right to the corner where he’d positioned his co-conspirator, Sam.

Mario leaned forward and without giving himself a moment to think, kissed Iris soundly. Knowing he had only a few moments before Rachel came down looking for him, he forced himself to break the lip-lock and ignore the fire surging through his veins. “I’m asking you to dinner.”

She stuttered. “W-when?”

“Tonight. Five o’clock?”

Good enough time as any, especially since he knew that Iris went to bed early so she could open her stand before dawn.

“Where?”

Mario stood and, as gentlemanly as he could, helped Iris back to her feet. “You pick!”

He started down the block to his cab. With traffic light, he’d be able to spin around the nearby side street and reach Rachel before they lost sight of Roman’s ride.

R
ACHEL SLID INTO
M
ARIO’S
waiting cab, out of breath and unable to speak. Luckily, she didn’t have to say “follow that car.” Mario had torn away from the curb before she could grab the door handle and yank it shut.

“You’re flushed,” Mario said.

She gulped in air, forcing the oxygen into her lungs. “I ran down the backstairs and out through the alley. I didn’t want to run into him in the lobby.”

Closing her eyes, Rachel counted backward from one hundred, her heartbeat slowly calming to as close to normal as she was going to get until this was over. For a split second, she wondered why she had come up with such a sneaky plan. Why couldn’t she just ask the man what, if anything, he was hiding?
Because he won’t answer.
She could always give him an ultimatum.
Yeah, right.
Somehow, she couldn’t see a man like Roman reacting well to her laying down the law. He’d walk out. And damn it, if anyone ended things, it was going to be her.

“There!” Mario shouted, his finger jabbing his windshield. “There’s Sam.”

“Wasn’t it dark when Roman went out? Are you sure he got in with your friend?”

Mario glanced at her sideways. He picked up his radio and, after contacting the dispatcher, was patched in to Sam’s car. He asked some questions in Italian. Rachel understood, and she’d bet big bucks Roman would, too. But the conversation was innocuous enough that unless he was suspicious of his driver, he’d never realize he’d been scammed.

“Satisfied?”

Rachel smirked. “You’re awfully good at all this covert stuff. Why is that?”

Mario turned his attention back on driving. “Natural talent.”

They headed toward the Upper East Side, where Mario had dropped Roman off before. Did he have a home there? A wife or lover or family she knew nothing about? His nomadic lifestyle appealed to her own sense of wanderlust so much at the beginning, she’d never questioned how a man could go from place to place with no real home. In fact, she’d envied him. He seemed to feed on the spontaneity of his job, just the way he seemed to revel in the unpredictability of their so-called relationship.

Hadn’t she been attracted to the same life? Her spontaneous trips fulfilled her desire to travel and her career as a freelance artist paid the bills. In Roman, she’d seen a kindred spirit—a career-focused professional at one moment; a free-wheeling vagabond at another. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t just let him go. He was too perfect for her. He understood her like no other man ever could.

And yet, she was practicing the ultimate deception to find out more about him. Would he forgive her if he found out?

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” she suggested as Mario followed the other yellow cab onto a quiet street with tall, thick elms in decorative iron planters embedded in the sidewalk.

Mario kept his expression blank. “Tell me now, Rachel. You don’t want to know what the man is hiding, we go home.”

She pressed her eyelids shut. She was so close. Would it really hurt to finish what she’d started? “I need to know,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper. What if he
was
married? What if everything between them had been a lie? Okay, she had to admit that in the trust department, she and Roman had a huge deficit. But until one of them broke the casual pattern of their relationship, things would never change, right?

“Here’s your chance,” Mario said.

The yellow cab pulled up to the curb in front of a clearly upscale condo building, only this one had no doormen—at least, none out at the early hour of the morning. After a moment where Rachel assumed he was paying the driver, Roman got out. Almost instantaneously, a tall, slim brunette emerged from the shadows.

And made a beeline for Roman.

Rachel sat forward, watching out of the corner of her eye as the cab Roman had ridden in pulled away. He didn’t seem to notice. His attention was one hundred and ten percent on the leggy brunette.

“Now, who is she?” Mario asked.

Rachel opened her mouth to ask the same question, but before she could, the brunette with the waist-length, glossy black hair grabbed Roman by the lapels and tugged him into a hot, hard kiss.

“Holy shit.”

They’d cursed in unison.

Rachel reached for the door handle. Mario grabbed her by the elbow.

“You have your answer. Rachel, let it be,” he said, his dark eyes glossy with warning.

Rachel looked at his hand with disdain, but then quickly realized he just wanted to protect her. She appreciated the sentiment, but she could slay her own dragons. She’d sliced a few open in her lifetime. She could again.

“Yes, I do. Mario, trust me on this.” Her gaze flicked to Roman, who was still swapping spit with the Cheron-a-stick look-alike in skintight leather jeans. “I will not let that man, or any man, walk all over me. Never have, never will.”

Mario released her arm, and before she lost one ounce of indignation, Rachel pushed out of the cab. Sure, she and Roman had never pretended to be exclusive. Hell, they’d never even talked the matter over. But while Rachel Marlowe may have grown up with three sisters, she’d never learned to share. Especially not her lovers.

As soon as she was close enough, she tapped the chick in the boob-hugging turtleneck on the shoulder and said a polite excuse me. Once. Twice.

The exotic brunette turned slowly, her eyes a dreamy onyx mix of shadows and mystery. “May I help you?”

Rachel grinned. “Actually, yes. Could you step aside?”

The woman complied, giving Rachel a perfect shot with her fist on Roman’s jaw. “You son of a bitch!”

Roman barely flinched, but his eyes widened and his face, so healthy and tanned less than half an hour ago, lost all color. He grabbed Rachel by the arm and yanked her behind him so quickly, she lost her footing on the dew-slippery sidewalk.

He turned and shot a finger out at her. “Stay there.”

With a spin, he faced the woman in black, who’d gone into an odd fighting pose. He raised his hands in front of him, as if she was going to attack. “Dom, don’t get crazy.”

The woman’s stare was ice. “I don’t get crazy, Brach. But if you don’t keep that—”

Her threat was cut off by the squeal of tires. Rachel half expected Mario to come riding to her rescue, but instead she saw a dark sports car approaching, headlights off. She narrowed her gaze, and at the same moment that she noticed something protruding from the passenger-side window, Roman dove over her, shielding her body as gunfire rent the air.

Rachel screamed. Bullets shot from the car and pinged nearby. Then return fire exploded near her ears.

From the barrel of Roman’s own gun.

CHAPTER FOUR

T
HE INCIDENT LASTED LESS
than three seconds, but Roman could have sworn a painful, torturous hour had passed before the bullets stopped piercing the sidewalk. The attacker in the sports car sped away, tires screeching. Domino darted into the street, firing her weapon until the distance made her shots wasteful. The agent dashed back to him just as he was rolling off of Rachel. Leave it to his superiors to send his former lover, Domino Black, as his contact.

“Rachel, are you hit?” he asked, desperately searching her for signs of blood.

Except for a scrape on her cheek, she was clean. Her amazing jade-green eyes were glossy from shock. He leaned forward to check her breathing when tires squealed again.

Roman turned and aimed, concurrently with Domino, who still had her weapon at the ready. But this time, the offending car was a taxi and Mario Capelli swung open his driver-side door. He remained behind the door, a large, unfriendly-looking .357 Magnum clutched confidently in his hands.

“Let her up,” he ordered, jerking his head toward Rachel.

Domino made a slight move to the right. Through clenched teeth, Roman ordered her to stand down. The woman was the most accomplished marksman in the Agency—and a trained assassin. She could take Mario out without batting an eyelash.

“He’s a friend,” Roman explained.

Domino lowered her weapon. She was deadly but not cruel.

Beneath him, Rachel groaned. The sound tore through him with the same velocity as a jacketed hollow-point bullet fired at close range. She’d almost died. On account of his job, his enemies. His lies.

“She’s fine, Mario,” Roman called out. “Just a little groggy.”

The wily taxi driver stepped around to the front of his car with strong, bold steps that belied his advanced age. He kept his weapon out, but he’d lowered the barrel. “Who are you?”

Roman checked Rachel for signs of any other injury. He found nothing, but her eyes were dilated. Unprepared for his jumping on top of her, she’d likely banged her head hard against the ground. “I’m not one of the bad guys, Mario.”

“And why should I believe you?”

Sirens wailed in the distance. Damn. The police would descend any minute. He didn’t have to look up to know that Domino had blended back into the shadows, disappearing into the morning as if she’d never been there. He should have shot her in the back for the trouble she’d caused, kissing him like that. He’d only allowed the kiss to linger because he’d figured Domino had a good reason for creating a scene where they were lovers once again. Now he knew she’d only entrapped him because she knew Rachel had been watching.

Typical.

Rachel pulled herself up onto shaky knees.

“Who was that?”

He didn’t know if she was talking about Domino or the shooters in the car, but he decided going with the latter as a safer topic.

“I’ve never seen that car before,” Roman said, not lying, but of course not telling her the truth, either.

Unfortunately for him, Rachel wasn’t stupid, but she was angry. She pushed up on to her feet, and when she wobbled, Mario buoyed her by the elbows. Roman reached forward to help, but both of their poisonous stares made him retract his hands.

“Rachel, I can explain.”

“Of course you can,” she said, her tone venomous. “Lies spill easily from your lips, don’t they?”

“You have no idea,” he replied, regretfully.

The sirens grew louder.

“Mario, get her out of here.”

She grabbed his arm, but the move cost her as she wavered and nearly toppled.

“Tell me who you are,” she begged.

In that moment, Roman’s heart cracked. God knew, he wanted to tell her everything, but there was no time. And if he let her in on his secrets, what dangers would she face?

“Rachel, go, now. I’ll find you. I’ll tell you everything.”

“Tell me now.”

All around them, faces peered from the windows and doors nearby. A few people in the park across the street pointed and stared. He had to get Rachel out. He’d already involved her more than he had a right to.

“Rachel, you have to understand—”

She pulled herself up to her full height, this tiny auburn-haired sprite of a woman he’d come to care deeply for. “Never mind. I understand completely,” she said, her voice shaky but curt. Her eyes darkened with his betrayal, and as she looked at him one last time, Roman’s chest felt as if someone had just riveted a steel plate between his ribs.

Mario whisked Rachel away. Roman pressed his lips tightly together, for the first time wanting to shout his secrets to the world. He’d broken nearly every other regulation set down by his superiors. Why get all obedient now?

Because lives were at stake. Millions of lives. Not just his and Rachel’s. Not anymore.

The curious had spilled from nearby buildings. Witnesses. He’d have to call in big favors to keep this drive-by contained. Domino he didn’t worry about. She operated on a security level far above his own. But Mario and Rachel? They’d driven into this mess simply because Roman hadn’t been able to tell Rachel goodbye after his investigation of her had been complete.

He knew everything about her now. Every friend she’d ever had. Every country she’d ever visited. Every political view she’d ever possessed. Every erogenous zone that could cause her to cry out in unabashed pleasure if he applied just the right combination of moisture, pressure and suction. He knew everything the Agency had sent him to find out—and more.

The only thing he didn’t know was how to let her go.

I
RIS EMERGED FROM
R
ACHEL’S
bedroom and quietly shut the door. She padded over and sat beside Mario on the couch, eyeing his Scotch and water, on the rocks, with trepidation.

“I know it’s early,” Mario said, lifting the drink with shaking hands and taking a welcome sip. “But these are unusual circumstances.”

“I have an ex-husband who thinks every moment he’s awake is an unusual circumstance.”

Mario put the drink down. He’d figured a woman Iris’s age, somewhere in her fifties, had been married before, but he knew little about her personal life except that she’d accepted his date for tonight—an event that might not go off after what happened less than an hour ago.

“I’m not an alcoholic, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I am asking.
Pero,
would you admit it if you were?”

Mario grinned. “Yeah, to you, I would.”

She matched his smile with a shy curve of lips. The expression melted away the worry that had creased her brow since he’d skidded to a stop just behind her stand with a shaken Rachel curled into a fetal ball in his backseat. Iris had quickly and unceremoniously shut down her coffee stand and helped him lead Rachel upstairs.

The poor kid had hardly said a word except for mumbled phrases that sounded a lot like “How could I be so stupid?” and “What kind of man is he?”

Mario and Iris had soothed Rachel with a combination of mild recriminations on Roman Brach and a Xanax from the stash Iris kept in her purse for her anxiety disorder—another new thing Mario had learned about the object of his affection. Soon, they’d washed the grit from Rachel’s hands, feet and face and had tucked her into her bed for a well-deserved nap. Maybe sleep would give her more perspective. More calm. She’d gone through a hell of a shock in the past hour—first, witnessing the man who’d sworn up and down that he wasn’t involved with anyone other than her sucking face with an exotic, black-haired beauty, then rushing to confront him in order to regain an ounce of her self-respect only to be shot at in a drive-by and, lastly, watching her lover, a self-proclaimed television consultant, brandish a handgun and return fire with confidence and ease.

“Want to tell me what happened?” Iris asked.

Mario recounted the situation point by point. With each revelation, Iris reacted with increased shock.

“
Dios mio!
She could have been killed. You both—”

“I was okay. By the time I realized what was happening, it was over. I got a description of the car. Called it in to my dispatcher. I need to make sure he called the cops.”

Iris tilted her head, her eyes questioning.

“I’m retired NYPD,” he explained. “Thirty-five years.”

Her dark eyes widened. “I didn’t know.”

“You thought I drove a hack all my life?”

She shrugged shyly. “I guess we don’t talk as much as we think we do, in between customers, I mean.”

He nodded. “That’s why I wanted to do the dinner thing tonight. You know, find out about each other.”

Iris glanced regretfully at Rachel’s bedroom door. “I don’t think we should leave, you know?”

Yeah, Mario knew. He didn’t want to leave Rachel, either. Funny how the kid had grown on him. Like Iris, Mario had been married before, but he’d never had kids. His wife, God rest her soul, hadn’t been able to conceive. Yet, he’d always looked at the circumstance as a blessing. He’d walked beats in everywhere from Flatbush to Harlem. By the time he’d made detective, he’d seen more than his fair share of cruelty and crime and death. Bringing kids into the world had seemed a bad decision. After his wife died, he hadn’t been so sure.

But with his job driving cabs, he met lots of young adults who seemed to fill the void. He liked getting to know them, meddling in their lives a bit, using his personal experiences with life and love to push them in the right direction.

With Rachel, however, he’d screwed up, big time. He would have bet his best night’s tips that Roman Brach hadn’t been up to anything sinister, that her fears about his secretive nature had been nothing more than imagination and supposition—and maybe, he was getting a little on the side. Yeah, he’d pegged Brach for the quiet, untrustworthy type, but he’d never, even with all his old cop’s instincts primed, have imagined the guy had been wrapped up in the criminal world.

Despite Brach’s claims, Mario had no idea which side Brach was on, but he was going to stick around Rachel’s place long enough to find out.

“You gonna reopen the stand?”

Iris pressed her lips tightly together. “I didn’t lock up properly in the rush. I should go back downstairs and make sure I haven’t been robbed blind. But I’ll close for the rest of the day and help watch after our
mijita.
”

Mario shifted in his seat. “We could take turns running the register, if you want to stay open.” That way, he could watch the street for any sign of Roman Brach, or the car and drivers that had tried to gun him down.

“You’d do that?” she asked.

He knew Iris struggled financially. Most working-class people in New York did. He had a fairly nice nest egg and pension, so he worked more as a way to keep out of trouble, stay active. If he didn’t drive the cab for a few days, no one but his dispatcher would give a damn.

“We’ll do what we have to,” he replied. “Rachel shouldn’t be alone. I have a strong feeling that the scene on the sidewalk won’t be the last between Rachel and Roman, and one of us should be here to make sure she doesn’t get hurt.”

R
ACHEL BACKED AWAY
from her bedroom door.

Too late, Mario.

Despite the drugs, she’d been too wound up to really sleep, though the medication had soothed her racing heart to a nice, even beat. She was now calm enough to realize that everything Roman Brach had told her, shown her, implied to her, had likely been a lie. From his profession to his interest in her…hell, probably even to his name.

And worst of all, his deceptions tore at the very core of who she was. She’d always considered herself smart, savvy, brave. She’d traveled the world with little more than a backpack and passport, even venturing into countries where government rule was as insubstantial as feathers on the wind. She’d studied graphic arts at the best school in Florida, interned with the hottest graphic arts company in Miami, and then hopped on the next plane to New York City to work with the best in the business, bar none. She had no unfulfilled dreams. No unreachable goals. No regrets.

Until now.

A broken heart was nothing new. Hers had been cracked and had healed many times. But this time, when she’d least expected the trauma, when she’d told herself over and over that her dalliance with Roman was just an exciting, once-in-a-lifetime affair, she’d been ripped apart at the seams.

Roman had lied to her in so many ways, her mind was still spinning. She staggered to her bed and clambered back beneath the sheets. Yes, he’d hurt her. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t survive. She just had to figure out how.