Death, Taxes, and a Chocolate Cannoli (A Tara Holloway Novel)

by Diane Kelly

  “She’s the best cook on the planet. I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”

  “Oops.”

  “Good night, Tori.”

  “You, too!”

  There was a rustling sound as I shoved the recorder into my pocket and a tap as I deactivated the device.

  And then there was nothing but silence.

  chapter forty-one

  Last Supper

  It was all I could do not to dance around the restaurant Thursday evening. We’d soon have the goods on Tino and his thugs, and tonight we were finally going to bust them. Woo-hoo!

  Benedetta cast a look my way as she came back to the kitchen with a load of dirty dishes. Her three girls had gone to the ice-skating show tonight, the one Tino had bought them tickets for, so Benedetta was filling in, pulling waitress duty. “You seem extra happy tonight.”

  “I am,” I said. “My finals have gone really well so far and I have my last one tomorrow morning.” Linguistics. Still not sure exactly what that was. Linguini, on the other hand, I was now intimately familiar with.

  Benedetta set the plates in the sink and gave me an encouraging pat on the back. “Good for you. You have a lot to be proud of.”

  I’d be even more proud when I took down her mobster husband later. I was amassing quite of list of impressive professional conquests. Of course I shouldn’t have been counting my chickens before they were hatched. While we assumed that tonight’s target was Looking Good Optical, there was always the chance Tino had been referring to another client. We could end up looking like fools, putting all of our resources at one location only to find out that he’d struck elsewhere. After all, he’d pulled off the Hookah Lounge heist right under our noses. Still, we couldn’t fault ourselves too much. Even with the surge in agents, we couldn’t be everywhere all the time.

  Dario, Juan, and Brian were hard at work in the kitchen. Dario had debuted one of his new dishes tonight, one he’d dubbed Tuxedo Temptation. Bowtie pasta tossed in olive oil with lemon pepper and zucchini. We’d offered free samples to the customers in exchange for feedback. All of it had been resoundingly positive, other than an adolescent girl who’d declared it “barfable.” Her mother had scolded her but Benedetta had merely laughed. “Honest feedback,” she said. “It’s what we asked for.”

  I found myself repeatedly pulling my pink cell phone from the pocket of my apron to check the time.

  7:08.

  7:33.

  7:48.

  Could the time go any slower? My Lord!

  At eight o’clock, Tino phoned. I answered the call. “Dario’s whipped up a new pasta dish,” I told him. “It’s getting rave reviews so far.” Well, other than that “barfable” comment.

  “I’ll try it,” he said.

  “Great. I’ll run some over.”

  I went to the kitchen and held open a to-go container while Dario filled it with his pasta. After rounding up some garlic bread and a chocolate cannoli, I carried the food over to Cyber-Shield.

  Weird.

  Tino’s car, which was usually parked right in front of the building, had been parked at the far end of the center row. Maybe he’d left the office for a while earlier and found the spots in front of Cyber-Shield filled by the cars of Benedetta’s customers when he’d returned, leaving him with no choice but to park away from the building. Then again, maybe not. It seemed off, odd, like an omen of sorts. Things were not as I’d expected them to be. But perhaps I was overthinking things, feeling a little tense knowing that major things would be going down later tonight.

  There was no sign of Eric’s Mustang. No sign of patrol car number six, either. Looked like Cole had already set out on his rounds. Perhaps he’d started early tonight, knowing he’d be tied up at Looking Good Optical later.

  I typed the code into the keypad and went inside, unpacking the food on Tino’s desk as usual.

  He looked up and gave me a smile—a smile I wanted to slap right off his belugalike face. “You sure are a hardworking girl.”

  I gave him my own smile now. “I am,” I replied. “I always get the job done.”

  And tonight my job is busting you, Tino Fabrizio.

  Neener-neener.

  I returned to the restaurant, noticing that Nick had dimmed the lights in the gallery and sat at his desk across the way, subtly keeping an eye on things here until it was time for us to meet up with the others.

  Just before nine o’clock, Tino came into the restaurant. I was in the dining room, wiping down the chairs and tables. Benedetta was back in her office and the cooks were in the kitchen cleaning up.

  “Quitting time!” Tino called out in that annoying singsong tone of his.

  “Almost,” I said. I’d just checked my phone again. It was 8:57.

  Tino disappeared into the kitchen. A minute later, he reappeared with Benedetta’s keys in his hand. I recognized the boot-shaped key chain.

  He gestured to the cell phone in my apron pocket. “I forgot my phone. Mind if I use yours to make a quick call?”

  It was a seemingly innocent request, yet coming from a man bearing as much guilt as Tino Fabrizio it immediately raised a red flag in my mind.

  I gestured to the phone behind the bar. “You should probably use the landline. My reception isn’t good here.”

  “That’s okay.” He stepped over to me and held out his hand. “I’ll take it outside. I’m going to lock up for Bennie.”

  Refusing to give him my phone could let him know I was on to him. Maybe his request was totally benign. The last thing I needed was to raise his suspicions and risk him ordering his goons to abort tonight’s plan. Who knew when we’d have such a good tip to move on again?

  I plucked my phone from my pocket and handed it to him. Like I’d suggested to Tino, there was always the landline. If I needed to make an emergency call, I could use that.

  As Tino headed outside with my cell phone, I noticed Nick, likewise, stepping out of Gallery Nico across the way, ostensibly to close his security gates. But I knew better. Nick was probably wondering what Tino was up to, maybe hoping the guy would inadvertently drop some sort of clue about what would be going down tonight.

  There was a shluck sound as the dead bolt slid home, followed by the rattle as Tino lowered the security doors.

  Yep, Elena was right. This definitely feels like a trap.

  chapter forty-two

  If You Can’t Stand the Heat, Get Out of the Kitchen

  I continued cleaning the dining room. Without any of the girls to help me, it took longer than usual. When I finished twenty minutes later, Tino still hadn’t returned with my cell phone. It was possible he was on a long call, but my nerves were feeling as rattled as the security doors.

  By the time I went back to the kitchen, Brian and Juan had gone home for the night. Dario and Benedetta sat in her office poring over a proposed menu redesign that included three of Dario’s new specialties. Benedetta had laid one of her long metal ladles across the unfolded paper to make it lie flat.

  I retrieved my things from my locker and headed back into the kitchen. Fwump! My feet slid out from under me and I was on my ass in a heartbeat.

  Whuh?!?

  I looked around. The floor was coated with cooking oil a quarter-inch deep. Cooking oil that was coming from a hose snaked through a two-inch crack in the back door.

  I barely had time to scream, “Benedetta! Dario!” when a flaming matchbook was tossed through the small crack in the door.

  FWOOOSH!

  The kitchen went up in flames, the cooking oil fueling the fire as well as any chemical accelerant. With my pants coated in the oil, I’d soon be going up in flames, too.

  The hose was yanked out the back door and the door was slammed shut. Terror seized my mind, but I forced myself to think. There were no windows in the employee lounge, Benedetta’s office, or the kitchen. Remembering that the front door was locked and covered with the security gates, I knew the back door provided our only means of escape, even if the person who’d jus
t started the fire was out there. I reached into my purse and quickly readied my Cobra.

  I ran over to the door and pushed, smacking my head up against it. While it had opened another inch, it would go no farther. Something blocked it.

  “It won’t open!” I screamed, panic welling up in me, terror slithering up my spine.

  Dario pulled me out of the way. “Let me try!” He threw his substantial body up against the door but had no better luck than I’d had.

  The flames continued to snake their way across the floor. Between the electric lights and the fire, the room was so bright it hurt my eyes. But I did see one thing through the flames. A red canister mounted on the wall.

  The fire extinguisher.

  I yanked it from the wall, aimed it at the flames, and squeezed with all my might. Spuh-spuh-spuh. All my efforts got me were a few foamy droplets. “Shit!”

  Dario grabbed the other fire extinguisher with the same results. Just a sputter and small shower of liquid, as if the device were blowing us a deadly raspberry. Obviously, that so-called inspector who’d come to check out the equipment had instead sabotaged it.

  My mind reeled. With the fire extinguishers out of commission, what could we do?

  Smother the fire. That’s what.

  I leaped over a two-foot wall of flame and reached for a stack of tablecloths, grabbing one in each hand and slapping them at the conflagration, trying to snuff it out. All I succeeded in doing was adding fuel to the fire. The tablecloths quickly became engulfed and I was forced to drop them.

  Screaming in Italian, Benedetta grabbed a large bag of flour from a countertop and tossed the stuff around, a white cloud forming in the already smoky air. The flour managed to douse some of the flames, but there wasn’t enough of it to finish the job.

  I darted through the flames to the sink, turned on the sprayer, and directed the stream of water at the fire. That only caused the oil and fire to spread.

  My special agent training did not prepare me for this!!!

  The smoke built to a stifling level and I coughed so hard I thought my ribs would snap. I motioned for Dario and Benedetta, who were also coughing, to follow me. “We have to get to the dining room!”

  Of course this meant running through a wall of flame, but what choice did we have?

  I ran through first, bolting out from the swinging door and throwing myself into a sideways dive roll to snuff out the flames that had caught on my clothes. Benedetta came through next, emerging screaming, her arms and hair on fire, the metal ladle still clutched in her hand. Dario leaped through, tackling her to the ground and forcing her to roll with him until she was no longer on fire.

  The air was marginally less smoky here, but I knew the respite wouldn’t last long. I ran to the bar and grabbed the landline phone, putting the receiver to my ear. I was already dialing 911 when I realized there had been no dial tone. Tino must have cut the lines. That bastard! It dawned on me then that the smoke alarms weren’t going off, either. Tino had probably disabled them and removed any backup batteries, maybe when he’d come over to the restaurant last Sunday morning.

  “The phone’s dead!” I shrieked at Dario and Benedetta, tossing the landline phone aside. “Do either of you have your cell phone?”

  “No!” Benedetta cried. “Tino borrowed mine!”

  “Mine, too!” Dario yelled, breaking down into a racking cough.

  We were trapped here, in a burning building, with no fire extinguishers and no phone.

  Holy shit! We’re going to die here!

  The only saving grace was that we’d probably succumb to smoke inhalation before we burned to death.

  I gulped back an angry, terrified sob.

  We were trapped!

  TRAPPED!

  My mind, which was spiraling like a piece of fusilli out of control, suddenly stopped and spat up an image of the fortune cookie I’d eaten not long ago and the strip of paper that had been inside.

  A trapped cat becomes a lion.

  I felt my inner lion rear its head and roar.

  I will not stand for this. Tino Fabrizio will not take my life.

  I looked around for another means of escape. We couldn’t go out the front door or windows because they were blocked by the newly installed security gates. We certainly couldn’t force our way through the brick side wall. None of us was the Hulk or the Kool-Aid Man. But I remembered back to the first time I’d come with Agent Hohenwald to check out Cyber-Shield. I’d noticed the building had a triangular-shaped air vent at each end, just under the pinnacle of the roof.

  I hopped up onto the refrigerated case and reached up to push a ceiling panel aside. The lights began to flicker now, the fire interfering with the electrical system. But I could see the triangular grate. It was just big enough that, if removed, a person could escape through the hole. Unfortunately, the case was not tall enough and we had no ladder to reach it.

  I looked around and saw the solution.

  “Quick!” I hollered. “We need to build a pyramid with the tables!”

  Dario, Benedetta, and I moved like lightning, creating a base of four tables onto which we stacked three more, adding the final one at the top. When we finished, the makeshift steps reached nearly eight feet into the air. I grabbed the useless fire extinguisher from behind the bar, climbed the stack of tables, and stood precariously atop the pinnacle, my chest even with the bottom of the triangular grate. Using the metal canister like a battering ram, I slammed it over and over against the grate. The relatively flimsy aluminum buckled, bending more and more until the grate fell away, dropping to the asphalt outside with a clatter.

  I put my hands on the ledge, sticking my head out and gulping the relatively fresh air as smoke billowed out next to me.

  “Tara!” Nick ran up outside, his face frantic, Josh on his heels.

  Though I wanted nothing more than to escape out the hole, I knew I had to get Benedetta and Dario out first.

  I turned and hollered down to Benedetta, motioning with my arm. “You first! Come on!”

  The ladle still clutched in her hand like an odd security blanket, Benedetta climbed the tables, stopping only when she was overcome by coughs. When she was standing on the table next to me, I intertwined my fingers to form a stirrup for leverage. “Hurry!”

  She put her foot into my hand and I gave her a boost. Hanging on to the ledge, she pulled her legs through and then dropped from sight. It was twelve feet down to the parking lot. I hoped the fall wouldn’t break her leg or ankle, or that she’d accidentally impale herself on her ladle.

  Dario came up next. “Go on!” he cried, shooing me with both arms.

  While I appreciated his chivalry, as a federal law enforcement officer I felt like a ship’s captain. It was my duty to see that all innocent parties escaped safely before saving myself. If I couldn’t do that, I’d go down with the ship. Or in this case, I’d melt with the cannoli.

  “I’m an undercover cop!” I shouted. Not precisely the truth, but close enough to give him the message. Besides, cop was faster to say than IRS special agent.

  His already wide eyes flashed with surprise, but he didn’t waste time thinking things over. Being a cop meant I had last dibs on getting to live. Everyone knew that. He hoisted himself up and was out the triangular hole in a split second.

  There was the sound of an explosion—poom!—as the flames engulfed something flammable, probably the cleaning supplies. Huge plumes of black smoke billowed up around me, blinding me. Eyes closed against the smoke, lungs racking with coughs, I reached out for the ledge I could no longer see. I pulled myself up and over it, hanging down the side of the building for a moment before letting go.

  chapter forty-three

  The Smoke Clears

  Strong arms caught me and lowered me safely to the ground. Those strong arms, of course, belonged to Nick.

  Benedetta was likewise uninjured, though she was crying hysterically on Josh’s shoulder, thoroughly freaked out. Nick had even managed to help Dario land
lightly on the asphalt, despite the fact that the chef outweighed Nick by a good forty pounds.

  Nick grabbed me by the shoulders and looked into my watery eyes. Well, at least I assumed he did. I still couldn’t see much with all the tears my ducts were producing to combat the smoke. There was just a wavering, Nick-like blur.

  “Are you okay?” he cried.

  “I’m okay,” I said, punctuating my words with another rib-wrenching cough. “We all got out.”

  WEE-OH-WEE-OH-WEE-OH! A fire truck roared into the parking lot, its siren blaring and warning lights flashing. As the men hopped off the truck, I wriggled out of Nick’s grasp and ran over to them. “It’s an oil fire!”

  The information would be critical to them in determining how best to battle the blaze. My earlier blunder with the sink sprayer told me that.

  The men swarmed down from the truck in their yellow protective gear and set to work.

  “Anyone injured?” one of the men asked.

  I shook my head but coughed.

  “Let’s see about getting you some oxygen.”

  Nick, Josh, Dario, Benedetta, and I went over to Gallery Nico and waited inside while the firefighters attacked the flames, which had now spread to the roof. Clearly we’d gotten out just in time. While we waited, an EMT equipped the three of us who’d been in the bistro with oxygen masks.

  Dario turned his eyes on me. “You’re an undercover cop?” he said, his voice muffled by the mask.

  Above her mask, Benedetta’s eyes flashed in alarm and betrayal. “A cop?” she cried, her voice muffled, too. “Tori, is that true?”

  I exchanged glances with Josh and Nick, who nodded.

  “Yes,” I said, taking a deep breath of the pure air. Who knew oxygen could be so good? “I’m a federal law enforcement officer.” I gestured to Nick and Josh. “So are they.”

  Benedetta’s expression was totally bewildered. “But why? Why would you be working at my bistro? And the art gallery?”

  I took another hit of fresh, pure air. “We’re investigating your husband.”