But if Felipe went along for the ride, it would be his last ride. He had no doubts that Tommy would take him into the Everglades and kill him. And then he’d kill Caroline, too, because by then, she’d have seen and heard too much. Dear God, she’d probably already witnessed enough to warrant her death in Tommy’s mind.
From the corner of his eye, Felipe could see the big glass doors that led out of the restaurant. Outside, a valet pulled an expensive-looking car under the brightly lit awning.
As if in slow motion, Tommy reached under his jacket for his gun.
The valet got out of the car, leaving the door open. He crossed to the other side and opened the front passenger door as the owners of the car, a middle-aged couple, started out into the Florida night.
It was now or never.
Felipe turned, scooped Caroline into his arms and ran for the door.
She screamed in outrage, just as he knew she would. He prayed that drawing attention to themselves this way would keep Tommy from pulling out his gun right there in the lobby and shooting Felipe in the back.
Felipe heard the muffled thud of a gunshot, then a bullet whizzed by his left ear, and he knew with a sinking heart that Tommy wanted him dead badly enough to risk going to prison himself. He shielded Caroline Brooks with his body and moved even faster, hoping desperately that Tommy would miss again. But Tommy didn’t often miss, and Felipe knew without a doubt that the gunman’s next shot was going to hit him.
The car’s owner was still holding the glass door open for his wife, and Felipe knocked them both aside, praying they wouldn’t get caught in the cross fire.
Tommy was using some kind of silencing device—most of the people around them were unaware of the gun, unaware of the danger.
“Get down,” Felipe shouted, shifting Caroline easily into one arm, drawing and brandishing his own gun. “Everyone down!”
The valets scattered.
As Felipe threw Caroline into the front seat of the waiting car, slamming the door behind her, he felt a slap hit the back of his leg. He scrambled up and over the hood of the car and into the driver’s seat. The keys were in the ignition and the motor was idling, and he threw it into gear.
The tires squealed on the pavement as the powerful engine responded. Felipe knew he’d been shot. He knew his leg was bleeding, but the pain hadn’t registered yet. It was masked by the adrenaline surging through his veins. Besides, a bullet in the leg was nothing compared to what might have been.
He was alive. He was still alive.
Tommy’s aim was usually unerringly accurate, and Felipe knew that it had only been good fortune that had kept the bullets from slamming first into the back of his head, and then into the small of his back. Or maybe somebody was listening to his prayers.
But that somebody wasn’t listening to all of them.
In the rearview mirror, Felipe could see Richter’s limousine leave the parking lot, bouncing as it took the slope of the driveway too quickly. Tommy was following them. This wasn’t over yet.
Next to him in the car, Caroline Brooks had stopped screaming. One glance in her direction told Felipe that she was watching him. Her face was pale and her eyes were big. That and her rapid breathing revealed the fear she was trying so hard to hide.
“Fasten your seat belt,” he told her curtly over the roar of the engine.
“Just let me out of the car,” she said, talking low and fast, working hard to keep fear from raising the pitch of her voice. “I don’t know what your game is, mister, but you don’t need me to play it.”
“I don’t need you,” Felipe agreed, taking a hard right turn that took an inch of rubber off the tires. Caroline lost her balance and was thrown across the seat nearly onto his lap. “But you need me.”
“Like hell I do.” She scrambled back, away from him, and quickly fastened her seat belt.
Sixty miles an hour. He was going sixty miles an hour on shadowy back streets. His mind was going even faster.
Tommy was right behind them. It would take quick thinking and a great deal of luck to lose him—Tommy Walsh was one of the best when it came to pursuit. And even if Felipe did lose him, he couldn’t be sure he’d actually succeeded. He couldn’t be certain that Tommy hadn’t simply faded into the background, unseen but ready to blow Felipe away the moment he stepped out of the car.
Even if Felipe drove directly to police headquarters, Tommy would gun him and Caroline down in the parking lot.
There wasn’t too much Felipe could do short of driving this expensive car up the front steps and through the double doors of the St. Simone Police Department’s Fourth Precinct.
No. He had only one option here. And that was to lead Tommy to a place where Felipe would at least have a fighting chance at defending himself.
Felipe went through a red light, swerving to avoid hitting a pickup truck, and Caroline yelped in fear.
“Look,” she said sharply. “Just pull over and let me out.”
“I can’t do that,” Felipe said.
“Whatever you’re wanted for,” Caroline said sharply, “kidnapping me will only make it worse.”
Felipe took a sharp left at Ocean Street, leaving more of the car’s tires behind on the street. There was heavier traffic in this part of town, and he kept his eyes on the road, praying that no cars would pull out in front of him.
“I’m not wanted for anything,” he told her matter-of-factly. “I’m a cop.”
CARRIE STARED at the man sitting so calmly next to her.
He was a cop?
He’d stolen a car and kidnapped her and now was driving like a lunatic, violating every traffic law in the book. And she was supposed to believe that he was a cop?
She laughed, but it had nothing to do with humor. “Try another one, Carlos. Or Raoul—or whoever you are.”
“Felipe,” he said in his gentle Hispanic accent, raising his voice only very slightly to be heard over the sound of the racing engine. “Salazar. I’m an undercover detective with the Fourth Precinct. You blew my cover back there, Miss Brooks. Those men I was with, they’re very dangerous. We’re lucky we’re still alive.”
Carrie stared at him as she braced herself against the dashboard. “Just pull over to the side and let me out,” she said tightly. “And then you can get back to whatever little fantasy you’ve got going here, okay?”
He glanced at her with those deep chocolate brown eyes, those dark, penetrating eyes she’d seen so many times in her dreams, then looked back at the road ahead of them. His face was glazed with perspiration, and his hair curled damply around his face where it had come free from his ponytail. A bead of sweat traveled down past his ear and plopped onto the lapel of his tuxedo jacket.
“I’m sorry,” he said apologetically. His eyes flickered up to the rearview mirror. “I can’t do that. I can’t stop. There’s a man—Tommy Walsh—chasing us. He’s not a very nice man. He wants me dead, and I think he’s going to try to kill you, too.”
Carrie loosened her hold on the dashboard and turned around. She looked over the back of the plush leather seat, through the rear window.
There was a car following behind them. It, too, was driving at breakneck speed. Tommy Walsh. He must be the balding man with pale eyes and a boxer’s scarred face and muscular build who had approached them in the lobby.
“Well, I think he’s the cop and you’re the bad guy,” she said. “That’s usually how these chases work, isn’t it?”
“Not this time,” Felipe told her. “I’ve been under cover for five months and I’ve witnessed some things that would put Walsh—and his boss—into prison for years. They aren’t going to let me get away without a fight.”
Carrie looked at the car that was following them, at Mr. Muscles, and then at Felipe. How could she possibly believe anything this man told her?
“All right,” she said abruptly. “Show me your ID. If you’re a cop, prove it.”
But he shook his head, still watching the road. “Do you know what it means to b
e deep under cover?”
They were rapidly approaching a red light. Carrie could see the traffic crossing the intersection in front of them, but Felipe didn’t hit the brakes.
“Lord in heaven,” she gasped. “Slow down!”
“Hold on,” Felipe said, and gunned the car even faster.
They were going to die. Forget about Mr. Muscles in the car behind them. Forget Mr. Muscles, who Carlos—or Felipe or whoever he was—said wanted to kill them. They were going to die all by themselves, without anyone’s help.
Carrie shrieked and held on as they roared through the red light, but her voice was drowned out by the sound of squealing tires and blaring horns as first one, then another and another car swerved. Then one vehicle went into a skid and slid sideways into them. Metal scraped against metal, creating a chilling, awful, screeching sound.
And then it was over. They were through the intersection, once more going sixty down Ocean Street.
Carrie glanced back through the rear window. Unbelievably, the big, dark limousine was still behind them.
“When a detective goes deep under cover,” the dark-eyed man said calmly, as if nothing were wrong, as if they hadn’t just nearly been killed in a car accident, as if he hadn’t just removed all the paint from one side of this expensive car—this stolen car, “when he intends to infiltrate an organized-crime outfit, he does not bring any police identification with him. Hold on again, please.”
Felipe yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, cutting across the oncoming traffic to pull into a narrow side street. The car skidded on loose gravel and dirt, hitting a metal garbage can with a bang and a crunch. The windshield was instantly covered with a layer of rotten vegetables.
“Oh, Lord,” Carrie breathed, and for the first time since she’d seen the panic in Felipe’s eyes at the restaurant, the man seemed unsettled.
He muttered in Spanish, alternately searching the dashboard for the controls to the windshield wipers and peering at the narrow road through a tiny hole in the muck.
Carrie saw it first. Loosening her grip on the dashboard, she reached over next to the steering wheel and switched on the wipers.
“Gracias,” Felipe said. “Thanks.”
“Don’t bother,” Carrie said tersely. “It was pure self-preservation.”
“I’m sorry you had to become involved in this,” Felipe said, glancing at her, then back in the rearview mirror at the car still following them. “It was an unfortunate coincidence that we were both at that same restaurant.”
The neighborhood they were roaring through was rundown and unkempt, with crumbling stuccoed apartment buildings, their wooden porches sagging and rotten. The road, too, had seen far better days. Carrie’s teeth rattled as they hit another pothole.
“I had to become involved?” Carrie said skeptically. “You really expect me to believe that Mr. Muscles would kill me simply for talking to you at Schroedinger’s?”
“You were a witness,” Felipe said.
“A witness to what? A conversation?”
“When I turn up dead or missing,” Felipe said, taking another sharp right turn, “there’ll be a great deal of publicity. You’re the only one who can place me in that restaurant lobby with Tommy Walsh—Mr. Muscles, if you will—and Lawrence Richter. It’s not enough to base a murder case on, but Walsh is known for his caution.”
Carrie glared at him. “There were twenty other people in that lobby,” she said. “Is Muscles going to kill them, too? That is, assuming he really does want to murder you.”
“Hold on,” Felipe said.
“Lord, I hate when you say that,” Carrie muttered, bracing herself by bending her knees and putting her feet up against the dashboard.
They were coming to the end of the side street. Felipe could turn either left or right onto Clark Road. For once, the light was green.
Felipe took a left, and then an immediate right, going the wrong way down a one-way street.
Carrie bit back a shout. There was no need to point out his mistake. Because it was no mistake. He knew exactly what he was doing.
“With the exception of the maître d’,” Felipe said calmly as if their conversation hadn’t been interrupted, “who’s probably on Richter’s payroll, you were the only one in that lobby who knew me well enough to make a positive ID.”
“Know you?” Carrie said. “I don’t know you at all. And there’s no reason for anyone to think that I do.”
“But you’re wrong,” he said.
He glanced at her again, and in a flash, Carrie remembered those kisses. He had kissed her—twice—there in Schroedinger’s lobby, and she knew just from looking at him, that he was remembering it, too. His gaze dropped to her legs, to where her ungainly position had caused her skirt to fall away from the tops of her thighs.
They were barreling, sixty miles an hour, the wrong way down a one-way street, and he was sneaking looks at her legs?
No, not sneaking. He wasn’t sneaking anything. There was nothing even remotely clandestine about the way he looked at her legs. His gaze was almost leisurely, appreciative and very, very male. And he glanced up and met her eyes afterward, as if he wanted to make sure she knew that he’d been looking at her legs.
That’s when she saw it. The car phone. It was in a special case between their seats. Carrie pointed at it. “If you’re a cop,” she said, “why don’t you call for backup?”
“Because I don’t have the telephone’s access code,” Felipe said. “I’ve already checked. It’s got a valet lock. You know, so the parking-lot attendant doesn’t make a hundred dollars’ worth of long-distance phone calls while the owner’s having dinner?”
“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?” Carrie observed tartly.
“Unfortunately, no,” Felipe said. “I haven’t figured out a way to get rid of Tommy Walsh without putting you in real danger.”
Real danger? Real danger? Their current situation wasn’t really dangerous? If this wasn’t real danger, then what was?
The rear window shattered with a crash.
“Get down!” Felipe shouted, grabbing Carrie and pushing her onto the seat.
The right passenger mirror was blown completely off the car door.
He was shooting at them.
Mr. Muscles, the guy in the car behind them—Tommy Walsh or whoever he was—was shooting at them.
With a gun.
With bullets.
Real bullets.
The kind that could kill you.
“Hold on!” Felipe shouted again, and for the first time, Carrie was glad to hear him say those words. For the first time, she actually wanted him to drive even faster.
But the way she was down on the seat, there was no place to hold on to, nowhere to get a good grip.
The tires squealed as Felipe turned another corner and Carrie started to slide.
Felipe reached out with one hand and held her tightly, pulling her against him, anchoring her in place.
“He must’ve stopped and picked up a shooter,” he said. “I saw him slow down, but I didn’t see him stop.”
Another bullet made a hole in the windshield and Felipe ducked.
And then the car phone rang.
CHAPTER FOUR
CAROLINE BROOKS turned to look up at Felipe from her rather indelicate position, sprawled out on the seat across his legs, her head down. Normally, the sight of long, fine hair like spun gold fanned out across his lap would trigger rather powerful sexual fantasies. But at the moment, Felipe could allow himself only the very briefest possible flash of pleasure. And even if he had allowed himself to dwell on the possibilities, the fear and alarm in Caroline’s blue-green eyes would have quickly brought him back to the task at hand.
Somewhere underneath beautiful Caroline Brooks, the car phone was ringing and Felipe knew exactly who was on the other end.
Caroline scrambled off him, her head carefully kept down behind the protective barrier of the seat back. Gunning the car to over seventy, Fe
lipe picked up the phone.
“Hola, Tomás,” he said.
There was a brief moment of silence. Then Tommy Walsh spoke.
“Give it up, Vasquez,” he said. “Or should I call you Detective Salazar?”
Felipe’s hand tightened on the phone. He wanted desperately to swear. He wanted to let loose a long stream of the blackest curses, but instead he kept his mouth tightly shut. By knowing his real identity, Tommy Walsh was already one giant step ahead of him. If Felipe vented his frustration by swearing, that would only reveal to Walsh just how badly he was rattled.
Before the silence stretched on too much longer, Felipe made himself laugh.
“Very good, Tomás,” he said, taking the entrance ramp to the interstate and pushing the car even faster. Seventy-five. Eighty. “Please extend my admiration to Mr. Richter. His efficiency is—as usual—quite remarkable. Of course, it helps to have an inside man in the police force, does it not?”
It was Tommy Walsh’s turn to let the silence turn stale.
“Here’s how it’s gonna work,” Walsh finally said. “You give up and pull over, and I’ll make it quick and painless. One bullet in the back of the girl’s head, nice and neat.”
Felipe glanced at Carrie. She was watching him, her eyes wide in the light from the dashboard, listening only to his side of the conversation.
“I recommend you stop and pick up a dictionary, Tomás,” Felipe told Walsh, “and look up the definitions for both nice and neat. A bullet in the head is neither. It’s ugly, in fact.”
“No,” Tommy Walsh said. “Ugly is what happens when I have to chase you all over kingdom come. Ugly is when I make you spend the last few hours of your life listening to your little girlfriend scream.”
Eighty-five. Felipe shot past a row of semis that were themselves going well above the sixty-five miles-per-hour speed limit.
“So that’s it,” he said. “Option A or option B?”
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