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

by Diane Kelly

  But no sense worrying about that, right? After all, Nick and I weren’t even engaged … yet.

  Nick’s kisses grew more insistent, and his hands began to roam over my body, touching, caressing, removing clothing. Daffy watched us for a moment or two, a furry canine voyeur, then decided our show wasn’t all that interesting. She’d seen it before, knew the script. With a jingle of her tags, she hopped down from the bed and went in search of a chew toy.

  Nick and I made love, taking our time, knowing it could be days or weeks before we’d be able to be intimate again. We savored each second, each sensation, the sensual release our interlude gave us.

  Afterward, we lay in each other’s arms for a long moment, simply enjoying the companionship, until I finally looked at the clock.

  “It’s after nine,” I said. “I need to get packed, too.”

  He returned the favor, coming down to my place and helping me fill my suitcases. I dug though my jewelry box and found a necklace made of small white rocks that I’d had since my summer camp days back in junior high. With Nick’s western shirts, though, the necklace would be right at home. I also found a basic unisex black scarf.

  He took the items from me but scowled. “I thought being a man meant I didn’t have to accessorize.”

  “That’s not so true anymore,” I said. “Get with the times.”

  I went through my things, choosing garments that would be appropriate for a nanny-turned-college-student. Blue jeans. Tennis shoes. T-shirts. I also packed some fun items. A pair of stilettos and a shimmery blouse, both in red, my signature color. Black ballet flats, black leggings, and a polka-dot tunic. A sundress in a pale blue and white print.

  Stepping to the back of my closet, I unlocked the gun cabinet Nick had bought me for Valentine’s Day—the guy knows me so well—and retrieved a handgun and some ammunition from my extensive personal collection. My Glock would identify me as law enforcement, but the cherry-red Cobra CA380 I’d picked up secondhand at a pawnshop wouldn’t raise any flags if Fabrizio or one of his henchmen happened to notice it. It wasn’t unusual for a young woman living alone in a big city like Dallas to own a handgun for protection.

  When my suitcases were full, Nick carried them downstairs and put them in my new undercover car, a basic 2007 black Hyundai Elantra, complete with a DBU student parking decal on the back window, a chink in the windshield, and a dent on the back right fender.

  He pulled me to him and held me close, resting his chin on top of my head. “I love you, Tori Holland.”

  “Back at you, Nicolas J. Brandt.”

  chapter ten

  The Interview

  It was well after eleven by the time I went to bed and I slept fitfully, worried about my interview in the morning. I had to get this job, get on the inside. The case could depend on it. I also couldn’t help but be nervous about getting closer to Tino Fabrizio. The guy was a sick, sadistic bastard, and images of the photographs Detective Booth had shown me kept playing through my mind. I curled up in a ball and pulled the covers up over my head. Some tough federal agent I was, huh?

  Wednesday morning came, bringing with it dark circles under my eyes. Fortunately, a thick stroke of concealer sufficiently hid them. I dressed in a pair of slacks and a white blouse accessorized with a necklace of black beads. My feet found their way into my ass-kicking cherry-red Dr. Martens, and a mug of hot coffee found its way into my belly, both serving to bolster my confidence. I’d put dozens of men behind bars and lived to brag about it. Tino Fabrizio might be a brutal killer, but he’d met his match in Tara Holloway.

  Ah, the wonders of caffeine and steel-toed footwear.

  Downstairs, I gave Henry a snuggle, which he tried his best to wriggle out of, and a kiss on the head, which he tried to duck, before returning him to his perch atop the TV cabinet. Anne, on the other hand, welcomed my affections and even rubbed the top of her head across my chin and purred for me.

  “I’m going to miss you, baby girl,” I told her, doing my best to ignore the tight squeeze in my chest. I laid her down on the couch and glanced up at Henry, who was scowling down at me, still pissed off about that smooch I’d forced on him. “I’m going to miss you, too, Henry. Though I really don’t know why.”

  Alicia was a little misty, too. “I hate it when you go on these dangerous jobs. Each time you leave I wonder if it will be the last time I see you.”

  Heck, I wondered the same thing.

  “You’ll see me Saturday,” I reassured her—and myself. “And after that I’ll stay in touch by e-mail.”

  She gave me a hug. “Stay safe.”

  “I will. I’ve got my Cobra. I’ll be back here before you know it.” Or at least I hoped I would. Given the horrific ways in which Tino Fabrizio had dispatched the men who’d worked for him, I could only imagine the creative killing method he might use on a federal law enforcement officer. Eeek. Better not to think about it.

  I climbed into my Elantra and headed to the Swiss Avenue Historic District. As I cruised down Fitzhugh, I slowed to take a closer look at Cyber-Shield and the bistro. It was just a quarter past seven, and there were no cars at the restaurant. Understandable given that the place didn’t serve breakfast and it was too early for the lunch staff to be on duty yet. At Cyber-Shield, however, I spotted a patrolman climbing out of a neon-green patrol car. Presumably, he’d worked an overnight shift and was winding things up now. Several other patrol cars sat in the lot, their drivers already off duty. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

  I drove on to my new apartment. It was a small one-bedroom unit on the second floor of an older complex on Bennett Avenue, not far from Cyber-Shield. The place was minimally furnished with a couple of stools at the breakfast bar, a cheap couch and secondhand coffee table in the living room, and only a dresser and a full-sized bed with no headboard in the bedroom. The lack of furnishings would make my stay here less comfortable, but the meager spread did make me look like an authentic college student who had to watch her pennies. At least the place had a decent-sized television, cable, and a DVR. I would definitely miss having my cats for company, but I didn’t dare risk their lives by dragging them along on this investigation.

  I noticed the apartment had a landline phone in the kitchen. With my new cell phone, a landline seemed redundant and unnecessary, but I supposed it couldn’t hurt to have one as a backup. It was an old-fashioned model with a cord, a virtual relic these days. It crossed my mind that the FBI had likely installed this type of phone for a reason. It was probably much harder for someone to tap into a conversation on this type of phone than it would be on a cordless model, which offered a limited number of frequencies.

  I unpacked my things, stashed my suitcases in the bedroom closet, and made a quick trip to a nearby grocery store to stock up on essentials. Bread. Peanut butter. Oreos. Toilet paper. Vogue. I also bought three spiral notebooks and a backpack.

  My menial tasks completed, my mind turned to the job interview scheduled for a mere hour from now, and my anxiety began to build. Could I pull it off? Convince the restaurant staff that I was a college student/ex-nanny? I wasn’t so worried about the college student part. My stature made me look younger than I really was and it had only been a few years since I’d graduated from the University of Texas. But the nanny role had me a little pensive. I’d spent some time with my nieces and nephews over the years, but admittedly it was always doing fun things like decorating Christmas cookies, or playing hide-and-seek, or shooting BB guns in the backyard. The instant they began to misbehave I’d turn them over to my brothers and their wives to take care of the discipline.

  What to do …

  It couldn’t hurt to watch a quick episode of Nanny 911 on Netflix, right? It might help me better get into character.

  I logged into Netflix. Halfway through the show I thought, Holy hell! I never knew kids could be such boogers.

  I decided the two fictional children I’d helped to raise would be nothing like the kids in the show. Rather, Miles and Tessa were vir
tual angels, their worst habits being that Miles tended to misplace his shoes and Tessa could be a bit grouchy in the mornings, the silly pumpkin.

  I arrived ten minutes early for my eleven o’clock interview. As I pulled into the parking lot, I spotted Josh standing outside the window of what would become Gallery Nico. He was using a stencil and silver paint to etch the name of the gallery on the glass. Through the window, I could see Nick inside. He and a man I didn’t recognize appeared to be poring over an assortment of painted canvases. The man was likely an artist wanting to place his work for sale at the gallery. I was glad to see that things were moving along quickly. The sooner the gallery was up and running, the sooner Josh and Nick could devote one hundred percent of their efforts to hacking into the Fabrizios’ computer systems, downloading their financial records, and finding and following the money trails. All, of course, with the aim of putting Tino Fabrizio behind bars for good.

  I parked my Elantra in the center of the shopping center’s parking lot. I figured it would appear courteous and thoughtful if I left the angled spaces directly in front of Benedetta’s Bistro open for potential customers, though it was unlikely she’d have many this early. She’d obviously chosen a slow time in which to conduct the interview.

  I’d turned off the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on my IRS cell phone earlier, but I also turned it to silent now. I locked it in the glove compartment of my car for safekeeping. My new pink cell phone peeked out from the side pocket of the cute cross-body bag I’d chosen for today. It was one I’d used back in college so I figured it would be perfect for my new persona, Tori Holland.

  As I stepped out of my car, several things caught my eye. The first things I noticed were Tino’s Alfa Romeo and Eric Echols’s Mustang parked directly in front of Cyber-Shield’s offices next door. Heck, my hair was virtually the same color as Tino’s car. The second thing I noticed was the security camera mounted over the entrance to the bistro. Though the camera was white, the side bore the lime-green Cyber-Shield logo. The third thing I noticed was another young woman exiting the bistro. She carried no leftovers, only a portfolio notebook, and was dressed to impress in a black fitted skirt, gray blouse, and heels. Had she come here for an interview? Had she gotten the job? I felt a little guilty hoping she’d bombed the interview, but I obviously needed this job more than she did. After all, I was both a federal agent trying to bust a murderous tax cheat and a starving ex-nanny with tuition bills to pay.

  I tucked the manila folder containing my resume under my arm and walked to the door, wondering if someone were watching me through the security camera. I felt very self-conscious, aware of every movement of my body, every molecule of oxygen flowing in and out of my lungs. It was like being an insecure, pubescent junior-high girl all over again. God, I hoped my steps didn’t look as stiff as they seemed to me. I tried to appear relaxed and natural, forcing a light smile to my face.

  I pulled open the door and stepped inside, welcomed by the sound of opera music and the mouthwatering scents of garlic, tomato sauce, and freshly baked bread. A glance upward told me there was a second security camera mounted just over the door on the inside, too. Every movement in or around this place seemed to be captured on video.

  My eyes scanned the bistro. An empty hostess podium stood just inside the door, a small placard on top asking customers to PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED. Three booths ran along the left wall, with another three on the right wall. The center of the room contained eight square, wooden tables in two rows of four, each table surrounded by four chairs. The tables bore green tablecloths and white napkins. A single red rose in a glass vase and a white votive candle sat in the center of each table, along with salt and pepper shakers, shakers of parmesan cheese and dried red peppers, and a small bowl containing packets of sugar and assorted artificial sweeteners.

  At the back of the dining room was a refrigerated case featuring the bistro’s dessert offerings, including an Italian cream cake, tiramisu, some type of raspberry-filled doughnutlike pastry, and the pièce de résistance—or should I say the piece that I could not resist?—a tray of scrumptious-looking chocolate cannolis. My salivary glands instantly activated, and my stomach sat up and took notice, emitting a soft rumble. Each dessert was situated on a white plate and garnished for optimum presentation, the cream cake with a trio of walnut halves, the doughnut with a fresh raspberry, and the cannolis with chocolate chips.

  To the right, the case gave way to a well-stocked bar with six padded stools. A computerized cash register sat on the back of the bar, a third security camera mounted directly over it, the lens aimed down at the machine. It reminded me of the ceiling-mounted cameras over the gaming tables in casinos, put there to ensure that the dealers and players didn’t try to pull a fast one with the cash or chips. With a virtual eye on them, employees of the bistro would be stupid to try to steal from the register.

  A hallway at the back left of the dining room led to the restrooms, while a hallway at the far right appeared to lead to the kitchen. Only one customer was in the bistro, a tall, thin blonde in classy business attire, sipping water as she checked e-mails on her tablet.

  A twentyish woman with dark, flowing hair, full lips, and a voluptuous build packed into a tight black dress came out of the swinging door that led to the kitchen. She carried a Caesar salad over to the blonde, setting it in front of her and asking whether she’d like some freshly ground pepper. After a few turns of the pepper mill, the young woman spotted me and made her way over, weaving her way gracefully through the tables. A gold cross on a chain rested between her breasts. “May I help you?” she asked.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Tori Holland. I’m here for an interview.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, her tone courteous. “My mother is expecting you.” She held out a hand to indicate the far booth. “Have a seat there. I’ll let her know you’ve arrived.”

  While I took a seat, she checked in again with the customer, refilling her water glass from a pitcher she retrieved from behind the bar. I surreptitiously watched the girl as she worked. Presumably she was one of Tino’s daughters. I wondered whether she had any idea what her father was up to.

  When she finished pouring the water, she disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later, the door swung open again to release a middle-aged version of the young woman. They had the same voluptuous build, the same full lips, the same dark hair. While her daughter’s hair flowed halfway down her back, however, Benedetta’s locks flowed only to her shoulders. Benedetta, too, wore a cross on a chain, though hers was silver. The religious symbol, nestled as it was between her big bazoombas, was simultaneously reassuring and disturbing.

  “Miss Holland?” she asked as she approached me.

  I stood from the booth and extended my hand. “That’s me.” Or at least who I’m pretending to be. “Hi.”

  “Benedetta Fabrizio.” Her voice carried a hint of both Italian and Chicago accents, and her big brown eyes seemed warm and friendly. “Please, have a seat.”

  I sat back down and opened the manila folder I’d laid on the table. I removed my resume and references, and held them out to her. “I thought you might like to see these.”

  She raised a palm. “Paper won’t tell me who you are, cara. Let’s have a conversation.” She glanced at the bar. “Can I get you a glass of wine? Some vino always makes conversation more interesting.”

  “Bored you already, have I?”

  She chuckled but eyed me intently. “A sense of humor. Always a good thing in a waitress. Now how about that wine?”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Was this some type of test? Should I decline in order to maintain my professionalism? Or should I show an interest in the bistro’s wine selections?

  I decided to go with, “I’d love to sample your favorite selection.” That way, it sounded as if I were trying the wine as a way to familiarize myself with her tastes.

  “Nice try.” Benedetta tilted her head and offered me a playful smile. “My favorite wine is sixty dollars a bott
le. You’ll get the house red.”

  I offered her a smile right back. “I’m sure it will be delightful.”

  Her eyes narrowed now. “Would you tell me if it wasn’t?”

  Again, I felt as if she were testing me. Did she want a waitress who was always upbeat and positive? Or did she want one who was honest? I went with, “If it wasn’t, I’d find a polite way to tell you. But only if you asked for my opinion.”

  She chuckled again. “Such diplomacy. You should go to work for the United Nations.”

  She stood, went to the bar, and poured two glasses of wine from the same bottle, returning with them a moment later. She placed one glass in front of me and resumed her seat on the other side of the booth. She held her glass in her left hand, a diamond the size of an olive glittering on her ring finger. I wondered if the oversized gem had been bought with extorted funds.

  I took a sip of the wine. “It’s lovely.” Actually, it was a bit too dry for my taste, which tended more toward fruity and sweet, but I wasn’t about to insult her by telling her that. Besides, I still wasn’t sure where she fell on the upbeat-versus-honesty thing.

  “Isn’t it, though?” Benedetta took a sip herself and tossed her head in the direction of the kitchen. “When you called the other day, you told Stella you have experience in restaurants. Tell me about it.”

  “What I meant is that I have experience in preparing and serving food. I worked for several years as a nanny for a family with two children.”

  The woman frowned. “So you made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Cookies. Scooped ice cream into bowls.”

  “Sometimes,” I said, “but I also helped out with the family’s meals, and I assisted with the cooking and serving when the family threw parties, which was quite often.”

  She leaned her head one way then the other, as if considering my words. “Why are you no longer working for this family?”

  “The father works for an oil company,” I told her. “He accepted a position in Dubai. They asked me to move there with them, but I’m not ready to be so far from home.”