Rafe didn’t move, didn’t even blink. He just stared at Felipe, who was sitting on a hard bench against the far wall, Carrie at his side.
“Yes,” Felipe said. “That’s right, man. It’s me.”
Rafe took in the bloodstains and the makeshift bandage on Felipe’s leg. Then his cold eyes flickered toward Carrie. He spoke softly, but in rapid-fire Spanish.
“In English, please,” Felipe said. “Or she won’t understand.”
“Figures you’d get a gringa girlfriend,” Rafe said. His voice was raspier, harsher than Felipe’s. “Our kind’s not good enough for you, eh, little brother?”
“My kind is human,” Felipe said evenly. “Besides, she’s not a girlfriend. She’s in my protective custody.”
“Does she have a name?” Rafe asked, looking back at Carrie.
His face was similar to Felipe’s in shape, but because he was older, or maybe because he was thinner, his cheekbones looked angular, his nose sharp. He was dangerous-looking, like a wolf or an attack dog.
“She has one,” Felipe said pleasantly. “But you don’t need to know it. The fewer people who know her name, the fewer who can spread the word on the street that she was here, no?”
Carrie looked from Rafe to Felipe. “She doesn’t like people talking about her as if she wasn’t in the room, if you boys don’t mind.”
Rafe said something to Felipe in Spanish.
Felipe shook his head. “Stop,” he said quietly.
Rafe turned again to Carrie. “Even though you are not one of our kind, I was pointing out your obvious physical attributes to my little brother,” he said. “Sometimes he gets so caught up in being superhuman, he forgets that the people he’s dealing with are mere flesh and blood.”
Carrie looked at Felipe, but he was staring down at the floor. Even though this building was air-conditioned, he was still perspiring. His face was expressionless but his jaw was tightly clenched. Whether it was from his brother’s harsh words or the pain from his bullet wound, Carrie couldn’t tell.
As if he felt her eyes on him, Felipe glanced up. There was sadness in his eyes. He tried to force a smile, but failed miserably.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him with his hair this long,” Rafe continued. “He usually wears it well above his ears, you know? And I’m certain I’ve never seen him with his jacket off and trousers torn. What’s the deal with my little brother? He under cover?”
“I don’t know.” Carrie stood up. “I’d like to leave,” she said, lifting her chin and staring straight into Rafe’s peculiar, lifeless eyes.
Felipe reached out and took her arm. Rafe, of course, didn’t miss the move.
“But you’re in ‘protective custody,’ no?” he said. “Maybe you don’t think you need to be? Ah, but Felipe, he always knows what’s best for everyone else. Felipe, he’s always right. Except…” Rafe’s gaze flickered back to the bandage on Felipe’s leg, and all the blood that covered what was left of his tuxedo. “Maybe this time Felipe was a little too right, huh? And maybe someone with a gun doesn’t like being wrong. Was it anyone I know, niño? One of our other brothers and sisters perhaps? Maybe you’ve betrayed one of them lately, the way you’ve betrayed me, huh?”
That one hurt. Even though Felipe’s expression didn’t change, his fingers tightened around her wrist, and Carrie knew that the barbs from Rafe’s sarcastic comment had struck hard.
Still, when Felipe spoke, his voice was even. “You don’t know the man who shot me,” he said. “But you probably know of him.”
Rafe laughed, but it was humorless. “I know of half a dozen men who’d probably like very much to shoot you or any one of the men in blue you work with,” he said, “and that’s without thinking very hard.”
“This one’s real trouble, man,” Felipe said.
He spoke quietly, but there was something in his tone that made Rafe pause. He turned to the two men who were standing behind him and spoke to them in Spanish. They went out of the room, closing the door behind him.
“Tommy Walsh,” Felipe said. He glanced at Carrie. “He wants us both dead.”
“Walsh,” Rafe said. His thin face became even more wary and aloof.
Carrie felt fear flicker in the pit of her stomach. Rafe’s quiet response to Walsh’s name told her more than any louder reaction could’ve done.
“I need help,” Felipe said quietly. “I’m in deep, man. I’ve been shot, Walsh is after us and Richter’s got a man in my department, ready to get rid of me the minute I resurface at the precinct.”
“So you come to me,” Rafe said softly, sarcastically. “I’m touched.”
“All I want is to get cleaned up,” Felipe said. “A shower, and maybe some clean clothes for both me and…” He looked at Carrie. “Her.”
Rafe smiled, a bitter twist of his lips that attempted to hide his anger. “You don’t even trust me with her name, huh?”
“I’m sorry,” Felipe said. “I don’t.”
Rafe’s temper exploded. “You’re not sorry, you self-righteous, holier-than-thou son of a—”
“You’re wrong,” Felipe interrupted him, his cool vanishing, too. His voice shook with passion and he pulled himself clumsily to his feet. “I spent more years sorry than you even have memories of. Sorry for your mistakes, sorry for your pain. Sorry for you, and sorry for myself, too, because your mistakes and your pain were mine to share. They were my burden, too. I am sorry I don’t trust you, but I don’t. That’s one thing you taught me well, Raphael—that you were not to be fully trusted, never to be fully trusted.”
“If you don’t trust me,” Rafe snarled, “why the hell did you bother to come here? How do you know I’m not going to run out and tip Walsh off that you and little Miss No-name are here?”
“I don’t know that you’re not going to,” Felipe said. “I can only hope that you won’t. I can only pray you’ll remember everything I’ve done for you—”
“You kept me from hitting bottom on my own,” Rafe countered hotly. “Because of you, it took me another three years to come clean.”
“When some people hit bottom, they hit with enough force to kill themselves,” Felipe said. “I knew you were going to hate me for doing it, but I loved you and I didn’t want you to die.” He shook his head in resignation and turned to Carrie. “Come on, we’re getting out of here. He’s not going to help.”
“I don’t hate you,” Rafe said, suddenly quiet.
To Carrie’s surprise, his eyes were filled with tears, tears and a depth of emotion that made his eyes look so much more like Felipe’s. But then he blinked, and both the tears and the emotion were gone, leaving his eyes oddly flat again.
“My apartment’s on the second floor,” Rafe continued, his voice still quiet. “You can take a shower there. There’re clothes in the closet. Help yourself. I’ll have Highboy show you up.”
And with that, Rafe turned and walked out of the room.
RAPHAEL SALAZAR’S apartment consisted of one small room with a tiny attached bathroom. He had a sofa bed with a small coffee table in front of it and a cheap television set and a VCR on a stand in front of that. There was nothing on the walls—no pictures, no photos, nothing to personalize the room.
A dresser stood in the corner, with shaving supplies and a brush and comb neatly arranged on top, a small mirror attached to the wall above it. Several days’ worth of newspapers were on the coffee table, but they, too, were neatly stacked.
In the other corner was a makeshift kitchen area, with a tiny sink built into an equally tiny counter area. A small table and a pair of cheap kitchen chairs sat nearby. On top of the table was a hot plate and a plastic sugar bowl. Underneath the table was a small, square refrigerator.
There was one window, with bars both on the inside and the outside.
Felipe locked the door behind the man in the Bugs Bunny shirt—Rafe had called him Highboy. He limped to the window and pulled down the shade.
“So, you see? My brother Rafe’s real,” he
said to Carrie. “Any chance you’re starting to believe what I’ve told you about Walsh and Richter?”
Carrie could see herself in the mirror over the dresser. Her hair was tangled and limp. She had a smudge of blood—Felipe’s blood—across her cheek. Was she starting to believe him? She didn’t know what to think anymore.
Felipe sat down on one of the kitchen chairs. He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Why don’t you take a shower?” he suggested gently. “You’ll feel better. It’ll clear your head.”
“We need to—you need to get your leg cleaned up,” Carrie said. “You should go first.”
His eyes were warm as he looked up at her. “Thanks,” he said. Then he peered at his roughly bandaged leg and grimaced. “But it’s going to take me a while to get undressed. So go ahead. Just don’t use up all the hot water, okay?”
He started unfastening the mother-of-pearl buttons of his tuxedo shirt, and Carrie turned away. A shower seemed like an especially good idea—particularly since the alternative was to stand and watch Felipe strip down to his underwear. Or beyond.
Carrie quickly went into the bathroom.
It was as Spartan as the rest of the apartment. The white tile floor was spotless. The sink, tub and toilet were gleaming white porcelain. The shower curtain looked fairly new. It was clear plastic, and it hadn’t yet been fogged up by mildew and age. The room was devoid of any personal items—with the exception of a copy of Off Road Cycle magazine on the top of the toilet tank. A small cabinet held clean white towels in a neatly folded stack.
There was no window for her to climb out of and escape.
Carrie wasn’t quite sure whether to feel disappointed or relieved. Because the truth was, Rafe’s reaction to the name Tommy Walsh had made her start to wonder if Felipe’s story wasn’t true.
Lord above, maybe Felipe was a cop.
Carrie locked the door securely behind her and quickly stripped off her clothes.
The shower felt good, and she washed her hair with Rafe’s inexpensive shampoo, wondering if maybe everything Felipe Salazar had told her was the truth.
If that was the case, he’d saved her life more than once tonight. And with no thanks from her.
She came out of the shower and toweled herself dry. She didn’t want to put her bloodstained dress back on, but she had no choice.
She also had no comb, so she ran her fingers through her wet hair, trying to untangle it. When she’d done the best she could, she put her hand on the doorknob.
Taking a deep breath, Carrie opened the door. She opened it slowly, then peeked around to see if Felipe had moved from his seat in the far corner of the room.
He had. He was standing in front of the tiny kitchen sink, his back to her. He’d undressed down to an expensive-looking pair of dark green and navy blue paisley silk boxer shorts and a white tank undershirt that contrasted with the rich darkness of his tanned skin. He was wearing more than he would have had she run into him on the beach. Still, he was in his underwear, and Carrie felt uncomfortable—possibly because she had dreamed about him wearing even less.
His body was as trim and athletic as she’d imagined. The sleek muscles in his shoulders and arms rippled as he supported his weight on the kitchen counter. The water was running, and he didn’t hear her as she approached.
Without his pants on, she could clearly see the wound that the bullet had made on the side of his thigh, just under the edge of his shorts. He was lucky that the bullet hadn’t hit an artery. The wound was still bleeding slightly, or maybe it was bleeding again from his attempts to clean threads of tuxedo fabric from the gash. Bright red blood trickled slowly down his leg.
As she watched, he reached into the sink to wring water and blood from a washcloth he was rinsing out. He swayed slightly and caught himself on the edge of the sink, closing his eyes and trying to breathe deeply.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Carrie said. “I’ll do that.”
He opened his eyes and turned to look at her. “Ah,” he said, “you’re out of the shower.”
“Sit down,” she said again. She took the washcloth from his hands and finished rinsing it in the sink.
Felipe didn’t move. He stood there, inches away from her, so close she could feel the heat from his body.
“So,” she said, turning off the water and wringing the cloth out, “what on earth made you decide to be a detective in the vice squad? I figure you’re vice, right? That’s where organized crime fits in, doesn’t it?”
She looked steadily up into the warmth of his brown eyes. He looked back searchingly, and then he smiled, a real genuine smile despite his pain. It softened his face and made him seem so much younger.
But he was young, Carrie realized. He probably wasn’t much older than she was—twenty-five. He was twenty-six or twenty-seven at the most.
“You believe me.” It was a statement, but his eyes were full of questions.
“God help me,” Carrie said. “I think I’m starting to. But…” She shook her head, pulling away from the hypnotizing heat of his eyes, turning back to the sink.
“What?”
He touched her. It was just a light hand on her shoulder, just the gentlest of caresses.
“You have a question?” he asked. “I’ll answer anything you want to know, if I can.”
Carrie moved out of reach, crossing her arms in front of her, afraid of the way that touch made her feel. “I still can’t believe anyone would want to kill me,” she said. “I didn’t even get a good look at that muscle man—you know, Tommy Walsh.” She shook her head. “I probably wouldn’t even be able to pick him out in a lineup.”
“Probably,” Felipe said. “Probably’s not good enough for Tommy. He’d kill a blind man at a crime scene simply on the off chance that the man caught a whiff of his cologne. Promise me something, Caroline.”
She looked up at him, and once again was sucked into the intensity of his gaze.
“Promise me you’ll ask Rafe—or anyone else here—about Tommy Walsh,” Felipe said. “Please don’t leave until you hear what the word on the street is about him. Promise me you won’t leave.”
Carrie swallowed. He was so serious, so intense. His hair was slick with perspiration and several stray curls clung to the side of his handsome face. With his midnight eyes, he was willing her to agree.
“Promise me,” he whispered again.
She nodded, not sure whether or not she was lying. “All right.”
But he believed her and relief made him sag. She moved quickly beside him, holding him up.
“Come on,” she said. “You better sit down.”
“Part of my problem,” Felipe said ruefully, “is that I’ve got a bullet where I sit down.”
He did, too. Still have a bullet in his leg, that is. There was an entry wound, but no exit wound. That was bad. That was really bad, especially since he refused to go to the hospital. Carrie helped him into one of the kitchen chairs.
He swore softly in Spanish. The change in his position must’ve hurt like hell. Carrie knelt next to him.
“You’re going to need to get that bullet out,” she said, examining the back of his leg. “This already looks infected.”
He nodded slowly. “Unfortunately, I can’t do it myself.”
“You need a doctor,” Carrie said.
“That’s going to have to wait,” Felipe said.
“Until when?” Carrie asked. “Until after you get so sick you can’t even stand, or until after you die?”
Felipe pushed himself up off the chair. “I need a shower,” he said. “Then I’ll figure out what to do.”
“You’ll need antibiotics, too,” Carrie said. “Where are you going to get them?”
“I don’t know.” Painfully, he reached down to where he’d thrown his pants onto the floor, and dug through his pockets. He pulled out a key.
“Since you trust me,” he said, handing her the key, “it’s only fair that I trust you.” He gestured to the key. “It’s for the dead bol
t on the apartment door.”
Carrie glanced at the door, then back at the shiny key in her hand.
“You promised me you wouldn’t leave,” Felipe reminded her.
He turned, carrying his bloody clothes and his shoulder holster and gun with him to the bathroom. He pushed the door shut behind him, but didn’t latch it.
Carrie heard the water turn on. Slowly, she sat down on the sofa.
Felipe needed a doctor. They both needed some kind of protection from this Tommy Walsh. And—if Felipe’s story really was true—Felipe needed to figure out exactly who in the police department was on Lawrence Richter’s payroll.
Carrie shook her head. It was too much. A few hours ago, her biggest problem had been how to ditch her date without hurting his feelings. Now she was neck-deep in intrigue and murder attempts…and undercover police detectives with charming smiles that could make her melt.
It was getting more and more difficult not to believe Felipe. Was his story really becoming more convincing, or was she simply falling victim to his persuasive eyes?
Still, if she truly were his hostage, he wouldn’t have given her a key to the door. He wouldn’t have risked the possibility of her running away.
A sharp knock on the door broke into her thoughts and made her jump up.
“Who’s there?” she asked, aware once again that she was holding the key. She could actually unlock the door if she wanted to.
“Rafe,” Felipe’s brother’s voice replied. “I’ve brought something for you to eat. Open up.”
Carrie slipped the key into the dead bolt’s lock, but it didn’t fit. She tried again. No, it was definitely the wrong key. “They key doesn’t work,” she said.
“There are two keys,” Rafe said impatiently. “One has a round head, the other is square. The round one opens the dead bolt. The square is for the bathroom door.”
Carrie looked down at the key in her hand. The head was square. Felipe hadn’t given her the key to unlock the apartment door after all.
“The food’s outside the door,” Rafe said, his voice already fading as he walked away.
Nowhere to Run Page 30
