Nowhere to Run

by Suzanne Brockmann

  So much for Felipe trusting her…

  Carrie turned and looked at the bathroom door. It was ajar, and she could clearly hear the shower still running.

  Lord, maybe she was his hostage. Maybe everything he’d told her was one great big lie.

  Angrily, she marched to the bathroom door and pushed it open.

  Felipe was in the shower, eyes closed, hands braced against the tile wall as he let the water stream down onto his head. She could see him clearly through the plastic shower curtain. He was naked, of course. He was very, very naked.

  Which made sense, again of course, because he was in the shower.

  The bathroom door slowly swung all the way open and hit the wall with a thud.

  Felipe looked up and directly into Carrie’s eyes.

  For one heart-stopping moment, the rest of the world ceased to exist. Tommy Walsh and Lawrence Richter and all the car chases and gunfire and anger and mistrust vanished, swirling down the drain with the blood-tinged water. Carrie was all that was left behind—Carrie, and this incredible-looking man, with his seemingly perfect, gentle smile and kind brown eyes.

  But he wasn’t smiling now, and his eyes couldn’t possibly be described as kind. Hot, yes. Intense, definitely. Passionate, absolutely.

  He made no effort to cover himself. Clearly, he was comfortable with his body—and why shouldn’t he be, with a body like that? He had muscular legs, narrow hips, a flat stomach with a full array of washboardlike muscles. His chest was wide, his shoulders were broad and his arms were powerful-looking.

  His skin was smooth and slick with water, accentuating the planes and angles and curves of his muscles. He didn’t have a tan line—either he sunbathed nude, or his skin was naturally a beautiful golden brown.

  Felipe slicked his hair back out of his face and turned off the water. With one movement of his hand, he pushed the shower curtains open. Steam billowed into the tiny bathroom, following him as he stepped out of the tub, making him seem mystical and savage.

  He reached for a towel and wrapped it around his waist, careful of his injured leg. “Is there a problem?” he asked in his gentle, musical accent.

  For heaven’s sake, she was standing there like a ninny, with her mouth hanging open, just staring at him as if she’d never seen a naked man before in her life.

  She’d never seen one like Felipe, that was for sure.

  “You gave me the wrong key,” she said. Her voice came out sounding squeaky, not accusing or outraged the way she’d intended.

  Water ran in tiny rivulets from his shoulders, down his neatly sculpted chest, up and down the ripples of his abdominal muscles and into the towel, knotted casually beneath his belly button. He had an exceptionally nice-looking belly button.

  “You promised you wouldn’t leave,” Felipe said.

  Carrie jerked her eyes up from where she’d been staring at his smooth, perfect stomach. “I didn’t promise I wouldn’t let your brother in,” she said. “He brought up some food, and I couldn’t unlock the door.”

  “You couldn’t?” He sounded surprised.

  “You knew perfectly well I couldn’t,” she said. He took another towel and began drying his dripping hair. “There were two keys—you purposely gave me the wrong one.”

  He was watching her. His eyes didn’t give away either his guilt or his innocence. “My mistake,” he said quietly.

  A mistake? Carrie wasn’t so sure. She couldn’t believe this man ever made any mistakes.

  Felipe had hung his torn and dirty tuxedo pants on the back of the bathroom door, along with his holster and gun. He reached into the pants pocket and took out another key.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, handing it to Carrie. “Please don’t mistrust me because of this.”

  The key in her hand had a round head. It would unlock the dead bolt and let her out of Rafe’s apartment.

  “You’re going to let me walk out of here?” she asked.

  “You promised not to leave,” he said. “You’re a smart lady, Caroline. I don’t think you will leave—not after you hear what my brother and his friends have to say about Tommy Walsh. And if you do decide you have to leave, I hope you’ll be smart enough to go home to Montana.”

  “How did you know I’m from Montana?” she asked suspiciously.

  He looped the second towel around his neck and sat gingerly on top of the closed toilet. He was hurting, but he still managed to smile at her. “After our first meeting at Sea Circus,” he said, “I was…intrigued, shall we say? I went back—and not just to make sure you were all right, although I went back for that reason, too.”

  “If you’re really a cop,” Carrie said, searching his eyes for something, anything that would convince her he was telling the truth, “why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you introduce yourself to me?”

  “I should have,” he said simply. There were pages of meaning compressed into those three little words. His eyes caressed her face and Carrie had to look away. “I loved watching you with the dolphins,” he added. “I’ve always wanted to swim with dolphins, but I think I’d draw the line at getting into the tank with the killer whales—what were their names? Biffy and Louise?”

  She looked back up at him. “You really were there,” she said. “Weren’t you?”

  Felipe nodded. “I came more than once,” he said, “although I tried not to. I thought knowing me would be dangerous for you.” He smiled ruefully. “Looks like I was right.”

  “Nothing at Sea Circus mentions that I’m from Montana,” Carrie said. “Was that just a good guess?”

  “No,” he said. “Don’t be angry, but I looked you up in the police computer. I also found out that you have the habit of driving too fast on I-75. Two speeding tickets in the course of one week. Eighty-one one day, seventy-nine the next.” He shook his head, making tsking sounds. “Shame on you, Miss Brooks.”

  He was hiding a smile, but that smile finally slipped out. Carrie found herself smiling back at him.

  “I have no excuse,” she said, “and obviously I didn’t learn my lesson, did I? I slowed down, but not by much.”

  “I took care of the tickets for you,” Felipe said. “It was the least I could do after locking you in your trunk.”

  Carrie’s smile faded. “Was that really necessary?” she asked. “I mean, assuming you really are a police detective, and assuming you really were under cover that night at Sea Circus. What do you really think would have happened if you hadn’t locked me in the trunk of my car?”

  Felipe sighed. “I am a police detective,” he said, clearly disappointed that she still doubted him. “I was under cover that night. And if I hadn’t put you in the trunk where you were safe, well, those men I was with? They were not very nice men. I would have had to hurt them. Or worse. Because I would not have let them hurt you.”

  It was very hard not to believe him, not when he sat there, gazing up at her with that protective light in his eyes.

  I would not have let them hurt you.

  Carrie could almost believe it. She wanted to believe it.

  “Talk to Rafe,” Felipe said. “Talk to some of the other men who live here. Ask them about Tommy Walsh. Then come back and talk to me. Okay?”

  Carrie nodded. Okay.

  She turned and walked out of the bathroom. She could feel his eyes watching her as she crossed to the apartment door. She could feel him watching as she turned the key, unlocking the bolt. She glanced back once, then slipped out the door.

  FELIPE SCRAMBLED for the living room, searching for a clock. There was one on the VCR—it read 9:36 p.m.

  Thank God.

  The halfway house was locked up tight from nine-thirty every night until six in the morning.

  Carrie wouldn’t be able to leave the building even if she wanted to—not without a great deal of trouble anyway. She certainly wouldn’t be able to simply walk away.

  And that was good, because Felipe couldn’t let her leave. He would not let her get killed, even if that meant
locking her up, holding her prisoner. Even if it meant that she would hate him.

  Better that she hated him and stayed alive, than loved him and died.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CARRIE HADN’T REALLY NOTICED when she’d first come in, but now she realized the entire halfway house was as spotlessly clean and orderly as Rafe’s apartment. The halls and stairway were swept and brightly lit, and the walls wore a fresh coat of paint.

  She wandered down past a large common room and into the kitchen. Highboy was cleaning the stove, an apron tied carefully around his wide expanse.

  Rafe was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a diet cola straight from the can. He looked up as Carrie lingered in the doorway.

  “Is he okay?” Rafe asked without greeting. They both knew who he was talking about. Felipe.

  Carrie shook her head. “He’s still got a bullet in his leg,” she said. “Not only does it hurt him, but it’s going to make him sick.”

  Rafe blinked. “I know what a bullet does, what it can do,” he said. He turned to the man cleaning the stove, and spoke to him in Spanish.

  The man nodded and left the room, squeezing past Carrie, who still stood in the doorway.

  “Gracias,” Rafe called after him. He looked at Carrie. “We have a former medical doctor in residence. He spent about four years in service in ’Nam. He’ll know how to take care of a bullet wound. He owes me, big time. This will make us even.”

  “May I sit down?” Carrie asked.

  Rafe shrugged. “It’s a free country. Sit where you want.”

  Carrie came into the kitchen and sat down at the table across from him. The kitchen was as immaculate as the rest of the house—maybe even more so. From somewhere, maybe the common room down the hall, came the sound of canned TV laughter.

  “This is a nice place,” Carrie said.

  Rafe laughed derisively. “That surprises you,” he said. “No, don’t deny it, I know it does. You think, ex-cons, recovering addicts and alcoholics, and you automatically think dump, right? Yeah.” He laughed again. “The problem is, some of the time you’re right. But not here.” He sat forward, leaning toward her across the table, his flat brown eyes oddly alight. “One of the things you need to learn when you’re an addict is self-respect. You think anyone who truly respects themselves would shoot themselves full of crap? No way. So how do you learn to respect yourself? One of the things you do is take pride in where you live. You don’t live in a dump. You keep your place clean. And then you look around and you say, ‘Hey, I live in this nice place, so maybe I’m worth something after all. What do you know?’”

  Carrie didn’t speak. She wasn’t sure what to say. She could feel Rafe Salazar’s eyes studying her.

  “Forty-eight hours,” he said suddenly.

  She looked up at him. “Excuse me?”

  “That’s my prediction,” he said with a wolfish grin. “My little brother’s gonna get you into bed with him in the next forty-eight hours.”

  Carrie felt herself blush, but she held her chin up and looked him straight in the eye. “You’re wrong,” she said. “But wrong or right, I really don’t think that it’s any of your business.”

  “You look like one of those little blond angels we used to hang on our Christmas tree,” Rafe mused. “Even when he was a kid, Felipe liked the little blond angels. He’s not going to be able to resist you, angel. If you don’t want him in your bed, you’re gonna have to work hard at keeping your distance.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” Carrie said dryly. “You have any additional words of wisdom to share with me about this Tommy Walsh guy?”

  “Why’s he after you?” Rafe asked.

  Good question. “I was there when Felipe’s cover was blown,” Carrie said. “I think your brother had infiltrated some crime boss’s organization—”

  “Lawrence Richter,” Rafe broke in, supplying the name.

  “That’s right,” Carrie said. “Felipe says he has enough information to put both Walsh and Richter away.”

  “And you were there when Felipe’s cover was blown?” Rafe repeated. “How much ‘there’?”

  Carrie made herself steadily meet his eyes as she confessed, “I, um, blew his cover.”

  Rafe didn’t say anything for several long moments. He took a sip from his can of soda and put it carefully down on the table, turning it so that the label was directly in front of him.

  “Well, angel,” he finally said, “if I were you, I’d think about getting my personal effects and last will and testament in order.”

  Carrie had been holding her breath, but now she let it out in a ragged swoosh of air. “That bad, huh?”

  “You have two options,” Rafe said. “Either you change your identity and disappear, or…Walsh finds you and you die.”

  “Even though I’m not positive I could ID him?” Carrie asked.

  “Walsh wasted a six-year-old for witnessing a hit,” Rafe said. “He’s got to do Felipe—he’s got no choice, not if Felipe can put Richter in jail. But my little brother’s a cop. Killing him’s a capital offense. We’re talking mandatory death sentence. You’d be able to tie Walsh to Felipe’s death. Walsh probably doesn’t like the idea of the electric chair, so he’s got to do you, too.”

  “But Felipe’s not dead,” Carrie said.

  “Yet,” Rafe finished grimly. “I knew the estúpido sonuvabitch would get himself into something like this someday. I swear to God—” He looked up at Carrie, stopping abruptly. “There’s something that you should know about my little brother.”

  Carrie waited for him to explain.

  “He expects everybody to be the same kind of saint that he is,” Rafe said. “It’s impossible to live up to his expectations.” He smiled, but it was humorless. “No doubt you’ll disappoint him too, angel, when he finds out you’re just human, a mere mortal like the rest of us.”

  “Can you really blame him for being disappointed and mistrustful of you?” Carrie asked Rafe quietly.

  Her words struck home. She could see it in the tension in his face and shoulders, but Rafe shook his head. “He scorns me because I am an addict. A recovering addict, but an addict just the same. But you know what?” Rafe added. “Felipe, he’s an addict, too. He’s addicted to living on the edge. He’s addicted to danger. Either that, or he’s got some kind of sick death wish, no? What kind of man would try to bring Richter and Walsh down? What kind of man would put himself eyeball-deep in that kind of danger?”

  “A brave man,” Carrie answered. “A man who wants to help and protect innocent people.”

  As she spoke those words defending Felipe, Carrie realized that she believed him. She believed he was a cop. She believed what he’d said about Richter and Walsh. She believed everything Felipe had told her.

  Rafe laughed and laughed. “Ah, angel, you’ve already bought into the saint story, huh?”

  It was something of a relief, believing Felipe. She could rely on him to protect her from Tommy Walsh. She could quit fighting him, quit searching for a way to escape. She could let herself trust him. And she could stop worrying so much about the powerful attraction that sparked between them every time their eyes met….

  “You’re not so different from your brother,” Carrie observed. “You help people, too.”

  “Felipe doesn’t see it that way,” Rafe said. “To him, I’m just a time bomb, ready to explode and start smoking crack again. He can’t see past what I was.”

  “That’s because you hurt and disappointed him when he was a child,” Carrie said. “You can’t expect him just to forget that.”

  “He’ll never forget,” Rafe said bitterly. “He’ll never forgive me.”

  Exasperated, Carrie stood up, shoving her chair away from the table with a screech. “If you really want him to forgive you, you might try being a little nicer to him,” she said sharply. “Good Lord, Felipe walks in here with a bullet in his leg, needing help, and you insult him and argue with him and are downright mean to him. Maybe you’re the one wh
o won’t forgive and forget.”

  She pushed her chair back under the table and strode out of the room.

  Rafe’s harsh laughter followed her down the hall. “An angel for the saint,” he said. “It’s perfect. Did I say forty-eight hours? I’m gonna change that prediction to twenty-four.”

  Carrie ignored him, hurrying up the stairs.

  FELIPE’S LEG was throbbing, and he was so nauseated he was sure he must look green. But the bullet was out of his leg, thanks to a tall, heavyset man who called himself Doc Bird.

  He’d given Felipe something to bite down on as he dug for the bullet. It had been a grueling two minutes, but only two minutes. One hundred and twenty seconds of hell. It could’ve been far worse.

  Once more, Felipe was drenched with sweat. But he doubted he could stand up and take another shower. Besides, the stitches Doc Bird had put into his leg had come with instructions not to get them wet for at least a day if not two.

  He pushed the hair out of his eyes and tried to focus on the clock on the VCR. It was nearly ten o’clock. Where was Caroline?

  Another ten minutes, and pain or no pain, nausea or no nausea, he was going to go looking for her. Until then, he had to find something to distract himself.

  He checked out the pile of newspapers on the coffee table. The top paper had a headline about St. Simone’s newly appointed chief of police, a man named Earley.

  Felipe knew him. He’d met him at least half a dozen times, maybe more. He was a little too conservative, a little too old-fashioned and probably exactly what the city needed in a police chief.

  He picked up the paper, but the tiny print made his eyes swim and he threw it back on the table. Instead, he picked up the remote control and switched on the television.

  The Fox affiliate carried a ten o’clock news program. Curious to see if the news had been released about his so-called connection to the Sandlot Murders, he switched to that station.

  The program was just starting. The lead story concerned an outbreak of salmonella poisoning at a local nursing home. Three elderly people had already died, dozens more were ill.