Nowhere to Run

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Carrie nodded.

  “Do you believe him?” Rafe asked.

  But Carrie didn’t have a chance to answer. Felipe came out of the kitchen.

  Part of her did believe him. When he told her he’d been set up, his words had been very persuasive. And the look in his eyes had begged her to trust him. She ought to trust him, considering the way they’d connected. And they had really connected—the proof was in that kiss they’d shared.

  Hoo boy, what a kiss….

  But just because Felipe Salazar had the power to knock her socks off with a kiss didn’t mean that she should simply trust him. And the truth was, her belief in him was based on instinct, on gut reaction alone. It had nothing to do with logic or provable facts.

  And that scared her. How could she believe him when there was no proof to back his words? How could she trust him when all of the data implied that he was not to be trusted?

  She couldn’t. Despite her gut reaction, despite their obvious attraction, she couldn’t let herself trust him. It was that simple.

  “You get what you need?” Rafe asked Felipe, leading them to the front door.

  Felipe nodded. His expression was almost as guarded as Rafe’s. Carrie thought he was trying to hide the pain in his leg until he glanced at her. But with one look at his eyes, she could see that his pain wasn’t from the bullet wound. It was from his disappointment. In her.

  Rafe had stopped in the entry hall. He held a key, but he didn’t attempt to unlock the front door.

  Felipe looked incredible in those blue jeans and that black leather jacket, with his hair loose and flowing around his shoulders. It was different from the way he’d looked in his tuxedo, but no less commanding.

  “Highboy’s got the other key,” Rafe explained. “Until he gets down here, we’re locked in.”

  Locked in?

  Felipe was studying the tips of his borrowed boots, his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his jeans as he leaned against the wall.

  “Locked in?” Carrie asked.

  Felipe still didn’t look up, so she turned questioningly to his brother.

  “Yeah,” Rafe said. “That’s the way the halfway house operates. Door doesn’t open unless both guys who hold the keys can be talked into opening it. See, night can be the worst time for some of the addicts. I know it always was for me—still is sometimes. If the door is locked, and you can’t get out of the house, you can’t give in to the devil. We keep the door locked tight from nine-thirty at night until six in the morning. It helps everyone stay clean. No one comes in or goes out unless it’s an emergency. And it has to be one mother of an emergency.”

  The doors were locked after nine-thirty. Carrie looked at Felipe, who was still studying his boots as Highboy came down the stairs carrying the key.

  Felipe had given her the key to get out of Rafe’s apartment—but only after nine-thirty. She’d thought that he’d set her free, but she had still been a prisoner. She simply hadn’t realized it at the time.

  Highboy unlocked the top bolt; Rafe undid the bottom. The door swung open and Felipe and Carrie stepped outside.

  Carrie’s head was spinning. She took a deep breath, trying to clear it, but the night was warm and the air was tainted with the smell of trash.

  “Raphael,” Felipe said, turning back to his brother. “Gracias.” He held out his hand, but Rafe turned away.

  “Dejame,” Rafe said flatly, closing the door in Felipe’s face.

  The hurt that flashed in Felipe’s eyes was heartbreaking. But Carrie didn’t have time to feel bad. If ever there was an opportunity to get away, it was right at this very moment.

  She started down the sidewalk at a brisk pace, hoping Felipe wouldn’t even notice that she was walking away. But he caught up with her before she’d gone ten yards. He took hold of her arm. “The van’s parked in the alley,” he said. “It’s the other direction.”

  “That’s real nice,” Carrie said, “but I’m not going in the van with you.”

  “Yes,” he said, “you are.” His patience was wearing thin—she could hear it in his voice. He led her around the side of the house to the alley where the van was waiting.

  “So I am your hostage,” she said, steadily meeting his eyes and refusing to be seduced by the heat she could see there. “I have been all along, haven’t I?”

  “Caroline, you’re not a hostage.”

  She looked pointedly down at his hand holding her arm. “Coulda fooled me,” she said.

  Something snapped. She could see it in his eyes, in the tenseness of his jaw.

  “You believed me a half hour ago,” he said tightly.

  “You should have told me you were wanted for murder,” she countered.

  “I didn’t really think they could pull off a frame-up this big—not until I saw it myself,” he said. He laughed harshly. “Ah, the power of television. You’d rather believe what you see on the screen than believe me, no?”

  “How can I believe you?” Carrie asked, “when I don’t even know you?”

  “You know me,” Felipe said, his voice suddenly soft. His dark eyes glittered in the moonlight. “I think you know me quite well, in fact. Trust your heart, Caroline.”

  She closed her eyes, afraid of the hypnotizing power of his gaze, afraid of the magnetic pull of this man, afraid of the way his hold on her arm suddenly felt like a caress.

  But then he let her go. “Okay,” he said, still quietly. “You’re free to go.”

  Carrie opened her eyes in surprise, and he dropped the keys to the van into her hand.

  “There’s one condition,” he said. “You have to get on the interstate heading north. You have to go directly to your father’s home in Montana, tell your father and your brothers everything that’s happened here tonight, and then ask them to protect you. If you won’t let me do it, you’ve got to let them.”

  “I’m just supposed to leave you here?” Carrie asked incredulously. “With a bullet wound in your leg?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t have time to argue with you,” he said. “Especially not out here in the open like this, where anyone can see me. I’ve got an awful lot to do tonight. My first priority is to make sure you’re safe. My second is to stay alive so that tomorrow I can get to my third priority—clearing my name. So kiss me goodbye and get the hell out of here.”

  Carrie looked from the keys in her hand, to the van, then back to Felipe. His number-one priority was her safety. In fact, he’d given up his one means of escape for her. Without the van, he’d be forced to take public transportation and risk being spotted by some vigilant citizen who’d seen the evening news. Of course, he could always travel by foot—although how far he’d get on his injured leg was uncertain.

  He looked pale in the moonlight, and she could see that he was perspiring again. The pain from his bullet wound had to have been excruciating. He was just barely standing on his feet. How could she just drive away from him?

  His eyes held no reproach, no recriminations. She could see only gentleness and warmth.

  “Go,” he whispered. “Godspeed, Caroline Brooks.”

  But Carrie didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay. She didn’t want to have to rely on her family for protection—not when she had the best possible protection right here in St. Simone.

  Her feelings weren’t scientific. They weren’t based on fact or data or any kind of proof. For the first time in years, Carrie was rejecting the obvious and trusting her heart.

  She took several steps forward, closing the gap between them, stood on her toes and kissed him.

  She could taste his surprise. Nevertheless, he pulled her to him and kissed her, too. It was a long, slow, deep kiss, a sweet kiss, perhaps the sweetest she’d ever known.

  He was kissing her goodbye, Carrie realized suddenly. He was giving her a kiss to last a lifetime, a kiss to remember him by.

  He held her close, as if gathering his strength to push her away. “Don’t stop for anything until you’re out of state,” he
said, his voice husky.

  She looked up at him and could actually see tears in his eyes.

  “After you’re out of Florida,” he continued, “get rid of the van—leave it in some neighborhood just parked on the street. Then take a bus. Pay in cash and don’t use your real name.” He released her, digging into the back pocket of his jeans for his wallet. “I’m going to give you some money—”

  “No,” Carrie said. There were tears in her own eyes now. He was giving her the van and some money, too? She wiped at her eyes fiercely with the back of her hand.

  Felipe shook his head. “Caroline, you’re going to need—”

  “Get in the van,” she said, unlocking the passenger-side door. “I’m driving.”

  He stepped forward and touched the side of her face. “As much as I’d like to, I can’t go to Montana with you.”

  “I’m not going to Montana,” she said, then smiled at the hope that sprang into his eyes. He was trying to control it, trying not to allow himself to assume anything. “I’m safer with you,” she added. “My brothers are lousy shots.”

  He nodded slowly, as if he was taking her words very seriously. “You’ve decided to believe me?” he said.

  “Is there anything else that you’ve neglected to tell me?” she asked. “Any other sensational murders or maybe a kidnapped child or two in your basement? Or maybe you’ve been keeping secrets from me about your health. Any brain tumors or terminal illnesses you’ve been hiding?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Nothing of that great a magnitude.”

  “Then get in the van,” she said, hoping to hell that she wasn’t going to regret this.

  FELIPE SAT LOW in the passenger seat of the cargo van so that no one could see him. He didn’t like that he wasn’t driving. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in a car but not behind the wheel—excluding rides in Richter’s limousine, of course.

  He watched Carrie as she drove. She’d had to shift the driver’s seat way up close to the steering wheel, but she drove the oversize vehicle with all the confidence and skill of an experienced truck driver.

  This was a far cry from the little red sports car she’d had all those months ago at Sea Circus, when they’d first met. Still, someone who owned a precision automobile like Carrie’s had to care about her car. And, in Felipe’s experience, people who cared about their cars tended to know how to drive, and drive well. And usually fast. Her two speeding tickets verified that fact—although at the moment she was keeping their speed slightly below the limit. The time they’d save by going faster wasn’t worth the risk of getting pulled over.

  Carrie glanced over at him. He tried to smile, but the muscles in his face weren’t working quite the way they should have been.

  “You okay?” she asked, concern thickening her already husky voice, accentuating her slight Western drawl. She sounded a little bit—just a little bit—like Lauren Bacall trying to imitate John Wayne. On a woman of her less-than-imposing size, with all that silky blond hair and those enormous blue eyes, the effect was utterly charming.

  “My leg hurts,” Felipe admitted. Hurts was an enormous understatement. The damn thing throbbed steadily with a knifelike pain. And, as a bonus, he felt nauseated from the antibiotic Doc Bird had given him. He was supposed to take one of the capsules four times a day to keep his wound from becoming infected. Doc Bird had given him a ten-day supply of the medicine.

  Ten days. He could only hope he lived that long.

  Man, he was exhausted.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Carrie asked quietly. She glanced at him again, and this time he managed to smile.

  “You’re doing it,” he said.

  “Where are we going?” she asked. “Besides south?”

  “Sanibel Island,” he told her. “Diego’s in-laws own a beach house out there. It’s empty at this time of year. We can hide there, at least overnight.”

  She nodded, her eyes carefully on the highway.

  He took out the tape recorder that Rafe had given him. It was small and cheap and at least twenty-five years old. But it would get the job done.

  “If you don’t mind,” Felipe said, “I’d like to record that information about Richter’s operation.”

  “In case you’re not around to do it in person,” Carrie said, glancing over at him.

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “But you will be,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said with more certainty in his voice than he felt. “But I would hate not to make this tape, and then be wrong.”

  “Rafe thinks we don’t stand a chance, doesn’t he?”

  We. Felipe liked the sound of that. She was on his side. “My brother is a pessimist,” he said.

  “But you’re not,” she answered back.

  “We’re still alive, aren’t we?” he declared. “Against all odds, our hearts are still beating. Either we’re lucky, or God’s got a reason for keeping us around.”

  “God?” she said, turning to look at him in the darkness.

  “Don’t you believe in God?” he asked. “Some god, any god? Some force bigger than we are?”

  She turned her head away from him as if she was embarrassed. “Gee, I don’t know.”

  “Too bad,” Felipe said, studying her profile as she drove. He adored the way her nose turned up very slightly at the end. “I’ve found believing is helpful in times like this.”

  She glanced back at him again. “I’m…surprised,” she said.

  Felipe smiled. “That’s good,” he said. “I’d hate to be boring.”

  Caroline laughed, a low, husky sound that hit him low in the gut and spread all the way out to his fingers and toes. Man, bullet wound or not, he would have sold his soul right at that moment for a chance to finish what they’d started with a kiss back in Rafe’s apartment. His borrowed blue jeans were getting tighter and more uncomfortable by the second. But at least it took his mind off the pain in his leg.

  “Believe me,” she said. “You’re not boring.” She looked over at him, but quickly focused on the road again, as if she could see his desire simmering in his eyes. She probably could. He wasn’t very good at hiding that sort of thing. “Go on and make your tape,” she added. “I’d like to know why someone’s trying to kill you—and me.”

  Felipe looked down at the tape recorder, and ejected the tape that his brother had put inside. It needed to be rewound to the beginning, so he put it back in and pushed the rewind button. Then he pressed Record and Play and silently counted to five to let the leader run out.

  “My name is Felipe Ricardo Salazar, and I am a police detective with the Fourth Precinct in St. Simone,” he said, speaking clearly into the machine’s built-in microphone, still watching Caroline as he talked. “Today is January 17, 11:45 p.m.

  “Early August of last year, I went under cover to infiltrate Lawrence Richter’s crime syndicate. Posing as Raoul Tomás Garcia Vasquez, I have spent the past five months winning both Tommy Walsh’s and Lawrence Richter’s confidence.”

  Felipe took a deep breath. “Two months ago, I learned of a scam that I believe Richter has been operating for nearly a decade here in Florida. He imports illegal aliens from Cuba and Haiti and other Caribbean islands, and even from as far away as Mexico, charging them exorbitant prices for a so-called safe passage and entry into the United States. After they arrive, having spent every penny of their life savings, they are told of other, equally exorbitant fees for forged green cards that will enable them to stay. Richter’s men sign a contract with these people, trading their future wages for these coveted—and counterfeit, therefore worthless—green cards.”

  Carrie drew in a sharp breath, again glancing over at Felipe.

  “In short,” he said, nodding grimly at her, “it’s a form of indentured servitude, or should I say slavery? Richter currently has a work force of over twenty-two hundred illegal aliens—including children. Child labour laws don’t apply to children who technically don’t exist.”


  “That’s awful,” Carrie murmured.

  “I’ve seen the below-poverty conditions that these people live in,” Felipe continued, watching the impact his words had on her through the expressions on her face. “Most of them are housed in run-down buildings that Richter has bought in the worst neighborhoods in the city. These buildings have no running water, no electricity and no hope of ever being renovated. They are scheduled to be torn down, but Richter has orchestrated a series of delays in the legal proceedings surrounding their condemnation. It could be literally years before the buildings are destroyed, and by that time, Richter will have purchased—dirt cheap—other equally squalid buildings.

  “Most of these apartment buildings are between Howard and Stern Streets, on First and Second Avenues.” He sighed. “Although by the time you hear this tape, all the illegal tenants will probably have been moved.

  “Garrett Hedford and Stuart Tiffler are two of Richter’s men who use intimidation to keep the work force in line,” he continued. “They also schedule the arrival of additional boatloads of people. In the past two months, I’ve seen ships arriving in both Miami and Fort Myers.” Quickly, he rattled off the information on the ships’ names and ports of call.

  “I’ve seen copies of Richter’s books,” he said, shifting in his seat, trying to ease the endless throbbing in his leg. “He grosses over two hundred thousand dollars each month from these people, his slaves. I’ve witnessed him giving orders to both Hedford and Tiffler, as well as Tommy Walsh. I’ve witnessed the production of the counterfeit green cards, and their distribution to the illegal aliens. I’ve witnessed the signing of contracts, indenturing these people to Richter—although his name is not used. A corporate front, called L&R Co. is used, and it virtually cannot be traced to Lawrence Richter. At least not without me around. I’ve witnessed Richter transferring funds from the L&R account to his Swiss bank account.”

  “Felipe.”

  He turned off the tape recorder, looking up at Caroline. “Yes?”

  “If you know all this,” she asked, “what were you waiting for? You’d seen enough to put Richter away.”