Nowhere to Run

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Quickly they went in through the open gate, and Carrie keyed in the numbers to close the gate and reactivate the alarm system. The light flashed yellow, then red, then yellow, then red.

  What the hell…?

  Then all over the park, bright spotlights came on, and sirens began to wail as the alarm went off.

  “I did it right!” Carrie cried. “I know I did it right! Someone must’ve changed the access code!”

  Felipe grabbed her hand, and again they were running, this time across the brightly lit marine park.

  He was heading toward the fence that separated the park from the beach below. He was trying to reach the ocean and the escape it promised, despite the threat of helicopters and their searchlights.

  But they weren’t even halfway there when Carrie saw a police car skid onto the beach, tires sending showers of sand behind it. Felipe saw it, too, and swerved to the left, going deeper into the park.

  All around them, outside the fence, police cars were pulling up, tires squealing. Felipe went around the side of the main aquarium tank and stopped for breath, holding Carrie tightly against him.

  “You’ve got to hide,” he said. “This is it, Caroline. They’ve got me. Let me at least save you—”

  “We’ve been through this once already,” Carrie said sharply. “Nothing’s changed.”

  “Yes, it has,” he said. “They know where we are. We’re trapped.”

  “You hide with me,” she said, “or I don’t hide at all.”

  His hand was shaking as he pushed his hair back from his face. “Dammit, Caroline—”

  “I know a place they’ll never think to look,” she said.

  Taking his hand, she pulled him along with her faster and faster across the park. And then she stopped—directly in front of the killer whale tank.

  THE KILLER WHALE TANK.

  Caroline wanted them to hide in the killer whale tank.

  Felipe would’ve laughed if he had had the time.

  Outside the park, Felipe could hear the sound of the police, lots and lots of police, so many that he could hear them over the shrieking of the alarm. They were getting ready to come inside. There wasn’t any time left.

  “This is nuts,” he said.

  “No, it’s not,” Carrie said. “There’s a place in the tank that can’t be seen even from inside the downstairs underwater viewing room. It’s a place that’s covered by the planks of a walkway. We can stay at the surface, holding on to the edge of the tank. No one will ever find us.”

  “Except the killer whales,” Felipe said, letting her pull him into a door marked Park Personnel Only.

  “Move slowly and calmly inside the tank, and everything will be fine,” Carrie said, leading him up a set of stairs and through a control room that contained sound equipment and a microphone for the marine show. A small window overlooked the tank. The counter in front of it was covered with piles of cassette tapes. “Biffy and Louise are very gentle.”

  “Caroline—”

  “Trust me,” she said, squeezing his hand. “It’s your turn to trust me.”

  She pulled him out onto the boardwalk that ran along the edge of the tank. It was slick with water from the waves and foam splashing up onto it. Felipe’s eyes widened at the sight of these two enormous beasts who were leaping out of the water, jaws open and big teeth bared.

  Gentle? These creatures were gentle?

  “They’re just upset by the noise,” Carrie said. “Come on.” Sitting down, she dangled her feet in the water, then slipped over the side and into the tank.

  Felipe heard the main gate burst open.

  Carrie was watching him, holding out her hand to him.

  Trust me.

  She’d trusted him when he pulled her down into that crawl space at the beach house. She’d trusted him with her life ever since that fateful meeting at the restaurant. If she said the killer whales were gentle, then the killer whales were gentle.

  Felipe took the cassette tape from his pocket and held it up so that Caroline could see it. “I can’t take this into the water,” he said. “I’m going to hide it.”

  She smiled. “In plain view,” she said.

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “Hurry.”

  He hurried. Back inside the control room, he put his tape toward the far end of the counter, on the bottom of one of the piles of tapes.

  Caroline was still waiting for him at the edge of the pool. Behind her, the killer whales belly flopped into the water, creating a maelstrom.

  “Quickly,” she said.

  Felipe went into the water, boots and backpack and all. The water was cold, colder than he expected. And his clothes and boots weighed him down.

  At least the alarms were muffled under the water. Yet to a marine animal used to quiet stillness, they must have been terribly loud and confusing.

  Carrie swam in front of him and he opened his eyes and followed her. With her long, blond hair floating around her, she looked like some sea creature, a mermaid or sea sprite, luring him down to his death.

  But that wasn’t true. She was luring him away from his death and—

  Felipe came face-to-face with a killer whale and froze. It opened its mouth as if to snap him in two, yet still he couldn’t move. His lungs were bursting from lack of oxygen as he stared at its beady little eye.

  And then, suddenly, Caroline was there, next to him.

  She touched the Orca, gave it some kind of signal, then took Felipe’s hand and pulled him toward the surface, safely underneath the boardwalk.

  Felipe grabbed the side of the tank and drew in a deep, clean breath, gasping and filling his lungs again and again with precious air. Caroline was there next to him, holding him, pushing his wet hair back from his face, murmuring words of encouragement.

  But no sooner had he started to catch his breath than the water in the tank started sloshing around again. Waves slapped him in the face.

  “What’s going on…?” he gasped.

  Carrie pressed her mouth against his ear. “I told Biffy to keep on jumping into the air,” she said. “It’s one of the moves we’ve trained them to do. It’s featured in the Sea Circus show. It makes them look very ferocious.”

  “They don’t need to try to look ferocious,” Felipe muttered, shivering as the cool night breeze hit his wet head and face. He looked up at the boardwalk. It wasn’t more than eighteen inches overhead, slick and dripping with moisture. It seemed dark and cramped and confining. “This doesn’t bother you?” he asked.

  Caroline shook her head. “Not as long as I’m in the water,” she said. “As long as I have space to move my arms and legs, as long as I don’t feel restricted, I’m fine.”

  Across the park, the alarms were shut off. The sudden silence was odd. It felt heavy and threatening.

  “You did the right thing when Biffy approached you,” Caroline said almost silently, her mouth against his ear again. “You didn’t move quickly or panic.”

  Felipe had to smile. “I didn’t move quickly because I couldn’t move at all,” he whispered back into her ear. “I believe what I did is called ‘being frozen with fear.’”

  “You’re that afraid,” Carrie asked, “yet you’d get into a tank with them?”

  “I trust you,” Felipe said, pulling back his head to look into her eyes.

  Her hair was plastered against her head, and beads of water were caught in her long eyelashes. She looked so beautiful, so delicate, so small and fragile. She was all of those things, yet she was also the toughest, most determined fighter he’d ever met. He would have quit twice already tonight. True, he would have quit purely to save Caroline’s life, to give her a chance to get away. But she wouldn’t give up; she wouldn’t give in.

  So here he was, in a killer whale tank, praying harder than he’d prayed in a long time that somehow, some way they’d pull this off.

  Caroline’s arms were around him, helping him keep his head above the surface. Even though he was holding on to the s
ide of the tank, the water dragged at his jeans and boots and the backpack, pulling him under.

  Felipe could feel the muscles in her arms. Man, she was strong. She might’ve been little, but she could more than pull her weight.

  She leaned forward to kiss him. Her lips, her nose, her face were cold against his, but her mouth was warm, and he closed his eyes, losing himself in her sweetness.

  But then she pulled back, and he heard footsteps on the boardwalk above.

  Carrie motioned for him to take a deep breath and sink beneath the water. All he had to do was let go of the side, and he sank nearly to the bottom of the tank. Carrie reached for his hands, and her added buoyancy pulled him back up a bit.

  With her hair a cloud of gold around her face, she did look like a mermaid. A mermaid in overalls. She smiled at him, and right at that moment, he loved her so much, he could have wept.

  Te amo, too, she said. She loved him, too.

  Somehow she’d figured out the translation from Spanish to English. Somehow he’d given himself away.

  Felipe’s lungs started to hurt, to burn, yet still he and Caroline stayed underneath the water. He dragged his gaze away from her face and looked up to the surface of the water. As he watched, the shadowy shapes he could barely see through the slats of the boardwalk moved away.

  Carrie was watching, too, and as he looked back at her, she nodded, gesturing with her head toward the surface. She helped pull him up toward the air, and silently, they surfaced.

  Felipe could hear Captain Swick’s voice as well as Chief Earley’s. He recognized Captain Patterson as well as a number of detectives from the Fourth Precinct.

  And then a new voice joined them—Jim Keegan’s.

  “The dogs have picked up a fresh scent outside the fence, south of the park,” he said in his familiar New York accent. “Our theory is that they worked their way around the perimeter, climbing along the chain link of the fence, clinging to it, you know, so the dogs couldn’t track them along the ground.”

  Swick swore long and hard.

  “That’s why we lost their trail for so long,” Jim said. “But the tracker thinks we’ve picked it up now. We’ve wasted a lot of time in here, sir. They’re out there making good their escape. Shouldn’t we get moving?”

  “All right,” Swick said. “Let’s head south. Shut this place down.”

  The voices moved away.

  Felipe turned to find Caroline watching him, her eyes wide. “Someone intentionally led those dogs off the track,” she whispered.

  “Jim Keegan,” Felipe said. “Diego. He came through for me.”

  “He must really believe in you,” Carrie said quietly.

  Jim wasn’t the only one who believed in him. Caroline believed in him, too.

  Jim’s loyalty wasn’t a surprise—after all, he’d been Felipe’s friend for years. But only a few days ago, Caroline had been ready to run away from him, ready to think the worst. Now, not only was she willing to risk her life to help him, but she trusted him enough to let herself fall in love with him.

  It was exhilarating, and terrifying.

  She loved him.

  It was enough to make him feel as if he owned the world—if he lived in the kind of world that could be owned. But he didn’t. His world, his life, owned him.

  Caroline loved him, but he could give her nothing in return. Nothing but heartache and misery.

  As Felipe listened, the police officers left the marine park. The gate was closed, the alarm system reactivated, and one by one, the lights were shut off, leaving only dim security lighting up and running.

  Still, he clung to the edge of the killer whale tank, one arm around Caroline, listening and waiting, until they were sure they were alone.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THERE WERE TOWELS in the control room.

  Carrie stripped down to her bathing suit and dried herself off. It was chilly tonight. She took an extra towel to dry her hair, shivering slightly at the cold concrete under her feet and the coolness of the air.

  Felipe was quietly taking off his own clothes, wringing out his jeans and laying them out to dry with the other things that had been in his backpack.

  He glanced at her in the dim light. His eyes were unreadable, but really, what did she expect? They’d just done a triathlon—running, swimming and confessing their innermost feelings. None of it could have been easy for him—certainly not knowing that she’d managed to translate his “untranslatable” Spanish phrase.

  Te amo.

  She’d suspected its meaning. She’d guessed and she’d hoped, but it wasn’t until they were running for their lives that he’d said it again and she’d known.

  Te amo. I love you.

  As Carrie watched, Felipe stripped naked, quickly drying himself off and tying a towel around his waist. But still he didn’t say a single word.

  “How’s your leg?” she finally asked.

  He lifted the edge of the towel, turning to show her the wound. It looked angry and sore. “The salt water from the tank stung,” he said. “But I’m okay. I thought maybe the stitches opened up from all that running, but they didn’t.” He looked over at her again. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded. “You probably want to get out of here right away,” she said. “We’ll need something to wear. My wet suit’s hanging by the dolphin tank, but there’s probably one in here that’ll fit you. George’s or Simon’s or—”

  “No,” he said. “No, we’re in no hurry. I’d be willing to bet Tommy Walsh and his men are somewhere on the other side of that fence, on the off chance we’re still in here. No, we’ll stay here tonight and leave in the rush of the crowd tomorrow.”

  Walsh. Outside the fence, waiting for them. Carrie shivered again, wrapping the towel more tightly around her. “Won’t Walsh still be watching for us in the morning?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Felipe said. “He probably will. And so will the police—particularly after they don’t find us tonight.”

  Carrie was silent, letting his words digest. “So,” she finally said, glancing up to find him still watching her, “really, what you’re saying is we’re not out of danger.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but no, we’re not.” He raked his wet hair back, out of his eyes. “I’m not going to lie to you, Caroline. There’s a good chance we won’t make it out of this park tomorrow,” he said. “If Walsh is smart—and he is—he’ll make arrangements for a sharpshooter to be near every entrance. And he’ll have people watching for us—for me. It’ll be a race to see who spots me first—Walsh’s men or the police.”

  It didn’t matter who found him first. Either way he’d be dead. He’d be killed immediately if it was Walsh who spotted him first, or he’d be killed later that day or the next if it was the police.

  “Caroline.” She looked up into the velvet blackness of his eyes. “I want to play that tape for you.”

  She shook her head. “There’s no tape player,” she said.

  He stared around the room. “All this equipment, and there’s no tape deck?”

  “It’s locked up in the main office,” she said. She gestured around the room. “All this other stuff is underwater recording equipment and cameras. It doesn’t have a lot of value in the local pawnshops. The tape decks, however, kept walking away.”

  He swore, then apologized. “I wanted you to hear this tape,” he said. “It’s a conversation between Lawrence Richter and Tommy Walsh. Richter orders Walsh to kill Mareidas and Dupree. It proves my innocence.”

  Carrie nodded, gazing steadily into his eyes. “I believe you,” she said quietly. “I don’t need to hear it.”

  His eyes filled with tears. He reached for her then, pulling her into his arms and holding her tightly against him.

  This time tomorrow, Felipe could very well be dead. That wasn’t a crazy, wild thought. It wasn’t an extremely unlikely worst-case scenario. It was an honest-to-God possibility.

  Carrie felt tears burning her own eyes, and she could
n’t stop herself from speaking. She was well aware she might never have another chance.

  “I do love you,” she said.

  She felt him draw in a deep breath as if her words had somehow stung.

  “I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear that,” she whispered, fighting another rush of tears. “But I want you to know how I feel.”

  “I heard you when you said it the first time,” he murmured. He kissed her gently on the lips, then pulled back to look down into her eyes and smile. It was shaky, but it was a smile. “Of course, you’d have every right to assume I’d have trouble with the translation.”

  Carrie stared up at him. He was making a joke. He had somehow found the strength to tease about something that he found so desperately serious and frightening as love.

  “I’m not asking for anything in return,” she told him softly.

  He looked away at her words, unable to meet her eyes as she continued in a quiet voice.

  “I know when you said you loved me—te amo—you probably only meant that you loved me at that moment,” Carrie said.

  He would’ve interrupted her, but she stopped him with a gentle finger against his lips.

  “That’s okay,” she said. “It’s more than I ever expected. Don’t say things you think I want to hear, just because you think you won’t be around to keep your promises.”

  Felipe shook his head. “I’m not going to die tomorrow,” he said. “They’re not going to catch me, and I’m not going to let them near you. We’re going to get out of this park alive.”

  “Felipe, you just said—”

  “That I wasn’t going to lie to you. I know, but you’ve reminded me, cara, I’ve got a powerful reason to stay alive.”

  His hair had fallen forward over his face again, and Carrie pushed it back. He pressed his cheek into her hand, then reached up and moved her fingers to his mouth, planting a gentle kiss in her palm.

  He loved her. Carrie had to believe that he loved her, but he didn’t—or couldn’t—say the words. Still, she could see it in his eyes as he gazed down at her.