Caroline sat up, and he held out a hand to help her up. Still holding on to her, he led her down the sidewalk toward the sound of the shouting, rap music and laughter.
There were nearly a hundred kids, wearing a hundred different, brightly colored shirts and jeans and caps. They were carrying backpacks and purses and listening to boom boxes and Walkman stereos. They were talking—all at once—to each other, at each other.
Felipe stood with Carrie in the middle of the sidewalk and let the teenagers surround them. Like a herd of wild horses, the kids parted and flowed around them.
Then Felipe turned and began walking toward the entrance, in the same direction and at the same pace. It was crowded and someone jostled Carrie. He looped his arm around her, pulling her closer to him.
His mouth was dry and his eyes were drawn to the big clock that hung above the main gate.
Nine minutes after twelve.
Were these the last minutes of his life?
Around them, none of the teens seemed to notice that there were strangers in their midst. And if they noticed, no one cared.
As they approached the gate and the watching policemen, Felipe let his hair fall forward into his eyes. Please, God, let this work. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want Caroline to die. Without even looking at her, he could feel her fear. She gripped his arm even tighter.
“I love you,” he breathed into her ear. “Whatever happens, I love you. Don’t forget that.”
“My answer is yes,” she whispered back.
He glanced at her questioningly.
She explained. “I thought about it, and yes, I’ll marry you.”
Felipe laughed in disbelief. “Caroline—”
“Stay alive,” she said, gazing into his eyes. “Whatever happens, stay alive.”
He turned and kissed her on the lips.
Was that their last kiss? Maybe.
She was thinking the same thing; he could see it in her eyes. She clung to him, but he gently pulled away from her to pass through a revolving door made of metal bars. It was a one-way door—exit only. He turned, waiting for her to follow him.
There were police officers ten feet away, staring hard at the back of his neck.
Please, God…
Caroline came through the door and her smile was an explosion of sunshine. “Come on, give me a piggyback ride, Carlos!” she called out, loud enough for the watching police officers to hear. She pulled her cap off her head and shook her hair free from its braid.
Felipe barely had time to brace himself before she launched herself up and onto his back. Laughing, she clung to him, and he forced himself to smile and laugh, too. They were just a couple of kids having some fun.
Caroline leaned her head forward over Felipe’s shoulder, and her long, shiny hair covered part of his face. With Caroline on his back, Felipe walked past the officers. They didn’t give him a second glance.
And then they were in the parking lot. They were outside of Sea Circus. They were past the police. Now they only had to worry about Tommy Walsh.
Only worry about Walsh. The statement was a paradox.
Felipe felt the hair rise on the back of his neck as he imagined the sight of a long-range rifle aimed at his head. Every one of his senses was on edge.
He could only pray that if he was hit, Caroline would have the sense to get away from him, to get down, stay out of range and flee to safety.
As the river of teenagers approached the waiting school buses, Felipe pulled Caroline out of the crowd. They ducked down behind a row of cars.
Carrie’s eyes were bright and she was breathing hard. “We made it,” she said.
“So far,” he said, searching the surrounding cars for a model that would be easy to hot-wire.
An ancient white Volkswagen Rabbit bearing the bumper sticker that read I Love Lee had been parked with its windows open. Felipe opened the door and, on a whim, searched under the floor mats. Caroline slipped into the passenger seat.
There was no key under the mats. He’d have to do this the hard way. Or the not-so-hard way, he realized, seeing a set of keys dangling from the ignition.
“Do you think they want the car to be stolen?” Carrie asked.
Felipe started the engine, then tried to roll up the windows. It soon became obvious that there were no windows to be rolled up. The driver’s-side door didn’t even shut properly. It had to be held closed with a piece of wire.
“Could be,” he said.
Still, the old car ran smoothly. Felipe pulled it out of the Sea Circus lot and onto the main road.
The cars he could see in his rearview mirror looked innocuous enough. Just the same, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Tommy Walsh was out there somewhere, following them.
This had been too easy. Too simple.
And when dealing with Tommy Walsh, nothing was ever simple.
CHAPTER TWENTY
HIGHBOY answered the door at Rafe’s halfway house.
He didn’t say a word, but he moved impossibly quickly for a man of his girth, throwing wide the door, pulling them both inside and slamming it shut again.
Carrie watched in silence as Highboy fastened every lock and bolt that was on that door. He would have let the alligators loose in the moat and raised the drawbridge if he could have.
When he turned to them, he finally spoke. “I will take you upstairs to Raphael’s apartment,” he said in an oddly high voice. “The fewer who see you here, the better.”
Silently, they followed the heavy man up the stairs. He knocked lightly on the apartment door, and Rafe opened it. He was wearing only a pair of jeans. Carrie tried not to stare at the large dragon tattoo that nearly covered his upper right arm or the ragged scar that sliced across his chest.
“Well, well,” Rafe said, “if it isn’t the walking million-dollar lottery ticket and the blond angel.” He stepped back, so they could come inside. “Come on in. They’re talking about you on the news again.”
The TV was on, and sure enough, there was a picture of Felipe on the screen behind the news anchor.
“…latest word from the precinct is that the ballistic reports show it was, indeed, Salazar’s police-issue handgun that killed Tony Mareidas and Steve Dupree last week in the downtown sandlot. In addition to this late-breaking news, a copy of a videotape that was delivered anonymously to the police several days ago has been released to us. On this tape, which is clearly dated the same evening as the slayings, Detective Salazar can be seen holding Mareidas and Dupree at gunpoint. Let’s look at that tape.”
Carrie sat down on the sofa, her eyes on the screen. Behind her, Rafe and Felipe were silent as they, too, watched the news report.
The anchor’s face disappeared, to be replaced by the grainy footage from a home video camera. The tape showed three men coming out of an unmarked door in an unidentifiable city alleyway.
The television studio had enhanced the videotape, brightening the area around two of the men’s faces. Even without the enhancement, it was clear they were Tony Mareidas and Steve Dupree. The videotape was frozen in place, and the station superimposed clear, labeled photos of the two men in the corners of the screen. Yes, those men were definitely Mareidas and Dupree.
Then the tape continued to roll and the third man turned. He had a gun aimed at the two other men, and he was, indeed, Felipe Salazar. The cheekbones, the hair, the set of his shoulders were instantly recognizable. The hard set to his mouth, however, was not. Still, it was Felipe.
“What is this videotape?” Rafe demanded, voicing the doubt that was flooding through Carrie. “Man, you said you had nothing to do with these murders.”
Felipe shook his head. “This video was taken months ago, back when Mareidas and Dupree first got into trouble. They came to see Richter, but Richter wouldn’t even talk to them. I escorted them out of the building. I walked them to their cars, and that was that.”
“The date on it says it was made last week,” Rafe said, his doubt rapidly turning to disbelief. �
��Have you lied to me, little brother?”
“No.” Felipe answered his brother’s question, but his eyes were on Carrie, begging her to trust him, imploring her to keep her faith in him. “I didn’t kill those men. Tommy Walsh killed them. The proof is on an audiotape I found at Captain Swick’s house.”
“Where is this tape?” Rafe pressed. “Play it for me.”
“It’s hidden at Sea Circus,” Felipe said.
“Did you hear it?” Rafe asked Carrie.
Wordlessly, she shook her head.
“Perfect,” Rafe said sardonically. “There’s a tape that clears your name, only you’re the only one who’s heard it, no? Sounds a little too convenient if you ask me.”
“Why do you doubt me?” Felipe asked quietly.
Rafe gestured toward the television. “I see with my own eyes that you were with these men, right before they died.”
“That tape was made in October,” Felipe said evenly. “I did not kill those men.”
Carrie moistened her dry lips. “Would you tell us if you had?” she asked. “Us,” she’d said, not “me.” She was siding with his brother.
He couldn’t hide the disappointment in his eyes. “Ah, cara, don’t you believe me?”
“Would you tell us?” she persisted.
He shook his head with a laugh that held not a breath of humor. “Probably not.”
“Definitely not,” Rafe said, crossing his arms.
A commercial ended and the news anchor reappeared on the screen along with a picture of Carrie.
“To date, there has been no word of Caroline Brooks, the young woman taken hostage by Salazar four days ago at Schroedinger’s restaurant,” the woman said. The picture changed to that of a familiar-looking man holding a press conference. Carrie leaned closer to the TV. “Despite an impassioned plea from Robert Penfield, Caroline’s fiancé, Salazar has not let his hostage go, or even communicated in any way with the police.”
“So the angel has a name,” Rafe said. “And a fiancé?”
Robert Penfield? Her fiancé? Carrie nearly burst with indignation. “I met this man exactly once,” she said. “He’s not my fiancé.”
“Are you sure?” Felipe probed, his eyes burning holes into her with their intensity. “After all, don’t you believe everything you see on the TV news?”
Good Lord, he had a point. If Penfield could go on the air as her fiancé, then the rest of this so-called news story could also be pure fiction.
“Please,” Bobby Penfield III said tearfully into the TV camera, “please, Detective Salazar, if you have any sense of decency at all, please let my dear Caroline go.”
Oh, blech. And all of Florida actually believed she was going to marry this guy…?
“Despite that plea, there was no response from Felipe Salazar at all,” the news anchor said solemnly. “And no word on whether Salazar’s hostage is even still alive.” She paused for only a split second before continuing. “We now go downtown, where Brett Finland is talking to the newly appointed chief of police, Jack Earley. Brett?”
“Thank you, Mary,” the reporter said, and Carrie turned to look at Felipe.
He was standing behind the sofa, watching the screen, listening to the reporter. Surely he felt her eyes on his face, but he didn’t so much as glance in her direction. His face was expressionless, but she could see the muscles jumping in his jaw.
She’d hurt and surprised him by not flatly discounting this news report. Hell, she’d surprised herself with how quickly she’d doubted him.
Salazar’s hostage. That was as ridiculous a label as Penfield’s fiancée.
Wasn’t it?
On the television, Chief Earley’s wide face looked tired and strained. He seemed distracted and the reporter had to keep repeating his questions.
“It’s a hard job, tracking down Felipe Salazar, a man who once was one of St. Simone’s finest,” Brett Finland said, wrapping up the report. “Jack Earley has clearly lost some sleep over this, his first tough assignment as newly appointed police chief of this city. But Chief Earley, a man who started his law-enforcement career by tracking and trapping the enemy in their hideout tunnels in Vietnam, a man known as one of the marines’ legendary ‘tunnel rats,’ should have no problem finding one rogue cop. This is Brett Finland, reporting live from downtown. Mary?”
“Madre de Dios!” Felipe exclaimed, his eyes still glued to the set. He fired off a rapid stream of Spanish to his brother.
Rafe frowned and shrugged, then answered, also in Spanish. He pointed next to the television. A pile of old newspapers lay there, and Felipe nearly leaped over the sofa to search through them. He scanned the tops, looking, it seemed, for one specific date.
“What?” Carrie said. “What’s going on?”
“I need to find the paper that had that article on Chief Earley,” Felipe said, still searching the pile.
“Why?” Carrie asked, but he didn’t answer.
“Ah! Here it is.” He sat down next to her on the sofa, and she moved closer, trying to read over his arm. He folded the paper so they both could see it better.
“Earley served in Vietnam as a captain,” Felipe said. For some reason, that news really excited him. “Yes!” He looked up into Carrie’s eyes. “Don’t you get it?”
Puzzled, she shook her head.
He pointed to the text. “Look! It says it right here. Jack Earley served for ten months in Vietnam as an explosives expert. He went down into the tunnels where the Vietcong had been hiding, clearing them of booby traps. ‘It was one of the most dangerous jobs in the entire Marine Corps, and not for the faint of heart or claustrophobic,’” he read aloud, glancing over at Carrie for that last bit.
“‘Chief Earley and his men were known as the tunnel rats.’” He smacked the paper with his hand. “Captain Rat! Earley is Richter’s Captain Rat.”
“The police chief?” Carrie was shocked. It couldn’t be.
Felipe checked the time on Rafe’s VCR. It was a little after one o’clock. “Okay,” he said. “Listen, Diego’s going to call any minute—”
“No, he’s not,” Rafe interrupted. “He called about an hour ago—said he was going to be tied up, that he wouldn’t get a chance to call without a lot of people listening in.”
Felipe swore under his breath. “Man, I really could have used his help. But…all right. I can still do this. We still have time.”
“Time for what?” Carrie asked.
“We’re going to go down to police headquarters,” Felipe said, “and follow Earley to his meeting with Richter.” He turned to his brother. “You still want to help me?”
“Even if you killed those guys, I don’t want you to die,” Rafe said.
“That’s not the blazing endorsement I would’ve liked, but it’ll do,” Felipe said. “Can you get your hands on some film and a camera? Maybe one of those disposable ones?”
“I got an old Instamatic,” Rafe said, crossing to the closet and pulling a box down from the shelf. “It works okay. It’s got half a roll of color film already in it.”
He fished a small black camera out of the box and handed it to his brother.
Felipe would’ve turned away, but Rafe caught his arm. “If you killed those men,” he said, “you better head for Mexico.”
“I didn’t kill them.”
Rafe ignored him. “If you head for Mexico, I probably won’t see you again.”
Felipe shook his head. “You’ll see me again.”
“If I don’t,” Rafe said, “I just wanted you to know…how sorry I am that I…I let you down all those years, all those times.”
Felipe was silent. Carrie could see the tears that had suddenly filled his eyes. She turned away, not wanting to intrude.
“I hope someday you’ll forgive me,” Rafe said almost inaudibly. “And maybe then, someday, I’ll forgive myself, no?”
“Forgive yourself, Raphael,” Felipe said, his voice husky with emotion. “I forgave you a long time ago.”
�
�Gracias,” Rafe whispered. “Go with God.”
Felipe held out his hand, and Rafe took it. The two men, the two brothers, clasped hands, and each gazed into dark brown eyes so like his own.
And then Felipe turned and headed for the door.
“Good luck,” Rafe added. “Keep your head down.”
Carrie followed Felipe down the stairs. He checked his gun as he went, making sure it was properly loaded. Then he tucked it in the back waistband of his jeans, covering it with the hem of his T-shirt.
“Felipe,” she said.
He glanced back at her, but didn’t stop. “Yes.”
“Please don’t be mad at me.”
He stopped by the front door then, his hand on the knob. “I’m not mad,” he said. “Just…disappointed.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“How can you say that you’ll marry me when you don’t even trust me?” he asked, then shook his head before she had a chance to speak. “No, don’t answer that,” he added, rubbing his forehead as if he had a headache. “I honestly don’t want to know.”
“I keep wondering what if I’m wrong about you,” Carrie admitted. “I see all this hard evidence against you and I can’t stop thinking what if I’ve fallen in love with a man who’s deceiving me.”
Felipe was watching her steadily, his dark brown eyes echoing the disappointment she’d heard in his words.
“I can’t help you with that one, Caroline,” he said quietly. “It’s something you’ve got to work out on your own. Let me know what you decide, though, okay?”
“Felipe—”
“Right now, we’ve got to move,” he said, opening the door. “Stay close to me. We’re getting in the car as quickly as we can.”
Felipe took Caroline’s arm, and together they went out into the bright afternoon sunlight and down the steps to the sidewalk.
Felipe felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck. Something was wrong. Something was seriously wrong.
Everything looked the same as it had when they’d arrived less than an hour ago. Children still played out in the street. Old men still sat, talking, on their stoops. People sauntered along the sidewalks, moving slowly in the sunshine.
Nowhere to Run Page 45
