by Julie Leto
“It’s my day off, Mr. Morales,” Lia explained. “Even city employees deserve a vacation day every once and a while.”
He sniffed derisively, but with a smile. Marisela wondered if her father understood the concept of time off for good behavior. For as long as she’d been alive, her father had missed work maybe three times—the day she was born, the day her sister Belinda was born and the day he’d had to bail Marisela out of jail. She winced, realizing that last event had actually happened on more than one occasion.
“What about you, Marisela?” He leveled his dark gaze on her, his black irises piercing. “A job isn’t going to come looking for you.”
“I have some leads on work, Papi, but today I’m working on my tan.”
“Nonsense! You were born with a tan.”
“I’ve been meaning to thank you for that.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“Right here, Ernesto.” Aida Morales squeezed her petite body through the screen door, a pile of folded towels clutched in her thin arms. How her mother remained so skinny had been a topic of frustrated conversation between her and Belinda for years. Their mother didn’t serve a meal that didn’t include at least one fried item—from steaks to potatoes to platanos.
The only thing the sisters could figure was that their mother rarely remained still. She rose early every morning to fix breakfast for their father, then proceeded with the housework until sometime after nine-thirty, when their father came home from opening the store at six A.M. to collect his wife who ran the deli at their small but popular corner store. The Morales’ bodega, on the corner of Habana and Tampania, provided sundry items from cold milk to fresh-baked Cuban bread alongside neighborhood gossip and local politics.
Aida plopped the towels onto a chair, knocked her fists onto her slim hips, and glanced around the kitchen with her lips turned down. “Something’s wrong in here.”
Uninterested, Ernesto shook open his newspaper. The hard crack of the newsprint nearly sent Marisela into the ceiling.
Her mother’s eyes snapped on her, then narrowed into inky slits. “What aren’t you telling me, Marisela?”
Marisela folded her lips inward and did her best “I’m innocent and didn’t kill a criminal in your kitchen” imitation. She followed her bewildered expression with a quizzical look, shooting it first at her mother, then at Lia, then back.
Her mother wasn’t buying. “Something is not right. I know my house. I can feel these things, and you,” she said, pointing directly at Marisela, “know it.”
Marisela fought the urge to shift her balance or offer denial too soon. Her mother was a sweet, loving, trusting woman, but her maternal radar could spot a lie with frightening accuracy. With a shrug, Marisela turned back toward Lia and lifted her eyebrows.
Her friend instantly took the hint.
“So, señora, how was your fancy dinner last night?”
Saved!
Aida launched into an excited and animated description of the entire night, causing Marisela to decide to buy the first round of drinks at the tiki bar at whatever beach she and Lia ended up at. Of course, she had been the one to tell Lia about her parent’s wild night out in the first place, so she deserved a little credit.
Her father intruded on her thoughts of piña coladas with his deep, level voice. “Marisela, Manolo Diaz had some interesting news for me this morning.”
He didn’t look up from his paper—he didn’t have to. Her father could scare the shit out of her from another room with that calm, controlled voice of his.
Manolo was the neighbor across the street. Marisela could only imagine what tale he’d come to tell her father. “Really?” She wandered to the counter and grabbed an apple from a bowl, then went to the fridge to score a glass of juice.
Her father continued, “When I went out for the paper, he stopped me, said he saw strange cars here last night. Were you home? Did you have company? I thought you were helping the Vegases find that son of theirs.”
Marisela took a bite out of the apple, as if talking with her mouth full somehow lessened the impact of the lie. “Oh, I found him. After, I stopped by the house for a few minutes, but then Lia and I went back to her place, right?”
Lia was a reliable liar—a prerequisite for friendship with Marisela—but even she had her limits. One conversation at a time. She nodded automatically and Ernesto, only barely interested to begin with in neighborhood gossip, went back to his reading.
With a sigh of relief, Marisela slammed the refrigerator door, then noticed a new refrigerator magnet with an ad for some online service—only the Morales family didn’t have a computer. Suspicious, she lifted it gingerly and caught sight of the jagged bullet hole in the metal underneath.
She slammed the business card–sized promo item back in place, covering the one clue Titan apparently hadn’t been able to easily sweep away.
Her mother marched toward her. Marisela’s hand felt glued to the refrigerator handle, but one arched eyebrow from her mother forced her to release her grip. If she noticed the magnet, her mother gave no indication, instead leaning in and retrieving the milk.
“So, what happened with Frankie? He gives his mother so much heartbreak.”
“Not today,” her father said, his tone paternally brusque behind the Sports page. “Lucky bastard went to court and the judge dismissed the case.”
Marisela’s stomach dropped to her toes. “Dismissed? How do you know?”
Ernesto thumbed through the newsprint and found the horse-racing scores. He rarely bet the ponies, but he followed the industry since his father had been a jockey in Cuba.
“His brother, Roberto, came in just before I left. He came to play the Lotto. Figured it was a lucky day for the Vega family. The judge took less than five minutes to throw out the case.”
Five minutes? That meant if Frankie wasn’t knocking on her door in the next ten seconds, she was the luckiest mujer in West Central Florida.
“Good for him,” Marisela said, her voice high-pitched. “Tell him I said congratulations if you see him, okay? We’ve gotta bolt, right, Lia?”
Her friend was already tossing out the obligatory kisses to Marisela’s parents when the doorbell rang.
Marisela froze. She didn’t want to have this confrontation. Not here. Then again, if she faced Frankie down in front of her parents instead of out in the open where anything could go wrong, she’d have a certain level of protection. He wouldn’t dare pull anything with her father in the house. Her parents, however, were planning on leaving.
She could see the scenario clearly in her head.
No, no, Señora Morales. Don’t let me keep you. I just want to properly thank Marisela for what she did for me last night.
Then they’d leave and bam, she was dead meat.
Or worse.
On the second ring, Aida headed toward the door. Ernesto, oblivious to the panic on Lia’s face and the furtive exchange with Marisela, turned to the Business section.
“Lia! I forgot my beach towel,” she said, glancing toward the door to the lanai. “I don’t want to take Mami’s good ones for the beach.”
“Oh, no. You shouldn’t,” Lia concurred. “Let’s get another one.”
“Right. See you later, Papi.”
He waved his hand dismissively and with that good-bye, the girls disappeared. By the time Lia had quickly closed the door from the kitchen to the lanai, Marisela had opened the squeaky screen exit. The last thing they heard before scooting into the backyard to vault the chain-link fence was, “Ernesto? Where did the girls go?”
Her father’s oblivious reaction would buy them a few more seconds. If Frankie possessed any deference to her mother, they’d have a few minutes more while he managed a polite farewell.
Her body flush against the side of the house, Marisela scooted around Lia for a clear view of the front yard. Mr. Velasquez across the street was outside trimming his roses and his wife hacked at the weeds with a hoe. A good sign. With neighbors there to wa
tch, Frankie wouldn’t have messed with her car to keep her from taking off.
On three, Marisela and Lia scrambled for the car. Marisela disengaged the lock with moments to spare, and had their bags tossed in the backseat, the car started and in drive in record time. Without so much as a backward glance, she shot down the street and made a sharp right. When she hit the corner, she glanced back at her house. As expected, Frankie was tearing toward his mother’s old Chevy.
“He’s following us!” Marisela announced.
“I think you better tell me what you did to him last night.”
Marisela flashed quick calculations in her mind. There was no way in hell her ten-year-old Toyota Corolla could outrun the Chevy. Her V-4 engine would sputter against his V-8, even with years of rust and neglect on the body. As she remembered from last night, his car was a piece of crap, but it was fast—and since Frankie’s oldest brother, Miguel was a mechanic, that baby likely purred like a cat when stroked the right way.
And Frankie was nothing if not an expert stroker.
“Marisela, he’s right behind us?”
Luckily, Frankie hadn’t been in town in a long time and Marisela knew this neighborhood like the back of her hand. He wasn’t the first ticked-off hombre she’d eluded and likely, he wouldn’t be the last.
She yanked the car into an unexpected left down an alley that ran behind a row of houses a few blocks up from hers. The car skidded in the uneven dirt, but Marisela kept her tires mostly on the ground and then slowed down, willing her charging emotions under control. At the first empty driveway, she cut through, maneuvering her tiny vehicle onto a main road. Moments later, they heard a screech and a crash behind them. As anticipated, Frankie’s much larger vehicle wouldn’t fit.
Marisela chuckled, easing the car to a confident and leisurely pace.
“What’s he going to do if he catches up to us?” Lia asked. “Or do I want to know?”
“Probably make me suffer some grand humiliation. Remember the time he paid me back for spiking his soda with vinegar by tucking my skirt in my panties after feeling me up at school?”
Lia laughed at the memory, despite her usual attempts at decorum. “You were both twelve then.”
“Yeah, well, Frankie’s got a long memory.”
“You gonna tell me what you did this time to piss him off?”
Marisela grabbed her seat belt and maneuvered it across her chest, then checked to find Lia already securely strapped in. In the background, she heard her cell phone trilling. No doubt, her mother was calling to find out what had sent Frankie running out of her house in such a hell-bent hurry.
“Remember how Frankie used to really hate how I’d tease him? You know, get him all hot and then not follow through.”
“You did that?” Lia asked, startled. “When?”
She spared her friend a withering glance and Lia bit back a chuckle. “I can’t believe you let him think you were going to do it last night when you were really out to return him to his parents.
“Yeah, well, I did more than just let him think it.”
On the two-lane road, she swung around a slow-moving Honda Prelude. She saw no sign of Frankie behind her. Two more blocks and they’d hit Armenia Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in West Tampa. The chances of running by a cop car improved on a busy street. If Frankie showed up again, she’d just get herself pulled over for speeding or careless driving. Except for the illegal gun she kept in the trunk—which the cops would have no reason to search for—a traffic ticket would be a small price to pay for a clean getaway.
Ahead, the traffic light flipped from green to gold. Marisela watched the traffic flow and had no choice but to stop. A truck already sat idling in the center lane, but as the first car on the side lane, she could take off the minute the intersection cleared, red light or not, if Frankie showed up again.
She cursed when a black SUV pulled into her path. She slammed on the brake. Not ten seconds later, Frankie’s rusty Chevy pulled up behind her.
He’d cut through the parking lot of a strip mall, the son of a bitch. She shouted for Lia to lock the doors.
In the rearview mirror, Frankie’s teeth gleamed. Not from a smile, but a sneer. He eased his car up until his front bumper tapped her back one. Lia yelped, but Marisela opted for a string of four-letter words instead.
“Shit, Marisela. When you piss guys off, you do a damned good job, don’t you?”
Blocked in by the bloated SUV and Frankie’s tank of a car, she had limited choices. She hated running, but hated being trapped even more. She could launch a preemptive strike and confront Frankie first, but what would that do except leave her open for him to exact his revenge? She was good, but Frankie was bigger—and badder.
Not to mention enraged. He knocked on her window with barely checked fury.
And the cell phone behind her, which had stopped ringing, renewed its high-pitched squeal.
“Get out of the car, Marisela,” he said with surprising calm.
“Why? So you can get me back like you promised? I’m not stupid, Frankie.”
“I just need to talk to you.”
She glanced at the light. Would that sucker never change?
“Call me later. I’ll be home around six. You got my number, right? 1-800-FUCK-YOU.”
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “Sounds like you want me to finish what you started last night.”
“Shut up.”
The cross traffic eased to a stop, followed a few seconds later by the cars turning north and south. A minute more and she’d be free.
The shrill cheep of her cell phone slipped beneath her skin and she shouted at Lia to answer the call, sending her friend stretching into the backseat to retrieve her bag. She had no doubt her mother was on the other end of the line.
“Tell Mami we’re fine. Go away, Frankie. I did what I had to and you have every right to be pissed. But you’ll have to deal with your anger without me.”
“Oh, no, Marisela. I plan to deal with you. In the way you deserve.”
Lia shoved the phone at Marisela. “Talk to him.”
“Tell Mami I’m busy,” she said, grinding the words out through her teeth.
Lia’s olive skin had turned pasty white.
“Marisela, please, take the phone. It’s not your mother. He says if you don’t talk to him, this car will explode.”
Six
“WHO IS THIS?”
“Calm down, Ms. Morales. Though I don’t make a habit of offering idle threats, I simply wanted to emphasize to your friend that you shouldn’t open your door to Mr. Vega. That wouldn’t be wise.”
She glanced at the caller ID, but as expected, the number was blocked. Still, the cultured voice seeped into her skin like warm, scented lotion—expensive and custom-blended with tiny threads of priceless silk. Even with Frankie now sitting on the hood of her car, looking like he was lounging seaside rather than annoying the hell out of her, Ian Blake’s voice appealed to that stunted feminine part of her that loved a good rescue. The light had turned green, but the SUV hadn’t moved—probably more interested in the show in the rearview mirror.
And just how did Ian Blake know what was happening to her on a busy West Tampa street? And how did he know Frankie?
“I don’t suppose you have any brilliant plan for getting him off my ass? Or better yet, off my car?”
She turned her body, certain she didn’t want Frankie reading her lips or guessing that she was up to her eyeballs in dangerous shit she still didn’t understand. But with one phone call at the perfect time, the idea of working for Ian Blake grew even more appealing. Whatever job he wanted her for would undoubtedly take her out of town—and out of Frankie’s vengeful reach.
“Your problem will be solved momentarily. In the meantime, we need to talk.”
“Didn’t I say I’d find you if I was interested?” She honked the horn. Frankie barely flinched and the SUV remained staunchly at a stop.
Blake sighed we
arily. “A nice touch of bravado, Ms. Morales, but your claim was thoroughly impossible. You don’t have the skills or contacts yet to find a man who doesn’t want to be found. But if you come to work for me, you’ll have a boundless opportunity to learn.”
Marisela hooked the phone between her ear and shoulder, tearing off the minute an ambulance passed and the dark SUV finally cruised out of her way. Frankie’s reflexes were agile, and as she’d known he would, he dismounted without getting him self run over.
She made a quick right at the intersection, then eased over the speed limit enough to create a distance between her and Frankie. By the time she glanced in the rearview mirror two blocks into her high-speed escape, he was nowhere to be seen.
“What do you want, Mr. Blake?”
“To discuss the details of my offer.”
“I’m going to the beach.”
“He’ll find you there.”
“We have a lot of beaches in the area, Boston-boy. No way will he know where I’m headed.”
“I don’t see why not. You really have only two choices, judging by the parking tickets you have collected over the years. Ben T. Davis or Clearwater Beach are your usual haunts, are they not? I suppose you could mix things up, head down to Sand Key for the first time in a long while, but the vibe there isn’t really as social as you prefer, is it?”
Marisela, just about to turn onto the ramp at I-275, pulled instead down the access road, unnerved by the ease with which he’d delved into her life. At the first parking lot she saw, for a body shop, she stopped well out of sight from the road. She pointed at Lia so she’d remain in the car, then jumped out and slammed the door.
“You’re thorough,” she said, glancing over her shoulder as she marched a few feet away. Her friend was still white as a ghost, her arms braced on the dashboard as if her fear glued her palms to the cracked, vinyl surface.
