“Where’s your niece think she’s going?” Dante asked, penetrating her brain.
She sighed in irritation. “I told you, Little Mexico.”
“Yes, but where? Do you know Javier’s family?”
“No.”
“So what’s the game plan? Are we going to just drive through the neighborhood and shout out her name?”
Okay, she hadn’t planned her trip in detail. “I’m sure with graduation yesterday there are tons of homes with parties going on.”
“Who holds graduation at the end of June? Upstate we’re out of school before June.”
The left side of her upper lip curled not appreciating the backwoods dig at her hometown. The presidential election scandal back in the nineties, informants being killed on cases, and of course, the horrendous jury decisions, the press made a mockery of Florida. “Have you ever heard of a hurricane?”
Obnoxiously Dante belted out the chorus of the Scorpion’s early hit. Harley rolled her eyes to hide the laughter threatening when his hands started banging on her dashboard to the beat of the horrible rendition. Her husband was some sort of eighties head banger.
“So the plan is to hit every party?”
“I’ll hit the ones with the matching car.”
Dante turned in the passenger’s seat. “You know what car they’re driving? I thought Hannah didn’t own a car.”
“Wait a minute,” Harley wagged her index finger at him. “You found out about this yesterday yet you already know Hannah doesn’t have a car?”
“I move fast.”
“Hmm, don’t remind me,” she half laughed to cover her lie, and when the back of her head hit the headrest, a whiplash of desire whipped across her neck from the marathon sex. Two showers later and his fingers still stained her skin.
“Are you challenging me, Mrs. Rossi?”
“Not my name,” she sung, gripping the wheel. “You move fast on this case, what’s the ETA on our annulment?”
From the way his jaw gaped open, she had her answer. Dante’s laugh filled the front seat of the car. Harley liked the sound of it, though she’d never tell him. She had to be tired or something.
“Well in my defense, I’ve been busy.”
“Yet you managed to pull up Intel on Hannah?”
Dante stretched his long legs. Harley watched his lean boxers fill the front seat. His meaty fingers pressed the buttons on his phone. She listened to the series of beeps and tried to remember them, but he was too fast and turned the phone toward the light, out of her prying eyes.
“I need you to pull into the shopping center coming up.”
“I highly doubt they’re shopping,” Harley sighed.
“Not for them,” he swiped his hand down his naked torso, “but in my haste to catch a ride with you, I did not have a chance to put on the appropriate attire.”
A shiver of embarrassment rolled down her spine. In the short span in the car with him, Harley grew accustomed to his bare chest. Given his gorgeous sculpture, Harley figured Dante should be used to being naked. If the traffic held, they would arrive in Little Mexico in thirty minutes. She still planned on dumping him off somewhere. Now seemed to be the perfect time.
Without warning she made a sharp left into the parking lot of a strip mall. Dante gripped the armrest to brace himself as she whipped into a parking space in the lot between a gym and a popular discount clothing store. The shopping center sat catty-corner to the main road. Harley pointed the nose of the mustang toward the road for her easy exit, once Dante slipped inside the store.
“Glad you’re being such a dutiful wife,” Dante unsnapped his seatbelt with a laugh.
“Bite me,” Harley offered a sweet smile and her middle finger. “Take your time.”
Dante stepped out of the car and leaned across the seat. He had the darkest pair of eyes she’d ever seen on a man. The closer he got, the more she lost herself in them. The hair of his goatee surrounded his luscious mouth. She focused on the bit of gray peeking through his chin and wondered if she kissed him, would it tickle? Harley inhaled deeply in preparation of his kiss when his glance dropped to her mouth. Through half closed lids, she parted her lips.
Suddenly the car went silent. Dante yanked back and dangled her keys in front of her face before fumbling them into his waistband. “This is just in case you decide to leave while I’m inside.”
“I’d never,” she lied with a toothy smile.
“Whatever, now I’m just guaranteeing.”
Women flat out gawked at Dante standing outside of the car. Harley overheard a few snide remarks from some of the ladies offering to take him home or questioning the sanity of Harley for kicking a man, especially a handsome one, out of her car. Some of them walked toward the store with Dante, offering him a ride.
She ignored the ladies and stretched her arms toward the backseat to find the yearbook. No such luck without getting out of the car. Her feet sizzled against the black pavement of the parking lot. Fortunately for her, the black and white beach bag Hannah packed to entice her for a trip to the shore weeks ago still sat behind her seat. She slid out a pair of bright yellow flip-flops and relieved her feet from the heat.
Hannah’s yearbook was wedged somewhere in her backseat from the last time she picked her up from school. Harley guessed she could thumb though the pages while Dante found some clothes. Of course, she could always leave him.
Before cramming herself into the backseat, Harley punched in Makana’s office line, as protocol, she left her agent number with the answering service and disconnected the line. While she waited for her handler to call, she searched for Hannah’s book. The heavy yearbook was behind the passenger’s seat. If the schools still did the same thing when she was in school, she’d find groups of kids posing and representing their neighborhoods. With any luck she could narrow down Javier’s neighborhood, only the southeast side school zone attended.
The cell in her hand buzzed, Tai’s face popped onto the caller ID. “If I weren’t busy I’d clobber you right now, Ta-here-ree,” Harley dragged out every syllable in Tai’s first name.
“You sound like my mama. What’d I do this time?” asked Tai. Harley imagined Tai batting her false lashes innocently, something she definitely was not.
“You let me get married to that guy last night!”
“I tried to object.”
Harley rolled her eyes. “Clearly not hard enough.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I’m still with him.”
“Oh?” Tai’s voice went up an octave.
With the phone away from her ear, Harley watched Dante through the storefront window. The sales clerk was all too eager to get his inseam measurements. Since when did women measure with their hands instead of a measuring tape? Dante stood with his arms and legs spread apart; the jerk enjoyed the attention. “Don’t read too much into it, he had me pegged the minute he walked into Chet’s. Oh and he’s also related to Chet. A cousin or something.”
Even over a passing car’s loud engine, Harley still heard Tai’s weapon cock. “I’m coming to you. Where are you?”
“I’m heading toward Three Points, in Little Mexico, as soon as I get rid of the old ball and chain.”
“You need backup? Who is this guy?”
Through the large glass window Dante waved at her just before he walked into the dressing room, her car keys dangling in his hand. Harley turned her back on him. “I left info with Makana to do a background. This guy’s with the FBI but something is off.”
“Has he made you?”
Harley shook her head and switched ears, “No, he still thinks I’m a photographer for the CSU.”
“You are.”
“Only because missions are so few and far in between,” Harley watched the traffic come to a stop at the red light. While most agents took on odd jobs, Tai preferred to sail around the world between cases.
Tai chuckled, “You can come on board with me and the crew.”
“No thank
s,” Harley frowned. Tai took to the seas like a fish took to water. She ran a small team, protected the state’s shore lines, and for entertainment, foiled a lot of modern day pirate’s plans. Harley did not care for long stretches of time on the open water. Her phone beeped. A silhouette of a woman’s body appeared, “Hey, let me get back with you later, Tai. Makana’s calling in.”
Harley said goodbye and disconnected the call. She answered the other call and waited a second as Makana’s assistant connected the two of them. In the meantime, Harley flipped to the dedication page of the book and found Javier’s street. She grinned to herself at how easy this was going to be.
“Harley?”
“Hey, Mak, did you understand my message? I mean this guy is too advanced for FBI.”
“That’s because he’s not,” Makana said. “How do you know him?”
Harley debated sharing her midnight nuptials. The last thing Makana wanted on her team was a ditzy agent. “We met last night.”
“I see,” Makana paused for a moment. “Well, I suggest if you don’t have any ties with him, get far away from him as soon as possible.”
“What do you know? Is he a rogue FBI?” He looked the type. The beard was not standard issue.
“He’s not a rogue FBI agent. He doesn’t work for them.”
“You’re killing me, Mak,” Harley turned around, resting her arms on the hood of the car. The afternoon heat scorched her forearms. “What’s up?”
Makana hesitated. Whatever she had to say clearly bothered her. “Harley, he’s Special Tasks Bureau, International Homeland Safety Terrorist Unit.”
“What?”
“He’s one of us.”
Through the glass window Harley watched Dante emerge from the dressing room and made his way through the crowd of sales women waiting for him. “Really?”
“I promise you he’s an agent, I’ve worked with him. He’s good at what he does but he’ll do anything and say anything to make a case.”
Harley’s eyes glanced down at the empty spot on her ring finger. Her thumb rubbed against the smooth skin between her ring and middle finger. The gold band burned in her back pocket. “Tell me about it? What is he doing in Tallahassee?”
“It could be anything. Two of his team members have ties in Tallahassee and the last I heard, most of the department was calling them the Undesirables on account they keep taking the craziest assignments.”
The last adjective Harley would ever use to describe Dante would be undesirable. The man’s presence screamed walking-sex louder than a neon billboard sign over the interstate. “He claims he’s on the hunt for someone named Leonardo.”
For a moment Mak stayed quiet on the phone. When she finally spoke, her voice was steady, deadly. “Whatever Dante is doing with Leonardo, stay the hell away from it. Those two have a long history and you don’t want to get in the crossfire.”
Five years working with Mak and she’d never been steered wrong. Harley took her handler’s advice and thanked her. Dante stood at the counter paying for the outfit he already had on, a fitted black t-shirt and a better fitting pair of jeans. His thick muscular legs were made for denim. A car alarm sounded off, causing Harley to blink back to the present. She reached behind the wheel of her front tire for the spare key and extracted it from the box. A slight ding of the bell over the shop jingled as her engine came to life. Like a child, she couldn’t help but giggle at the sight of Dante with his bags getting smaller and smaller the further she left him in the dust.
Chapter 5
Dante refused to call Chet to pick him up. Chet would have a field day knowing he’d pissed Harley off. Chet warned him. Stupid of him to underestimate Harley. Of course, she’d stashed a hideaway key. Dante also did not want to involve Chet with anything remotely close to Leonardo Marchette.
Now Dante sat in the passenger’s seat of his teammate and best friend’s ’74 Monte Carlo Super Sport tapping his hand on the orange roof listening to Roman Torres’s belly laugh. Roman found Dante’s abandonment on the funny side. Dante found the laughter bittersweet, glad for his friend’s better mood since he and his wife divorced five years ago.
“Okay-okay, I’m done.” Roman sobered, “Anything for a case, eh Rossi?”
“Shut up and drive,” Dante banged the roof one more time, the shoulder strap brushed against the new black t-shirt he purchased. “Thanks for coming.”
“Whatever. This beats the hell out of what I was doing.”
Back in Washington Heights, Dante shared a place with Roman and their other teammate, Tito. They all worked for STB and carried the odd downtime hours. Dante didn’t realize Roman left New York until he’d called their handler Tim who informed him Roman’s whereabouts. Roman grew up not far from Tallahassee in Villa San Juan; so did his ex-wife—which explained the bad mood. Between the two of them, they’d come up with a compromise to not be in town when the other was there. He wondered if Roman ran into his ex.
“You need to talk?”
“Do I look like a fucking girl?”
Dante held his arms up in surrender. “All right, don’t rip my head off, I’m the one supposed to be in a bad mood right now. Have you been stranded half naked?”
“Does having all your clothes set on fire count?”
After what Roman went through with his ex, Sofia, Dante would let him win the argument. “Maybe so.”
“So what chick did you piss off last night?”
The GPS on his phone came back to life with a red indicator. “Go northwest. I didn’t piss her off until three hours ago.”
“Do I want to know?”
Dante filled his friend in on what happened in the last twenty-four hours, excluding the wedding. The stupid thing would be over soon enough. Telling Roman would be like telling the entire group and Dante did not want the jokes.
“Does she realize the kid is in serious danger?”
“Yes, but she’s a local cop, sort of, so she thinks she can handle it on her own.”
Roman gripped the steering wheel. “Sort of a local cop?”
“She’s a crime scene photographer.”
“What the fuck is that? Some made up job?”
“It’s a job, but she has this with a flair for weaponry.” His memory went back to the pistol she brandished.
“You sound like you admire her.”
“We connected,” he felt his head nod at the memory of just how well they connected.
“Spare me the details,” Roman groaned. “Where are we headed now?”
They passed the interstate. “A place called Little Mexico.”
“Great place for some tamales.”
“I’m not hungry,” Dante mumbled seconds before slamming his hand against the dashboard to brace himself. He glanced out at the side rearview mirror to see if they’d run over something or got a flat tire. The road was empty and tires fine. “What the hell?”
Frozen, Roman’s foot remained on the brakes. “You’re not hungry? When in the hell are you not hungry?”
The sweet taste of the sugary doughnuts lingered on his lips; he licked them and remembered the last thing he tasted was Harley. His body stiffened beneath his new pair of jeans and he wondered when his body would tire of hers. “I ate before I left the house.”
“Spare me the details,” his friend chuckled, “but I would like to go on record and be the first to say you’re in love.”
“Please,” Dante chuckled this time. “I met a hot chick who is the key to getting one step closer to putting a bullet in Leonardo’s head.”
“Do you think the kid recognized anyone in the lineup?”
Dante shrugged. “I didn’t get a vibe when I first spoke with him, but in retrospect he may have recognized Christopher Alfaro.”
“Geez-zus, Dante, is being down in the South affecting your abilities?”
Using the headrest, Dante banged his head. Something was off with him. He’d been off his game since Harley. “I’m not saying he did pick him out.”
�
�Well, there are two drug lords in Little Mexico. Let’s say your suspect goes off and tries to play vigilante, depending on if he gets himself killed or not, it is possible he could start a drug war. Alfaro comes pretty protected. I think Tito’s working an angle.”
“Well,” Dante blew out a burp of indigestion. “Ask me if I care if a bunch of gangbangers get killed.”
“What happens when he accidentally kills innocent bystanders in between?” Roman raised his right brow and cast a glance over toward Dante. An ominous gray cloud hovered over the car. “We usually handle international terrorists, but these drug lords are very territorial too. Just like the folks in the Middle East don’t care about collateral damage, neither do they.”
Guiltily, Dante banged his head again. “Could be Leonardo’s plan all along. Maybe he wants to gain access to the grounds down here and figures partnering up with Alfaro will help.”
“Why here? STB has an office here. There’s Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Tallahassee Police Department, FDLE, TPD and the Florida Bureau of Investigations.”
After years of chasing Leonardo, Dante was beginning to think like him too, and it scared him. “What better way to hide than in plain sight? Lots of ports of entry.”
“Including Villa San Juan,” Roman added. Dante did not like the idea of Roman’s family home being threatened by Leonardo’s handiwork. Pedro Torres, Roman’s father, opened his doors for the team and welcomed them to recover during furloughs, with or without Roman.
Whatever the crazy case, Dante refused to let anything happen to his beloved home away from home. “I’ll stop him before he steps foot on the bridge.”
“So tell me more about this woman, Suzuki?”
“Harley,” Dante grimaced. “For your information she’s hot as hell and she’s interesting.”
“Two for one?” Roman hummed, “You’ve never found a woman anything beyond hot as hell. Clearly you’ve slept with her.”
He touched the hairs on his chin. “I guess we did eventually fall asleep.”
Mr. and Mrs. Rossi Page 6
