Kate Hoffmann - A Fare To Remember

Mario released her arm, and before she lost one ounce of indignation, Rachel pushed out of the cab. Sure, she and Roman had never pretended to be exclusive. Hell, they’d never even talked the matter over. But while Rachel Marlowe may have grown up with three sisters, she’d never learned to share. Especially not her lovers.

As soon as she was close enough, she tapped the chick in the boob-hugging turtleneck on the shoulder and said a polite excuse me. Once. Twice.

The exotic brunette turned slowly, her eyes a dreamy onyx mix of shadows and mystery. “May I help you?”

Rachel grinned. “Actually, yes. Could you step aside?”

The woman complied, giving Rachel a perfect shot with her fist on Roman’s jaw. “You son of a bitch!”

Roman barely flinched, but his eyes widened and his face, so healthy and tanned less than half an hour ago, lost all color. He grabbed Rachel by the arm and yanked her behind him so quickly, she lost her footing on the dew-slippery sidewalk.

He turned and shot a finger out at her. “Stay there.”

With a spin, he faced the woman in black, who’d gone into an odd fighting pose. He raised his hands in front of him, as if she was going to attack. “Dom, don’t get crazy.”

The woman’s stare was ice. “I don’t get crazy, Brach. But if you don’t keep that-”

Her threat was cut off by the squeal of tires. Rachel half expected Mario to come riding to her rescue, but instead she saw a dark sports car approaching, headlights off. She narrowed her gaze, and at the same moment that she noticed something protruding from the passenger-side window, Roman dove over her, shielding her body as gunfire rent the air.

Rachel screamed. Bullets shot from the car and pinged nearby. Then return fire exploded near her ears.

From the barrel of Roman’s own gun.

THE INCIDENT LASTED LESS than three seconds, but Roman could have sworn a painful, torturous hour had passed before the bullets stopped piercing the sidewalk. The attacker in the sports car sped away, tires screeching. Domino darted into the street, firing her weapon until the distance made her shots wasteful. The agent dashed back to him just as he was rolling off of Rachel. Leave it to his superiors to send his former lover, Domino Black, as his contact.

“Rachel, are you hit?” he asked, desperately searching her for signs of blood.

Except for a scrape on her cheek, she was clean. Her amazing jade-green eyes were glossy from shock. He leaned forward to check her breathing when tires squealed again.

Roman turned and aimed, concurrently with Domino, who still had her weapon at the ready. But this time, the offending car was a taxi and Mario Capelli swung open his driver-side door. He remained behind the door, a large, unfriendly-looking.357 Magnum clutched confidently in his hands.

“Let her up,” he ordered, jerking his head toward Rachel.

Domino made a slight move to the right. Through clenched teeth, Roman ordered her to stand down. The woman was the most accomplished marksman in the Agency-and a trained assassin. She could take Mario out without batting an eyelash.

“He’s a friend,” Roman explained.

Domino lowered her weapon. She was deadly but not cruel.

Beneath him, Rachel groaned. The sound tore through him with the same velocity as a jacketed hollow-point bullet fired at close range. She’d almost died. On account of his job, his enemies. His lies.

“She’s fine, Mario,” Roman called out. “Just a little groggy.”

The wily taxi driver stepped around to the front of his car with strong, bold steps that belied his advanced age. He kept his weapon out, but he’d lowered the barrel. “Who are you?”

Roman checked Rachel for signs of any other injury. He found nothing, but her eyes were dilated. Unprepared for his jumping on top of her, she’d likely banged her head hard against the ground. “I’m not one of the bad guys, Mario.”

“And why should I believe you?”

Sirens wailed in the distance. Damn. The police would descend any minute. He didn’t have to look up to know that Domino had blended back into the shadows, disappearing into the morning as if she’d never been there. He should have shot her in the back for the trouble she’d caused, kissing him like that. He’d only allowed the kiss to linger because he’d figured Domino had a good reason for creating a scene where they were lovers once again. Now he knew she’d only entrapped him because she knew Rachel had been watching.

Typical.

Rachel pulled herself up onto shaky knees.

“Who was that?”

He didn’t know if she was talking about Domino or the shooters in the car, but he decided going with the latter as a safer topic.

“I’ve never seen that car before,” Roman said, not lying, but of course not telling her the truth, either.

Unfortunately for him, Rachel wasn’t stupid, but she was angry. She pushed up on to her feet, and when she wobbled, Mario buoyed her by the elbows. Roman reached forward to help, but both of their poisonous stares made him retract his hands.

“Rachel, I can explain.”

“Of course you can,” she said, her tone venomous. “Lies spill easily from your lips, don’t they?”

“You have no idea,” he replied, regretfully.

The sirens grew louder.

“Mario, get her out of here.”

She grabbed his arm, but the move cost her as she wavered and nearly toppled.

“Tell me who you are,” she begged.

In that moment, Roman’s heart cracked. God knew, he wanted to tell her everything, but there was no time. And if he let her in on his secrets, what dangers would she face?

“Rachel, go, now. I’ll find you. I’ll tell you everything.”

“Tell me now.”

All around them, faces peered from the windows and doors nearby. A few people in the park across the street pointed and stared. He had to get Rachel out. He’d already involved her more than he had a right to.

“Rachel, you have to understand-”

She pulled herself up to her full height, this tiny auburn-haired sprite of a woman he’d come to care deeply for. “Never mind. I understand completely,” she said, her voice shaky but curt. Her eyes darkened with his betrayal, and as she looked at him one last time, Roman’s chest felt as if someone had just riveted a steel plate between his ribs.

Mario whisked Rachel away. Roman pressed his lips tightly together, for the first time wanting to shout his secrets to the world. He’d broken nearly every other regulation set down by his superiors. Why get all obedient now?

Because lives were at stake. Millions of lives. Not just his and Rachel’s. Not anymore.

The curious had spilled from nearby buildings. Witnesses. He’d have to call in big favors to keep this drive-by contained. Domino he didn’t worry about. She operated on a security level far above his own. But Mario and Rachel? They’d driven into this mess simply because Roman hadn’t been able to tell Rachel goodbye after his investigation of her had been complete.

He knew everything about her now. Every friend she’d ever had. Every country she’d ever visited. Every political view she’d ever possessed. Every erogenous zone that could cause her to cry out in unabashed pleasure if he applied just the right combination of moisture, pressure and suction. He knew everything the Agency had sent him to find out-and more.

The only thing he didn’t know was how to let her go.

IRIS EMERGED FROM RACHEL’S bedroom and quietly shut the door. She padded over and sat beside Mario on the couch, eyeing his Scotch and water, on the rocks, with trepidation.

“I know it’s early,” Mario said, lifting the drink with shaking hands and taking a welcome sip. “But these are unusual circumstances.”

“I have an ex-husband who thinks every moment he’s awake is an unusual circumstance.”

Mario put the drink down. He’d figured a woman Iris’s age, somewhere in her fifties, had been married before, but he knew little about her personal life except that she’d accepted his date for tonight-an event that might not go off after what happened less than an hour ago.

“I’m not an alcoholic, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I am asking. Pero, would you admit it if you were?”

Mario grinned. “Yeah, to you, I would.”

She matched his smile with a shy curve of lips. The expression melted away the worry that had creased her brow since he’d skidded to a stop just behind her stand with a shaken Rachel curled into a fetal ball in his backseat. Iris had quickly and unceremoniously shut down her coffee stand and helped him lead Rachel upstairs.

The poor kid had hardly said a word except for mumbled phrases that sounded a lot like “How could I be so stupid?” and “What kind of man is he?”

Mario and Iris had soothed Rachel with a combination of mild recriminations on Roman Brach and a Xanax from the stash Iris kept in her purse for her anxiety disorder-another new thing Mario had learned about the object of his affection. Soon, they’d washed the grit from Rachel’s hands, feet and face and had tucked her into her bed for a well-deserved nap. Maybe sleep would give her more perspective. More calm. She’d gone through a hell of a shock in the past hour-first, witnessing the man who’d sworn up and down that he wasn’t involved with anyone other than her sucking face with an exotic, black-haired beauty, then rushing to confront him in order to regain an ounce of her self-respect only to be shot at in a drive-by and, lastly, watching her lover, a self-proclaimed television consultant, brandish a handgun and return fire with confidence and ease.

“Want to tell me what happened?” Iris asked.

Mario recounted the situation point by point. With each revelation, Iris reacted with increased shock.

“Dios mio! She could have been killed. You both-”

“I was okay. By the time I realized what was happening, it was over. I got a description of the car. Called it in to my dispatcher. I need to make sure he called the cops.”

Iris tilted her head, her eyes questioning.

“I’m retired NYPD,” he explained. “Thirty-five years.”

Her dark eyes widened. “I didn’t know.”

“You thought I drove a hack all my life?”

She shrugged shyly. “I guess we don’t talk as much as we think we do, in between customers, I mean.”

He nodded. “That’s why I wanted to do the dinner thing tonight. You know, find out about each other.”

Iris glanced regretfully at Rachel’s bedroom door. “I don’t think we should leave, you know?”

Yeah, Mario knew. He didn’t want to leave Rachel, either. Funny how the kid had grown on him. Like Iris, Mario had been married before, but he’d never had kids. His wife, God rest her soul, hadn’t been able to conceive. Yet, he’d always looked at the circumstance as a blessing. He’d walked beats in everywhere from Flatbush to Harlem. By the time he’d made detective, he’d seen more than his fair share of cruelty and crime and death. Bringing kids into the world had seemed a bad decision. After his wife died, he hadn’t been so sure.

But with his job driving cabs, he met lots of young adults who seemed to fill the void. He liked getting to know them, meddling in their lives a bit, using his personal experiences with life and love to push them in the right direction.

With Rachel, however, he’d screwed up, big time. He would have bet his best night’s tips that Roman Brach hadn’t been up to anything sinister, that her fears about his secretive nature had been nothing more than imagination and supposition-and maybe, he was getting a little on the side. Yeah, he’d pegged Brach for the quiet, untrustworthy type, but he’d never, even with all his old cop’s instincts primed, have imagined the guy had been wrapped up in the criminal world.

Despite Brach’s claims, Mario had no idea which side Brach was on, but he was going to stick around Rachel’s place long enough to find out.

“You gonna reopen the stand?”

Iris pressed her lips tightly together. “I didn’t lock up properly in the rush. I should go back downstairs and make sure I haven’t been robbed blind. But I’ll close for the rest of the day and help watch after our mijita.”

Mario shifted in his seat. “We could take turns running the register, if you want to stay open.” That way, he could watch the street for any sign of Roman Brach, or the car and drivers that had tried to gun him down.

“You’d do that?” she asked.

He knew Iris struggled financially. Most working-class people in New York did. He had a fairly nice nest egg and pension, so he worked more as a way to keep out of trouble, stay active. If he didn’t drive the cab for a few days, no one but his dispatcher would give a damn.