A Man to Die For

Carrie stared at the man sitting so calmly next to her.

He was a cop?

He’d stolen a car and kidnapped her and now was driving like a lunatic, violating every traffic law in the book. And she was supposed to believe that he was a cop?

She laughed, but it had nothing to do with humor. “Try another one, Carlos. Or Raoul — or whoever you are.”

“Felipe,” he said in his gentle Hispanic accent, raising his voice only very slightly to be heard over the sound of the racing engine. “Salazar. I’m an undercover detective with the fourth precinct. You blew my cover back there, Miss Brooks. Those men I was with, they’re very dangerous. We’re lucky we’re still alive.”

Carrie stared at him as she braced herself against the dashboard. “Just pull over to the side and let me out,” she said tightly. “And then you can get back to whatever little fantasy you’ve got going here, okay?”

He glanced at her with those deep chocolate brown eyes, those dark, penetrating eyes she’d seen so many times in her dreams, then looked back at the road ahead of them. His face was glazed with perspiration, and his hair curled damply around his face where it had come free from his ponytail. A bead of sweat traveled down past his ear and plopped onto the lapel of his tuxedo jacket.

“I’m sorry,” he said apologetically. His eyes flickered up to the rear view mirror. “I can’t do that. I can’t stop. There’s a man — Tommy Walsh — chasing us. He’s not a very nice man. He wants me dead, and I think he’s going to try to kill you, too.”

Carrie loosened her hold on the dashboard and turned around. She looked over the back of the plush leather seat, through the back windshield.

There was a car behind them, following. It, too, was driving at a breakneck speed. Tommy Walsh. He was the balding man with pale eyes and a boxer’s scarred face and muscular build who had approached them in the lobby.

“Well, I think he’s the cop and you’re the bad guy,” she said. “That’s usually how these chases work, isn’t it?”

“Not this time,” Felipe told her. “I’ve been undercover for five months and I’ve witnessed some things that would put Walsh — and his boss — into prison for years. They aren’t going to let me get away without a fight.”

Carrie looked at the car that was following them, at Mr. Muscles, and then at Felipe. How could she possibly believe anything this man told her?

“All right,” she said abruptly. “Show me your ID. If you’re a cop, prove it.”

But he shook his head, still watching the road. “Do you know what it means to be deep under cover?”

They were rapidly approaching a light that was red. Carrie could see the traffic moving perpendicularly across the intersection, but Felipe didn’t hit the brakes.

“Lord in heaven,” she gasped. “Slow down!”

“Hold on,” Felipe said, and gunned the car even faster.

They were going to die. Forget about Mr. Muscles in the car behind them. Forget Mr. Muscles, whom Carlos — or Felipe or whoever he was — said wanted to kill them. They were going to die all by themselves, without anyone’s help.

Carrie shrieked and held on as they roared through the red light, but her voice was drowned out by the sound of squealing tires and blaring car horns as first one, then another and another car swerved. Then one car went into a skid and slid sideways into them. Metal rubbed against metal, creating a chilling, awful, screeching sound.

And then it was over. They were through the intersection, still going sixty down Ocean Avenue.

Carrie glanced back, through the rear window. Unbelievably, the big, dark limousine was still behind them.

“When a detective goes deep undercover,” the dark-eyed man said calmly, as if nothing were wrong, as if they hadn’t just nearly been killed in a car accident, as if he hadn’t just removed all the paint from one side of this expensive car — this stolen car, “when he intends to infiltrate an organized crime outfit, he does not bring any police identification with him. Hold on again, please.”

Felipe yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, cutting across the oncoming traffic to pull onto a narrow side street. The car skidded on loose gravel and dirt, hitting a metal garbage can with a bang and a crunch. The windshield was instantly covered with a layer of rotten vegetables.

“Oh, Lord,” Carrie breathed, and for the first time since she’d seen that initial flare of panic in Felipe’s eyes at the restaurant, the man seemed unsettled.

He muttered in Spanish, alternately searching the dashboard for the controls to the windshield wipers and peering at the narrow road through a tiny hole in the muck.

Carrie saw it first. Loosening her grip on the dashboard, she reached over next to the steering wheel and switched on the wipers.

“Gracias,” Felipe said. “Thanks.”

“Don’t bother,” Carrie said tersely. “It was pure self-preservation.”

“I’m sorry you had to become involved in this,” Felipe said, glancing at her, then back in the rear view mirror at the car still following them. “It was an unfortunate coincidence that we were both at that same restaurant.”

The neighborhood they were roaring through was rundown and unkempt, with crumbling plaster apartment buildings, their wooden porches sagging and rotten. The road, too, had seen far better days. Carrie’s teeth rattled as they hit another pothole.

“I had to become involved?” Carrie said skeptically. “You really expect me to believe that Mr. Muscles would kill me simply for talking to you at Schroedinger’s?”

“You were a witness,” Felipe said.

“A witness to what? A conversation?”

“When I turn up dead or missing,” Felipe said, taking another sharp right turn, “there’ll be a great deal of publicity. You’re the only one who can place me in that restaurant lobby, with Tommy Walsh — Mr. Muscles, if you will — and Lawrence Richter. It’s not enough to base a murder case on, but Walsh is known for his caution.”

Carrie glared at him. “There were twenty other people in that lobby,” she said. “Is Muscles going to kill them, too? That is, assuming he really does want to murder you.”

“Hold on,” Felipe said.

“Lord, I hate when you say that,” Carrie muttered, bracing herself by bending her knees and putting her feet up against the dashboard.

They were coming to the end of the side street. Felipe could turn either left or right onto Clark Road. For once, the light was green.

Felipe took a left, and then an immediate right, going the wrong way down a one way street.

Carrie bit back a shout. There was no need to point out his mistake. Because it was no mistake. He knew exactly what he was doing.

“With the exception of the maitre ‘d,” Felipe said calmly as if their conversation hadn’t been interrupted, “who’s probably on Richter’s payroll, you were the only one in that lobby who knew me well enough to give a positive ID.”

“Know you?” Carrie said. “I don’t know you at all. And there’s no reason for anyone to think that I do.”

“But you’re wrong,” he said.

He glanced at her again, and with a flash, Carrie remembered those kisses. He had kissed her — twice — there in Schroedinger’s lobby, and she knew just from looking at him, that he was remembering it, too. His gaze dropped to her legs, to where her ungainly position had caused her skirt to fall away from the tops of her thighs.

They were barrelling, sixty miles an hour, the wrong way down a one way street, and he was sneaking looks at her legs?

No, not sneaking. He wasn’t sneaking anything. There was nothing even remotely clandestine about the way he looked at her legs. His gaze was almost leisurely, appreciative and very, very male. And he glanced up and met her eyes afterwards, as if he wanted to make sure she knew that he’d been looking at her legs.

That’s when she saw it. The car phone. It was in a special case between their seats.

Carrie pointed at it.

“If you’re a cop,” she said. “Why don’t you call for backup?”

“Because I don’t have the telephone’s access code,” Felipe said. “I’ve already checked. It’s got a valet lock. You know, so the parking lot attendant doesn’t make a hundred dollars worth of long distance phone calls while the owner’s having dinner?”

“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?” Carrie asked.

“Unfortunately, no,” Felipe said. “I haven’t figured out a way to get rid of Tommy Walsh without putting you in real danger.”

Real danger? Real danger? The implication was that their current situation wasn’t really dangerous. If this wasn’t real danger, then what was?

The rear windshield shattered with a crash.

“Get down,” Felipe shouted, grabbing Carrie and pushing her onto the seat.

The right passenger mirror was blown completely off the car door.

He was shooting at them.

Mr. Muscles, the guy in the car behind them — Tommy Walsh or whoever he was — was shooting at them.

With a gun.

With bullets.

Real bullets.

The kind that could kill you.

“Hold on!” Felipe shouted again, and for the first time, Carrie was glad to hear him say those words. For the first time, she actually wanted him to drive even faster.

But down on the seat, the way she was, there was no place to hold on to, nowhere to get a good grip.

The tires squealed as Felipe turned another corner and Carrie started to slide.

Felipe reached out with one hand and held her tightly, pulling her against him, anchoring her in place.

“He must’ve stopped and picked up a shooter,” he said. “I saw him slow down, but I didn’t see him stop.”

Another bullet made a hole in the front windshield and Felipe ducked.

And then the car phone rang.

Copyright 1995 by Suzanne Brockmann