Kate Hoffmann - A Fare To Remember

Mario’s lips pressed tightly together, a thin but pronounced line, not too different from the kind kids drew in the sand in the schoolyard.

“You’ll never find him,” he concluded.

“I could go back to the network where we first met, start asking questions. A lot of questions.”

“That’s an invitation to unwanted attention.”

She bounced excitedly on the balls of her feet. “If someone comes looking who can lead me to Roman, then I win.”

“What if the people who tried to kill him get to you first?”

She hadn’t really thought the plan through, but Mario definitely had a point. Still, he didn’t have to know that she shared his concern. Not yet.

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” she claimed.

Mario cursed, first in good, old Brooklyn English, then threw in a few Italian words for good measure. “You’re pigheaded.”

“I like to think of myself as single-minded.”

“You’re reckless,” he added.

“That point has already been proved.”

He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her up to the entrance to her apartment complex. “Then you’ll need someone with a better plan.”

RACHEL NEVER IMAGINED that tracking down an undercover secret agent on the lam would prove her particular talent. Luckily, Mario was an ex-cop and an excellent partner in crime. He knew how to work the system, and despite his long and decorated devotion to the law, he’d been willing to bend a few New York statutes in order to get her to where she was now-in a dark, dingy apartment where just forty-eight hours ago, Roman had made his last known appearance in the city.

The process hadn’t been easy. First, Rachel had had to return to the network where she’d first met Roman to do some snooping. She’d kissed up to the top executive’s secretary and, as a result, now had Roman’s pager number in her possession. She wasn’t sure the number was still valid or even if it was the pager that Roman had used to receive the messages that had sent him running out on her every morning after lovemaking, but it was her best shot. She’d dialed the number-with a prophetic 911 at the end-and in the coded message, she’d left the address of the last place Mario had seen Roman.

Well, Mario had remembered the building. She’d had to guess on the rest. Luckily for her, all the other apartments were occupied and this one, from the looks of it, had government stash house written all over it. She was also quite fortunate that a fifty-dollar bill slipped to the super had gotten her inside. Clearly, if the secret agency that Roman was working for used this place, they weren’t anymore.

Comfort hadn’t been a consideration in the decor, but Rachel made do on the faded, dusty couch sitting dead center in the room. She waited just over two hours, finally dozing off with her cheek pressed against the arm and her legs folded safely beneath her. She woke to a light knock, but she didn’t rise. She waited. Seconds later, the locks surrendered to keys.

She should have been shocked to see him, surprised that he’d followed her breadcrumbs, but instead, relief washed over her the minute her eyes connected with Roman’s steely-blue gaze. The possibility that she’d be greeted by an austere government agent ordering her to keep her nose out of serious spy business had definitely occurred to her-and to Mario, who insisted on waiting at the curb. If he hadn’t heard from Rachel by sundown, he was coming up to get her.

But now she concerned herself only with Roman as he slid inside and locked the door behind him. His face held no emotion, except, perhaps, a tiny glimmer of sadness.

“You came,” she said, her voice deep and raspy after her unplanned nap. She sat up, stretched, cleared her throat.

“I shouldn’t have,” Roman replied.

“Then why did you?”

“Because you asked.”

Volume wasn’t needed in the enclosed space of the apartment. His words echoed off the bare walls. Roman then turned and revealed a panel near the door, then cursed when he found the compartment empty.

“What’s missing?”

“Jamming device. In case anyone is listening. This safe house isn’t used anymore. They released it yesterday.”

Rachel nodded. “That’s why I had no trouble getting in.”

“We can’t talk here.”

He held his hand out to her and Rachel’s fingers itched to touch his. But what price would she pay for feeling his warmth against her skin, even for an instant? She’d come here only to hear his explanation, to understand why he’d chosen her and what pawn’s part she played in this intriguing chess game. Because perhaps she’d played no role at all. Maybe she’d just been a woman he couldn’t resist. Maybe she’d just been a decoy. Or worse, a distraction.

She stood on her own and ignored his proffered hand.

“Where can we go?”

Without warning, he snatched her hand, which she immediately tried to yank away.

“Let go of me.”

“We need to get out of here quickly.”

She tugged harder as he turned to undo the locks. “Mario is waiting for me. He’ll call the police if he thinks for one minute that I’m in danger.”

“Mario knows I’m here.”

For a long, intense moment, he stared into her eyes.

“He trusts you?”

“I had him move his car to the alley around back, just in case. I’m sure he’ll take us somewhere we can talk, unheard.”

She stopped struggling. No way would Mario succumb to Roman’s charm. She seemed to be the only one who had trouble resisting that particular weapon. If Mario trusted Roman, she could, too. For the moment, at least.

They exited through a back door, cutting through a stinking alley, and after Roman picked the padlock on an iron gate, he directed her onto a side street lined with old, sagging oaks. Mario had pulled up to the curb only a few steps away, so soon they were inside and speeding down the street. Roman leaned forward and murmured instructions into Mario’s ear. The older man nodded, then headed downtown.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Somewhere busy. Somewhere we can blend in and not draw attention to ourselves.”

She nearly growled in frustration. “Who are you?”

“I’ll explain everything once we arrive.”

She crossed her arms tightly over her chest. She’d come looking for him to hear what he had to say for himself. Doubts about his veracity niggled at her, but when Roman turned to her, his gaze intense, his mouth moist, as if he’d just softened his lips with his tongue, as if he wanted nothing more than to kiss away the tension she knew emanated in fractious waves off her body, she knew he’d tell her the truth.

And that frightened her most of all.

“NICE PLACE,” MARIO SAID, his tone tight and uncomfortable as he slowed his cab in front of the famed Sherry-Netherland hotel.

Roman nodded but didn’t speak. He handed Mario a few bills, making some sort of gesture of male-to-male understanding and exited the cab.

On her way out, Rachel placed her hand on the back of Mario’s seat. He stopped her.

“You’re all right with this?” he asked.

Rachel watched Roman just outside the taxi, scanning the street methodically as he waited.

“He won’t let anything happen to me,” she said, completely convinced of that truth, if nothing else.

Mario harrumphed. “Damn straight he won’t. Before I agreed to play a part in this, I told him there was no place on God’s green earth he could hide if you got even a scratch on your pinkie.”

Rachel wiggled her littlest finger at him. “Me and my pinkie will be fine. I have your cell phone number in my pocket. I’ll call you if I need anything, I promise.”

Mario didn’t seem happy about letting her go, but he didn’t interfere. Rachel knew she needed to do this and she couldn’t deny the way her heart lightened at knowing that Roman wanted to talk, too. Hadn’t he come when she called? Hadn’t he taken the care to move them to a location where they could speak freely? Clearly, he wanted to explain. Or at the very least, he believed she deserved his time.

She hadn’t forced him to come back for her, and from what she could tell by the hurried way they dashed through a side entrance to the hotel’s back stairwell, Roman was still concerned that he might be recognized. After they’d climbed several flights of stairs, he immediately slid a card key into the nearest guest-room door on the sixth floor, and in seconds they were inside.

Safe.

Alone.

He reached into the closet, pulled out a mechanical device she didn’t recognize, attached it to the door and flicked a switch that activated a blinking red light.

“What’s that?”

“Combination alarm and jamming device. No one will come in without us hearing and no one will be able to listen from the other side to what we say.”

Or do.

Rachel cursed at herself for allowing such a libidinous thought into her brain. This wasn’t going to be about sex. She’d arranged to meet Roman so that she could understand why and how they’d ended up together-and if anything beyond the lust had been real.

Or especially if lust had been all they shared.

Luxury hotel rooms weren’t exactly an everyday occurrence to Rachel, so she couldn’t help but be swept away by the plush carpets, antique furniture and glistening chandeliers. Except for a stack of barely touched magazines on the coffee table-Vogue, Cosmo and Elle among them-the room looked unoccupied. Even the bathroom seemed bereft of a toothbrush or a discarded towel.

“Whose suite is this?”

“A friend’s,” Roman replied. “We have until morning.”

Spying a flash of material under the bed, she leaned down and gingerly retrieved a tiny pair of black thong underwear.

“A female friend? Good God, not the woman who kissed you.”