Authors: Julie Leto
It was her.
She moved to alert Frankie when the whoosh of the front door opening from the sidewalk forced her to spin out of the way. The man grumbled loudly as he fought to extract himself from his raincoat, and Marisela instantly looked for cover.
Parker Manning had arrived, cigarette dangling from his lips.
“Sir! Sir! I’m sorry, but we do not allow smoking in here,” the hostess said, charging forward and shaking her finger like a nun catching her students chewing gum on the playground.
The distraction gave Marisela a chance to disappear. She spied the half-door of the coat-check room and without hesitation slipped inside.
She listened as the friendly hostess soothed the man’s objections and escorted him to his seat.
“See Manning?” she said into the watchband.
“Yeah,” Frankie answered.
“Does he see you?”
Marisela leaned out of the half-door and watched as the hostess attempted to hand Parker Manning a menu, which he waved away and immediately barked an order for a beer. He had his back to Frankie. Perfect. As soon as the hostess headed toward the bar, Parker leaned in close to his dinner companion—the brunette in burgundy. With his eyes narrowed and his lips strained into a line as he spoke, he was clearly trying to control both his volume and his temper. He might be meeting Yizenia Santiago, but he wasn’t happy about it.
Behind them, Marisela saw Frankie lean back in his seat, perusing what she assumed was the wine list, as if he had endless knowledge of vintages, when in truth, if it didn’t come with a twist top, Frankie wouldn’t drink it. When the waiter came out of the bar with Manning’s beer, Frankie waylaid him with a quick whistle. The waiter hurried over, and through her earpiece, she heard a riveting discussion of which wine went best with tonight’s special filet mignon.
The waiter set down his tray, giving Frankie the chance to slip a miniscule listening device onto the bottle of beer. Not fifteen seconds later, it was delivered to the table where Parker Manning and Yizenia chatted. The waiter poured the beer into a frosted glass, then, thankfully, left the bottle on the table.
“I’m going to drink this and then get the hell out of here. So you’d better talk fast.”
That from Manning.
“Having second thoughts?”
For an instant, Marisela thought the question came from Yizenia—until she spied the restaurant hostess looking at her in the coat-check room with about a dozen questions dancing in her eyes.
Marisela scooted out of the closet.
“You could say that,” she replied.
“Life is funny, isn’t it?” the hostess said, inviting Marisela closer to her station with a quick nod of her head. She shoved a silver bowl overflowing with rainbow-coated chocolate mints across the top of the podium. “You finally get the invitation to the big date, you go out once or twice and find the experience interesting. Exciting. But little by little, you want more. More thrills, more passion. More…purpose.”
Marisela nodded and popped a few mints in her mouth. Splitting her attention between the hostess and the conversation at Parker Manning’s table made her head spin.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Parker insisted.
“Of course you do,” Yizenia replied, though the sound of her voice rankled. There was an accent, yes. But a fake one. More Frito Bandito than Frida Kahlo.
It wasn’t her.
Marisela started into the restaurant, but the hostess stopped her. “Do you see your date? Don’t tell me your destiny has been waiting for you the whole time while you’ve been talking to me?”
Frankie locked eyes with Marisela. He stood and started toward the table. Slowly, casually. The whispered conversation between the fake Yizenia and Parker Manning never faltered. He either didn’t know he was talking to an imposter, or the whole deal was a setup as Frankie had believed.
Marisela grinned at the hostess. “No, but I see an old friend.”
The hostess grabbed her by the arm, her grip tight. Marisela opened her mouth to demand release, but the woman stopped her objection mid-syllable.
“Just don’t settle. There are so many choices in the world for women like us. Remember that.”
Who was she? Dear Abby? Marisela nodded and turned away, making slow progress through the restaurant, trying not to draw any undue attention. If Parker Manning saw them, he might run.
Her guess was right. In the seconds between Manning making eye contact with her and his leaping to his feet, Frankie had positioned himself directly behind the reporter. Frankie pressed gently down on Parker’s shoulders, and with a friendly slap on the back, confined the man to his seat.
The woman made no move to run. Marisela wanted to grab the imposter’s wrist and yank her out of her chair, but instead she dragged a chair over, sat down with a laugh, and complimented the woman on her gaudy bracelet.
“I’ve been looking for one like this for so long! It’s beautiful.”
With a twist, Marisela turned the woman’s wrist toward Frankie. Yeah, she had a tattoo, all right—one drawn on with Magic Marker. Perfect from a distance, but useless from close-up.
The woman looked downright terrified.
“Who are you?” Marisela asked.
The woman only stuttered.
“Who hired you?” This time, Marisela twisted her wrist for emphasis.
Parker Manning objected loudly. “Let her go! You’re interrupting a business dinner.”
“We’re interrupting a sting,” Frankie said.
“What are you talking about?” Parker asked.
“You think this is her, don’t you? The hired killer taking out those guys who hurt your sister? But they didn’t really hurt your sister, did they?”
Manning sat back, his body language cocky. “This woman offered me her story and I rook her up on it.”
“When?” Marisela asked.
“Right after she popped Cole. She called.”
“And you failed to share this detail with the police? Or with us?”
The woman tried to stand, but Marisela had not released her wrist. She whimpered. Marisela silenced her with a deadly look.
Manning swigged his beer. “I wanted the story. And I wanted her to succeed. Those creeps might not have killed my sister, but they drove her and Tracy to ruin their own lives. Maybe not Bennett so much, but Hightower for leading her on. Using her to cover up what he was. And Cole. He dumped my sister in a marsh.”
“He saved Tracy from being publicly blamed for Rebecca’s murder,” Marisela corrected.
“It was an accident!” Parker insisted. “She would never have been charged.”
“Maybe not, but Evan Cole was trying to protect Tracy and you know it. He didn’t deserve to die.”
Manning’s eyes sparked with hatred and recrimination. Toward whom, Marisela wasn’t sure and she didn’t care. Right now, she simply wanted Yizenia Santiago—the real Yizenia Santiago—in her clutches instead of this poor excuse for a look-alike.
“Who ransacked your apartment?” Marisela asked.
He glanced longingly at his beer. “I couldn’t find my recorder.”
“The loud music? The door left open?”
“I was in a hurry, okay?”
“Bullshit,” Marisela snapped. “You wanted us here and you set us up to think you might be in trouble. Little nervous about meeting with a killer, maybe? Wanted us as backup?”
He didn’t deny the accusation, but the point was, his motives didn’t matter. He still didn’t realize he’d been duped.
“If she was really selling you her story, why’d she send an imposter to meet with you?” Marisela asked, turning toward the woman she still held tightly in place.
“You’re hurting me,” the woman insisted.
“No kidding, really?” Marisela asked, her tone ice cold.
The woman’s eyes widened. “Who are you?”
“Someone who can make the woman who hired you tonight look like Mother Theresa, that’s who. Answer our questions and you’ll get out of this with all your bones intact,
¿comprendo?
We just need answers.”
The woman’s face paled. “She said the whole thing was a joke, to teach a reporter a lesson about asking too many questions. She paid me to give him the run-around, make him look idiotic if he printed anything in the paper! That’s all! I swear! Look, if my boss finds out, I’m going to lose my job.”
“Boss? What boss?”
“The owner of the restaurant.”
“You work here?” Marisela asked, a tingle dancing its way up the back of her spine. “Oh, God.” A realization hit her.
Marisela glanced over her shoulder. As she suspected, the friendly hostess was gone. The one with the blue eyes. Contacts. And the hair? Either a quick dye-and-cut job or a very convincing wig.
“I’m the hostess.”
Marisela growled as she tore to her feet, causing a clatter of flatware and china and crystal. Patrons of the restaurant turned to gawk, but Marisela was through the crowded dining room before anyone could stop her. She reached the hostess’s stand to find it deserted. Well, almost.
Propped up in the bowl of chocolate mints was a flower. Deep red, trumpet-shaped, with ruffled edges on a dark green stem.
Yizenia had escaped yet again.
Or had she?
Sixteen
MARISELA DASHED OUT
of the restaurant, startled when a dark burgundy sports car screeched to a stop in front of her. The tinted window slid down and Ian, his pale green eyes intense, motioned to the passenger door.
“We have her,” he said. “Get in.”
Marisela hadn’t even slammed the door when Ian pulled back into traffic. He maneuvered the vehicle with skill, practically leaping over the potholes and elevated manhole covers and weaving around slow-moving cars.
“You picked her up?”
He shook his head, his grip firm on the steering wheel and stick shift. “Not yet. We needed confirmation, which you just provided.”
Marisela opened her palm. The silk flower was crushed in her hand.
“How’d you spot her?”
“Brynn was stationed on the roof across the street with night-vision binoculars. She recognized Yizenia when she fled the restaurant. We’ve tailed several women tonight, but the minute I heard you on the com system, I knew we’d found our killer.”
Marisela couldn’t miss the keen determination in Ian’s voice. He clearly had a personal vendetta to settle. What she didn’t know was why he’d waited to retrieve her before he made his move on Yizenia.
“She doesn’t know, does she? About Tracy? About the fact that the guys were innocent?”
Ian shook his head. “Brynn is convinced Yizenia has no idea, that she bought whatever line her client fed her. If Yizenia knew the real story, she never would have pursued Craig Bennett or Raymond Hightower.”
“She would have hit Tracy, for certain. Evan, too, maybe, for dumping the body.”
“Exactly,” Ian confirmed.
Figuring out the truth had only plunged them deeper into a web of lies and death. Before, they had an assassin on the loose who was following a relatively clear-cut pattern. Now she was a wild card, operating on who knew what kind of faulty information. Tracy was in a safe house, but Marisela wouldn’t rest until Yizenia was stopped from her misguided mission—once and for all.
“Is Yizenia still under surveillance?”
Ian touched the screen on his GPS system. A red dot flashed.
Marisela whistled, impressed. “You tagged her?”
Concentrated confidence ratcheted up Ian’s smile. “Max called it a classic twist on the bump and run.”
Pickpocket-slang. Just what had Max done before he joined Titan?
“She’s on foot, probably headed home,” Ian informed her, after touching his earpiece. He had agents up ahead of them. No way would they lose her.
Marisela’s brain swam as her eyes focused on the blinking red dot. They were so close. Close to catching the killer. Close to ending the case. “What was her point of the meeting in the restaurant? She never actually spoke to Parker Manning and I don’t think she intended to. The stand-in she hired thought the whole thing was a joke. The only person she spoke to was—”
“You,” Ian said.
He cut around a corner a little sharp, throwing Marisela sideways. Their shoulders touched. The look he gave her, though brief, brimmed with speculation.
“What?” she asked defensively.
“Why did Yizenia speak with you and no one else?”
“You heard the conversation,” she reminded him, not liking the accusatory tone of his voice. “She didn’t say anything that even made sense.”
He glanced at the GPS and made another turn through a dark alley, slowing to avoid the trash cans piled along the walls. “I was listening. Were you?”
She frowned. “Only halfway. To me, she was just some chick making small talk. I was trying to focus on the conversation at the table, remember?”
Ian pulled out onto a narrow street, then slowly eased into a parking space, slipping into the tight spot with ease. The red dot had stopped moving. He put the car in park, then contacted Max and asked him to cue back the conversation Marisela had had with the fake hostess—with Yizenia.
She winced as her voice, Yizenia’s voice, Parker Manning’s and the duped, genuine hostess’s overlapped.
“Max, isolate Marisela’s conversation with the hostess,” Ian ordered. “Play back Yizenia only. The real Yizenia.”
“You finally get the invitation to the big date, you go out once or twice and find the experience interesting. Exciting. But little by little, you want more. More thrills, more passion. More…purpose.”
Marisela listened carefully. “She wasn’t talking about men, was she?”
Ian shook his head. “I believe she was talking about Titan. About your career choices. After you shared your theory with Max regarding Yizenia’s coming to your rescue last night, I pinned my sister down for more information regarding her old friend.”
“I would have liked to have seen that,” she quipped.
He smirked. “Figure of speech, I assure you. Shortly after I hired you, Brynn requested a copy of your dossier. She also remembered that she’d been with Yizenia when she read it and that she mentioned you in conversation.”
Marisela wasn’t sure why, but the whole idea creeped her out. “Why would she do that?”
“My sister thought I was losing my mind.”