Summer Kisses (179 page)

This morning the office was in an uproar as sleazy looking men pretending to have fashion sense crowded the reception area. Loud voices could be heard from more than one office.

Of course, Luigi wasn’t here. After calling in the order to get Sandro, with a little unasked for help from her sleeping drops, Luigi was sleeping off his winning streak from last night. She didn’t see Angie either, which was unusual. Perhaps he was one of the men trying to find Sandro. Poppa would trust Angie.

As a boss, it was hard to find men to trust. Luigi and Angie, two of the most loyal Peruzzo Mafioso, had come over with them from Italy. She’d known Angie since she was nine. He’d tried to protect her, keep the cruelest things out of sight. Of course, there had been some things even Angie couldn’t protect her from.

Her father. Her brother Massimo, who, in his way, was worse than her father. Massimo, cruel, lazy, indolent—of course he wasn’t at the offices yet. He rarely made an appearance before late afternoon. Massimo had always gone out of his way to torture her.

Even after she’d put a stop to his side business where she was the commodity, he and his friends still seemed to delight in exposing her to the most perverse cruelties. Always alert, she’d noticed Massimo had begun to collect some of Poppa’s soldiers for his own. Carmine, Joey and most especially the little sleaze Mikey. Weasels, rats, carnivores, willing to eat their own. It wouldn’t be long before Luigi and Angie didn’t have the strength to keep Massimo’s men at bay. Then a bloody war would start and innocent people would get caught in the crossfire again. She’d seen the ambition and greed in Massimo’s eyes. She’d even tried to warn her father and Luigi, but they’d just responded “boys will be boys”.

Which was fine. They could go on living in their make-believe world. For now. But soon, she would bring it all to an end.

Ignoring the melee, she dropped off her purse and coat in her office, as per her normal routine, and went to the coffee bar in the snack room to make an espresso. She usually chose coffee, but today, she needed the extra caffeine after a night of little sleep. She heard yelling from her father’s office, then a door slam. She entered the main area in time to see two of her father’s soldiers rush out the front door.

Marisa smiled grimly. She was one step ahead. Barely. It was a dicey and dangerous game, one her father wasn’t even aware she was playing, but one in which she’d defeat him before he knew he had been challenged. Subtlety was always best; she learned that lesson after the stiletto incident.

She detoured by the accountant Roberto Torino’s office. Roberto wasn’t a made member, was truly a CPA, and one of her father’s most trusted people. He kept his head down, nose clean and did his job. For that, he was paid a lot of money.

“What’s going on?” she asked with a nod of her head in the direction of her father’s office.

“Not really sure, seems like someone Mr. Peruzzo is looking for has disappeared.”

Roberto wasn’t as naïve as he appeared; he simply managed to keep a low profile. She almost hated what they had planned for him as he worked so hard to stay good.

She gave a deliberate shrug and smiled to disarm him. “Business as usual, I suppose.”

He barely cracked a smile at her joke.

She took a sip of her espresso and changed the subject. “I stopped by to let you know I’m updating software on the computers. Why don’t you leave yours behind at lunch?”

This time, he actually cringed. Roberto did hate to be parted from his computer.

“Unless you have something else you could be working on and I’ll just take care of it right now,” she added, hoping he’d say no since she didn’t have the software ready yet she wanted to put on his computer.

“No, lunch will be fine.”

“Okay, I’ll be back then.
Ciao.
”

Once in her office, she pulled out the new disk-imaging software. To access her father’s money and move it into new accounts, she needed the account passwords. Luckily, as her father’s IT person, she had the ability to get to those passwords.

She powered up her notebook and opened the software packaging and the flash drive to practice making a mirror image of her hard drive. The faster she could make a copy of Roberto’s hard drive, the better.

It wasn’t luck or an accident that she was the IT person. Marisa liked to build things, and she’d always had an interest in computers, had built her own desktop when she was thirteen; but it was at Paolo’s suggestion that she made herself invaluable to her father.

Her heart ached with nostalgia. Paolo had been dead over five years now, but she still missed him. For him, she would see this through, no matter what.

Roberto didn’t go to lunch until one; until then she busied herself with other computers, making imaginary updates on the other computers so he wouldn’t get suspicious.

He found her before he left. “I’m going now.”

“Great, I’ll go to your computer next. I plan to wrap up early; I have some errands to run this afternoon.”

If he thought her being gone from the office most of the day unusual, he didn’t say. Roberto generally kept his nose in the books and didn’t make trouble for anyone. Which is why she hoped to convince Sandro to let Dave help again. They needed help getting Roberto out of the way. If he noticed the money transfer in progress, he would stop it and ruin their plans.

She hoped Dave could help by having Roberto picked up and held in custody for a short time. If not, the options for her and Sandro to remove Roberto out of the picture were limited to murder, use poison to make him sick and send him to the hospital, or kidnapping. None of those options were appealing, or even practical.

Their best hope was Dave; he could have Roberto picked up and held without charges for at least three days. Would Dave agree? He seemed so honorable. How far would he bend rules to get to her father? She didn’t think he’d bend them far enough if he knew her ultimate plans, but there was no need for him to know.

He just needed enough information to be useful. If, and she realized it was a big ‘if’, she could convince Sandro once again that Dave could still be of use to them.

For now, she needed to make herself useful and get that information from Roberto’s computer. And then, they’d need to move as quickly as possible afterwards to be certain he didn’t change the passwords as part of his routine security.

She grabbed the software CD and the flash drive and headed for Roberto’s office.

The air in the downtown office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation reeked of bureaucracy. Electronic key card, security badges, checkpoint after checkpoint. Dave wound his way up one elevator, down two halls to his office.

The employees in this building had worked hard to get here, and they hadn’t left their egos behind. They might wear similar ties and look alike, but behind each tailored wool suit was a strong personality waiting for a chance to shine.

Dave walked into his office after meeting with his Task Force when his phone rang. He fished it out of his jacket pocket. “Armstrong here.”

“Are you in your office?”

An Italian accent. Sandro. Dave’s mental sigh of relief was chased by a stomach lurch at the thought of telling Sandro about Nia. Dave lowered his voice. “Where are you?”

“Are you in your office?” Sandro repeated, more forcefully.

“Yes, I am. What difference does it make?”

“Go outside, someplace private. I will call again. Five minutes.”

“Why?”

“I will tell you later. Go outside.” Sandro disconnected before Dave could ask more questions.

As he retraced his steps back out of his office and rode the elevator down to the ground floor, he puzzled over the strange request.

He found an isolated corner in a near alley by the time Sandro called back. “Where are you?” Dave demanded as soon as he punched the connect button.

“You are alone?”

“I’m no amateur,” Dave snapped. All this mystery was wearing thin. “Of course I’m alone. What’s going on? If Carlo has the ability to monitor phone calls, my being out here won’t do any good.”

“It is not your phone which is dangerous. Your office is bugged.”

Dave went still. “What? No way!”

“You have checked for this?”

“We have top security. We do sweeps for bugs. Besides, nobody from the outside could get in to plant one.” He was trying to remember when they last did a sweep when he realized that if no one could get in to plant a bug, then—

“Nobody from the outside did get in,” Sandro said.

Yes, that was it. Someone from the inside would have had to do it. Dave’s head started to pound. “Christ! Would you stop being so elusive? Are you saying one of my men– No, that’s ridiculous.” Yet for the second time that day Dave had reason to wonder about his team. “Where the hell are you?” he snapped.

“Definitely the bug was planted by someone with top security clearance. This we will discuss later. If you are being watched, it will be suspicious for you to stay on the phone.”

Dave blew out a breath. “We need to meet.” He didn’t want to tell Sandro about Nia over the phone.

“
Si
. Soon.”

“It’s important we meet now.” Dave emphasized the word ‘now’.

“Carlo knows I was working with you, which means it is likely they’re watching you. If you rush off now, after talking on the phone outside they will know you have been talking to me. It will be hard to lose them when they are so alerted.”

“Okay.” Dave conceded, beginning to pace. Ten feet left. Ten feet back again. “When and where?”

“You will be very careful no one follows you?”

“Look, damn it, I know how to do my job.” He raised his fist in the air, briefly wishing Sandro’s face was there before he realized his anger might draw unwanted attention. He dropped his hand.

“I trusted you before. I have a contract now on my head.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Resisting an urge to squeeze an imaginary throat, Dave ran the fingers of his free hand through his close-cropped hair. “How did you find out?”

“Marisa.”

“Is she the one who told you my office is bugged?”

“
Si.
”

“She could be making the whole thing up. They could be using her to set you up right now.”

“Has she not given you good information?”

“She could have given us the information to look like she was cooperating.” Dave’s palms began to sweat. He couldn’t afford to screw this up. One wrong move and he’d be pushing papers for the rest of his career. And that was the least of his problems. One wrong move and Nia could—

“She saved my life this morning. Which is more than you can say.”

She . . . she . . . Dave struggled to bring his thoughts back to the conversation. She saved . . . who was she? Oh, Marisa. Marisa saved Sandro’s life this morning, yes. Dave clenched his teeth and rubbed his hand down his pant leg, half-afraid he was losing it. “Point taken,” he conceded at last. “Okay, tell me where do we meet?”

“I will pick you up in front of the drugstore around the corner from your office. In one hour. Make sure you are not followed.”

“I won’t be followed,” Dave promised. “What are you driving now? Her car?”

“Not her car. I don’t yet know what I’ll be driving. Keep your eyes open.”

“Oh, they’ll be open, Sandro. Nice and wide. I won’t be caught off guard again.”

Dave stood with his back pressed against the outside wall of the large chain drugstore. An ominous looking rain cloud approached with the evening’s dropping darkness. Soon enough, the skies opened and fat, cold raindrops pelted the ground. Dave shivered and turned up the collar on his overcoat. Welcome to New York City in the fall. Although snow was in the forecast, the temperature hadn’t yet dropped enough for any white stuff to form. Thank God for little favors.

Huddling against the wall under the eaves, Dave fought the feeling he was losing control of this case. He couldn’t fail at this. Never mind he’d always wanted to emulate the old man, had gone into the FBI in the first place thanks to his dad, one of the first profilers. Dad’s footsteps were hard to follow, but Dave thought he’d done okay. Until now.

Now, it wasn’t only his reputation at stake, but Nia’s life. Nia, the woman he’d dreamed of marrying, patiently waiting for her to grow up and notice him. But he’d waited too long. She fell in love with a soccer player instead of Dave. Leaving Dave pining after her all these years. While it might disgust him, that he was married to his job and not the woman of his dreams, he’d simply never found a woman to compare.

An older maroon Buick LeSabre pulled to the curb and thankfully saved him from moving further down the path of self-castigation.

The dark-tinted front passenger window cracked. Marisa’s flawless face came into view in the opening, but it was Sandro’s voice who ordered from the driver’s side, “Get in.”

Dave quickly opened the back door and slid onto the seat and immediately choked on the smell of cigarettes. “Damn, Sandro! Have you two taken up smoking?”

“Sorry, it is the best we could do.” Sandro didn’t sound apologetic.

“Whose car is this? I don’t recognize it.” Dave thought he’d had all the mobster cars under surveillance at one time or another, and this was one he definitely hadn’t seen.

Like any aggressive Italian driver—or native New York driver for that matter—Sandro muscled the car back onto the road through the smallest of openings in the traffic. Car horns and squealing brakes sounded behind them. Dave resisted the urge to jump into the front seat and take over.

“I don’t know whose car this is,” Sandro answered once he was in the flow of traffic.

Dave paused in taking off his overcoat. The car smelled awful, but it was warm and with his wet coat, he felt steam rising from his neck. “You don’t know? You saying this car is stolen?”

“I can look at the registration papers if you like.” Marisa offered an innocent smile from the front seat.

A glance at the steering column showed no key. “You wired this car?”

“No. She wired it.” Sandro nodded his head toward Marisa.