Mr. and Mrs. Rossi

Chapter 4

“I believe somewhere in those vows we took,” Dante guffawed, yanking the gray seatbelt over his large muscular half naked frame over his chest, “we said something about in ‘flat tires and not’.”

“Did we?”

“Where are our suspects going?”

Harley gripped the steering wheel and inhaled the mango scent of her shampoo in his hair. Did he seriously use her hair care products? Harley cut eyes over at him. Wet locks curled around his ear and nape of his neck.

“Suspect,” she corrected. “My niece is innocent in this.”

“She is aiding and abetting my suspect,” said Dante, trying to balance himself using the console and the door handle when she took a sharp turn. Muscles flexed. “Slow down.”

“I wouldn’t need to slow down if you didn’t hold me up back there.”

“I needed a ride.”

“You carjacked me,” she countered.

“You shot my car,” he re-countered.

A dimple appeared in her left cheek when she bit the side of her mouth to keep from laughing. “Relax, I did not shoot your car,” she clarified, “I shot your tire.”

“Plural, you shot my tires with a gun. And what’s up with the muscle c

ar? Did I marry G.I. Jane?”

“This old thing?” Every time Harley took her car someone offered to buy it. The ’67 Mustang GT Fastback caught the attention of all types of people: roadsters, businessmen, and even drug lords. Driving her car emphasized her badass-ness in the eyes of men.

“Whatever,” Dante rested his elbow on the window. The wind blew one half of his hair dry. “Where are we headed?”

“I’m guessing Little Mexico, where Javier is from,” she purposely left out Three Points because before she arrived there, she planned on ditching Dante.

“Guessing?”

“I’m sorry my brain isn’t as advanced as your facial recognition scan,” Harley’s sarcasm dripped snarkiness.

Dante sighed, “Oh boy, here we go.”

“I’m sorry,” she continued with a dramatic hand touch to her heart, “am I hurting your little, um, what unit are you from, FBI? What does that stand for? Female body inspector?” Harley cackled out loud at her own joke.

“I was about twenty minutes ago,” Dante wagged two fingers in the air.

The laughter ceased. “Jerk.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

Harley and Dante settled in for silence for about a block until he reached for the knob of her radio. Not only did he turn on the radio, one of the devices she rarely used since she valued her CD collection, he changed the channels. The red bar channel indicator stopped on a rock station and an eighties hair band assaulted them.

“What is wrong with you?” Harley jerked the car sharp to the right, rocking him from touching the channel, but he was too fast. Guitar blasted through the car.

“You don’t like the eighties hair bands?”

She waited patiently for the song to register in her mind. The melody took her back to her youth, to the summer hanging under the pier, hoping to catch the attention of the most popular boys on the beach. She clicked the radio off and the CD player on with a flip to her finger. The Pitbull duet with some hot singer filtered through. Dante’s head bounced up and down in approval.

Harley’s mind wandered, worried about the trouble her niece could be in. Who was this guy on Dante’s list and where in the hell did Hannah think she was going? The fact Christopher Alfaro was photographed already meant trouble.

“Where’s your niece think she’s going?” Dante asked, penetrating her brain.