The Negotiator (Harbor City 1)

Linus almost laughed. At least the rearview mirror reflection showed a corner of his mouth twitch. “Yes, ma’am.”

Linus double parked in front of the bodega where she bought her weekly lottery tickets. She was out of the backseat and opening the passenger’s side door before he even made it around the front of the Town Car. She slid inside. There was a tissue box stuffed between the two front seats and a half empty iced coffee from Ground Out Coffee in the cup holder. It smelled different up here. Less like expensive leather and more like chilled mochaccino, cherry cough drops, and solid working class familiarity.

Whatever the driver thought about her horning in on his space, he didn’t say a word as he got back in behind the wheel.

“Thank you,” she said when he shut his door. “This is much better.”

“Whatever you say, ma’am.”

That false honorific went across her conscience like a cheese grater. “Clover.”

Linus avoided saying her first name by nodding as he pulled into traffic.

Three blocks closer to their final destination and the nerves were back, making her so jittery she felt like a money-eating vending machine that someone was shaking to get the last bag of Skittles out of. The energy built, needing to go somewhere, anywhere before she exploded—which meant only one thing.

“So I don’t usually drive in the city.” And her mouth was off and running. “It’s usually the subway for me. You wouldn’t imagine all the weirdness you see down there. I saw a rat the size of a small dog last week and managed—barely—not to pass out. Don’t tell anyone, but rats are my weakness. It’s bad. Did you ever see that movie Ratatouille? There’s a scene where all the rats come pouring out of the ceiling. I can’t watch that part—and it’s a cartoon.”

Linus, looking like he was out of an old movie in his dark suit, hat, and gray hair, kept his hands on ten and two and his eyes on the road. His silence just made her own verbal diarrhea worse.

“One year for Halloween, my brother Bobby hid an army of remote controlled robotic rats he’d built under my bed. I had just gotten up to go to the bathroom when he started them up and they came rolling out, swarming around my feet. I still have nightmares about that. So, as you can imagine, avoiding the pony-sized rats on the subway today was nice.” She pivoted in her seat to face him, her grin as tight as her nerves. “Thank you for picking me up.”

“Of course,” he said.

“Bì zui shu xiaojie!” Oh yes, of all the Mandarin stuffed into her brain, it came up with “shut up rat lady” when it was too late to keep Linus from thinking she was touched in the head. “Sorry, I talk when I’m nervous.”

“You don’t have to be nervous around me.” Now he did smile. No doubt about it. “In fact, I’ll tell you a secret: you’re not even supposed to notice me.”

The statement was weird enough to cut through the apprehensive fog blinding her. “Why in the world not?”

He shrugged and made a left onto Gramercy Avenue. “Because I’m just the driver.”

“Sawyer notices you,” she said, jumping to defend her fake fiancé’s honor for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. “He said you saved his sanity by taking him to Vito’s.”

“The Carlyles are different,” Linus said.

“How?”

His impossibly stiff back actually straightened another ten degrees. “I’m sure you know.”

Oh, someone was suspicious—and he had every right to be. Besides Mama Carlyle, no one had more reason to doubt her and Sawyer’s story than the man who spent every day with him. Time to spin this one out, Clover girl, but not too much.

“Pretend I just met them all yesterday. What would I learn about them?” she asked, keeping her tone light and friendly.

Linus raised an eyebrow but otherwise kept his neutral expression and his attention on the road. “They’re good people. They’re a family. Mr. Carlyle’s death hit all of them very hard but they leaned on one another. I’d hate to be someone who messed with that bond.”

“That sounds like a warning.” And a pointed one at that.

“Only an observation.”

Uh-huh. She might be from Sparksville, but small town

s didn’t mean small brains. “It was his idea, getting married so fast.”

Another turn, this time onto Thirty-Third Street. “Mr. Carlyle has never been one to let anyone get between him and his grand vision.”

“What was he like as a little boy?” she asked, wanting to know the answer more than she expected.

Linus stayed silent and she thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then that smile of his broke out again.