The Low Between

By Vivien Dean

It was supposed to be simple.

All struggling actor Carlo Baresi had to do was pick a man up, drive him to the location he specified, then report where he’d taken him. The only problem is, the man isn’t who he says he is...and they both know it.

Bookstore owner Joe Donnelly has a reputation for helping those in need, but this plan has been a bad one from the second he stepped in. Discovering someone has switched out the driver is one more complication he doesn’t want, especially since Carlo is the kind of distraction that can get a man in serious trouble if he’s not careful.

But they have something in common. They’re both loose ends, struggling to find out what is really going on.

And murder is always complicated, even when you’re on the same side.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Aug 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463518403

Vivien Dean

A firm believer that love doesn’t care about gender, four-time EPIC eBook Award winner Vivien Dean has been writing since 2006 in a wide variety of genres. She currently resides in California’s Bay Area with her British husband and two teenagers. For more information, visit viviendean.com.

Book preview

THE LOW BETWEEN

by

VIVIEN DEAN

* * * *

This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Vivien Dean

Revised edition © 2019 by Vivien Dean

Cover Art © 2018 The Book Cover Machine

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the author or publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

First Edition, 2008, Amber Quill Press

Second Edition, 2019, Never Doubt Books

Published in the United States of America by

Never Doubt Books

[e-mail]

* * * *

CHAPTER 1

Under normal circumstances, Carlo Baresi liked rain. It washed away the worst smells of Manhattan. It encouraged green sprouts to poke their way through cracks in the sidewalk. It gave him a good reason to hide in the back of a movie theater and stare at Burt Lancaster and Howard Keel for hours on end.

Tonight was anything but normal.

Icy droplets battered the taxi’s windshield. When he tried to peer through the window, his breath fogged the cold glass. Streetlights might’ve helped, but he’d parked on a little-used side street without illumination for a reason. Nobody could see him here. Nobody could find out.

Tell that to his sweaty palms.

For the third time since climbing behind the steering wheel, Carlo scrubbed his hands along his wool pants to dry them off. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so antsy. His butterflies were never this bad for auditions. But he kept picking up the flashlight he’d brought to shine it on his wristwatch, counting down the minutes until it was time to go. Last time he’d looked, he still had five minutes to go. Three hundred seconds of picturing every little thing that could possibly go wrong.

Considering his imagination was his second best asset, it was no wonder his stomach felt like it was taking a nosedive off the top of the Chrysler Building.

He was overreacting. He knew that. The job was an easy one, the payoff more than worth it. But Carlo had managed to escape trouble for most of his twenty-two years by first being heavily involved at school, then finding both of his jobs well beyond the boundaries of Little Italy. He didn’t have firsthand experience at bending the rules. Not that driving a taxi and making a phone call were illegal, but he wasn’t so green not to realize the man who’d offered him the deal operated under his own code of ethics.

If his parents ever found out this was how he got his big break, they’d drag him to St. Patrick’s and lock him in a confessional until he needed a walker to make his way out again.

Nervous laughter bubbled up. He was damned already. His soul had been a lost cause since he’d discovered how much nicer it was to sneak off with one of the other altar boys than any of the available girls in the choir. Nothing he did tonight could blemish it more than it already was.

Time to check the watch again.

Three minutes.

The taxi reeked of cigarettes. Carlo hated the habit, but right now, he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe it might calm him down. It seemed to work for other guys. His dad sure was in a better mood after having a smoke when he got home from a long day at work.

Stretching across the front seat, he checked the glove compartment. No dice. All it held was a crumpled pack of Wrigley’s gum, a couple of stained Belmont racing forms, and an empty flask. Geez, was there a bad habit the taxi’s usual driver didn’t have?

Carlo sat back with a huff. So much for that idea. The distraction did work in one way, though. It killed enough time that when he checked his watch again, only one minute remained.

Close enough.

Fog still covered the windshield after he started the engine. Pulling his cuff over his hand, he swiped away the worst of it, only to discover the pouring rain didn’t want him to see, either. He turned on the wipers as fast as they would go and edged away from the curb.

The pick-up point was around the corner. Though Vestry had streetlights, the weather washed away the world, forcing Carlo to creep along so he could see the road. He’d scouted the area on foot as soon as he’d accepted the job, memorizing landmarks so he didn’t look like a knucklehead tonight. But those were practically invisible, everything beyond the sidewalk a black blur. Panic began to replace his nerves. He took a deep breath in hopes of calming his pounding heart.

Then, a shadow stepped into one of the pools of light spilling onto the street. It was a man, broad and bulky in a trenchcoat with the collar turned up and his hands shoved in the pockets. Nobody else was in sight. The man turned his head toward Carlo and nodded.

Carlo exhaled. This was it.

He pulled up and flipped the vacant sign off when the back door opened. The hollow sound of the rain hitting the roof grew tinny with the rush of cold air, muffling again once the man had slid inside. Droplets flew off the man’s coat as he settled back, but when he met Carlo’s gaze in the rearview mirror, Carlo’s knuckles tightened around the wheel.

This wasn’t the guy he was supposed to pick up.

In his instructions, Mr. Stout had never described the passenger. But how can I be sure it’s him? Carlo had pressed.

You think Vestry’s crawling with suits at two o’clock in the morning?

Well, no, but—

Did I hire you to ask questions?

You said you were hiring me because nobody knew who I was.

Including Mr. Ascher. Don’t worry. You’ll have his number.

Carlo had his passenger’s number, all right. But unless Joseph Donnelly had a secret life posing as someone named Ascher, something had just gone seriously wrong.

When Carlo didn’t speak, Joe frowned. Aren’t you my ride?

There was the proof he’d been waiting specifically for Carlo to show up. Carlo swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. All I need is the address for the meeting. He got the line out just as he’d been told, though his intentions to try a new accent were squashed by his returning anxiety.

Joe stared at him for a hard minute, long enough for the hair on the back of Carlo’s neck to stand on end. This was where things went south. Joe was going to finger him, so the meeting would never happen, and Carlo would have one very angry Mr. Stout to deal with when it all fell apart.

East 67th. He sat back, his face falling into shadow. Just keep on heading for the river. I’ll tell you when to stop.

Though he’d been expecting a full address, Carlo edged into the street without complaint. His pulse pounded through his palms, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. Maybe this could be salvaged. After all, he was nobody. He’d never even spoken to Joe directly. Recognizing Joe didn’t have to be the end of the world. All he had to do was fulfill his end of the deal, and Mr. Stout would be happy.

This rain’s going to slow us down, Joe commented.

No worries, Carlo said. Nobody’s nuts enough to be out at this time of night to get in our way.

Nobody but us, anyway.

Carlo laughed, mostly because he was meant to. You warm enough back there?

I don’t think I’ll be warm again ’til June.

He’d always liked the sound of Joe’s voice. The first time he’d heard it, Joe was coming out of the backroom of the bookstore he owned with a comforting arm around an elderly woman whose face had been swollen from tears. Carlo had been on his knees, thumbing through some play collections on the bottom shelf in search of a monologue to memorize for an audition. At the unfamiliar deep rumble, he’d glanced up, then stared at the man for the several seconds he was in view before he and the woman disappeared into the stacks.

Eavesdropping told him the guy was the owner, not a regular employee. Returning a couple of times a month when he got matinee shifts at the theater filled in a few more details, but Carlo never forgot the swift heat that had consumed him that first time he’d heard and seen Joe Donnelly.

Joe wore his auburn hair short, like he’d been in the military, which, considering he had to be in his thirties, was probably a given, but his dark blue eyes couldn’t hide whatever painful history he was trying to forget. The melancholy was etched at the corners of his mouth, and though he had a smile to rival Van Johnson’s, Carlo had only ever seen it once. From what he could tell, Joe buried himself in the store. He always worked in the same white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to expose his powerful forearms, the cotton straining across his wide shoulders.

Carlo couldn’t resist sneaking a peek into the rearview mirror. Now that he was out of the rain, Joe had opened the top button of his trenchcoat and pushed its collar out of the way. The shirt beneath was black.

Eyes on the road, Joe said.

The wheel jerked in Carlo’s startled hands, his foot automatically tapping the brake, but he obeyed without question. A sigh came from the backseat.

How long you been driving, kid?

His face flamed, and his petulant chin tilted up. He hated being called a kid. I have my license.

That wasn’t what I asked.

He couldn’t make trouble or draw attention to himself, no matter what Joe provoked in him. His shoulders slumped. Six years.

Bullshit.

His gaze snapped back to the mirror, but Joe hadn’t even moved. What?

You heard me. I call bullshit. You’re twenty, tops.

I’m twenty-two.

Which is still bullshit. You haven’t been behind that wheel since you were sixteen.

Oh. No. That’s when I got my driver’s license.

I wasn’t talking about that.

I kind of figured that out, Carlo grumbled. A light was turning yellow ahead. He started slowing before Joe tried giving him driving lessons again.

So? How long?

Two years.

You like it?

What was with the twenty questions? It’s all right.

"Not as good