Mafia Secret (2 page)

Lessa relaxed. At least Sharon was in her corner. She tried to put aside the worry of losing her job. "Yes, ma'am."

Sharon laughed, but sobered up as heavy footsteps came down the hall. She stepped away and peeked out the open door. "The police are here."

O
n autopilot, Lessa pulled her car into the driveway of her rented townhouse. Night had descended while she had been at the training center. She was exhausted after more than hour of talking with the police, then another half hour speaking to Sharon's boss. Andy Moore, Director of Marketing and Entertainment, had been less than pleased with Lessa and this new development. He was already plotting his spin control for when the media picked up the story. But he hadn't mentioned firing her, so she hoped that wasn't a part of his plan.

She never would have noticed the car parked in the street in front of her small lawn if she wasn't already jumpy.
She didn't recognize the dark sedan. But it was possible the car's owner was visiting Beth Fraser, her neighbor and former cheerleading teammate who was a captain on the squad this year.

Telling herself not to be such a ninny, she turned her car off and reached over to gather her backpack and purse. The dome light of the vehicle on the street glowed as the driver's door swung open. She froze, her gaze locked on her passenger-side mirror. A figure emerged. She sat back up and looked over her shoulder to where the person walked around the car.

Their security lights illuminated the sidewalks to the front doors and the top half of the double driveway. She bit her lip hoping the man would step on the small sidewalk, but he started up the driveway, finally stepping into the security light. She didn't know him.

She reached over again to her purse and thrust her hand inside, feeling for her cell phone as she kept sight of the approaching stranger. Her fingers finally touched the smooth metal of her cell and she yanked it out to call 911.

But the phone slipped from her trembling fingers as she hit the power button. It fell to the floor between her feet, the screen lighting as it dropped.

She leaned forward to retrieve it just as he knocked on the window. Yelping, Lessa abandoned the hunt for her phone. Instead, she reached for her keys to restart her car. Her doors were still locked, but that didn't mean he couldn't break the window. He might even have a gun.

Her stomach ached. His second knock made her jump. She refused to look toward him, afraid to confirm her fear of a gun or another weapon. She shifted the car into reverse as he knocked again and said something. The only word she could make out was "father."

And the tapping this time was softer, almost as if he realized he'd just scared the crap out of her. She left the car in reverse, her foot prepared to jump from the brake to the accelerator if necessary, and slowly turned to look at him.

He held a white envelope against the glass and spoke again. "I have a letter from your father."

She relaxed a smidge. He had the wrong person. Her father had died when she was six. But she couldn't completely relax. He was still a stranger, and after this afternoon . . . . Whoever had tried to run her over still hadn't been caught. And maybe she'd heard him wrong. Her car was running and the windows were shut.

She took her left hand off the steering wheel and cracked her window a quarter of an inch so she could hear him better. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"I have a letter from your father."

"I think you have the wrong person."

"Alessandra Noelle?"

Lessa hesitated, her right hand tightening on the steering wheel. "Yes."

"You're the correct person." His voice was low and soothing.

But it had the opposite effect on her nerves. She shook her head. "I can't be. My father died nearly twenty years ago."

He hesitated this time and she focused on his face. The security light cast him in harsh shadows. He wore a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a tie. No suit jacket. Probably a concession to the heat. His dark hair was brushed back off his face and his eyes appeared as dark in the night.

His lips firmed into a frown before he spoke again. "No, he didn't. He died two days ago."

She stared at him through the glass, trying to figure out what sort of game he was playing. She was well aware of when her father died considering one of her most vivid memories from childhood was the ride to the hospital with her mother after his heart attack.

"Look." He glanced around. "I'm sorry to approach you like this, at night, but I'm supposed to hand-deliver this letter to his daughter and escort her to the funeral." The envelope dropped away from her window, and a couple of seconds later he pressed up a card in its place. A California driver's license. She squinted at the tiny picture. It looked like him. "My name's Marco Santos, and I've come a long way. If you're Alessandra Noelle, you're who I need to see."

"Lessa! Is everything okay?" Beth's voice called across from her side of the townhouse.

He took a step back from the car, but didn't run or seem overly concerned with the appearance of the tall, brunette cheerleader. Beth stood on her porch, eyes focused directly on him. Lessa tore her gaze away from the stranger to nod at Beth, but realized she probably couldn't see her clearly or might not be able to hear her.

Several rookies clustered behind Beth on the porch. Lessa sighed, remembering that a couple of rookie cheerleaders were staying with Beth until they could find apartments in the area. Seeing the women bolstered her bravery, and she turned her car off and opened her door to step out. She looked up at the man. She was trapped between him and her car even if she was on her feet. He was at least a foot taller than her five feet, two inches.

"Lessa?" Beth called again, stepping off her porch.

The stranger's lips curved slightly and his eyes went from Beth to her. "I mean you no harm, Alessandra."

"Lessa." She corrected him automatically, not even realizing she'd spoken as she considered him a moment before turning to Beth. She just hoped she didn't regret what she was about to say. "I'm fine, thanks. He just startled me."

"He who?" Beth glared suspiciously at them.

Lessa glanced back at him, but he spoke before she could answer.

"Marc Santos." He flashed a smile at Beth and the girls hovering on her porch. "I'm just here to deliver a message." He raised the envelope up and waved it slightly in the humid air.

Beth raised a questioning eyebrow at her.

Lessa leaned in and snatched her cell phone off the floor. She'd have to climb all the way in to grab her purse and backpack, so she shut the door instead. "Okay, you've delivered your message, though I still say you have the wrong person."

Santos handed the envelope over to her, but didn't depart. "As I said, there's more to the message than what's in the envelope."

She suddenly remembered something about a funeral. "Look," she held the envelope back out to him, "I know you have the wrong person."

He jammed his hands into his suit pants instead of taking the letter back. "I don't."

Couldn't he get it through his stubborn head that there was no way she could be this person's daughter? She sighed in frustration and walked around to the other side of her car to pull her purse and backpack off the passenger seat. "Fine, I'll prove it to you."

As she moved up the driveway, she saw Beth staring at her like she'd lost her mind.

"He thinks I'm someone else," Lessa said as she reached her friend. "I'm just going to show him he has the wrong person, and he can go find whoever this other girl is."

Beth frowned at Santos who'd followed a few steps behind her. "We'll be listening."

Lessa bit back a smile. "Thanks." The walls between the two townhouses were famously thin.

The security light on her front porch flashed on a split-second before she climbed the two steps to unlock her door. She hesitated at the threshold wondering if she should make this Santos guy wait outside. She hit the light switch illuminating the downstairs area of her home and dropped her stuff on the chair next to the door.

"Come in." She held the door open, reminding herself that Beth and the other girls would truly be listening in. "The living room's down there." She pointed to the short hallway.

Santos stepped inside the door and, following her gesture, moved ahead of her. She bit back the urge to offer him tea or water. This wasn't exactly a social call. She just needed to show him who her father was so he could finish up his task.

He stopped at the display of dance shoes on her bookshelf. She was too rattled to take the time to explain them. Walking straight to the family photo on the wall by the kitchen, she took it down and held it out to him.

"This is my father, my mother and me when I was five at Disney World. He died of a heart attack when I was six."

Santos walked the few paces it took to bring him next to her. He looked down at the picture before glancing back up at her face. "Read the letter."

She huffed in irritation. "I'm not going to read some other girl's personal letter from her dead father, even if we do have the same name."

He stared at her a moment before reaching into his front shirt pocket to pull some papers out. He unfolded them and held them out to her. The first thing she noticed was the headshot photo of herself from last year's team pictures. She grabbed the printed pages with her other hand.

"What the heck is this?"

"The information your father provided, so I'd be able to find you and deliver the letter."

She read in disbelief. The paper contained all of her personal information, including her home address and the training facility address, with bold lettering marking one as home and one as work.

"So you see, you can't be the wrong Alessandra Noelle."

She shook her head. "Your researcher gave you information on the wrong person."

He sighed. "Do you need to see your baby pictures?"

She shook her head again, trying to wrap her mind around the information she was reading on the page. None of it was shocking, but it was clearly about her.

"Your father's been keeping tabs on you since you were born."

She jerked her gaze away from the paper to stare at him. "What do you mean keeping tabs on me? This guy's had someone following me around and taking pictures?"

"Yes. Your father engaged a private detective to make sure you were doing well. Mr. Tazio was discreet, so no one in the family knew what he was doing. It was handled through his attorney. Ryan's handling this as well."

"Mr. Tazio?"

"Jiovanni Tazio," he said, then taking a beat, added, "Your father."

Her fingers ached from gripping the family picture she had just showed him, so she set it down. The envelope fell to the floor. She hesitated a moment before picking it up. Noticing for the first time her name written in cursive across the expensive ivory stationary, she fingered the writing and looked back at Marc Santos. She needed more information before opening the envelope. She was having a hard time holding onto her belief that he'd made a mistake, but to even consider he was right? It meant everything she knew about her family was wrong.

Well, one person could straighten out all of the confusion. "I need to call my mom."

"Of course."

She returned to the entryway to retrieve her cell phone from where she'd left it. It sat balanced precariously on the edge of the seat next to her purse. She stepped back into the living room and looked at the clock on the phone's display. Her mother should be working the swing shift at the hospital, so she auto-dialed her mom's cell number. It rang twice.

"Hi honey," Erin Noelle said.

"Hey, Mom." Lessa glanced away from Santos, who was now listening closely to her side of the conversation. "Are you busy?"

"I can talk for a moment. What's up?"

The background noise of the hospital faded out as her mother probably ducked into a room to hear her better.

"I need to ask you something." She struggled for courage to ask the question which could change everything.

"What now?" Erin laughed.

Lessa took a deep breath. "Who is Jiovanni Tazio, and why is he sending me a letter saying he's my father?"

Erin made a startled sound and the line went quiet.

"Mom?" Dread filled her. Her mom was supposed to say she didn't know who the heck Jiovanni Tazio was.

"How did you find out?" Erin demanded.

"It's true?" The line went silent again. Lessa spun to focus on the photo from the long-ago trip to Disney. Of the three of them smiling—her mother, Lessa, and the man she'd thought was her father. Who maybe wasn't.

"Of course it's not true. Peter's your father. You look just like him."

But she didn't. She closed her eyes. She and Peter had similar coloring. Blonde hair, blue eyes, fair skin. But her features were like her mother's.

"Just send the letter back to this man. He obviously got the wrong person."

Her mom's voice was too cool, and Lessa didn't believe a word. "You mean hand it back to the courier?"

Erin gasped a second time. "Get away from him. Jiovanni's men are dangerous."