She went into the bedroom and closed the door, leaning back against it while she waited to see if Rip would follow, if a push would send her stumbling across the room. But after a moment she heard his footsteps continue down the hall to the room where he was sleeping, and with a sigh of relief she locked the door and went into the bathroom.
She used her cell phone to call True. He answered on the second ring, his voice alert and full of authority, as always.
“Rip checked up on me,” she said. “He knows I wasn’t at either hospital. He even called the patient I said I was meeting.”
“Find someone and let Rip catch you fucking him, and he won’t check any further.”
She closed her eyes at True’s crude reply. The hell of it was, he was right: if she did that, Rip would think he’d solved the mystery and would stop prying. But she’d never cheated on Rip, and she wasn’t going to start now, no matter what he thought or what True said.
“How did things go with Milla?”
“They didn’t.” She could hear the banked fury in his voice, and she knew Milla had reacted just the way she’d expected.
She was too smart to say “I told you so” to True. Instead she said, “She’s obsessed with finding her kid. Nothing else touches her.”
“Not even reason, apparently. I have to have some way of keeping tabs on her. She was never a threat before, but she is now. Who told her about Diaz? I’ve headed her off, but she might decide to do some investigating on her own, and the last thing we need is Diaz in the picture.”
Susanna didn’t know Diaz, but she knew of him. She also knew that True Gallagher wasn’t afraid of the devil himself, but he was wary of this Diaz guy. There was history between them, there had to be. She got the feeling Diaz would be more than happy to do anything that caused trouble for True. Diaz’s reputation was downright scary; if Milla somehow made contact with him and talked him into helping her, they’d have to take steps to protect themselves.
“Feed her some more false leads,” she suggested. “Get her busy chasing ghosts.”
True chuckled. “Good idea.” He paused. “I just realized. It wasn’t your home phone that showed up on Caller ID.”
“I’m on my cell phone.”
“Shit! You know they can be intercepted.”
“If I call from the home phone, Rip can pick up and listen.”
“Then find some other way, but don’t use your cell.” The receiver clanged in her ear.
Grimacing, Susanna ended the call. “Fuck you, too,” she muttered. There she went again with the swearing. She stood for a moment, swaying with exhaustion; she was tempted to fall into bed and shower when she got up, but after what she’d been doing, she didn’t want to go to bed without bathing. She’d washed up before coming home, of course, but that wasn’t the same as an all-over bath. Perhaps this was how Lady Macbeth had felt, scrubbing out invisible spots of blood.
True got out of bed after hanging up on Susanna. He trusted her as much as he trusted most people, but sometimes she could do things that were incredibly stupid. He’d told her over and over, no cell phones or cordless phones. Use landlines. They were safest. He had cordless phones for convenience, of course, but the phones by his bed and in his office were corded.
He’d have to update his security eventually, he thought. Scramblers on his phones. Electronic countermeasures to prevent anyone from eavesdropping with a parabolic mike. Right now, though, he wasn’t a big enough fish for anyone to go to that much trouble to catch him. He was still medium-sized, but growing. He intended to keep on growing. Give him another year, two years at the most, and he’d be able to walk away clean with a sizable fortune that would require overseeing and investing, but would grow under its own momentum.
If he could just get through those couple of years without things blowing up under him.
Milla had never been very worrisome, despite her persistence. He’d made certain no one would tell her anything. He’d kept tabs on her through Susanna and other contacts, and he even—somewhat to his bemusement—admired the way she never gave up. Certainly his own mother had never been that devoted. Eventually, when Milla got into fund-raising for that group of hers, he’d made a point of showing up, contributing, and slowly getting to know her and getting her to trust him. What better way to stay on top of her efforts? He was a sponsor. She talked to him, and though she normally limited her conversation to what Finders was doing, if he asked about her personal situation, she would tell him. He’d made a point of always asking.
The unwelcome surprise was that he liked her.
Hell, he wanted to sleep with her. He wanted her naked. He wanted to tangle his hands in that soft curly hair and hold her while he fucked her. He didn’t understand it, because she wasn’t his usual type. She wasn’t voluptuous, or flashy, or even really pretty. But she had style, and presence, and brown eyes that invited a man to get lost in them.
It would be a bitch if he had to have her killed.
He didn’t want to. For one thing, she was too high-profile. People knew her name, her face, her story. It would be national news if anything happened to her, which meant the cops would go all out on the investigation.
She was enough of a threat that he’d had her watched, had kept watch on her himself, for ten years. He’d minimized her effectiveness, and taking her out now would be like using an elephant gun to shoot a bird. He didn’t want to overreact and bring unnecessary attention his way. There were other ways to keep her in check.