“Ms. O’Leary, I’m Rae Kelleher. Sorry to be so late.”
“No worries. I don’t sleep much anyway. This story about an inheritance-it’s not true, is it?”
“No, it’s not. How did you know?”
“I don’t have any relatives, at least not any that would leave me money.”
“Then why did you call me, agree to meet with me?”
Callie O’Leary motioned for Rae to be seated across from her. “Because this has got to be about Angie. I saw on the news that they identified her body. I know… quite a few things about Angie, and it’s time I told somebody.”
Rae’s phone buzzed. She looked at the number, saw it was Hy and said, “I need to take this.”
After she’d ended the call, she sat silently for a moment, fingers pressed to her lips, feeling sick inside.
“Bad news?” Callie O’Leary asked.
“… Yes.”
“You need to leave? We can talk another time. I’ll be here until it’s safe for me to get out of town.”
Rae forced her mind away from what Hy had told her about Shar and back to the situation at hand. “No,” she said. “It’s bad news, but there’s nothing I can do to help.”
Besides, she was doing what Shar would want her to.
“So how come you’re here?” she asked Callie.
“Guy threatened me.”
“Don’t you get a lot of threats in your line of work?”
“Not like this. Not from somebody so powerful.”
“Somebody connected with Angie?”
She nodded.
“Tell me about it.”
O’Leary’s earlier resolve had faded. “This guy, he’ll kill me if I do.”
“Not if he can’t find you.”
“He can find me, a guy like that. And the security isn’t all that good here.”
“I know a place where it is.”
Ricky was going to be amazed when she brought a hooker home.
TUESDAY, JULY 22
HY RIPINSKY
After midnight. Still no word.
Once he’d made his calls people started to arrive. Ted and Neal. Ricky, in lieu of Rae, who was working a lead. Craig had stopped in briefly, but he would be off on an early morning flight tomorrow, pursuing another lead. Julia. Robin Blackhawk, Shar’s half sister. Brother John. Mick. And Elwood Farmer, sitting silent and calm by himself. Hy hadn’t called Elwood because he assumed the traditional old man didn’t have a cell phone, but Ricky had supplied a number. An iPhone, no less. Traditional or not, Elwood had entered the twenty-first century in style.
Two hours gone now, and nothing from the doctor. Two hours in surgery: God, what a toll that must be taking on his wife’s weakened body!
He wondered what he’d been thinking, sitting here alone and refusing company. Refusing comfort. Since he’d changed his mind he was surrounded by the most caring people he’d ever known. Family, what a family should be. What they so often weren’t.
The nurse on the desk was eyeing them nervously. So many people crowding the waiting room. Hy went up to her and asked, “Do you want some of them to leave? They can sit with me in shifts.”
“No, Mr. Ripinsky. They can stay as long as they behave themselves.”
“Well, that’s kind of a risky proposition. Anybody misbehaves, you tell me and I’ll throw them out myself.”
He crossed the room to Elwood, sat down beside him. Shar’s birth father nodded to him, but remained silent.
Hy felt uncomfortable; he barely knew the man, and even McCone had been struggling to connect with him.
“She will be all right,” Elwood said.
Hy glanced at him, startled.
“How do you know that?” he asked.
“Saika mukua kettae. Her spirit is strong.” Farmer shrugged. “Some things, you just know.”
“Because you’re her father?”
“Well, there’s something about blood.” He shot a keen look at Hy. “You know how strong she is. Why are you doubting her?”
He thought on the question. “Maybe because I’m not sure how well I’d do in the same situation.”
Elwood made a dismissive motion with his hand. “Then doubt yourself, not your wife.”
Doubt himself. He’d been doing that ever since Southeast Asia. Why transfer the feeling to Shar? Elwood was right-just stop the doubting altogether.
“Saika mukua kettae.”
After a moment Elwood added, “You can’t take control of her physically; the doctors are doing that. But mentally, emotionally…” He shrugged again.
“Thanks. I’ll try.”
They sat there together in silence, waiting for news, and Hy felt the strength that radiated from Shar’s father.
Three hours gone.
RAE KELLEHER
Callie O’Leary asked, “You live here?”
“I do.” They had just pulled through the automatic gate to the house in Sea Cliff; to the north the Golden Gate Bridge shone orange through the gathering mist. The big, multistoried residence loomed before them, soft lights in only a few of its windows.
“Awesome,” Callie said, “but where’re all the security guys?”
“They’re here. You just don’t see them-and neither do intruders.”
“Rad. This PI business, it must pay real good.”
Rae smiled and stopped the car. “It helps to have married well.”
They got out and went to the front door, where Rae punched numbers on a keypad, then let them in and rearmed the system. The house was quiet: the younger kids had gone back to Charlene and Vic’s home in Bel Air, Chris was at her apartment in Berkeley, and Mick was probably at the hospital. Ricky, too-he’d promised he’d fill in for her.
When they entered the living room, Callie again said, “Awesome!”
“Are you hungry?” Rae asked. “Do you want a drink?”
“… I’m not hungry and I haven’t had a drink since I went to Hope House. Probably I shouldn’t now.”
“Soda? Coffee? Anything else?”
“No thanks. All I want to do is sit down on that couch and look at that beautiful fireplace. I’ve never seen one like that, just standing in the middle of the room with rock all around it.”
Rae motioned for Callie to sit. “Where’re you from?” she asked.
“You mean where I was born? Honolulu. My dad was in the navy. We moved a lot. I headed out when they were gonna leave San Diego for someplace on the East Coast.”
“Why?”
“Why not? I had three brothers. They liked them better than me. And I liked San Diego.” She looked sharply at Rae. “And no, nobody abused me. They… just didn’t care if I was there or not.”
“So you were living in San Diego…?”
“And a guy made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Move to LA, live in his penthouse, make a lot of money. Old stupid story, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s cool.”
The front door opened. “Hey, Red, where are you?” Ricky, back from the hospital.
“Living room.”
She could hear him pulling off his coat and hanging it on the rack in the entryway. He called, “Shar’s still in surgery. They were getting edgy about a cast of thousands in the waiting room, so I took a break.”
He appeared in the archway, and his gaze rested on Callie. “Hi. Who’s this?”
“A new friend, Callie O’Leary.”
Something flickered in his eyes; he knew exactly what she was. He’d had plenty of contact with women like her in the music business.
“Well, Callie,” he said, “welcome to our home.”
Callie’s eyes widened and she turned to Rae. “Oh my God, you did marry well. Ricky Savage! I can’t believe it! I’ve listened and listened to his music hundreds of times, and I saw that movie he did last year.”
“Crappy movie,” Ricky told her. “But I thought I looked okay in a beard.”