“You hear anything?”
“Only that I’m still working with you. At least through tomorrow.”
“What about Tito?”
“He made plans, so he’s not that happy about it. He’ll be there, though.”
“You guys will start with Fontaine, right?”
“I’ll run him through the system,” he said. “Tito’s geared up to interview the doctor’s neighbors. What about you?”
She thought about her meeting with Steve Avadar in the morning. That just maybe the victim’s bank statements would shed some light on Fontaine’s involvement. She didn’t say anything because it was only a hunch. Still, it had been the single reason why she called Avadar on a Friday night. The reason she didn’t want to wait until Monday to see the statements.
“I’ll be in later,” she said. “I’ll call from the bank when I’m done.”
“Sounds good. What are you drinking?”
She smiled. “How do you know I’m drinking?”
“Your voice,” he said. “It changes. It gets deeper and cracks.”
She set the glass down on the counter. “Ice water,” she said.
Rhodes laughed. “I’ll bet it’s really good ice water. Try and get some sleep. I think we’re gonna need it. I’ve got a feeling about this one.”
“Me, too,” she said.
He hung up. Lena stared at the phone, thinking about what Rhodes said for a moment. Letting the words sink in. Then she switched off the TV, crossed the room to the slider, and opened the door. The thermometer on the wall read thirty-nine degrees, but it felt much colder than that. As she stepped outside and walked down the steps to the pool, she could feel the cold penetrating her socks from the concrete.
She sat down at the table and lifted her feet off the ground. Gazing over the lip of the pool, her eyes swept across the city below. She could see the world moving, but she couldn’t hear it.
She took another sip from her glass. She was beginning to feel the wine now. The ebb and flow of her breathing. As her mind quieted, she thought about Rhodes and wondered if he was alone tonight. She could tell that he still had feelings for her. Although she felt the same way, she was torn because she liked working with him so much and didn’t want it to end.
A moment passed, her thoughts lingering. Dreams. Fantasies. The smell of his skin. And that’s when she heard the sound of a car door.
It was close. Too close. The sound had come from right in front of the house. Her closest neighbor was through the brush on the other side of the hill. There was no reason for a car to be parked there. The road was too narrow, the twists and turns through the hills too sharp.
She got to her feet, glancing at her socks and wishing that she had a pair of shoes on. Checking the driveway, she slid into the shadows and followed the path around the other side of the house. She moved slowly, silently-her feet burning from the cold. As she reached the clearing, she paused a moment and looked around the corner. Satisfied that she was alone on the property, she kept to the darkness and started through the brush. There was a bluff between her house and the road, about twenty feet high, and she could hear voices now. Lowering her body to the ground, she crawled to the top and peered over the other side.
It was a Caprice, parked across the street underneath the trees.
A man in a suit was leaning against the door, smoking a cigarette, and whispering to someone through the open window. They were laughing about something. She noted the chiseled young face and short brown hair. She could see the gun strapped to his shoulder and knew that he carried a badge. Even though she couldn’t place the name, she remembered seeing him around and knew where he worked. He was one of Klinger’s friends-someone Klinger was bringing along before he left Internal Affairs. She was having trouble with the name because the bureau wasn’t housed at Parker Center. Instead, they were over on Broadway several blocks away.
It looked like Klinger and Chief Logan were trying to keep in touch. Close touch. Although she had skipped the meeting after the autopsy and hadn’t called either one, Barrera had said that he talked to them this afternoon and everything was cool.
She backed down the hill, trying to control her anger and see the situation for what it really was.
If they wanted to keep an eye on her, which was insane, why would they park in the only spot that didn’t offer a view of her house? Why would they park behind the bluff? The man she saw smoking the cigarette looked young and stupid. All the same, he probably wasn’t that stupid.
As she considered the possibilities, the answer seemed obvious.
She looked up and followed the telephone line through the air. The wire crossed the front yard, then made a run along the side of the house she’d just passed from the pool. She moved down the path to the utility box and swung open the plastic door. As dark as it was, she didn’t need a flashlight to spot the tap and wireless transmitter.
They didn’t need to keep watch because they were listening. Listening without a judge signing off on a warrant.
Lena closed the box without disturbing the tap. Grabbing her wineglass, she returned to the house and locked the door behind her. She was glad she’d skipped dinner, but thought she might have trouble getting to sleep tonight.
14
Nathan G. Cava watched the Mercedes pull into the drive and vanish behind the grove of oak trees. But it was the Ford Explorer with darkened glass following the Mercedes onto the property that he found so disturbing. As the gate closed, he pulled into a construction site just across the street. Someone wanted a new mansion, so they tore down the old one. Nothing was left but a ten-foot wall protecting a bunch of dirt.
Welcome to the Westside. Swimming pools and movie stars.
Cava made a loop, his Hummer grinding up the loose soil. When he had a reasonable view of Fontaine’s place, he slammed on the brakes and watched the cloud of dust rake across the hood. Then he reached for his binoculars, steadying his view through the trees with his elbows pinned to the steering wheel.
Fontaine and his girlfriend from the office were heading for the front door. The two men riding in the Explorer were walking around both sides of the house, sweeping the property.
It looked like the Beverly Hills doctor had hired a pair of bodyguards. All of a sudden things were getting dramatic. And Nathan G. Cava didn’t like dramatic.
He wondered what had spooked Fontaine, and figured that it must have been that story they ran on the news last night. Cava had seen it on one of the stations when it was rebroadcast at 1:00 a.m. He’d just returned to his apartment, popped an Ambien CR, and was lying in bed waiting for the drug to take. That’s when he learned that there had been a witness. That part one of his three-part Hollywood deal wasn’t exactly done yet. There was another loose end. Another screwup, just like all the other screwups he’d endured while overseas.
Someone had been hiding in the parking lot Wednesday night and had the balls to take that picture. The quality of the photograph ate shit and wasn’t worth worrying about. But someone had been lurking in the shadows. Someone had been watching him. No matter how dark it may have been that night, odds were that the witness saw his face and probably knew the make and model of his car. As he played back the night in his head, he had to admit that he’d been a little nervous, a bit rusty and not exactly up to par. He hadn’t expected her to be so young or pretty. And he hadn’t expected her to smile. He had seen her do it through the window when he walked by. He could see the spark in her eyes.
Even worse, he wasn’t really sold on the reason he had been given to talk to the pretty girl and to take her life. It felt a lot like the reasons he had been given during his three tours of duty. When he did the math, it never really added up. Especially the two additional years he had spent in Eastern Europe, where he had been given the nickname Dr. Neat. The truth was that he considered himself a physician-not an information specialist who interviews people and delves into their past with the aid of special tools. Although he had followed orders, he hated the nickname and the people who gave it to him. It felt more like a burden than anything else. A burden placed on him by people he couldn’t trust because he knew that they didn’t have souls and were using him.