LITMIR.BIZ

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      Rina grinned. “Uh-huh. I’m on the road.”

      “Not with me you’re not. And I’ll be having a word to your father about that.” The words were automatic, but with a pang she realized she wouldn’t be having a word with Cesar about Rina, or anything else, in the conceivable future. For the next twenty-four hours, she would be staying quiet and keeping her mouth shut. Every ounce of energy she had would be directed into helping Xavier pull off the funds transfer and making arrangements for both Rina and herself to disappear.

      Grief she hadn’t had time to feel hit her like a fist in the chest. She had been so busy trying to find out what had gone wrong and figure a way through the mess, she hadn’t had time to count the personal cost, and it was huge. She and Cesar had had twelve good years together. The pull of those years, of living and working side by side tugged at her, sharp enough to cause actual pain. At times they had fought—each as stubborn as the other—but the relationship had been exhilarating and Esther had been satisfied. Rina had completed them, filling the gaps that occasionally loomed, bringing softness and the sense of family she craved.

      She turned a corner and accelerated away from the barbed territory of Lopez’s house, shoving the misery down somewhere deep and dark until she had the time and the privacy to deal with it.

      “Lopez is a problem, isn’t he?”

      Esther’s gaze was sharp. “What do you mean?”

      “I heard him and Dad talking.” Rina made a face. “Don’t look so surprised. Just because it looks like I’m not listening, it doesn’t mean I’m not. Anyway, they thought I was listening to my Walkman, but I wasn’t. Lopez was talking about the mall project that Dad’s been worried about, the one that’s threatening to go down the tubes. He owns the company that wants to pull out. Dad didn’t look happy.” She glanced at Esther, her gaze sharply adult. “I wasn’t, either.” She settled back in her seat. “He’s got no color—he looks dark and flat—and his eyes aren’t right.”

      And Rina would know, she’d stared at Alex Lopez for long enough. He had eyes like a shark, dead and cold. The skin at the back of her neck tightened, a sense of premonition that added to the urgency to simply cut and run.

      “Do you want to hear?”

      Esther braked for an intersection. “Hear what?”

      Rina rummaged in her bag again. “The tape. I told you I wasn’t listening to music, I was taping.”

      A horn sounded behind her. Jerkily, Esther accelerated through the intersection and pulled over. “You were what?”

      “Taping.” Rina pressed the rewind button on the Walkman then pressed Play.

      Lopez’s dark cold voice filled the car. Esther’s skin crawled as she listened to evidence that Lopez was blackmailing Cesar, using the threat of bankrupting a company he had recently procured in order to collapse the Pembroke development, a run-of-the-mill project that had been solid.

      The conversation must have happened while she was away from the table. Lopez had obviously thought he was safe in delivering the threat because he thought Rina was deafened by music. He had probably also made the mistake, like a lot of people, of assuming that because Rina looked disconnected she had no interest in what was going on.

      Not for the first time Esther was reminded that beneath the disconnected façade, Rina had always worked to her own agenda. The only time she was really dreamy was when she was painting. The rest of the time she used the faintly “out to lunch” expression to buy herself leeway to do exactly what she wanted, and the tactic worked. She had Cesar wrapped around her little finger and she had outmaneuvered Lopez. Like Cesar and herself, Rina was a player, but on a whole other level entirely. If she ever got into business they would all be in for a wild ride.

      Abruptly the voice was replaced with blaring pop music. Wincing at the assault on her ears, Esther stared at the Walkman. She’d been so busy listening to the content of the recording she hadn’t registered its full value. The tape was manna from heaven on three counts. It was vital evidence—she would retain a copy of the tape to hand to the police—but it was also exactly what Xavier needed to help his actor replicate Lopez’s voice. On top of that she was almost certain Lopez’s unwitting testimony would buy Cesar some leeway in court when the feds closed in. “I need that tape.”

      Rina’s gaze was wary. “I know I’m not supposed to tape conversations.”

      “No punishment, I promise.” Relief at the discovery of the tape and the doors it opened made her feel light-headed. Cancel business; the kid could go into politics.

      Dennison sat in his office, studying Collins’s surveillance notes.

      Esther Morell had had a busy day, but that was nothing unusual. For the past month Collins’s daily report had contained a long list of appointments, lunch dates and trips to and from the fancy school the kid attended. However, the fact that Esther had left the house that morning, driving a battered Chevy instead of the Saab, had rung alarm bells. Collins had followed her, but he had lost her in a traffic snarl-up in town. He had picked her up just as she’d left the school, in time to catch her detouring from her usual route.

      He slipped the security video for Lopez’s house into the VCR, then rewound it and began skipping through until just before the time recorded in Collins’s notes. Over a five-minute period, a number of vehicles had driven past the house, which was normal. At that time of day, with school just out, there was always plenty of traffic.

      Dennison frowned. The quality of the security tape was abysmal. To avoid being spotted or stolen, the camera had been set back too far from the road, and the angle wasn’t helpful. Consequently the film was grainy and it was difficult to read license plates or get any kind of accurate description of the occupants of cars. A brown Chevy appeared. Dennison could make out two people, but no more detail than that. Seconds later, Collins’s charcoal-gray car appeared on the tape, confirming that the driver of the brown Chevy had been Esther.

      Dennison picked up the phone and dialed through to Lopez’s office, which was located on the first story of the house, then rewound the tape and played it through again. He didn’t like the fact that Esther had driven by the house. Maybe there was a good reason why she hadn’t used her own car today, but he didn’t think so. More and more, he was beginning to believe that they had underestimated her.

      Lopez arrived halfway through the segment of tape and took a seat. Dennison passed him Collins’s surveillance report, rewound the tape and ran it through again.

      When the relevant portion of the tape had played, he hit the stop button and ejected the videotape from the VCR.

      Lopez got to his feet, his expression cold. What he wanted was old news: Esther watched more closely and researched more fully. He didn’t trust her. Hell, neither did Dennison. Any woman that gorgeous…there had to be a catch.

      He picked up the phone and put a call through to Collins. They were going to need a second man on the job, and a wire on the phone.

      Lately he had been working 24/7 on Esther Morell, but obtaining concrete information about her was difficult. When it came to business, Cesar was the head of the Morell Group, and every company report and legal document was signed by him. The only place Esther showed up on paper was in the private legal agreements that existed between her and Cesar, but those agreements in themselves were a piece of work. In terms of financial security, anything with Esther’s name on it was ironclad. She didn’t feature in the business—unless Cesar died, in which case she inherited everything—but legally she owned a sizable chunk of the Morell Group, and in the marriage, she definitely wore the pants.

      If Esther and Cesar ever divorced, he got the Corvette and a whole lot of cold air. Mrs. Midas took all the real estate, including the apartments in Monte Carlo and London and the holiday home in the Bahamas. She also qualified for a solid cash payout, the Saab and the kid, and she retained her twenty-five-percent share of the Morell Group.

      Morell

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