“Okay. Anyone else who would be on Santos’s short list?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe Kelly Winters, who’s at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. She and Luke are friends, and she spends weekends with us sometimes. Assign someone to keep an eye on her.” She paused. “I thought I was a fairly solitary person, but we touch everyone around us. When I was going over the list of possible victims, I found that out. Someone I might not consider as close, Santos could decide was worth killing.” Her hand tightened on the phone. “I just have to find him soon. Get me phone numbers. Any way to trace him. Start searching, Venable.”
“What do you think I’m doing? I’ll get back to you when I know something.” He hung up.
Santos. He still wasn’t a definite, but he was emerging as a clear favorite. Time to go over his history and favorite locations to see if something popped out at her.
She Googled his name.
A newspaper article and photograph popped on the screen.
Slick black hair, Castilian features, sensual mouth. He looked to be in his thirties, but she knew he was forty-four. A rap sheet that was violent and terrifying. He dealt out vengeance with swift and cruel efficiency. He’d risen from the gangs on the streets of Caracas as a child to head the most powerful crime organization in South America. His corruption of the political systems in Bolivia and Venezuela had kept him safe and at the top of the heap.
Where are you, bastard?
He’d spent a lot of time on the Riviera. He’d had a home on the coast in Bolivia, but that had been confiscated by the government when he’d been convicted. He’d also invested in a castle in Morocco, where he and Delores had entertained royally. Had that been taken away from him, too? She’d have to check into it. Not that he would be there now. He’d expect her to be on the hunt. Wherever he was hiding out, it wouldn’t be anywhere that was obvious. But he must have had other places that the government hadn’t been able to track down. She doubted if he’d establish himself at any totally new place. He’d want the comfort and protection of his own goons around him.
But he liked the sun, as demonstrated by the choices he’d made in the houses she knew about. Sun. Sea. Areas where he could control his surroundings. Helicopter pads? More than likely. She’d start checking into that possibility.
If she had time before Santos started moving against the people she loved.
“I brought you your tea.” Luke was standing in the doorway with a tray. “Hu Chang said he’d bring it, but I told him it was my job.” He came forward and set the tray on the coffee table in front of her. “You’re my job, Catherine.”
“I keep telling you, it should be the other way around.” She poured the tea. “You don’t have a duty toward me. You’ve got our relationship all wrong, Luke.”
“No, I’m starting to get it right.” Luke sat down across from her, his back straight, his dark eyes holding her own. “It took me awhile after you took me away from Rakovac. I wasn’t used to worrying or caring about anyone. It’s still … hard for me. But I’m learning, Catherine. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I can’t do that.” He grimaced. “Rakovac taught me all kinds of ugly ways that would prevent anyone from hurting you.”
“I know he did.” She felt the familiar rage soar through her. “That’s why I killed him. And I wanted you to forget that ugliness, not use it for me.”
“Too late. I’ve tried to tell you. I can’t change, I can’t be a normal kid.” His face was pale, grave. “But I can be your kid. Just don’t try to shut me out. Hu Chang told us about this Santos. I heard Sam on the phone, and he’s trying to build a wall around me.”
“Good.”
“But who’s going to build a wall around you?”
“At the moment, I appear to be last on Santos’s list. Maybe I won’t need a wall.”
“And maybe you will. But you’re not going to let me be there.” He was suddenly smiling recklessly. “But maybe I’ll be there anyway.”
“No!” Panic was soaring through her. “Let me work my way through this, Luke. It will be more dangerous for me if I have to worry about you. Can’t you see that?”
“But I want to—” He frowned. “Maybe. But I don’t like—”
“Forget what you don’t like.” She reached out and touched his hand. “You and Sam take care of each other, so I don’t have to be thinking about either one of you.”
“Someone has to protect you.”
“Hu Chang and I have gotten along very well for years protecting each other. You trust Hu Chang.”
“But Hu Chang lets you do everything that you want to do. He says it’s your right and privilege.”
“Thank God,” she said emphatically. “Which just goes to prove he’s the wisest man either one of us will ever know. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”
“It tells me that I don’t think like him.” He smiled. “And he would say that’s my right and privilege.”
“You’ve been around him too long,” she said in frustration. “Promise me that you’ll do what Sam tells you to do.”
He was silent. “I’ll have to think about it. Maybe until I can’t do it any longer. If I see that no one is protecting you.”
And, hopefully, he wouldn’t be anywhere near her that he would be able to see that. But it just emphasized to her how quickly they had to catch Santos.
“Drink your tea, Catherine,” he said as he got to his feet. “And call me if you need me.”
“As a matter of fact, I do need you.” She’d had a sudden thought. “Kelly. I’m having Venable assign an agent to watch over her, but I really want her with us.” Kelly Winters was only sixteen, but she was superintelligent and thinking out of the box and being able to detect patterns that no one else could detect had earned her a place in her university’s science think tank. But that also meant that she could be obsessive about her work. Not that being absorbed was usually bad for her. Hard work had saved Kelly after Catherine had saved her from being killed in the jungles of Colombia. “Can you persuade her?”
He shook his head. “She’s working on a special project for her think tank. It’s important to her. She said that it’s innovative and a groundbreaker. Maybe in a couple days. Unless you want me to tell her that she should drop everything and come and take care of you. Then she’d do it.”
“I’m tempted.” She thought about it. Kelly’s science think tank wasn’t turning out just student projects. They were occasionally written up in prestigious journals. She hated the idea of letting Santos destroy that for Kelly. “No, I guess not. She’s not actually family, and she isn’t able to come to see us very often. She’d probably be low on Santos’s list of priorities. And I already have her protected.” She frowned. “I suppose she doesn’t have to know about this until that damn project is finished. But do me a favor, keep in constant contact with her. Okay?”
“Sure. I’ve got a new game that’s pretty cool. It should be enough to tear her away from that project occasionally. You know how she likes games.”
“Thanks, Luke.”
“You’re welcome, Catherine.” He moved a step closer to her. “I don’t think you can use this now.” He took the scarlet chiffon hat from the table where she’d tossed it and smiled down at it. “Too bad. I liked the way you smiled when you saw yourself in the mirror.”
She made a face. “Because I looked ridiculous.”
He shook his head as he headed for the door. “No, because it was something we were sharing. You taught me that sharing is good, Catherine.”
She watched the door shut behind him. My God, she loved him. He had been damaged and suffered horribly from those nine years of captivity, but somehow he’d had the will to survive with a strength that often surprised her.
And exasperated her.
And scared the hell out of her.
KADMUS VILLAGE, TIBET
“Stop nagging me. I am hurrying, Les.” Erin Sullivan stopped packing to frown over her shoulder at Les Caudell, the CIA agent whose helicopter had suddenly appeared fifteen minutes ago on the plateau above the village. “You can’t just show up and expect me to drop everything and go with you. I had to explain to the elders and priests of the village that I wasn’t abandoning them. They went through a hell of a time living under the heel of that monster Kadmus, who took over their mountain.”