“Walk fast and don’t look,” she whispered. “Two very big guys bearing down fast.”
“How big?”
“Huge.”
I stopped and turned around. “Hey, Troy.”
Troy lifted his sunglasses onto his head. “Hey, Paige. Morris, this is Paige.”
The temp bodyguard was the same one who’d been at the courthouse yesterday. He was several inches shorter than Troy, broader in the shoulders, and black, which ruined the whole bookend-bodyguard effect. Morris did, however, share Griffin’s stone-faced demeanor, responding to the introduction with a nod so abrupt I thought it might be a hiccup.
Across the lot, our middle-aged stalker headed for a Mercedes. Troy lifted a hand in greeting. The man waved back, confirming what I’d only just suspected, that he was a Cabal employee sent to follow not Jaime, but me.
I completed the introductions by identifying Jaime. Troy smiled and shook her hand.
“The celebrity necro,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Uh, thanks,” Jaime said, surreptitiously tucking in the back of her T-shirt. “So I’m guessing you guys are Cabal security?”
“Benicio’s bodyguards,” I said. “And I’m guessing the boss is in the SUV waiting for me.”
“Yeah, different city, same plan. I told you, he likes routine.”
“Benicio Cortez? Here?” Jaime glanced at the Cadillac SUV. “Oh, shit.”
“It’s more like ‘aww, shit,’” I said. “Now comes the boring part. I have to send Troy back to say I want Benicio to come here, then he’ll insist I come there, and poor Troy will get his daily dose of jogging running between us.”
Troy grinned. “True, but the good part is that it’s definitely not routine. Most times, when I say Mr. Cortez wants to speak to someone, they trip over me running to get to him.”
“It’s getting late, so let me make this easy on you. Wait here and I’ll see what he wants.”
I walked to the SUV, tapped the rear window, and motioned for the driver to lower it. Instead, Benicio opened the door.
“Come around the other side and get in please, Paige.”
“No, thanks.” I held the door open and stepped into the gap. “Let me guess: The clinic called you when I showed up, then you had one of your security guys hang around outside and follow me when I left.”
“I wanted to speak—”
“I’m not done. My point was that you knew the moment you got that call that Lucas wasn’t with me, and he’d already told you he wasn’t happy about your approaching me in Portland. So now, when he’s probably never been more pissed off with you, you decide this is a good time to follow me into an empty parking lot, corner me, and strong-arm me into talking to you.”
“I would like to speak—”
“Am I talking to myself? Did you hear anything I just said? No, forget it. You go ahead and talk, and then Lucas will find out about it, and you can save yourself one place setting at Christmas dinner for the next umpteen years.” I tried to stop there, but couldn’t help adding, “Do you have any idea how upset he is right now?”
“Having my phone calls automatically blocked was a good clue. I want to explain myself, but I can’t do that if he won’t speak to me. So I hoped perhaps I could speak to you instead.”
I shook my head. “I won’t be your go-between.”
“I’m not asking for that. What I’m saying is that I recognize you’re a full partner in Lucas’s life and in this investigation, and I’m speaking to you as such. You’re an intelligent young—”
“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t insult me and don’t play me. You have something to say? Fine. But you’ll say it to both of us. You’ll follow me back to the hotel and I’ll take you to Lucas. We’ll tell him you met up with us outside the clinic and, seeing he wasn’t with me, you asked if you could speak to us both at the hotel.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not doing it for you.”
The Usual Suspects
INSTEAD OF HAVING BENICIO FOLLOW US, I DECIDED TO ride with him and let Jaime follow us in her rental car. I had questions, not about why he’d betrayed Lucas, but about the investigation. When Lucas saw his father he’d be too upset to ask about the case, so I’d do it for him.
Benicio confirmed that the Cabals had resumed their investigation. After Joey Nast’s death, they’d changed tactics. No longer content to follow the clues, they’d rounded up the usual suspects—anyone known to have a beef with the Cabals—and were trying to “extract” clues.