her shape and warmth and softness—her goodness—eased the aches of the day. Grif closed his eyes, as she whispered, “I know that, too. And I love you for it.”
Then she slipped from his arms, patted his chest, and climbed into the car.
“Hey,” he said, before she could shut the door. She gazed up at him, and he managed a smile. “I love you, too.”
Even before answering the phone, the woman knows who it is. Tomas is watching the Craig woman and her companion, but she is watching Tomas.
“Speak” is all she says as she watches the sun set over Naked City.
“I’m watching them now. They’re leaving the neighborhood.” He pauses, but the woman only waits for more. “I also know every place the Craig woman visited since this morning.”
“Are you following her now?” The intimation is that he’d better be.
“Yes. Craig’s in the car, but it looks like she’s leaving the man behind.”
Yes, she sees that, too. “Stay on Craig. She’s going to be trouble. And Tomas.” There is a pause. “You did well to see where she was going. I find it very interesting that she tried to visit Little Havana.”
Even from a distance, and as he starts his car and begins to follow the Craig woman, she can see Tomas straighten, and preen. She smiles to herself. It is good that he still desires to prove himself to her. She can still use that. Yet it also emboldens Tomas. “I can take care of her if you’d like.”
It is a thought. That’s what he does best, and it is why she’s hired him in the first place. Wrapping one arm around her middle, she asks, “You say she left the big guy behind?”
“Yes. But I can take care of him, too,” he says, and she smiles again, and relaxes. He wants so badly to show her what he is capable of.
“Maybe later,” she says, and imagines Tomas deflating a bit. He is gone from view, doing her bidding. “I don’t want to risk that kind of attention right now, although . . .”
Tomas waits.
“It wouldn’t hurt to scare the girl a bit.”
There is a blare in the background, likely caused by Tomas blowing through a red light to keep up with Craig, but there is also a smile in his voice. “I can find an angle.”
“Good. Make some noise in her life. Nothing direct, though. Be creative. Make sure it can’t be traced back to us. Maybe she’ll rethink what she’s doing. But Tomas?”
“Yes?”
She thinks of Katherine Craig circling, writing articles, questioning people who might eventually lead to her. “Whatever you do? I want her reeling.”
“I’ll give her a good scare,” he says immediately.
“Do more than that, Tomas,” she says in a low voice. “Put the fear of God into her.”
Chapter Ten
Kit couldn’t sleep. She’d burned up the bulk of her anger doing exactly what she told Grif she would do, going home and pounding the computer keys so hard that she broke a nail. Even amid her moral outrage, she managed to construct a story about a drug that stripped flesh from the bone, and a dealer—faceless, nameless, remorseless—who preyed upon the poor. She’d submitted it electronically, and then had a tense fifteen-minute phone call with Marin before her aunt agreed to approve the story and run it by morning. The only thing Kit left out—in print and in words—was the heartlessness of angels who stood by and watched as man—and woman—fell.
That, the confounding senselessness of it, was what had her tossing and turning alone in the bed she and Grif normally shared. Or maybe her sleeplessness was precisely because she was alone. Sorry she’d run him off, she had called Grif just after nine, but he said he was following “a lead” and would be a while.
A private lead, she added silently.
So, even though it was already late, Kit decided to go out, too, and knew as soon as she was showered, warm, and in motion that it was the right decision. The mere act of stepping into her closet cleared the worry from her brow. She inhaled deeply, immediately feeling more certain, more herself, when surrounded by all her things. She touched a strand of estate pearls, and felt a smile reach the corners of her mouth. She let her fingers roam: Bakelite bracelets, antique brooches, vintage furs, and peacock feathers.
The black-and-white skulls and cherry prints—yards and yards of cherry prints—kept it from looking too much like her grandmother’s closet, as did the silk stockings