Текст книги "Your Next Breath "

Автор книги: Iris Johansen

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

“I can’t even see the dots,” Catherine said ruefully. “I’ll have to leave it to you.”

“You won’t do that. You’ll keep plugging along, just like I am.” She tilted her head. “And the reason you can’t see the dots is that it means too much to you. You’re overthinking the problem. My professors say that I do that sometimes. I reach for complexity and ignore simple applications.”

“At the moment, I’d embrace simplicity.” She headed for the door. “And right now I’m going to embrace the simplicity of my bed and eight hours sleep. Good night, Kelly.”

“Good night.” Her gaze was once more on her yellow pad. “You do that, Catherine.”

“You, too,” Catherine paused at the door. “Go to bed, young lady.”

“I will.” She didn’t look up from the pad. “Those dots are bothering me. Eduardo Montez. All those gaps. What was he doing? They were supposed to be only visits. But I don’t think that … I should be able to see something … Buenos Aires…”

*   *   *

Catherine’s cell phone rang as she came out of her bathroom after a shampoo and hot shower.

Cameron.

“Is everything okay with security?” she asked as she accessed the call.

“Excellent. I didn’t expect anything else, but it’s always smart to make sure everyone knows that there will be frequent checkups. It keeps them on their toes.”

“I’m sure Sam and Hu Chang are very good at that,” she said dryly.

“But some of those men are mine. They tend to accept orders better from me.” He paused. “You’re in bed? You didn’t sleep on the plane.”

“I will be soon. I just had a shower. I needed that more than sleep. Luke’s back in the house?”

“I just saw him go upstairs.” He chuckled. “After he went to see Sam in the kitchen. He told him that I had to stay here and asked which room he should give me. He didn’t mention that he hadn’t bothered to ask me if I was staying. He’s quite a kid. I’ve had some officers who had less grasp of sentry placement or decision making.”

“He was probably trained in a harsher school. And are you staying?”

“Why not? All the action seems to be centered here.” He paused. “You’re here.”

“Only until Hu Chang deciphers that book, or Kelly connects her dots.”

“Or Montez decides that he wants to give up being a pacifist and says that he’ll help us. Not likely, Catherine.”

“We’re moving, we’re not standing still.” But it felt like standing still, she thought wearily. Yet at least some good things were happening. Jane was better and might live. Santos had not been able to kill any other people she cared about.

Shallow victories that could change at any moment but she’d take them. “Now I’m going to sleep and forget all the negatives. I’ll see you in the morning, Cameron.”

He was silent. “I didn’t mean to be totally negative. I just have to be realistic.”

“Your whole philosophy is negative. That’s where we differ. You think the world is going to hell in a handbasket. I think there’s a chance, and we have to reach out and grab and hold tight.”

“I’m trying to grab and hold tight, just in a different way. I want us to be ready to come back from that hell.” He added brusquely, “But enough of that. I do have some news that isn’t totally negative. I called Dario, and he said that Dorgal’s men are searching that rain forest from the mountains to the border and still haven’t found Montez.”

“The monastery?”

“They searched there, too, and roughed up a few priests but left when they found nothing. Montez kept to his word and stayed away from there.”

“I thought he would. He’s already feeling guilty. He wouldn’t want to endanger anyone else after Father Gabriel’s death. He said he’d only contact them after it was safe.”

“Which it definitely isn’t at the moment. But Dario says that his tracker believes he knows the area where Montez might be hiding out. The foothills to the west are networked with dozens of caves, and he could be in one of them. Dario’s heading that way now.” He paused. “How is that for positive?”

“As good as we’ve gotten so far. You’ll tell me as soon as he’s confirmed Montez’s location?”

“Unless it’s the middle of the night. It won’t do me any good to wake you if we’re not moving on Montez. It will wait until morning. You need the sleep.”

“Yes, I do. So do you. Are you going to bed?”

“Certainly.” His voice was faintly mocking. “And I will sleep like a baby. It’s part of the discipline I was taught. The committee did their best to make sure that I had the control that was needed to be their security chief.” His voice lowered. “Though the discipline didn’t include ignoring the fact that I’m horny as hell and can’t stop thinking about you in that summerhouse with your legs wrapped around me. It’s definitely bothering me that you’re only a few rooms down the hall.”

It was bothering her, too. His words were soft, silken, and they were causing the muscles of her body to tense. “Then maybe it’s time you went back to your committee and took a refresher.”

He chuckled. “It wouldn’t do any good. You’re the only one to whom the discipline doesn’t apply. So I guess that I’ll go take a shower, too. And it won’t be a hot one. Then I’ll look at the map of the cave area Dario e-mailed me and see if I agree with him. Good night, Catherine.” He hung up.

And left her with that lingering heat and disturbing sexual changes that his words had brought. Forget the sexual implications, just remember what was important. Montez appeared to be temporarily safe. Cameron was here, and that automatically added an additional element of security.

Two positives.

Dry her hair, pull on her nightshirt, and go to sleep.

Don’t think of Cameron; that was an automatic turn-on and distracter. If she couldn’t drift off immediately, concentrate on Kelly and her bewildering mass of question marks and dots.

Or Montez and how to convince him that she was right and he was so wrong …

*   *   *

Holy Mary, Mother of God, forgive me.

Montez’s fingers moved on the rosary in silent prayer. His heart was beating hard as his eyes stared into the darkness of the cave surrounding him.

Save me from causing any more deaths.

Forgive me, for I have sinned.

But wouldn’t the sinning continue if he did what Catherine Ling asked him to do? She was as violent as Santos, and the killing would go on and on. Yes, she would still hunt and try to kill Santos, but he would not be involved. He had sworn to himself that he would go no further down that path that could be sending him to the depths of perdition, that he would be done with Santos forever.

But if that was God’s will, why had he not kept Santos in that prison? Why had he sent him out in the world to test his resolve?

Because the resolve was wrong and mistaken?

Catherine Ling had seemed to be honorable and her cause just. Was that the message he should have taken away from their encounter?

Protect me from evil and ambition.

Deaths. So many deaths.

Agony was tearing through him as he thought of Father Gabriel standing at the door of the church and watching him run through the garden.

Forgive me, Father. I should have been wiser. I shouldn’t have let this happen. I just didn’t know what was right or wrong. Even you who were so much wiser couldn’t tell me. You said that I had to rely on God to guide me.

But he’s not guiding me.

I’m lost, and He’s not showing the way home.

Holy Father, please, give me a sign.

*   *   *

“You’re overthinking the problem.”

Catherine’s eyes flew open, pulled out of sleep, as she remembered Kelly’s last words to her.

Not that she had been deeply asleep; it had been a restless slumber. She had been tossing and turning most of the night. But it had only been when that last thought of Kelly’s had intruded that she had been jerked awake.

And she was wide-awake, she thought ruefully, as she sat up in bed. Okay, Kelly, I’ll think about it and see how I can simplify. I’m tired of leaving it up to you and Hu Chang to connect your dots. She might as well concentrate since she wasn’t sleeping worth a damn.

She got out of bed, went to the bathroom, and got a glass of water. She splashed water in her face and sat down in an easy chair with her computer. She pulled up the file Kelly had sent her and studied it. Fifteen minutes later, she was still as frustrated as when she had begun.

All the dots were still mysteries, all the gaps were not telling her anything.

She leaned her head back in the chair and looked at the computer screen. Smother that frustration. It wasn’t going to help. Approach the problem from another direction. She didn’t have the individual skills of Kelly or Hu Chang, so simplify as Kelly had suggested.

Simplify what?

Montez appeared to be an important key. Kelly was intrigued by him. Hu Chang was studying his book.

The book.

The only part of it that she might be able to decipher was the title. She accessed Google and typed in Maggi.

She sighed with discouragement as the answers started flowing on her screen. If she’d hoped to have an easy time, it wasn’t going to happen. The primary answer appeared to be a European seasoning food product, and the examples seemed to go on forever. Then it skipped to Maggie and famous Maggies in entertainment and history. She used several other search engines and came up with basically the same result.

All right, expand the search. Connect the word to something else.

Buenos Aires …

Kelly’s last words before Catherine had left her room.

She typed in Maggi and Buenos Aires and asked for the connection.

More exotic seasonings and where to find them in Argentina.

She scrolled down the screen.

She froze, her gaze on the entry that had suddenly appeared.

“Holy shit.”

It could be nothing.

Or it could be the answer.

It was a start.

Her hand was shaking as she punched in the access.

God, please, let it be the answer.

*   *   *

Two hours later, she hung up the phone from talking to Venable.

She leaned back and drew a deep breath. She could feel the flush burning her cheeks and the pounding of her heart leaping in her chest. Calm down. It was more than a start, but it wasn’t the entire answer.

But she could get that answer if she worked hard enough, then she’d have something with which to confront Montez. Arguments she could use to sway him.

But she had to have Hu Chang.

She got up from the chair, grabbed her clothes, and went to the bathroom. She came out five minutes later, snatched her computer, and left the bedroom. A moment later, she was opening the door of the library. Hu Chang was sitting at the desk, studying Montez’s book. She’d known he wouldn’t be able to leave it until he’d made significant headway.

She slammed the door behind her. “Anything?”

“Delighted to see you, Catherine.” He gestured to the page he’d been reading. “Fascinating stuff. But I’m not ready to discuss it with you yet. I thought you were going to bed.”

“Could you make heads or tails of it?”

“Yes, though Montez is right, it is difficult.” He tilted his head. “May I ask why you’re accosting me in the middle of the night?” His gaze narrowed on her face. “Never mind. You’re practically lighting up this boring study. Excitement, eagerness … what else, Catherine?”

“Frustration. I need to know more.”

“So you came to me.” He smiled slightly. “An excellent choice. Who else can you count on for superior knowledge?” He leaned back in his chair. “On what subject?”

“I think you know. Maggi.”

“I haven’t dealt with the title yet. I was too absorbed in the contents. But you evidently have been doing a little research when you should have been sleeping. So tell me about Maggi.”

“Maria Maggi. It’s the name on a tomb in Milan, Italy.” She dropped down in the visitor’s chair beside the desk. “And the occupant was a very famous Argentinean countrywoman of Eduardo Montez.” She opened her computer and pulled up the document she’d been studying. “A beautiful woman who caused a great deal of trouble in her day.” She turned the screen around to face him. “You’ll recognize her.”

“Yes, indeed,” he murmured, his gaze on the screen. “Eva Peron. Blond, beautiful, and ambitious to be the queen of Argentina. Perhaps the empress of the world. Would you care to tell me how she came to be the occupant of that tomb in Milan?”

“It was only one of her burial sites after her death. On this tomb, they even inscribed a different name. They were trying to hide her identity so that her corpse wouldn’t be stolen or vandalized. It was a constant threat. She wasn’t buried permanently for twenty-four years. She was an icon to the common people of Argentina. Political factions fought over possession of her body because they were afraid that her influence with the masses, even after her death, would sway their political futures. Her remains were transferred from place to place in Argentina, then Europe, so that her effect on the political process would remain negligible. Maria Maggi was the name on her crypt in Milan.”

“And Montez was such a Peron fan that he named his work after her?”

“No, I think that he thought that it was a fitting name for his project.” She met his gaze. “Didn’t he?”

“Perhaps. But I’m interested in why you deduced that.”

“I’m not Luke, Hu Chang. Stop playing with me.”

“I would never play with either you or Luke. I just wish you both to stretch to meet your full potential.”

She shook her head in exasperation. “Those equations logically indicate Montez was doing some sort of medical or chemical experiments, considering his education and training. So I asked myself what kind of experiments would Santos be interested in that would make him kill someone to keep Montez under his thumb?”

“And what did you answer?”

“That it wasn’t Santos, it was Delores who was interested in what Montez was doing. It was Delores who had Santos set up Montez for a special duty. She was so intent on recruiting him that she went with Santos to see Montez when they visited Buenos Aires.”

“Recruit him for what? And why? Montez had no remarkable medical credentials. He was trained as a general practitioner.”

“For a reason. Everything he did was secret and strictly undercover. He was working on a very special project. He worked with his uncle in a lab in the hills and consulted with experts on his results only when he needed help. The Montez family was very careful after what happened to them during the Peron era.”

“Uncle?”

“Kelly was intrigued by the amount of time Eduardo spent with his Uncle Francisco in the hills. It was one of her ‘dots.’ She was having Venable check on him. But after I found out about Maggi-Peron, I called Venable myself. I’d just got off the phone when I came down to talk to you.”

“And the uncle was a doctor, too?”

“A pathologist. Brilliant and well respected in the small town where he served as coroner. But very little social contact, no published papers. He was said to be devoted to his nephew and was teaching him the family business.”

“And that was?”

“He also had the only funeral home in town.” She paused. “A business that had been in the family for almost a hundred years. It was a nice little funeral home, and he was very competent. So were his father and grandfather and great-grandfather, but, of course, their reputations couldn’t compete with that of their distant cousin in Buenos Aires. Everyone knew that Dr. Pedro Ara was a pathologist without peer.” She nodded at Eva Peron’s photo. “He was the one chosen to embalm Evita Peron, the spiritual soul of Argentina.”

“And I understand he did a fantastic job with very unusual methods for the time.”

“Alcohol in the heel and neck. He and his assistant worked all night for perfect preservation. Which didn’t please Peron’s political foes. They would just as soon have tossed her in a ditch. They couldn’t touch Dr. Ara, but there was a certain amount of persecution leveled at those close to him, including the Montez branch of the family. Particularly in less civilized towns in the hills. Deaths. Beatings. That’s why the Montez clan made sure they never were exposed to the limelight again. They’d learned their lessons.”

“But not enough to close up shop and stop embalming their clients evidently.”

“Tradition … and the desire to prove they were as good or better than Dr. Pedro Ara and his world-famous embalming of Eva Peron.” She grimaced. “And then Uncle Francisco found that Eduardo was an even more brilliant doctor than Ara. He set out to train him to develop even more innovative procedures and show everyone that the Montez branch outshone Ara in every way. When the family saw that Eduardo Montez had potential, I think they coached him, educated him, then helped him experiment and have his discussions with experts in the field. But you can’t do that in complete privacy. Someone must have talked when Santos was asking questions.” She added, “Or when Delores asked questions.”

“On what subject?”

“Delores was vain. She was incredibly beautiful and did everything possible with makeup, clothes, and minor surgery to make sure that she stayed that way. I think that she had a horror of being ugly even in death. Heaven knows she’d seen and caused enough deaths to know what that looked like.”

“Are you guessing?”

“Yes, but some of the places she visited might have been a search. She spent a lot of time in the tombs of Ancient Egypt and the Kremlin. Egypt might have been the first culture to work on preservation. Lenin is still wonderfully preserved in Moscow. It probably impressed her. What if she heard that Montez had developed an embalming procedure that was better than the one Dr. Ara used on Eva Peron?”

“Then, if she thought of herself as great a leader as Eva believed herself to be, she would have done anything to make sure she would have an even greater chance for many years of preservation.” He nodded. “She was truly that vain?”

“From what I know of her, from what Kelly has found out, I’d say that she would have stolen Lenin’s coffin if she thought she could have gotten away with it.”

“Instead, she went after Montez.”

“And he suddenly came into a lot of money and moved his entire family to Guatemala shortly after he met with Santos and Delores.”

“They paid him for what? I believe Delores was in fine health until you shot her.”

“Future insurance? Eva Peron had her entire funeral planned, down to having her hairdresser come in and bleach her hair after her death.” She saw his brows rise, and she said in exasperation, “I don’t know. How could I? It is guesswork.” Her hands clenched. “But I’m close, Hu Chang. I know I’m close.”

“I know you are, too,” he said quietly. “And I do enjoy watching you move toward your goals. It gives me great pleasure to—”

“I’m not trying to entertain you, dammit.” She leaned forward. “I came down here for help. Now I’ve told you what I know and—”

“Guess,” Hu Chang corrected.

“Guess. Now you tell me what you know, you arrogant bastard.”

“Well, I wouldn’t actually say ‘know,’ although my calculated surmises are much more scientifically based than any you’ve—” He held up his hand as she opened her lips. “I’m getting there. And I admit that your insight has filled in several holes in my theory of what Montez was working on.” He looked back at the photo of Eva Peron. “Poor woman, she was born a little too soon. Delores was much more fortunate.”

“Hu Chang.”

“Well, until you killed her. But even then she was planning on not letting that defeat her.”

“You mean those equations are for an advanced procedure for embalming and preservation?”

“Yes and no. Think about the degrees that Montez earned and how they could apply.”

“Medical, chemical, mechanical engineering, theology,” she said impatiently. “And I don’t want to think. Tell me. Yes and no. What’s the yes?”

“Yes, there are chemical formulas in his book that are brilliant and innovative and probably concern an amazingly noninvasive form of embalming fluid.”

“So I was right.”

He smiled.

“Okay, what’s the no?”

“He wasn’t satisfied with just going a few giant steps further than Dr. Ara did with Peron. He decided that he could do much more.” He paused. “Hence the degree in mechanical engineering. He wanted to address not only cosmetic preservation but something more permanent. Or not. Considering your beliefs. I found formulas using liquid nitrogen and a glycerol-based chemical protectant mixture. I’m almost sure that they were to be used as a cryoprotectant.”

“Cryoprotectant?”

“Human antifreeze,” he said bluntly.

Then she understood. “Cryonics,” she said. “Delores planned on being frozen after death in hopes of being resurrected later, when medicine could take care of whatever had killed her.”

“That’s usually the purpose of people’s choosing to be kept in cryogenic-storage facilities. There are many arguments about whether there would be too much damage to the body from the freezing or the chemicals injected. It appears that Montez may have been able to solve those issues.”

“He did? How do you know?”

“I studied cryonics at one time. Preservation of life always interested me.” He shrugged. “But then I gave it up and went another direction. Too sedentary for me. I prefer to extend the life of the living, not the dead.”

“But Montez came close enough so that it would have had an instant appeal for Delores and Santos?”

“I couldn’t confirm that without experimentation. But his calculations are definitely more promising than anyone else’s work I’ve studied.”

Excitement was surging through her as she realized the possibilities. “He would have been a dream come true for Delores. An advanced embalming cosmetic procedure that would have preserved her youth and beauty. A cryogenic innovation that might bring her back from the dead someday. Still young, still beautiful.” Her lips tightened. “Still the monster she was when I killed her.”

“All of the above,” Hu Chang said. “Santos probably promised Montez a fortune for setting up Delores’s last resting place.” His lips twisted. “Or perhaps not only Delores. Santos has sufficient ego and desire for self-preservation himself. Maybe it was also for him.”

“But where did Montez set it up?” She was frowning. “Montez said that he didn’t know where Santos had set up his new headquarters. Yet I’d bet that Santos would have wanted his Delores near him.”

“Montez lied?”

“I don’t think so.” She reached for her phone. “But preparations would have had to be made immediately after Delores’s death, so there would be no deterioration. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“So Santos wouldn’t have let her be taken to the morgue.”

“As I recall, he was relatively helpless at that particular moment.”

“Maybe not.” She remembered Montez saying that Santos had begun wheeling and dealing the moment he was arrested. She hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. She began dialing her phone. “I’m calling Venable and asking him just how helpless Santos was that day.”

“Don’t you ever sleep?” Venable asked sourly when he picked up.

“Listen. Directly after Santos was arrested, was he making deals with the police and political bigwigs?”

Silence. “Maybe.”

“You know. Tell me.”

“It wasn’t a bad deal. I’d have taken him up on it, too.”

“What was the deal?”

“He offered up the location of two warehouses with close to a billion dollars in drugs and the names of the distributors. The only thing he wanted was for them to immediately release the body of his dead wife to Dorgal. He said he wanted her cremated. Of course, they took the deal. What good was a dead Delores Santos to them?”

“And no one checked to see if she’d been cremated?”

“Why? She wasn’t important to anyone but him.”

“She’s important now. Thanks, Venable.” She hung up and turned to Hu Chang. “She was turned over to Dorgal immediately. Supposedly to be cremated. So if there were injections to be given, it could definitely have been done. He paid very highly for the privilege of making sure Delores didn’t lose her chance.”

“But Montez had to be involved at that point. Preparation of the body. Insertion into the cryogenic coffin. Even if all the advance preparations had been made, Santos would have insisted Montez do the final.”

“I know all that.” She rubbed her temple. “Or maybe I don’t. I’m not certain about anything about this. The only one who can give us the answers is Montez.”

“And he won’t do it.”

“He’s got to do it. He’s my only hope. I’ll have to talk to him again.” She grimaced. “Without Cameron. Cameron and he are not compatible.”

“And are you and Montez compatible?”

“More than Cameron. But I don’t understand him. He should fight Santos.”

“In a way, he is fighting him. Just by not doing as he wishes, by opting out of the deal he made with him. Not everyone is a warrior like you and Cameron.”

“Cameron calls him a pacifist.”

“Or merely a man struggling to keep his soul.”

“What?”

“The third advanced degree. Theology. A strange major for a man who is fascinated by science and chemistry. Or maybe not so strange when you think that bringing back the dead could be breaking God’s laws. A religious man might have a struggle to balance his ambition to strike new ground against his sense that he had sinned and could lose his soul.”

His words hit home. Yes, Montez had exhibited all the signs of a man in the throes of crisis. Not only the guilt of the killings of those close to him but the agony of wrestling with his conscience before God. “You believe he was trying to find moral answers even as he was working on Maggi?”

“Don’t you?”

“I guess I do.” She lifted her chin. “But I can’t let it matter to me. He’s got to help me any way he can.” She stared Hu Chang in the eye. “I asked him to let Santos capture him so that I could track him. I told him I’d keep him safe.”

“If you could.”

“I’d find a way to do it.” She moistened her lips. “I won’t let any more of the people I care about be killed by Santos. Even if I have to risk Montez. Let him wrestle with his demons after I kill the biggest demon of all.”

“Very practical. Very Catherine.” He chuckled. “Our Erin would suffer and agonize with him and try to find a middle ground.”

“Which is admirable. I don’t have time to risk agonizing with him. I have a son.” She added deliberately, “And I have you, Hu Chang. Neither one of you is going to die because Montez won’t cooperate.” She got to her feet. “We’ve got a better grasp on Montez’s problems and the reason he’s on the run. We have to assume that Delores Santos was never cremated and that Santos made Montez do what he was paid to do. But we still don’t know where Delores’s body is now. If she’s with Santos, we may have the key to find him. Now I’ll have to use it to get Montez to do what’s right.”

“You’re going back to Guatemala?”

“If it’s necessary. I planted a few seeds before I left Montez. I’ll see if they take root. But I can’t give him much time.” She had the desperate feeling that time was running out. “I’ll try calling him to make contact. Dario is keeping tabs on him. He’d let us know if he was in danger.”

“And will Cameron go with you?”

“Perhaps. He says that I’m where the action is.”

“And he doesn’t have enough action in his life?” Hu Chang asked dryly. “Look deeper, Catherine.”

She didn’t want to look deeper. She was having enough trouble keeping their surface emotions in check. She knew the solution was to refuse to be with him.

It was a solution she didn’t want to accept. Even though the competitive edge was always there when she was with him, she always felt safe. It was as if when they were together, nothing could beat them, nothing could take them down. And the excitement of dealing with the unknown was there every minute. Why give that up when he was always an asset in the trenches? “I’ll let him know what we’ve figured out. He’ll have to make up his own mind what he wants to do.” She headed for the door. “But not before I try to get a nap. It’s almost morning.”

“But a bright day dawning?”

She smiled over her shoulder. “At least, it’s not as dark as it was when I went to bed last night. Together, we’ve shined a little light, haven’t we, Hu Chang?”

“Always,” he said softly. “That goes without saying. From the moment you found me when you were fourteen, the light came and never left us.”

She stood there, looking at him, taking in the darkness and the light. Intelligence close to genius, wry humor, philosophy drawn from life and the study of the world’s cultures. She remembered that first time when she’d run into his apothecary shop and thought that she was saving him from a street gang. Perhaps she had saved him, but he had also saved her a dozen times in the following years. What was just as important as the salvation he had given her was the barrier against the loneliness. “I’ve never regretted that day.” She cleared her throat. “Let me know if you find out anything else from Montez’s manual.” She opened the door. “I’ll tell Kelly what we’ve learned so that she can fill in a few of her dots and concentrate on where Dorgal might have really been going when he was island-hopping in the Caribbean.”

“Excellent.” He picked up the copy of Maggi again. “I’m not sure that I’ll be able to find out anything else of value, but I will see…”

She wasn’t sure that he’d be able to find out anything more either, Catherine thought as she started up the stairs. Unless you believed the value might lie in improving on Montez’s formulas. That was entirely possible. Hu Chang not only created his own chemical magic, but often took others’ dross and turned it into gold.

Though no one could call Montez’s work dross, according to Hu Chang. It had been good enough to have Santos draw him into Delores’s death fantasies. Montez had called Delores a monster, and she wondered if the judgment was based on the brief meeting he’d had with her or on the horror her vanity and ruthlessness had brought into his life. Perhaps a little of both.

Now that she knew the circumstances that had made Montez try to escape from the mistake he’d made dealing with Santos, perhaps she could use it to persuade him to help her.

She could only hope that he’d have had enough time to think about it before she made contact again.