She tilted her head to one side and peered into his eyes. “Are you still smoking dope?”
He lurched toward her threateningly. “Cu
t the crap, Tori. Has she?”
“No!” she exclaimed, giving his chest a shove. “What are you talking about? I don’t know anything about a secret. What kind of secret?”
He studied her for a moment, as though trying to spot signs of deception, then muttered, “Never mind.”
“No, not never mind. Why’d you come here? What are you after? The same guy who shot your brother took Honor and Emily. Why aren’t you out looking for them?”
“I’m not sure he took them.”
That stunned her. “What do you mean?”
He bent closer still. “You and Honor are like this.” He held his hand within an inch of her nose and crossed his middle finger over his index. “If she knew this guy—”
“You mean Coburn?”
“Yes, Coburn. Lee Coburn. Did she know him?”
“Where would Honor have met a freight dock worker turned mass murderer?”
He stared at her for a moment longer, then spun away and left the room, sliding the pistol back into the holster at the small of his back as he lumbered down the hall.
“Hold on.” Tori grabbed his elbow and brought him around to face her. “What are you getting at? That the kidnapping is some kind of hoax?”
“I’m not getting at anything.” He yanked his arm free of her grip and wrapped his fingers around her arm instead. “But I’m gonna be on you like white on rice. If you hear from your pal Honor, you’d do well to let me know.”
She hiked her chin up in defiance of the implied threat. “Or what?”
“Or I’ll hurt you, Tori, and I bullshit you not. You may be rich now, but you got that way by selling your pussy to the highest bidder. One dead tramp would be no great loss to the world.”
Chapter 19
Son of a bitch!”
Coburn hissed the profanity under his breath out of deference to the kid. As for her mother, who’d already frowned at him for a slipped bullshit earlier, she was now staring at him as though a horn had grown from the center of his forehead.
He waggled the cell phone. “I guess you heard that.”
“That Agent Lee Coburn has been dead for over a year? Yes, I heard that.”
“Obviously she hasn’t got her facts straight.”
“Or I bought into your lies and now I’m—”
“Look,” he said, angrily cutting her off. “I didn’t ask for you either, okay? You want to go back to your house, take your chances with Doral Hawkins and anybody else who’s in The Bookkeeper’s pocket? Fine. Go. I’ll hold the door open for you.”
It wasn’t fine, of course, and he wouldn’t let her go even if she chose to. On her own, she wouldn’t live long. He’d been described as cold and heartless, and the adjectives fit. But even he would be uncomfortable sending a woman and four-year-old to certain death. Besides, she would be useful, now and later, toward building a case against The Bookkeeper. She probably knew a whole lot more than she was aware of. Until he’d wrung every last ounce of information from her, she stayed with him.
On the other hand, she and the kid were going to be a major pain in the ass.
He hadn’t counted on having to take care of anybody but himself until Hamilton could bring him in, and that was going to be dangerous enough, what with every gun-wielding yahoo within a hundred miles believing him to be a killer and kidnapper. He’d more or less resigned himself to not making it out of this intact, if he lived through it at all.
But now he was responsible for Honor and Emily Gillette, and with that responsibility came the commitment to seeing that they survived even if he didn’t.
Essentially taking back his offer to let her go, he said, “Whether you know it or not, you hold the key that will bust open The Bookkeeper’s crime ring.”