to Cesar, and Cesar, in his current shell-shocked state, wouldn’t be able to hold out against Lopez.
Gripping the edge of the desk, she forced herself to breathe until the pressure in her chest loosened and her pulse evened out, but there was no way she could banish the sense of raw panic that underscored every waking second.
With the extra security checks on Lopez’s account, the funds transfer couldn’t take place until tomorrow. That meant another twenty-four hours in the Sea Cliff house: twenty-four hours she couldn’t afford, because time was running out.
It had been two days since she had confronted Cesar about Lopez. According to her most optimistic timetable, she had one day left at most before Lopez discovered that she knew.
The only problem was Esther wasn’t an optimist; she was a realist. Even if Cesar didn’t cave, Lopez would unmask her. He had already demonstrated his predatory brilliance in the business arena. To achieve that result he had concentrated all of his attention on Cesar, not her, but the dinner party had signaled a change. She realized now that Lopez had been there specifically to observe her.
The second he focused that cold, precise intellect on the years she had spent in Bern, he would find out what Bessel Holt had employed her to do. He would realize that she had been instrumental in blocking a huge transaction made by his father and facilitated by Perez; that it had been her job to identify criminals.
That, potentially, there was no one more dangerous on American soil to the Chavez cartel.
Five
The tape in her purse, sealed in an envelope, ready to be dropped off at an address Xavier had given her, Esther slid behind the wheel of Jorge’s aging Chevy and nosed down the drive. Maybe she was paranoid, but her own silver-gray Saab was distinctive, and it had passed through her mind that Lopez could be having her watched or even followed.
Cesar was out all day, supposedly at a meeting at the construction site of the development that had fallen through. Before she had left the house, Esther had checked with his secretary and found out that he hadn’t showed. In fact he hadn’t made an appearance at the office at all. If she had needed any further confirmation that she was out of options, that had been it. Cesar didn’t normally let any detail of a business deal slip by unchecked, let alone miss appointments.
After dropping off the package in the lobby of an anonymous block of apartments, Esther drove around the steep, picturesque suburbs of Russian Hill until it was time to pick Rina up from school. The slow circling of blocks, aside from filling time, had also given her the opportunity to check if she was being followed. So far, she hadn’t noticed anything suspicious. Minutes later, with Rina strapped into the front passenger seat, Esther took a left onto Leavenworth instead of turning onto California Street, heading for the expressway and home. According to Cesar’s file on Lopez, he lived barely five minutes from Rina’s school.
Checking out Lopez’s address was a risk, but it was one that needed to be taken. Just because Lopez claimed he lived at an address didn’t mean he actually did. She needed to find out for certain where he lived so she could give the details to the police. Once Xavier transferred the funds out of Lopez’s account, the window for physically apprehending Lopez would be small. If the police didn’t move quickly and raid the right address straight off, Lopez would slip the net.
There was no guarantee that doing a drive-by of his house would enable her to verify anything but she had to try. At this time of day, with the streets crammed with cars ferrying children home from school and driving Jorge’s Chevy, she would be close to invisible.
Esther took a turn onto Hyde and slowed as she counted numbers. She wanted to get a good look at the property as she drove past, and she could only risk doing it once.
Slowing even further as the number loomed, Esther craned, looking over Rina’s head in an effort to see a vehicle or anything else that might indicate that Lopez actually lived there.
An ornate set of wrought-iron gates guarded the entrance, but otherwise, the property wasn’t what she had expected. There was no fortress-style house, no high walls and no sign indicating there were roving guard dogs. It looked like any one of a hundred expensive addresses, with nicely landscaped grounds and tantalizing glimpses of a pool area. While the house was large and sprawling, it wasn’t in the extreme-wealth bracket; it could have belonged to any number of prosperous families.
She took in the proportions of the house again. Oh, he was clever. He wasn’t making a splash; he was blending.
The garage was closed, but she glimpsed the rear of a black truck parked at the side of the garage, almost obscured by a shade tree. It was the unexpected second vehicle she had seen the night Lopez had come to dinner.
Rina craned around, her expression openly curious. “Who lives there?”
Distracted, Esther took her gaze off the house and concentrated on the road. She should have done the drive-by before she picked Rina up, but she hadn’t been able to risk it until she had been certain she wasn’t followed. “Alex Lopez.”
There was no point in not telling Rina that, and in a way it made sense. A little foreknowledge would prepare her for what was going to happen.
Rina settled back into her seat and dragged her Walkman out of her schoolbag, which was propped on the floor by her feet. “So that’s why we’re undercover.”
“We are not undercover. My car’s being serviced, so I borrowed Jorge’s.”
Rina flipped the Walkman open and examined the tape. “I would have taken Dad’s ’Vette.”
“Maybe the ’Vette was out.”
“The ’Vette’s in the garage.”
“How did you know that?”
“Dad got picked up this morning. I saw him leave from my bedroom window.”
Esther frowned. Cesar did use a driver occasionally, usually if he had a lot of stops to make in places where it was difficult to get parking, but according to his secretary he had had just the one meeting today, which he had missed. “How come you know so much about the ’Vette, anyway?”
Rina’s expression was smug. “Dad’s already let me drive it.”
“What?”
Rina grinned. “Uh-huh. I’m on the road.”
“Not with me you’re not. And I’ll be having a word to your father about that.” The words were automatic, but with a pang she realized she wouldn’t be having a word with Cesar about Rina, or anything else, in the conceivable future. For the next twenty-four hours, she would be staying quiet and keeping her mouth shut. Every ounce of energy she had would be directed into helping Xavier pull off the funds transfer and making arrangements for both Rina and herself to disappear.
Grief she hadn’t had time to feel hit her like a fist in the chest. She had been so busy trying to find out what had gone wrong and figure a way through the mess, she hadn’t had time to count the personal cost, and it was huge. She and Cesar had had twelve good years together. The pull of those years, of living and working side by side tugged at her, sharp enough to cause actual pain. At times they had fought—each as stubborn as the other—but the relationship had been exhilarating and Esther had been satisfied. Rina had completed them, filling the gaps that occasionally loomed,
