Cambry flinched. When Lassiter gave an order, he expected it to be obeyed and the impossible to become possible. And he had only fifteen minutes to make that happen. Ordinarily, he looked upon working for Lassiter as a challenge; the money was excellent and his employer was usually not unreasonable. Besides, they were friends, and he owed him big-time. But usually wasn’t in Lassiter’s vocabulary where this woman was concerned. He was totally committed to finding her and nothing was allowed to get in his way. Lately, Cambry had actually found himself feeling sorry for Margaret Douglas.
But not sorry enough to pit himself against Lassiter unless it was absolutely necessary. They went back a long way and in Afghanistan he’d become fully aware of both his potential and ruthlessness. No way that Cambry would take his money and not turn in full value. That would be most unwise.
So find something that would make Lassiter believe he was earning that money.
Fifteen minutes.
*
“She smashed her phone.” Cambry handed Lassiter the remains when he walked into the apartment. “She did a good job. It’ll be hell checking her directory history.”
“I managed to get a lot of info from the tap I put on it after Summer Island. I’ll get my San Francisco office to put it on priority,” Lassiter said. “What else?”
“Just a few paperbacks.” He handed them to Lassiter. “Two mysteries and a how-to manual on how to set up a Wi-Fi system. She bought them at a used-book store in the Gaslamp Quarter.” He hesitated. “That’s how the entire apartment is set up. Everything cheap and secondhand. Her landlord said that she never had visitors and he had no idea where she worked. I asked if he’d made a copy of her driver’s license, so we could at least get her photo, but she told him that she’d lost it and hadn’t gotten her replacement.”
“I have her photo now.” Lassiter handed him a copy of a small faded photo. “I got it from one of the people she worked with on Summer Island. I suppose her landlord didn’t even make her fill out a reference or credit application?”
“How did you know?” Cambry shook his head. “He said that he usually did that, but he kept putting it off. He said he knew that she would pay her rent.” He met Lassiter’s eyes. “He trusted her. He liked her. He said he was sorry to see her go. Kind of a surprise.”
Not to Lassiter. It was the first time Cambry had been directly involved in the hunt, but this was old news to Lassiter. “She manages a great con wherever she goes. I ran into the same thing down in the Caribbean. I couldn’t break through that protective wall she builds around herself.” His lips tightened. “I was forced to take alternate steps.”
“I won’t ask you what they were,” Cambry said with a grimace. “But any con she’s working evidently isn’t bringing her any money.” He was looking down at the photo of the fair-haired girl in jeans, sandals, and blue chambray shirt. “This is Margaret Douglas? She’s not much more than a kid. She looks like some fresh-faced college girl. She kind of … glows, doesn’t she?”
That had been Lassiter’s first thought, too, and he had tried to dismiss it immediately. He’d been having enough trouble keeping his perspective in the past months. He’d seen photos of Margaret before while he’d been on the hunt for her, but they’d all been scratchy, out of focus, and faded. He knew Margaret Douglas didn’t like her photo taken. This one that he’d talked Judy Wong into giving him was … different. As Cambry had said, her blue eyes were shining with humor and she looked tanned and glowing, as if lit from within. Her smile was luminous. Even her pale brown hair was sun-streaked and seemed to glow. “It was taken three years ago.”
“She doesn’t look more than eighteen or nineteen. That means she was even younger when she was living with Stan Nicos.”
“He has a reputation for liking them young. The son of a bitch has whores imported from bordellos in Bogotá who are much younger than that. And she must have been very satisfying. He kept her for nine months and he’s been searching for her ever since she left him.”
Cambry slowly shook his head. “If she was only a kid, maybe she had a reason to want to start a new life. Why else would she have been running all this time?”
“I don’t know and I can’t let it matter. He wants her back. That’s what I have to concentrate on. She’s the key, the only one I’ve found. That’s what you have to concentrate on.”
“I believe in new starts, Lassiter. You gave me one.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d said something like that. “Drop it, Cambry,” he said. “The circumstances were different with you. In this life we have to pick and choose. And I can’t afford to choose Margaret Douglas this time. Decisions always have repercussions. She’ll have to live with the decision she made when she went to live with Nicos all those years ago. He probably dangled a few expensive baubles and she—”
“‘Expensive baubles’?” Cambry chuckled. “Look at this place. I’ve seen better apartments in the L.A. housing development where I grew up. She sure isn’t into luxury.”
“No?” Lassiter’s lips twisted. “You should have seen the guesthouse where Nicos was putting her up before she decided to part company with him. It was very impressive.” He looked around the flat. Cambry was right. It was clean but shabby and completely without personality. That very lack of comfort made him more frustrated. He had spent the last year trying to track down Margaret Douglas, but she had been like a ghost. She had carefully erased her presence wherever she had traveled. In a world that ran on bureaucracy and documents, he had been able to find only the flimsiest of paperwork pertaining to Douglas. A few photos. No fingerprints. He had traced her movements through five towns in the Caribbean, and it was only when he reached Summer Island that he’d found anything concrete to use to find her. “Okay, I admit she’s clearly trying not to do anything that will draw Nicos’s attention to her again.”
“Then why not try something else?” Cambry said quietly. “I’ve never seen you like this before. I thought you’d give up when you couldn’t locate Margaret Douglas after you checked out Santo Domingo and Cura?ao. But you just went on and on, until it became an obsession. Why, Lassiter?”
“You know why.”
“I thought I did when it started. Somehow I became lost along the way.”
“Too bad. Because I can’t afford to stop now. Time’s running out and she’s the only card I have left to play. Do you think I’ve been focusing solely on Margaret Douglas while I’ve been searching for her? I’ve contacted everyone I could, pulled every string, but I’ve come up zero. It has to be her.” He looked him in the eye. “Do you want to back out?”
Cambry shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that. I owe you too much. I just don’t want anyone hurt who shouldn’t be hurt.”
“It will be up to her. I’ll work with her, if she’ll work with me.”
“But you don’t think she’ll agree to work with you?”