Joann was visibly trembling. “I can’t believe you sat down and talked to him, as cool as pie. That’s the scariest man I’ve ever seen.”
“Did I look cool?” Milla swallowed and found herself a chair, too. “I couldn’t have. I was shaking so hard I could barely stand, so I had to sit down.”
“I didn’t notice. I thought he was going to kill us. His eyes—it was like looking at my own death.”
“But he didn’t kill us, and he gave us information I’ve been trying for ten years to get.” Milla closed her eyes. “Arturo Pavón. I have a name. Finally, I have a name! Do you know what this means?” Tears scorched her eyes and seeped from beneath her closed lids. “I have a real chance now of finding my baby; for the first time I have a chance!”
8
The fund-raiser in Dallas was more successful than she’d hoped; not only did the event produce money, but Finders also picked up a corporate sponsor, a software company that had promised to upgrade their computer system. Visions of new computers danced in Milla’s head, but that wasn’t what kept her awake in her hotel bed that night.
Excitement zinged through her every time she thought of what had happened that morning. She felt as if she had plunged headlong into a fire and emerged unscathed; she was almost giddy with hope. She wanted to call David, wanted to tell him that at last she was making real progress, that she had the kidnapper’s name and an expert—what else could she call Diaz?—was helping her locate him. She wanted to share her elation with someone, and who better than Justin’s father?
But that was a call she refused to let herself make. David wasn’t her husband now. He had another family, and Milla was very wary about intruding on it. She didn’t know, and wouldn’t ask, if David’s wife had a problem with the money he gave her every year. As much as possible Milla had tried to make the break a clean one, to not give the new Mrs. Boone any reason for anger.
The new Mrs. Boone? Milla had to laugh at herself. David’s wife’s name was Jenna, she was a very nice woman, and she had been married to David twice as long as Milla had been.
When she had something concrete about Justin, then she’d call David. She didn’t keep him abreast of every rumor and development. He called her about twice a year, and that was when she brought him up to date on any progress, which for ten years had been precious little. To keep things as smooth as possible in his private live, she never called him. Period. A surgeon’s wife had enough everyday hassle, with her husband’s long hours and emergencies that seemed timed for whenever he sat down to dinner or they were about to leave for vacation. There was no need to add calls from an ex-wife to the turmoil.
She couldn’t contain the excitement, the sense of expectation, so she gave up trying to will herself to sleep and instead went over and over everything that had happened and been said that morning, from the time of True’s call to the moment Diaz had vanished.
The biggest mystery for her—though perhaps not for Diaz—was who had called her about the meeting in Guadalupe, and why. The reason couldn’t be the reward, since the call was anonymous. But someone had put her in Diaz’s way, and she didn’t know if the intent had been to help or to harm. Diaz could just as easily have killed her, rather than knocking her out. And after meeting him, she didn’t think killing her would have cost him any sleep.
She wracked her brain but couldn’t come up with any logical reason for the call, and finally she decided to simply count her blessings. Perhaps Diaz was a mixed blessing, but still, in the space of a few minutes he had given her priceless information and offered her the best chance she’d had yet of finding Justin.
She couldn’t believe she’d actually talked him into helping them. She couldn’t believe she had sat down so close to him that only a couple of inches had been separating their knees, and pretended she wasn’t terrified of him. His were the coldest, emptiest eyes she’d ever seen, as if no emotion touched him. She would almost call him a sociopath, except he did seem to have some internal braking mechanism on his inherent violence. He knew right from wrong, she thought, but he didn’t feel it. If he chose to do what he perceived as right, it was a mental decision rather than an emotional one.
But because of that, she thought she could deal with him. They—the Finders—weren’t in danger from him. He could have killed her and Brian that night in Guadalupe, simply for being in his way, but he hadn’t because they weren’t a threat to him—to his purpose, maybe, but not to him. So long as she was fairly certain of his boundaries, she thought she could trust him and work with him.
She hoped.
Considering True’s reaction to Diaz’s name, she decided to keep it quiet that the man himself had turned up in her office. True had a protective streak that she found charming even though she knew she had to keep her distance from him. He might call the police, which was the last thing she wanted.
She thought about asking True to find out what he could on Arturo Pavón, but decided against it. For one thing, he would want to know how she came up with the name, and she didn’t like the idea of outright lying to him, when he had been so helpful. For another, Diaz wouldn’t like it. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she was certain of it. Diaz liked to work alone, with very few people, if any, knowing his whereabouts or what he was doing. If both he and True were searching for Pavón, they might very well cross trails. No, he wouldn’t like that at all. He might even stop helping her, and no way would she risk that.