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The idiot wasn't even in the same state as I was. Probably. And Annie wasn't anywhere he'd be able to find her without going through me or making enough waves and inquiries I'd find out about it.
I hung up on him.
Waited.
Answered the phone when he called back. "How did you get this number?"
I could hear the rage in his voice. "That's what you think is important? You think you're fucking untouchable? You don't realize what kinds of friends Annie has on the force. Do you think... "
I thought a good many things, including the fact that Annie didn't actually have a lot of friends on the force. Police were still largely alpha males who had a hard time with a not-that-huge woman showing them up on a regular basis. The alpha female out alphas the alpha male every fucking time.
I also thought he was on the wrong track again.
I hung up.
It took him three more times and longer spaces between calls before he was able to modulate and moderate his tone and his words so that I'd stay on the line with him.
"Don't hang up on me."
"Don't give me a reason to," I said. "Mr. Tomlin, you seem to be under the misapprehension that I in any way owe you anything."
There was a short silence during which I wondered if he'd hung up. The only reason I cared was that if he had, I was wasting my time waiting for him to speak again.
Finally, his tone still moderate, he said, "I want to know where Annie is."
"Annie is fine. You didn't know where she was when she was undercover, and you wouldn't necessarily know where she was in rehab. She is, essentially, still in rehab."
"Bull – " He must have realized he didn't want to restart this conversation once again, because he caught himself. "That's nonsense. She was hospitalized before you got your hands on her again and they couldn't find anything that made them think she had an addiction."
I allowed myself to laugh. "How about that? Perhaps my methods work." It was the tail end of twilight. I wanted to eat something just to get back on a regular schedule, work a little and go to bed. "Mr. Tomlin, what is it you called for?"
"Annie," he said simply and honestly. "It's time for her to return to her real life."
Outside the desert sky was painted in reds and corals. "You're the best judge of what her real life is?"
"I'm her fiancé."
"Mr. Tomlin. Annie isn't available to take your call, and I don't want to speak with you. You put her in danger with your stunt, because through it, people who needed not to know where Annie was found out."
Instantly he was shouting but this time I didn't hang up because this time he was afraid. "Is that where she is? Did something happen to her?"
"Something happened to her before you and her father pulled off your ridiculous raid. I don't know if you understand this, but Annie is a fully grown woman who works a job far more harrowing than anything you've done yet, and actually more difficult and dangerous than what her father did."
He had no patience for that. He was mid-bluster when I cut him off.
"When Annie returns from her trip, I'll ask her if she wants to visit you. I'll leave it up to her if she sees you in Seattle or if we offer to fly you somewhere neutral where you can talk. And I'll offer her use of a bodyguard."
I waited until he got done bellowing before adding, "That way she might think it's safe to go where you are."
And I disconnected.
32
Annie
Weekday morning. I had lost track of the days but Claude's routine generally at least let me know if it was a weekday or not. I'd only been in their "care" for going on three weeks and the days were schizophrenic in their psychotic predictability.
Weekdays Claude would go to his office, maybe stop for something on his way home, a beer, the gym, a swim somewhere, for all I knew a quick fuck. He was a goat, always ready and creepy.
