Page 173 of Blood Stone

“This is taking too long. Sebastian, get ready. Kate, do you have your cellphone?” Nial asked.

“Yes.”

“Phone MacDonald and ask him…if you can have a copy of the original contract you signed with Garrett. Say some inconsistencies have been questioned. Something. Anything.”

“You want to tracehiscellphone?”

“Yes.”

“I can do better than that.”

“I need fifty seconds,” Sebastian warned.

There was a single electronic warble as Kate dialled.

“Mr. MacDonald, it’s Kate Lindenstream. Yes, good evening to you, too. No, no I’m not looking for Garrett at all. He’s the last person on earth I’d want to talk to right now.” The disgust and anger in her tone made Roman turn in his seat to look at her.

Kate was focused on a spot on the back on his seat, listening hard to MacDonald.

“Because I found out this morning that he got me into bed to find out about some stupid stone thing I might have picked up in Turkey last year, is why,” she said, fury dripping from every stiff word. “Which is why I’m calling you?”

Roman could hear the alarm in MacDonald’s voice even from his seat. He would be counselling now about client attorney privilege and that Kate needed to hang up now and get her own lawyer…

“I don’t care about that crap,” Kate said furiously. “I just want my pound of flesh from that arrogant asshole. I have a lawyer. I have a very good lawyer. And now I have a meeting. Tomorrow at nine a.m. at The Standard. He is going to pay. Restitutuion, damages,andpunitive damages. He has made me the laughing stock of Hollywood and no one gets away with that.”

Another pause.

“Ten o’clock then.”

Another pause.

“Then when, MacDonald? I can meet you anytime. State your time and location, and we will be there.”

More squawking from the phone. Roman felt the fifty seconds tick off on his mental clock and reached back to tap her knee. Kate nodded.

“Thank you, MacDonald. I’ll see you.” She hung up.

“Sebastian?” Nial said into the phone pick-up.

“Got it,” he said, sounding very smug.

* * * * *

The cramped 1915 bungalow in Redondo Beach squatted amongst its more stately neighbours, looking downtrodden, but the rental on the prime location beach house was scary.

Yet the sad exterior and dried up lawn let the house go unnoticed among the glitzy do-overs towering around it, which must have appealed to MacDonald’s need for privacy.

Nial parked the Maserati four houses away, in front of a three story condo block where it didn’t look at all out of place between an antique Aston Martin and a Tessler.

“You should stay in the car,” Roman told Kate.

“Fuck that.” She climbed out.

Sebastian eased over the front fence of the house in front of them. “I got here five minutes ago and scouted around. I think we may have a minor problem.”

Nial raised a brow in query.

“I think the guys guarding the house are SEALs or ex-SEALS and there are at least ten of them.”