He briefed her on what had happened in the park, and everything that led up to it. While he spoke, she alternated between rage and relief, and struggled not to interrupt. But by the time he was done, she felt clearheaded and relatively in control again.
“Why did Kanezaki go to you?” she said. “I owe him. He knows that. You even told me once he would come to collect. Why not me?”
He blew out a long breath. “Well, maybe he just, uh . . .”
She knew he was a good liar, at least operationally. That he could offer nothing in response to her question suggested either that he didn’t want to lie, or that she was throwing him off his game as much as he threw her off hers.
“Don’t bullshit me, Carl. I could at least have warned Alondra.”
“Would she have listened?”
Livia thought of the way Diaz had blown off her attempts to get her to be more tactical. But she wasn’t going to concede the point. “We’ll never know now, will we?”
“Well, I warned her.”
“Yeah, after the fact.”
He smiled. “Better late than never?”
When she didn’t respond, he said, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make light. Look, Kanezaki said he was going to involve you. And I told him not to, that I would take care of it myself.”
“Why?”
He threw up his arms. “What am I supposed to do, let you get mixed up in this shit?”
“It’s not your call. And besides, I am mixed up in it.”
“Well, I tried. To spare you. You want me to apologize for that?”
“I don’t need you to protect me.”
“I never said you did.”
“Then stop acting like it.”
“Fine. I called you, didn’t I? So now you’re involved. I hope you’re happy.”
“Stop sulking. We need to figure this out.”
“I’m not sulking.”
“I’ve never seen you look sulkier than when you said that.”
For a second, he stared at her, looking exasperated enough to pop. Then he broke out laughing. “I guess you’ve gotten to know me pretty well.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“See what I mean?”
“Listen to me. It’s worse than you think.” She told him about Diaz’s call, about Schrader being released.
“I’ll be damned,” he said when she was done. “They’re going to kill that boy for sure. He’s probably dead already.”
“I don’t know. What about the videos?”
“Right, I expect he’s going to endure some unpleasant questioning en route to coughing up whatever he knows. The good news, maybe, is this gets Diaz off the hook. Plus being tortured to death over blackmail materials couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”
“We need to talk to Alondra. Schrader was saying if anything happens to him, those videos will be released.”
“You mean like a dead-man switch? Larison was speculating about that.”
“I don’t know. And the people who took him—maybe they don’t know, either. Or they don’t know about the videos at all. Maybe you’re right. Maybe they’ve already killed him. We need to find out more.”
“Well, if there is a dead-man switch, and they killed him, I expect we’ll find out soon enough.”