The atmosphere was measurably less hostile than before, but he pushed on at the risk of ruining it. 'How long ago was the first porno video joke played on you?'
She pursed her lips and thought. 'A little over two months ago. Maybe two and a half, because at first I thought I was dreaming.'
'Which would have been about the same time that Cindy started hanging out with this Billy Vega, according to her band members.'
Barbara gulped. 'You mean, you think it's all connected?'
He gave her a brief, tight smile. 'You know us conspiracy theorists. We think everything's connected.'
'You think Novak could have assigned this Billy to control Cindy, like he assigned Georg to Erin at Crystal Mountain?'
'Maybe. Although Billy Vega's rap sheet is nothing like Georg's. He's just a small-time thief, pimp, and con artist. Not a seasoned killer.'
Barbara shuddered. 'So… shouldn't we call the police?'
He thought about his latest conversation with Nick. 'You know how it is with cops. They don't have the time or manpower to get worked up about things that might or could happen. They're too busy dealing with things that are happening or have already happened. Cindy's not a minor. Billy Vega hasn't done anything wrong yet that we know of, other than be an asshole. As far as the cops are concerned, we're talking about a girl having trouble with a no-good boyfriend.'
Erin's light footsteps sounded over their heads as she bustled around, trying to tidy up chaos and madness, trying to make sense of a brutal nightmare. It pissed him off, to see her jerked around like that.
In fact, the whole thing was making him fucking furious.
'There's a down side to not being crazy, you know.' His voice came out harder than he'd planned.
She looked puzzled. 'What are you talking about?'
'If you're not crazy, then you've got no excuse for lying around in your bathrobe eating Vicodin and letting your daughter do everything for you.'
She shot to her feet. Her chair pitched over and crashed to the floor. 'How dare you speak to me like that?'
What the hell. Ingratiating himself with this woman was a lost cause anyway. It needed to be said, and nobody else was around to say it. He met her outraged eyes straight on, and let his statement stand.
'Mom? What's the matter? What's going on?'
Barbara's eyes shifted to Erin, who stood in the doorway clutching a manila folder. 'Nothing, honey. I'm fine,' she said crisply. 'Excuse me for a moment. I'm going to run upstairs and get dressed.'
She stalked out of the kitchen, head high. Erin stared after her, bewildered. 'What happened? What did you say to her?'
Connor shrugged. 'Nothing in particular. I guess some problems are just too scary to deal with in your bathrobe, that's all.'
He paid through the nose for his snotty remark, all afternoon long. Barbara Riggs turned him into her combined slave, gofer, and whipping boy, and before he knew what hit him, he was taking out her garbage, fixing the drip in her upstairs bathroom, chauffeuring them to the phone center to get the phone turned back on. Then it was the grocery store, the photo shop, and the antique place, where he strained a muscle in his bum leg hauling that goddamn grandfather clock. But he didn't complain. It was all part of his martyrdom.
Back at the house, they argued about the dead TV She wanted him to haul it away to the trash, and he wanted to leave it for Seth to dismantle. He won that dispute, but was forced to carry the damn thing out onto the back porch so she wouldn't have to look at it. Worst of all, she forced him to call Sean at ridiculously frequent intervals to check on his progress. Which meant that his wiseass little brother got to witness all this humiliation first hand.
'Mrs. Riggs,' he protested wearily. 'Please. He'll call us. He knows what to do if he gets news. Try to relax.'
'Don't you dare tell me to relax! That's my baby we're talking about! Call him again!'
Sean picked up on the first ring. 'Hey,' he snapped. 'Miles and I have not discovered anything in the three minutes that have elapsed since your last call. Would you please just take a pill?'
'It's not my fault,' he muttered. 'She made me call you.'
'Mother-in-law's got you pussy-whipped, huh?'
He winced. 'Jesus, Sean. Watch what you say.'
'Listen up, dude. Next time, dial a fake number and have a fake conversation. You're distracting us.'
'Bite me, bonehead,' he hissed. He flipped the phone shut and dropped it into his pocket. 'Nothing yet,' he grumbled to Barbara.
And Erin was no goddamn help at all. If anything, she seemed faintly amused at his torment at her mother's hands, though she tried to hide it. At nightfall he escaped onto the back porch for a few minutes of blessed peace. He collapsed on the steps, rubbed his cramped, throbbing leg, and fished in his coat pocket for his tobacco.
He abruptly remembered that he was now a nonsmoker. The recollection did not make him happy.
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Seth, who picked up with gratifying swiftness. 'Hey, Con. What's up?'
'I need your help,' he said.
'You got it,' Seth said promptly. 'They tell me you're in love. With another girl who's being stalked by Novak. It's the hot new thing.'
'Can we skip the bullshit?' Connor asked. 'I'm having a nicotine withdrawal fit. I can't take it right now.'
Seth was unfazed. 'No problem. So?'
'A couple of things. I need you to check out Erin's mom's house. Weird things are happening with the TV, and somebody's breached the locks and the alarms and vandalized the place. More than once.'
'OK. How about day after tomorrow?' Seth asked.
'Why not tonight?'
'We're up at Stone Island. Raine's mom and stepdad are here. Tomorrow we're taking them out to cruise the San Juans, and then to dinner in Severin Bay. We put them on the plane back to London day after tomorrow. If I bag out on this, I'm dead meat.'
Seth's lack of enthusiasm for his in-laws' visit was glaringly evident. A commiserating grin spread over Connor's face. He'd met Raine's mother, Alix, at Seth's wedding. She was a force of nature, unstoppable, like a huge mudslide. He didn't want to wait for his answers, but, he also didn't want to subject the luckless Seth to domestic torture.
'I hope there's something left of you when she leaves,' he said. 'Alix will eat you alive and spit out your bones.'
'Thanks for the encouragement. What else do you need?'
'I want to load X-Ray Specs onto my computer and get some of your transmitter beacons,' he admitted. 'For Erin.'
Seth pondered this for a moment. 'I thought you were sticking to that chick like white on rice.'
'I am, but it's complicated. Erin's just humoring me. She doesn't really take me seriously. That makes me nervous. And I'm only one guy. I could get distracted, doze off, take a piss. I want technical backup.'
'Gonna tell her?'
Connor hesitated, and peeked over his shoulder to make sure he was still alone on the porch. 'Uh…'
'From personal experience? Women get pissed when you do shit like that. They think it means you don't trust them.'
Seth's self-righteous tone made Connor laugh, knowing the guy the way he did. 'Listen to yourself for a minute, you big hypocrite, and see if you can keep a straight face.'
'I'm just trying to help,' Seth protested. 'I don't want you to fuck this up, if you really like the girl.'
'She'd never go for it. And it's just until Novak's back in the bag, anyhow. Then it's like it never happened. She never needs to know.'
Seth grunted his approval. 'Good man. That's what I'd do.'
'I know. You're as suspicious as I am.'
'Oh, way, way more,' Seth agreed cheerfully. 'When it comes to suspicious, I kick your lily-white ass,
