“Don’t worry. You’re safe,” Dana assured her.

“For now. And what about Brad?”

“I have someone watching your apartment. I’ll have Brad ask Justice Moss to authorize police protection until we’re certain you’re both safe.”

“And when will that be?” Ginny asked.

Dana wished she knew.

“Did you get an early parole, or did Spartacus lead a second slave revolt?” Brad joked when Ginny and Dana arrived at the apartment at eight thirty. But his smile disappeared rapidly when he saw the frightened look on Ginny’s face and Dana’s grim countenance.

“What happened?” he asked.

“A man tried to kill Ginny, and we think Dennis Masterson sent him.”

“Did you call the police?” Brad asked as he crossed to his fiancée.

“No,” Dana answered. “This is something we should talk to Keith about.”

“Why did someone try to kill you?” Brad asked.

“Let me sit down,” Ginny answered. “I have something to show you.”

She sat on the couch, and Brad sat next to her. Ginny opened her cell phone and showed him the photos she’d taken of the TA Enterprises file.

Brad gawked. “Where did you get this?”

“The firm keeps old, closed files in the subbasement of our building.”

“More important, why did you go looking for this file?”

Ginny colored. “When you called Dana in the middle of the night, I eavesdropped on your conversation. You talked about being stymied without proof that Millard Price was connected to TA Enterprises, and it dawned on me that there might be a file in the office.”

“And Masterson found out you’d been rooting around in the files?”

“He must have if he sent someone after her,” Dana said.

“At least you know that Price set up the company,” Ginny said.

“That information is not worth your life,” Brad said.

“If you give these pictures to Justice Moss or the FBI, Masterson won’t have a reason to go after me anymore,” Ginny said.

“I’m not so certain. A prosecutor would need you to lay a foundation for the admission of the pictures at a trial. You’re the only one who knows where you found them, and I’ll bet that file has ceased to exist.”

“I know one thing for certain,” Dana said. “From this point on, you two are through with anything to do with the Woodruff case and Millard Price. There is no upside to your continued involvement, and as we learned tonight, there could be a very big downside.”

“Justice Moss is in Texas giving a speech,” Brad said. “She’ll be back in two days. When she returns, I’ll brief her about the pictures and what Dana learned in Oregon. Then I’ll tell her to turn the information over to the FBI. What are you going to do, Dana?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, but Dana knew damn well what she was going to do. The man who tried to kill Ginny tonight had threatened her and the man she loved. She was not going to sit around and wait for Bergstrom or Masterson to make the next move. She was going to track down Bergstrom and make certain the people she cared about were safe.

Chapter Fifty-one

A shell company with offices in Dubai rented Dennis Masterson’s penthouse under the name Ivan Karpinsky. Masterson used the penthouse for sexual encounters with women other than his wife and for clandestine meetings. When Masterson responded to his doorbell, he found Millard Price standing on his welcome mat wearing a heavy black overcoat with the collar turned up and a fedora with the brim pulled low. The hat served the dual purpose of a disguise and protection from the heavy rain that was inundating the metropolitan area.

“You look like a private eye, Millie,” Masterson joked, using the nickname Price had acquired at Dartmouth, where the effeminate moniker was the exact opposite of his violent play on the football field.

“There’s nothing funny about this situation, Dennis,” Price said as he brushed by his bemused friend.

“Let me fix you a drink,” Masterson said while Price was tossing his hat, scarf, and overcoat onto a chair.

“Scotch. The good stuff. You owe me.”

“Calm down,” Masterson said as he stepped behind his wet bar. “The file is gone.” He didn’t tell his friend about the attempt to make the person who’d photographed it vanish too. Price was squeamish, and the less he knew, the better off everyone was. “What I’d like to know is why there was a file in the first place.”

“It was an oversight. And you were never very clear about why I was incorporating the damn company. If I’d known…”

Masterson handed his friend a glass three-quarters full of twenty-five-year-old single-malt liquor.

“I told you it was covert. If it was even remotely legit, I wouldn’t have needed you to incorporate the company. In any event, there’s no harm done.”

Price gulped down a quarter of the scotch. “She’s Miller’s girlfriend, Dennis. Why is Miller’s girlfriend looking into the company that purchased the China Sea? Felicia’s got to be behind this.”

“Moss is unquestionably the problem,” Masterson said quietly.

“You cannot go after her again,” Price said emphatically. “I can’t believe you tried to kill her.”

“You’ll be singing a different tune if cert is granted and every investigative reporter in the country starts looking into the China Sea.”

“She’s a justice of the United States Supreme Court.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Promise me there will be no more violence.”

“I won’t lie to you, Millie. We go back too far. I am not going to let that case destroy my life, or yours. Did you know that Dana Cutler has been nosing around in Oregon?”

“The investigator who helped bring down Farrington?”

Masterson nodded. “Our mole in the Court bugged Moss’s chambers, and I’ve had someone on Miller since Moss told him to look into the case. He met with Cutler, and a few days later she flew to Oregon.”

“Did she find anything?”

“She must have figured out your connection with the case if Ginny Striker was looking for the TA Enterprises file.”

“What are you going to do now?” Price asked.

“I’m going to devote my efforts to putting Audrey on the Court so we can bury that damn case forever and never again have to think about that fucking ship.”

Following Dennis Masterson was the only way Dana could think of to find The Swede or Thomas Bergstrom or whoever the fuck he really was, so she staked out his law offices. Masterson was driven to and from work in black chauffeured town cars outfitted with tinted windows. A major problem was presented by the fact that Rankin Lusk contracted with a company that had a fleet of identical cars. Anyone at Rankin Lusk who wanted to use the service got into the town car in the parking garage in the basement of the building. Since Dana did not have X-ray vision, she would have no way of knowing which car Masterson was using, but she solved this problem by bribing one of the garage attendants, who called her with the information minutes before one of the town cars pulled out of the underground garage.

The heavy rain played havoc with visibility and helped disguise the fact that Dana was tailing the limo. When the car stopped in front of a high-rise apartment building, Dana parked across the street and watched the driver escort Masterson to the front door while shielding him from the downpour with a large black umbrella. Dana knew where Masterson lived and she knew this apartment house wasn’t it. Since she had no plan, she decided to stay in her parking space and see if anyone interesting turned up. She wasn’t disappointed.

Forty minutes after Masterson was dropped off, Millard Price arrived in another town car. Dana didn’t make him at first, but the justice took off his hat to shake off the rain when he got under the overhang that protected the front door.

Price came out an hour later and got into his waiting car. Dana didn’t see any reason to follow him so she stayed put. She was glad she did. Thirty minutes after Price left, Thomas Bergstrom entered the building. Half an hour later, he, too, drove away. Dana followed The Swede across the state line into Virginia. If she expected Masterson’s strongman to live someplace exotic like a houseboat or gated mansion, she was disappointed. Bergstrom lived in an upper-middle-class housing development in a house designed to look like it should have been in a New England village. Dana concentrated her binoculars on the front window and saw Bergstrom embrace an attractive brunette, who had gotten off her living room couch when the garage door opened. Dana panned across the front of the house and saw a tricycle and a soccer ball on the front porch.