Deke moved back, making sure Josh still had Byrne’s attention. Another actor had joined them and was shaking Byrne’s hand. Jared Johns. He’d played Dart on TV for years, and it looked like Byrne was a fan. Excellent.
He pulled out the cell phone he wasn’t supposed to be carrying and quickly dialed Boomer.
“Hey,” Boomer said.
“Have you seen anything weird tonight?” Deke asked, well aware that Kyle was giving him cover and likely listening in.
“I’ve seen a lot of weird shit,” Boomer replied. “There’s some kind of anime convention going on at the hotel two blocks over, and apparently their parking lot is full because they’re starting to park close to the club. I’ve got a lot of traffic around right now. I wouldn’t hate another set of eyes. Any way Drake could come out here with me? Tell him to pick up something from the kitchen. I already ate the sandwiches Kay gave me.”
Shit. Boomer was across the street, watching the club from the roof of the building there. Normally this street was dead at night. All the shops closed and there weren’t any residences. It should have been perfectly quiet, and Boomer should have been able to watch the front of the building.
Kyle was right. Too many things were starting to add up. He couldn’t see what the pattern was, but the very fact that there might be a pattern got his instincts flaring.
“Are you nervous about it?” Deke trusted Boomer’s instincts.
“There’s a black SUV that’s circling,” Boomer said. “I can’t tell if it’s looking for a parking place or waiting for someone. It could be a ride share. But honestly, I don’t like it. I know tonight’s supposed to be low key, but I got a bad feeling. I’m going to head down and check out the SUV. I think it parked. It hasn’t come back around. I want to make sure it’s not sitting behind the club. It could be reporters. It could be something else. Are we sure Drake doesn’t have friends hanging around?”
“I don’t know.” Deke looked up because Kyle was nudging him. “Check it out and get back to me.” He hung up the phone and slipped it into his pocket as Josh and Byrne walked up.
“Everything okay?” Byrne looked oddly out of place in a set of leathers, like they didn’t quite fit even though he’d had them tailor made.
Kyle nodded. “Yeah. I was thinking it might be time to find our subs and begin the night.”
Deke agreed. It was definitely time to put eyes on Maddie. “I’ve heard there are some fun scenes about to play out. Josh, do you know where Kayla is?”
Hollywood’s best-paid actor frowned his way. “She’s in the women’s locker room. Someone passed out in there. Jared’s wife is a nurse. She’s going to join her.”
All the little things started to add up, and his gut took a deep dive. Something had gone wrong that needed Kay’s attention just when Jane was alone with Maddie and MaeBe? He didn’t like the sound of that. “Why don’t we find the women?”
That was when he heard someone shout. It came from the back of the building, and he could barely hear it over the music. “We need medical!”
Kyle started running. “That’s MaeBe.”
Damn it. Maddie was with her, and Kayla had been waylaid. He looked to Josh. “Is there a back way out?”
“Of course,” Josh replied, jogging beside him. “We have a fire exit, but the alarm will go off if someone…”
A loud, clanging alarm filled the space, making Deke’s heart rate triple. He took off running, pure panic flooding his veins. It didn’t make sense. What was happening? All that mattered was finding Maddie.
He followed Kyle, who seemed to know where he was going. The Reef was a bit like a maze, and he ran through. He barely registered the half-naked subs, clinging to their tops, scenes ruined and chaos raining down on them.
Deke ran until there was nowhere else to run to, until he’d made it to the door, pushing through, the alarm going off again.
“Where are they?” Kyle looked around, his hands in fists at his sides. “MaeBe!”
Deke stood there, the parking lot completely empty, and realized he might never see Maddie again.
Chapter Fourteen
“Where the fuck are they? What are you hiding from me?” Kyle slammed his fists against the conference table, confronting Drake, who merely looked up from his computer.
“I’m not hiding anything, but I’m starting to see a pattern and I don’t like it,” Drake replied, as calm as Kyle was enraged.
Deke wasn’t about to insert himself in that argument. It was obvious that the CIA agent had a lot on his hands. Deke had other things to do. “Kay, do you have anyone here who can hack into the traffic cams around the area? They absolutely didn’t walk away from here. Boomer said there was a car circling the block. I need to know where that car went. I also need to know where Byrne is.”
At some point in the last fifteen minutes, Byrne had disappeared. Deke knew he hadn’t been with Jane, but they’d very likely reconnected now that Jane had taken Maddie. He needed to know where the man had gone if for no other reason than to question him. He would make Byrne talk if he had to pull the man’s balls off his body.
“Call home base, Deke. I can’t help you with this.” Kayla had shucked her heels and paced, cell phone in hand. “Do you understand that I have a dead plastic surgeon tied up in a BDSM club, another woman who nearly died in the locker room, and if I’m not careful I’ll have cops all over the place? The only reason I didn’t have to call an ambulance is Sarah Johns is a hell of a nurse, but we still don’t know what happened to the woman.”
“The woman was obviously a distraction,” Deke pointed out. “They wanted to get Madeline and MaeBe alone.”
“Yes, for what appears to be an assassination,” Kayla countered. “Who the fuck is this Jane Adams because she’s not who that background check said she is. Corporate drones don’t assassinate doctors in BDSM clubs.”
“Hey, baby, it’s going to be okay.” Josh moved in behind his wife, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I’ve gathered the board members in the men’s locker room and we’re going to talk about how to handle this. The last thing Bernie would have wanted was a scandal. He has…had three grandkids he adores, and he wouldn’t want them shoved into the middle of a true crime documentary. You know he always said if he died in this club, we were to find a way to move him.”
“He meant if he had a heart attack, Josh,” Kayla argued. “I don’t even know what killed him. I don’t know if moving the body might be dangerous.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Josh promised. “He wasn’t the only doctor in the club.”
“I’ll get the cameras for you, Deke.” Drake seemed to be the only one of them who wasn’t panicked. “As to what killed the good doctor, I suspect you’ll find it’s a fast-acting poison the Agency has been experimenting with. The poison is cyanide, but the delivery mechanism is what’s new. It’s a tiny needle the user wears on his or her hand, often hidden under a layer of foundation makeup so it’s hard to see. One prick and the poison is delivered to the victim’s system, often without the victim even feeling the pinch of the needle. I suspect she microdosed the woman in the locker room with just enough to make her sick.”