Naveen stood there for a moment after they hung up, then dropped the phone back into the receiver. Fuck.
He grabbed his jacket and walked to the living room at a fast clip. “They have eyes on my grandfather.”
Mira looked up. She was hunched over the desk with Emi. “What?”
“There’s a cop at his house. Someone who’s in our kidnapper’s pockets.” He paced across the floor. “He knows my grandpa. I am . . . I’m willing to believe that he doesn’t mean to harm him immediately. But we need to get that necklace, stat. Tell me you found something.”
Emi spoke, but kept her gaze on her laptop screen. “We found something.”
He inhaled, slow and steady, relief flowing through him. “Where’s the necklace?”
Mira grimaced. “Well, we don’t know if we’ve found that.”
“What did you find, then?” He couldn’t help that his tone was sharp.
He thought of his grandfather, serving tea to a man with a gun on his hip. Ajay might say he was protecting the man, but if push came to shove and the order was given, would he hurt him?
“There’s a file on here.” Emi paused for a moment and typed something. Her face was bathed in blue light. “It’s a data file, but encrypted well. Hard to force open.”
“Impossible to force open?”
Emi scoffed. “Nothing’s impossible for me. Might take some time.”
Naveen started pacing again. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
“There’s a contact, too. For Sunil Rao.”
Mira said the name like it should mean something. “Who is that?”
“We looked him up.” Emi scrolled. “Very reclusive and very successful. I know of him. He owns one of the premier strip clubs in the city. They put on a real popular show, tourists love it. No one ever sees him, but the article said he’s very hands-on, an eye in the sky.”
A strip club. Of course that was their next lead in this tour through Vegas.
Mira straightened. “Sunil Uncle, I used to call him. He was a friend of my father’s. I remember him coming to our house when I was young, but eventually he stopped coming by. Even after that, though, my dad talked about Sunil in the context of replicas.” She closed her eyes, like she was trying to remember.
“Like, forgeries?” Naveen’s voice went up. “You didn’t think that was relevant?”
“I said replicas, not forgeries. Knockoffs of Ralph Lauren, not priceless jewelry.”
Emi spun around in her chair. “Priceless jewelry? Okay, someone tell me what I’m helping you with, please. You’ve dragged me into it now.”
Naveen thought of his grandfather, ignorant of the danger at his doorstep. “We can’t tell you. The person after us doesn’t like leaks. Or at least, that’s what the cop at my grandfather’s house said.”
Emi snorted. “I can help you better if I know something. Trust me, I can handle myself.”
Mira linked her fingers together. “My dad allegedly stole something from someone.”
Emi rolled her eyes. “If I know your dad, it wasn’t allegedly.”
“In any case, they’re after me and Naveen now to get it back. And . . . they have Sejal,” she finished simply. “She’s alive, or she was a few hours ago, but I don’t know what’ll happen.”
Emi steepled her hands under her chin. She didn’t look shocked or alarmed, but rather thoughtful. “Kidnapping’s a major offense. I wouldn’t kidnap someone, unless . . .”
“That sentence should end before unless,” Naveen said dryly.
She ignored him. “Unless the item I was retrieving was worth the risk. What did he steal?”
Mira bit her lip. “A diamond necklace worth millions.”
Emi leaned back in her chair and gave a long, low whistle. “Can’t believe Uncle Vassar dipped his toes into the big-boy pool. Who did he steal it from?”
“That we don’t know.”
The phone in the room rang, interrupting them. Emi glanced at the phone, back at them, then picked it up. “Hello?” Her gaze shot to them. “Thank you for telling me, Jon. No, absolutely not. Tell them no one’s in this room. Stonewall them for as long as possible.” She hung up. “There are two men downstairs, trying to bribe the front desk for info about this room. Naveen . . . did you use the landline or my cell phone on the nightstand?”
Jesus Christ. How could he have been so ignorant? “The landline. It didn’t occur to me . . .” Using someone else’s cell phone seemed so terribly intimate.
Emi nodded. “Understandable. I should have clarified.” She reached into her drawer and pulled out two packaged phones. Why the girl had a stash of burner phones in a hotel room, Naveen didn’t know. “Here, take these.”
Mira curled her hands around the phones. “I—What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. I have friends here.” Real concern flashed over Emi’s face. “I didn’t know Sejal well, but she doesn’t deserve to be hurt because your dad dropped the ball. Neither do you.” She turned to her computer, searched for a couple seconds, then scribbled something on the hotel’s notepad. “Here’s Sunil’s club info. Go there and do your best to sweet-talk your way in to see him. If you don’t mind, I’m going to keep your dad’s phone. Maybe I can get inside that file. I’ll call you if it happens.”
“Thank you.” Naveen drew close and accepted the paper. His eyes strayed to Vassar’s phone, and he froze. “Wait, what’s that background?”
“The inkblot? I don’t know. Mira said it didn’t mean anything to her.”
At first glance, the image on the phone’s wallpaper didn’t look like anything but a blob. But if you turned your head slightly . . . “That’s a cobra.” He met Mira’s eyes. “The cop at my grandfather’s, he said he only knew his boss by the name of Cobra.”
Mira pressed her lips tight together. “Well. That means some dots are connecting, at least.” Mira shrugged on her dad’s big jacket, reached into her pocket, and pulled out the wad of cash. She peeled off half of it and placed it on the table. “For your trouble.”
Emi fingered the cash. “You’re determined not to make us even anytime soon, huh?”
Naveen wondered what that meant, but it wasn’t like they had the time to ask. “We need to go.” The longer they stayed, the better the chance that their hunters would be here. Was it the same two men? Or different ones?
Emi followed them to the door. On the way, she reached into the closet, pulled out a pair of sneakers, and handed them to Mira, who put them on her feet. “Good luck, guys.”
“Thank you.” Mira hesitated at the door, then gave Emi a clumsy pat. “I, um . . .”
Emi shrugged. “No, you don’t have to say anything more. Talk soon, Mira. Right?”
Mira nodded. “Right.”
The elevator took forever to come to their floor, and Naveen paced from one end of the bank to the other until Mira exhaled. “Can you please stop? That’s making me nervous.”
He stilled and stabbed the DOWN button again. “It was easy enough for us to get to a room floor. They could do the same. We should take the stairs.”