Where our baby was once growing.
Was.
The Russian nurse who tried to inject her. Kill her.
I see red and am up in Sandy’s face before I can think better of it. “You tried to kill my girlfriend.”
“You killed half my men, including my little brother,” he hisses back, not backing down.
“Easy,” Danny says, pulling me away, giving me a look to suggest he’ll kill me himself if I fuck this up. “Easy,” he says again, patting my arm and guiding my tumbler to my mouth. Turning to Sandy, he holds out his hand, and when Sandy takes it, Danny shakes it like a gentleman rather than squeezes threateningly. It’s a strong message to Sandy.
“What now?” he asks.
“Now,” Danny says thoughtfully, “you tell me if you find out anything else, and I will return the favor.”
“And business?”
“We’ll talk about that once we’ve dealt with this little issue. In the meantime, I assure you, you have one less man vying for your blood.”
Sandy looks at me, waiting. “I can see you will be harder to convince.”
I stare.
“Perhaps,” he goes on, not shying away from the threat in my eyes, “if I told you a close contact of mine reported a sighting of your automobile in a parking lot of a hotel downtown? Would that help?”
“What?”
“You’re here, so I am wondering what your automobile is doing there?”
“What hotel?” I get up in his face again. “Tell me.”
“The Hilton.”
I can’t bring myself to thank the fucker. I fly out of the office, pulling up The Hilton hotel on Google Maps.
There’s no easy or cheap way to do this, and I haven’t got the time or patience to fuck about. “Just remember,” Otto says as we walk through the lobby. “A smile gets you everywhere in this world.”
I flash the man on reception a peek of my gun, not a smile, and slide a bundle of notes across the counter. “Simeon,” I say, taking his name from his badge as I show him a picture of Beau on my screen. He quickly takes the cash and studies the photo.
“May I?” he asks, taking my mobile when I nod. He rounds the desk and wanders over to the concierge, showing him my phone. He shakes his head.
“The waitstaff?” I ask in vain, knowing I’m clutching at straws now, rather than drawing them. Either way, I’m about as lucky with straws as Danny is with poker. If Beau doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be found.
“I will ask housekeeping too,” Simeon says, walking off. Naturally, we follow, and he looks back, uncertain.
“You have my mobile,” I point out. “And probably one on you to call the police if you choose, which I wouldn’t recommend.”
“Definitely wouldn’t recommend.” Otto’s bushy eyebrows rise as I motion for Simeon to continue, and he leads me into the bar, proceeding to show the staff my phone. All of them shake their heads. All of them eye me warily. None of them have seen my girl. “The rooms,” I say.
“Sir, we have over one hundred rooms.”
“And cameras,” Otto says, looking around, thoughtful as he spins the ring in his lip and casually pulls his jacket back as a subtle reminder. What the fuck happened to smiling? “Where’s the control room?”
Poor Simeon. His forehead becoming shiny from his stressed sweat, he clicks his fingers and tells the staff member to take Otto to the control room. Then he produces a key card and invites me to accompany him to the elevators.
“May I ask who she is to you?” Simeon asks, making small talk as we ride up to the top floor.
“No.”
An hour later, I have entered every room in that fucking hotel and she wasn’t in one of them. Our search and endless invasions of people’s privacy has cost Simeon hundreds in complimentary drinks. For that alone, I hand him another wedge of cash and tell him to put my number in his phone. “Call me if you see her.” Simeon nods and gives me directions to the car park, where I find Otto looking over my Range Rover.
“Engine’s cold,” he says, feeling at the bonnet. “And cameras show nothing in the hotel. This space here falls into a blind spot. She knew what she was doing.”
“You can’t just park in any old hotel car park. You have to be a guest.”
“Maybe she doesn’t plan on collecting your car.” Otto rounds my Range and gets up close and personal with the back window. “There’s a train station down the street. Goes straight into MIA.”
My stomach turns. “She won’t get answers if she leaves Miami.” I try the handle on the passenger side for the sake of it. “Did you see her pull in?”
“Yes, at eleven last night.”
“But she didn’t go into the hotel?”
Otto shakes his head and checks his watch, reminding me that we have somewhere we need to be. She won’t come back while I’m here. I know that.
I nod and leave the car park, constantly looking back to my motor as Otto slips a tracking device under the wheel arch.
Where are you, Beau?
28
BEAU
I pull the hotel room door closed behind me and wander down the corridor to the elevators, feeling exhausted in every sense. I didn’t get any sleep, just lay there battling the anger, the frustration, the unknown.
The grief.
Losing my focus on Mom’s murder and redirecting it to Dad’s is playing havoc with my conscience. Mom didn’t deserve to die. Dad didn’t either. But Dad’s selfish choices mapped his path. Mom’s selflessness mapped hers.
I step in the cart and move to the back when a few more guests join me, turning on my cell and wincing at the endless missed calls from everyone I know.
And love.
And who love me.
The elevator dings, the doors open, and I walk to the reception desk armed with my key card, sliding it onto the counter. “Ah, Beau.” Quinton leans over the counter and takes my cheeks, air-kissing each one. “I’ll have the valet collect your vehicle from across the road.” His beautifully plucked and dyed eyebrows lift as he looks over his rimless glasses at me. “Care to enlighten me as to why you needed parking away from the premises?”
“No.”
“It’s not stolen, is it?”
I laugh as he checks me out. “You think I’ve gone from cop to car thief?” God, it’s so much worse than that.
“Well, it’s all very strange, and coming from me, a man of the world who works in a bustling hotel, strange requests are part of the job.” He staples a few sheets of paper together and folds them precisely. “How’s Zinnea? God, I miss working the circuit.”
“She’s good,” I say, suffering another pang of guilt.
“And Dexter?” he asks, curious. It was common knowledge Quinton always had a soft spot for Zinnea. “How is he?”
Dead. I smile tightly. “He left.”
“What?”
My fiancé murdered him. “They split up.”
“Oh. Oh, my. May I ask why?”
Because he was a crooked cop. “I’ll tell her you said hi.”