“Sure. You call Ash Grayson and tell him that.”
Mike laughed as he lifted his coffee mug to his lips. “No, thank you. I’ve heard enough stories about that man to know to stay out of his way.”
I smiled, well aware of what he had probably heard. Ash could be a bear when it came to protecting what was his, his brother’s technology included.
We headed out a few minutes later in our respective cars; I tapped my steering wheel anxiously the whole way there. There were emergency lights visible for nearly half a mile as we approached the hotel. I parked on the street, my credentials not as impressive as Mike’s. But it was his status that got us up to the tenth floor.
“Looks like there was quite a fight.”
I nodded, moving slowly around suite 1003, taking in each and every bullet hole in the walls, each lamp that had been knocked over. Shaw clearly gave back as good as she got. I just hoped she was still breathing.
From the state of the suite, there were no promises.
One of the detectives who was among the half dozen perusing the scene walked over.
“Detective Carl Johns,” he said, speaking as if he was informing rather than introducing. “And you are?”
Mike withdrew his credentials a third time—he’d had to show them at the elevator and then at the door to the suite—to show him.
“FBI? What interest does the FBI have in this?”
“The woman occupying this room was married to Case Michaels, a person of interest in multiple federal crimes.”
Johns inclined his head. “I’ve heard of Michaels. This woman was his wife?”
“She was staying here while she waited for their divorce to be finalized. The thirty days would have been over on Monday.”
“He hadn’t responded?”
“He was in jail until recently.”
“So you think he was unhappy with the divorce proceedings and came here to reclaim his wife?” Johns looked around the room. “Looks like she put up quite a fight.”
“It was a complicated relationship.”
Johns nodded. “Most marriages are.” He looked at me then, his eyes moving slowly over my slight figure. Mike responded by stepping closer to me, his hand on my arm pulling me back just slightly. “And you are?”
“This is my colleague, Joss Matthews.”
I waited for some sort of recognition in the man’s eyes, but he didn’t seem to know my name. He must not keep up with the news.
“The blood over there,” Mike indicated a dark red puddle in front of the bedroom door, “is that from the victim or one of the perpetrators?”
“Unknown. They’ve taken samples to see if there’s a DNA profile in the database.”
“Have them send the report to my office. We’ll check our databases as well.”
Johns nodded, his eyes moving over me again. “We appreciate any help you might be able to offer, but we don’t appreciate interference.” He focused on Mike again. “Please keep us informed on your investigation and we’ll keep you up on ours.”
“Of course.”
He walked away after glancing at me once more. Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe he did follow the news.
I was anxious to get out of there. I needed to brief my team and get them out looking for Shaw, but first I needed to know for sure what’d happened here. My team told me that Shaw came into the room moments after three men broke in, that she fought them but was overwhelmed. But they also told me that after the perpetrators left with Alison, someone came back and took Shaw.
I needed to know who that someone was. And I needed to see what else the system had captured this morning. And the best way to figure that out was to get to the equipment in Shaw’s room, but I couldn’t exactly go over there while the cops were hanging around. If they found out Gray Wolf had been watching this room, if they even suspected we had the security footage, they would confiscate it all and we’d never have a chance to find them.
Alison and Shaw’s lives were at stake here. I needed the cops to disappear.
“Do you think you could distract those cops out in the hall for me?”
Mike’s eyebrows rose. “Why would I do that?”
“Because I scratch your back and you scratch mine.”
He studied my face for a moment, but then he nodded. “You’ll owe me one.”
“Trust me, this will be well worth it.”
There were fewer cops in the hallway when we left suite 1003 than there’d been when we first arrived on this floor. But there were still too many eyes for comfort.
“Excuse me,” Mike said to the patrol cop on the door, “Detective Johns was looking for an Officer Kilpatrick. You wouldn’t happen to know him, would you?”
The man shook his head. “No, sir.”
“Would you know where to find him? It seemed really important.”
The cop looked down the hall to where three other patrol cops were standing. “He might be with them.”
“Could you go ask?”
“I’m not supposed to leave my post.”
“I’ll watch the door. I’m FBI,” Mike said, pulling out his credentials once more. “This is technically my crime scene, anyway.”
The cop hesitated, clearly the kind of cop who followed the rulebook to the letter. I was afraid Mike’s charm wasn’t going to work this one time, but the man finally nodded and walked away, walking quickly as though he was afraid of being caught. He even cast a glance back over his shoulder to make sure Mike had taken over his post. Mike lifted a hand in a little wave, waiting until the guy was a good few yards away before coming over to where I was standing just outside the privacy wall that partially hid the door to suite 1004.
We slipped inside using the spare key the hotel manager had given me. At first glance, this room seemed to be undisturbed. It was neat as a pin, the only signs it had been occupied were a book lying open on a couch cushion and a massive sheet hiding the bulky shapes of the computer monitors on the dining table. I headed over there, carefully removing the sheet to reveal the darkened monitors. Shaw must have turned them off when not using them.
That made me wonder when she’d last checked on Alison and why she felt the need to hide them. Who had access to this room?
“Joss? You should come see this.”
I reluctantly left the computers just as I had all the monitors switched on, the images of cops still roaming the rooms filling the screens. Mike’s voice had come from the bedroom. I hesitated at the threshold, taking in the mussed bed and the clothes strewn around over a chair in the corner. There was an open suitcase, the source of the clothing.
It looked as though someone had dressed in a hurry.
And lying on the floor beside the bed was a man’s silk tie.
“Joss.”
Mike was in the doorway of the bathroom. I crossed to him and saw immediately what had caused his urgency. The sink was dotted with spots of blood that was just beginning to dry. On the floor was a t-shirt soaked in the same bright red blood and fingerprints on the counter, the sink, the faucet, and a toiletry bag off to one side of the sink.
“The supervisor told me he thought she might have been shot. I guess he was right.”
“But this suggests she wasn’t taken by the perps. Maybe she managed to get herself to a hospital or something.”
“Perhaps.”
But I doubted it. If she’d gone to an emergency room, we would have gotten word by now. And just who was that man that was with her?
I retraced my steps and went back to the computers, pulling up the surveillance footage of the suite across the hall just before the attack would have begun. As it began to play, we watched Alison Michaels sleep very deeply in the center of the bed. She didn’t even twitch as the perps entered the front door of the suite; she was clearly in a deep sleep. What concerned me was that she still didn’t move when one of the men approached her on the bed and shook her shoulder.
There was sound on the recording—a gift from David Grayson—so I tu
rned it up. The men were arguing over what to do about their sleeping prey when the clear sound of the front door opening filled the room. On the monitor that showed the sitting room, we could just see a peek of Shaw as she cautiously entered the suite.
She was wearing the same t-shirt that was on the floor in the bathroom, sans the blood.
As we watched, one of the perps fired at Shaw with a gun fixed with a silencer. She jumped back out of sight of the cameras. When she returned, we could clearly hear the sound of the door closing.
“Why did she close the door? Wouldn’t it have been smarter to prop it open for a quick escape?” Mike asked. “Or did she just not want a passerby to witness anything?”
I shook my head, the only plausible explanation jumping into my thoughts: she was trying to keep someone else out.
The tie on the bedroom floor. Had Shaw had a visitor when all this went down?
The fight only took two minutes to unfold. Shaw had the better of them until they hit her with a stun gun. It was only then that she went down despite the gunshot wound to the side of her stomach. It also looked like she might have had a dislocated shoulder from a tackle by one of the pers, but it was hard to tell from the video. If she did…the woman was impressive!
“Who trains your operatives?”
“It varies. She was trained in Wyoming with an old colleague.”
“That’s impressive. Gives Quantico a run for its money if all your operatives are this good.”
“She was also a Marine.”
“Impressive,” he repeated.
A full three minutes after the perps left Shaw on the floor, we saw a man enter the room. He was tall, dark. We couldn’t see his face at first, but the fact that he was dressed only in a pair of slacks suggested he wasn’t one of the perps. A guest from a neighboring room, perhaps? But we’d heard the door close behind the perps. How would a guest have gotten inside without a key card?
“Who is he?” Mike asked, frowning.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
I typed on the keyboard for a moment and pulled up footage from the camera positioned outside suite 1003’s door. We were able to see Shaw speak to this man before entering the room a second time, then watch him stand at the door, clearly listening to the fight unfold inside. He disappeared as the men brought Alison out and then reappeared when the coast was clear. He disappeared again, returning with two key cards in his hands.
“An employee of the hotel?”
“Maybe.” I touched the screen, indicating the two cards. “But more likely an acquaintance of Shaw’s. She had a key card to both her suite and Alison’s.”
“The tie on the floor in there?”
I nodded. “She was instructed not to have people in this room. I guess she got bored.”
Mike shrugged. “It happens.” He touched the screen, indicating the man’s face. “Will this print? Maybe we can show this picture around, get an identification.”
“Already ahead of you.”
There was a small printer already attached to the system for things just like this. I pushed the appropriate buttons to get it going, then stood, tugging my cellphone out of my pocket. Jules answered on the first ring.
“I need you to call local hospitals, see if anyone fitting Shaw Knolls’ description was admitted to the hospital with a gunshot wound this morning. And I need to know if there was a tracker placed on Alison Michaels’ cellphone.”
“Sure thing, Joss. Anything else?”
“Call Emily Warren. I might need her help.”
I hung up, wondering if I should wake Ash. I decided it wasn’t necessary, but I’d have to inform him at some point during the day. It was his firm’s reputation on the line. He’d want to know what was happening.
Armed with two copies of the mystery man’s picture, we snuck out of the suite. Sneaking out proved to be much easier than sneaking in. The cops didn’t even glance our way.
“That’s Malik Bailey,” the manager was quick to inform us. “He’s head of housekeeping here at the hotel.”
“Do you know where he is right now?”
The manager shook his head. “Sundays are his day off.”
“Could you get us his contact information?”
The manager hesitated, but Mike pulled his credentials out one more time. The information quickly appeared, including Bailey’s address and phone number.
“I need to get one of those,” I grumbled as Mike and I left the hotel.
He just laughed.
Chapter 16
Malik
I was worried. She didn’t look good. She was pale and her head kept falling to the side like she didn’t have the strength to keep it up. A good night’s sleep might be enough to help most of that, but she wasn’t going to allow it. She’d collapse before she’d give up.
I pulled into the parking lot outside my apartment building. She immediately perked up, looking around.
“Where is this?”
“My place.”
She shook her head. “We don’t have time.”
“I need a few things. And you need to rest for a minute.”
She shook her head again vigorously. “We need to head to Mexico. They already have several hours on us.”
“Fifteen minutes, Shaw. You can give me that.”
I climbed out of the car, making sure the keys were in my pocket as I headed upstairs to my tiny apartment. I could hear her footsteps as she followed me, but I didn’t slow my own step. I did leave the door open for her, though.
I quickly stripped out of the clothes I’d so hastily put on when all this began, flipping on the water in the shower.
“Come on, Malik! Can’t you wait till later for a shower?”
“I’m a guy. It’ll take me five minutes.” I turned and looked at her. “You could join me. Maybe it’ll clear your head a little.”
I expected an argument, but she actually seemed to be considering it. And then she began to undress. The bruises that were forming all along her back and her sides physically hurt me. I should have done more to help her, should have forced my way into that room sooner and protected her from those men. I was sick to my stomach at the realization that she could have died while I stood there and did nothing.
I could have gotten the key cards from her room sooner. I could have gotten the master key from the housekeeping closet. I could have…there was so much I could have done. But I let her down.
I turned away, climbing into the narrow shower stall. The hot water felt almost heavenly on my tired body. I just stood there, allowing the water to flow over the top of my head and my shoulders, for a long few minutes. She touched my back when she climbed in behind me, her hands sliding over my hips and down along the tops of my thighs. I turned to her, the bright purple and blue bruise on her shoulder stabbing me in the chest like a knife.
“I’m sorry,” I said, brushing my fingers over it.
“Why? You didn’t do it, it’s not your fault.”
“I didn’t do anything to stop it, either.”
She looked up at me, the softest of smiles on her lips. “That’s sweet that you’d even want to.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“This is my job, Malik. Those people…they would have been just as happy to kill you as me. And you couldn’t defend yourself. I’ve been trained to deal with these situations.”
“But look at you!”
“I’ve been worse off.” She stroked my cheek gently. “I was a soldier. I broke three ribs in basic training.” She touched a scar just above her breast. “I was hit with a piece of shrapnel when our convoy was attacked by insurgents.” She touched another scar on her upper arm. “I was cut by a fellow soldier showing off with his knives.” She smiled up at me. “This is what I do. And these,” she gestured to the stitches that glared up at me from her belly, “are nothing that I haven’t dealt with before.”
“You’re a badass.”
She laughed. “I like to think I am. But I’m really jus
t a girl with a lot of training.”
I pushed her back against the wall, careful not to touch any of her injuries as I caressed her throat, her breast. Then I kissed her and she responded quite readily, her lips parting softly as I moved into her. Despite everything, just touching her was enough to take my breath away.
After a moment, however, she gently pushed me away.
“We should get washed up and get out of here.”
I turned and grabbed the shampoo, but I wasn’t done touching her. I poured a little of the soap in my hands and pressed it against her scalp, washing her hair gently as she tilted her head back and closed her eyes. She clearly liked the massage I gave her scalp. I know I liked it.
We washed each other, probably taking more time than we should have. But I felt a hundred percent better when we stepped out of the shower and some of her color returned to her face, so she must have, too.
I dressed quickly, moving around the apartment, grabbing things I imagined we’d need. I had money hidden in the kitchen, my passport in a drawer in the bedroom. I stuffed those things in a small duffel bag along with an assortment of clothes, not quite sure where we would end up or what I’d need. Or how much. I hesitated as I finished up with the dresser, staring at a cellphone nestled in among my folded socks and underwear.
“We’ve got to go,” Shaw reminded me from the doorway.
She was dressed once more in the same t-shirt and jeans she’d taken from her suitcase at the hotel. She’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail with an elastic band she must have found in the kitchen. She looked youthful like that, like she was still a teenager rather than the adult who’d faced down three armed men just a few hours ago.
A real badass.
I grabbed the phone and shoved it into my bag before zipping it up. We headed out, jumping back into the car and backing out of the parking spot just as a dark sedan pulled up a few spots away. Shaw suddenly cursed, sliding down in her seat.
“What?”
“It’s my boss. They must have figured out who you are already.”
“That was quick.”
“Joss is good.”
I watched the man and woman head toward my apartment, wondering how such a tiny woman had found herself working security. “Maybe we should talk to them.”
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