Page 115 of Blue Moon

Footsteps sounded in the hallway outside, and Frank appeared with Derek Monroe in tow.

“Did you find anything?” Frank glanced at his son. “Why are you sitting around? We got work to do.”

Romeo scrambled to his feet, and I tried not to smirk.

“There was no struggle here,” I told them. “Either Luna walked out of the room, or she was incapacitated and carried. What’s happening in the control centre?”

“Someone would have seen an unconscious woman being carried through the hotel,” Romeo said.

“Yeah, you’d think, wouldn’t you?”

“There was a problem with the eye in the sky,” Monroe confirmed.

“No kidding. What kind of problem?”

“Our data retention policy specifies that we keep recordings for fourteen days. After that, the software deletes the footage. Somebody altered the settings and changed the days to minutes.”

“So instead of fourteen days of footage, you have fourteen minutes?”

“Exactly.”

Fuck.

“And nobody noticed? How long ago did this happen?”

“There are four separate systems. Two that cover the casino floor, one for the public areas, and another for back of house. The casino floor wasn’t affected, and the last time we had to replay from the front-of-house system was three days ago.”

“So this happened recently.” Two out of four systems affected; it wasn’t an accident. And as for the timing, I didn’t believe in coincidences like that. “Who has access?”

“Half a dozen people.”

“I’m going to need their names. And make sure nothing else is written to that hard disk.”

Echo was the cyber expert, but I knew enough about computers to know that deleted didn’t always mean gone for good. Only the directory entry was removed. The data was still sitting there in no man’s land until it got overwritten with something new.

“I’ll get onto that.”

“Is your name on the list?”

He hesitated. “Yes, it will be.”

“Then I’ll let Romeo handle it. No offence.”

Monroe’s gaze clouded, but after a long moment, he shrugged. “Look, are we sure this isn’t a publicity stunt?”

“The people who know Luna best say not.” I’d only met Emmy Black once or twice, wasn’t even sure I liked her, but Priest was well acquainted with the folks at Blackwood, and he said she wouldn’t overreact.

“Then I’ll carry on helping your team with the search of the hotel.”

By “your team,” Monroe actually meant Blackwood’s team. Emmy had sent every available body from their Las Vegas office to assist.

“We’ll also need a clear path to the control centre for our cyber specialist. She isn’t a fan of people.”

Romeo rolled his eyes.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

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