Page 108 of Blue Moon

So he did. He pushed feelings and fear aside and told the story from the beginning, from Luna’s first panicked phone call, through the gifts and the dinners and the notes, ending with Luna’s relocation to the Nile Palace.

“At first, I thought it was Cordelia messing around, or maybe Jubilee. As revenge for Luna firing her, you know? But the tone wasn’t right for Cordelia. The words were too sincere. Love notes, not hate notes. I didn’t see anyone lurking in the shadows, but Mark Antony had to be close. He knew what was happening in Luna’s life. I thought he might be with the paparazzi, but Romeo Serafini ran them off a couple of weeks ago.”

“So maybe that tipped him over the edge? Being blocked from seeing the object of his obsession? Do we have IDs for the reporters?”

“Luna knew most of them by name. Hallie was looking into their backgrounds in her spare time.”

“I’ll get her to coordinate with Pale. We need to find out if any of them checked in to the Nile Palace recently. And we need those fucking security tapes.” Emmy leaned back in the cream leather seat and closed her eyes. “Assuming it was Mark Antony, and I’m eighty-twenty on that because who the fuck else would kidnap Luna, he had to be close because he knew you were out of the way.” A pause. “If I was Mark Antony… If I was close… And I was watching without being seen… And I knew the blind spots…” Emmy’s eyes popped open. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“Tell me everything you know about the security centre at the Nile Palace.”

A chill spread through Ryder’s veins when he realised where Emmy was going with this. There was no warmth left, only ice.

“We spent time there. The head of security was cooperative, but his staff lacked discipline. I got the impression they were focused on the casino floor above all else.”

“That’s not unusual, and in a high-end hotel, nobody wants to feel as if they’re being constantly watched.” Emmy was on the phone again, and she put it on speaker, presumably so she didn’t have to repeat the conversation. “Hey, there are some leads we need to look into.”

“Tell me the details,” Pale said. Why him? Why hadn’t Emmy called Blackwood in to take the lead at the hotel?

“We know the asshole who sent the notes to Luna was watching her, but Ryder didn’t see anyone out of place. Who followed her around constantly? The paparazzi. Hallie was already looking into their backgrounds, but we need to get a handle on who’s still in town and who’s AWOL.”

“Haven’t seen any paparazzi here at the hotel. Figured they’d be everywhere.”

“Romeo Serafini got rid of them, which makes our job harder, but they’re like rats in a sewer. Extermination is impossible, and they keep popping up whenever they sense an opportunity. Are there any other celebs in town? Someone famous enough to draw them out?”

“I’ll get Sin to look into that.”

“What we need is for Velvet Jones to dance naked in the fountains at the Bellagio.”

Pale chuckled. “I’d take a walk down there myself if she did.”

“Dude, you have terrible taste in women.”

“The worst,” he agreed. “What’s the other lead?”

“The security centre at the hotel. We need the names of everyone who isn’t there, so anybody who’s not scheduled to work today or who called in sick. And we also need the security tapes from the twelfth floor.”

“There’s a problem with those.”

“What problem?”

“Some kind of data corruption. They’re trying to restore the footage from backups, but the system keeps glitching.”

“Accidental or intentional?” Emmy asked.

“That’s unknown at present.”

“I’ll get Mack to call you.”

“No need; Echo’s already involved. Tulsa’s on the twelfth floor with the two Serafini men, and Dusk will be available in a couple of hours. She can help with the legwork and act as referee between Tulsa and Romeo.”

“The two of them know each other?”

“They’ve crossed paths in the past.”

“Have they checked the three suites in the blind spot?”

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