Page 60 of Savage Beauty

“Hi. It’s Stella here.”

“Hey, Stella. It’s Max. No one else has joined.”

“Great. I’m just popping in. I’m still working on scheduling the jet to pick you up. Both of our company jets are in use this week. I’m fairly certain I’ve got everything worked out, and one will arrive to pick you up tomorrow afternoon, but I’m still waiting on confirmations.”

“No rush. We’re good here.”

“Is that villa nice?”

“Very.”

“Trevor’s birthday is coming up. Do you think he’d like it there?”

“Ah…” I glance out the window at the relatively flat sea. No waves mean no surfing. “I mean, this place is luxe. There’s snorkeling right out your back door. But you’d need to get on a bike or drive to go do anything else.”

“So that’s a no for Trev?”

“Probably. But maybe not. It’s not like he can’t get to activities. At the airport, they had travel fliers for all kinds of stuff…you know, paragliding, scuba. This place has all your normal island shit.”

“Erik here.”

“Jack here.” Jack Sullivan isn’t normally a part of our team meetings, but he’s shown an interest in the Watson case from the beginning. He said he only met with Sam once, but I’m beginning to wonder if there isn’t more behind his involvement.

A few others from the tech team announce themselves.

“Max. We got identification on the man who entered the building last night.” Typical Erik, he doesn’t bother with any kind of intro or summarizing who is on the call.

“Is he a Solonov associate?” That’s really my biggest concern. That there are more hired guns on the island.

“Local security guard. Employed by Wright Security, a small security company that installs security systems. No record. Our best guess is that you guys triggered an alert, and he was called to check it out. He never called the cops. And no alert went to the police station. He lives in an apartment nearby, so maybe the alert triggered someone who checked their employee database and sent him because he’s so close.”

“Wouldn’t a typical security system automatically notify the police?”

“Possibly. Depends on how it’s set up.”

“So, your risk assessment would be….”

“We don’t think he’s anything to worry about. But I think that building has a security system that we didn’t identify, so I wouldn’t go back in there. Do you have that laptop?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s the only thing you took?”

“Yep. We’ll get it to you when we’re Stateside.”

“Can you get in it?”

“Well, we have the username and password for it. And Sloane grabbed a password list from a drawer.”

“Snap a photo of that list and send it to me. Turn the computer on. I’m going to walk you through how to let us take over that device.”

“Remotely? You can do that securely?”

“Yes, we can. Keep it plugged in.”

“Sloane wants to find the report she created.”

“We’ll find it.”

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