Page 94 of Peyton's Price

“She would have texted,” Liam replied, peeking around the corner.

“What if she forgot her phone?” Ward continued, opening and closing a closet.

“Peyton doesn’t go anywhere without her phone,” Matthias said. She had even kept it with her on theOrmen Lange, in the middle of the ocean, where she had been nowhere near her service provider.

They kept searching. Matthias started to sweat. There was no way Peyton accidentally locked herself down here. She’d worked at this hotel chain for her entire adult life, and she knew her way around spaces like this. And she’d been aware Agent Ward had been on his way to meet her…

“Does Peyton like wearing very high heels?” Ward asked.

“Not particularly,” Liam admitted, throwing open another door. “But she knows we like them, so she puts up with them sometimes.”

Matthias frowned. “Do you see heel marks or something?”

“Not exactly.” Agent Ward bent, then fished something out from under a shelf stocked with linens. The distinctive red sole of the Louboutin was like a flashing neon light.

Matthias took it from his hand. “That’s one of the shoes Peyton was wearing today.”

Chapter 38

Peyton’s head throbbed. A tear escaped her eye as she struggled to focus on her surroundings. She was sitting in a sunny wood-paneled room. There was an antique table in front of her with a pristine leather blotter and one those ugly painted ducks.

Where did my other shoe go?

The pocket of her dress lay flat. The flash drive was gone…and her hands were bound behind her back with hard metal rings. Handcuffs. Ropes were wrapped around her middle, securing her to a wooden chair.

“Welcome back.”

Narrowing her eyes against the too-bright light, she turned her head as slowly as possible. Two men watched her from the other side of the table.

“Apologies for the knock to the head. It was necessary to facilitate your departure from the hotel. The Caislean has better security than most.”

Still fuzzy-headed, Peyton belatedly realized the table was a desk. One of the men, the older one, sat behind it in a leather chair. The other one, his countenance that of hired muscle, stood to his left as if he were waiting for orders.

Neither was wearing a mask to obscure their features.That’s a bad sign.

She didn’t bother with stupid questions. “I take it I’m meeting Interpol’s mole.”

The older man laughed. “I see the information we have on you is spot on. You’re a very bright woman, Peyton Carson.”

The man was English, which didn’t surprise her. Most Bond villains were English. However, the prominently displayed wedding ring was a bit off-putting. Did his wife know what kind of bloodshed her husband had been responsible for?

“Not that bright actually.” She sniffed. “I have no idea what your name is. I didn’t discover your identity in the files Mason sent. You kidnapped me for nothing.”

The man drummed his fingers on the disk, a considering light in his eyes. “Well, that remains to be seen. Just because you can’t identify me from the breadcrumbs you’ve gathered doesn’t mean Agent Ward can’t. The man is tenacious. I should know. I trained him myself.”

The man next to him rolled his eyes, but Peyton didn’t say anything. She was too sick to her stomach. Mason hadn’t mentioned the name of his supervisor at Interpol, so she still couldn’t put a face to a name, but the overwhelming wave of betrayal on his behalf choked her.

The Englishman leaned forward. “As you’ve no doubt surmised, we learned of your meeting with Agent Ward. Travis here has been keeping tabs on him ever since we discovered he was looking into the Belarus matter.”

And they had found out she was handing off her report in person at Mason’s insistence. No doubt they had pored over all the data on the flash drive.

“Ms. Carson, is there another copy of the report?” the Englishman asked.

“Of course.”

“She’s lying. Mason would have warned her not to make one,” Travis muttered, speaking for the first time. His accent was American. Peyton didn’t know why that bothered her so much.

“He did tell me not to make one, but I’m a coder,” she said, wishing her voice didn’t sound as weak as it did. Her head still pounded. “I always make a backup—that shit is engrained. It’s in my private safe at the Caislean. Only I know the code to open it.”

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