Page 78 of The Love Destroyers

I bite my lip hard to keep from laughing. God bless Nicole.

“That isoutrageous,” Jeffrey says, his voice outraged. “I need to talk to your manager, at once.”

“That’s exactly where we’re going,” the newcomer says. “Unless you want to involve the police.”

“No,” Jeffrey says with the confidence of a man who truly believes he can talk his way out of anything. “No, there’s no need for that. We’ll get this all cleared up in no time.”

Then I hear the scuff of shoes, the shutting of a door, and they’re gone.

I text Nicole:Good save.

Nicole:I know, right? It’ll take them a while to sort everything out, and it’s sure to be super embarrassing for him. I’m hiding on the first floor to take some photos of him being taken into the security office. ;)

Nicole:Why don’t you finish the search?

Nicole:Let’s nail the flasher pervert.

So I quickly look through the rest of Ellie’s bags. What I find: Clothes. Accessories. Rabbit food. A small baggie that probably does not contain flour.

What I do not find: Anything of interest besides the broken bits of the rabbit Bluetooth speaker. If the information was on that, it is sadly gone.

There aren’t any notes, any paper, any electronics…

We have access to her phone, of course, and that might be exactly what we need. It feels too easy, but sometimes things that feel too easy aren’t.

I leave the room the way I found it, listening at the door and looking out the peephole before I step into the hall and hurry away.

When I get to my car in the garage, I call Nicole to give her the news.

“He thought he was going to find something,” she says. “That means Seamus is right, and Ellie has leverage. You know what this means.”

“That we need to get it from her?”

“We need her to think we’re her friends—and to know that Jeffreyisn’ther friend.”

“I…uh…I don’t know how she’d react to seeing me. She thinks I’m crazy.”

“Did you give her reason to?”

“Maybe,” I admit. “Remember the cactus?”

She cackles. “I’ll never forget it. Well, I’ve been watching her livestream from the waiting room, and they just called her aboutthe pervert in her hotel room. She looked like she was about to shit herself from excitement.”

A harsh laugh escapes me.

“So she’s leaving, obviously. She’ll be taking an uber and livestreaming the whole thing. Why don’t you go pick Seamus up? We can meet up later. Damien’s on his way back from Charlotte.”

Look at that, she told me to go exactly where I really, really want to go.

CHAPTER TWENTY

SEAMUS

I worked directly for my uncle for a week and cracked someone else’s kneecaps. It made me puke—and I quit the next morning after a sleepless night.

I’ve been stabbed, once, but the other guy is much worse off…

Between the Honey Do job and acting as Ellie’s assistant, I’ve suffered a cracked rib and a mild concussion within the past week.

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