Page 66 of Fast Fury

“Can you come back and look at this?”

A tingle of concern slid through him. “Sure.” He strode back to the room, stepped inside and shut the door. Two guards stepped aside from the monitor they were looking at, making room for him.

“Play that back again,” the security head ordered.

Arms folded across his chest, Kai stared at the screen while the video footage played.

“Watch right here,” the man said to him.

The camera showed a young family walking in carrying their luggage. Thirty-ish man, woman, and two little kids.

Behind them by a few paces, another woman came into view. She wore a wide-brimmed sunhat and a Hawaiian-style dress. Kai zeroed in on her, his pulse beating faster. Her build was right, and she was approximately the right height to be the woman from last night.

She stopped a few yards behind the family and glanced around the lobby, the gesture almost nervous. For a moment she stared at something out of the camera’s range, then glanced over her shoulder, revealing her face for an instant.

Kai’s insides clamped tight. “Play that part back and freeze on her face,” he commanded.

One of the guards backed the clip up, played with it a few moments until he could freeze on the woman’s face. The shot was grainy, too blurry to see any of the features clearly.

“Can you enhance it at all?” Kai asked, leaning forward, pulse quickening.

“Some.” He tapped some keys, zoomed in and tightened the focus.

The woman’s features became clearer. More distinct.

Kai cursed silently, dread and recognition exploding inside him. “That’s her,” he grated out. “How long ago was this?”

“Eighteen minutes.”

Fuck. More than enough time to disappear somewhere on the resort. Why was she here? For him? Did she have someone working with her? “Follow her after this clip. Where does she go?”

Two of the guards began checking various feeds, searching for her. “Here, got her,” one said a minute later.

The blood rushed in Kai’s ears as he watched the woman walk out of the lobby, heading to the right. Past placards flanking the start of a long hallway that led off the lobby.

Placards listing events for the pharmaceutical conference. His eyes stopped on the left one, scanning the words.

An event hosted by NextGen Pharmaceuticals. Abby’s company.

His gut constricted, foreboding rocketing up his spine in a cold wave. “Where does this hallway lead?” he demanded.

The head of security glanced over his shoulder at him. “The conference rooms.”

Jesus Christ.Abby.

“Get up there now and call the cops for backup,” he said, yanking his phone out of his pocket as he bolted for the door.

****

In her spot against the wall at the rear of the ballroom, Diane’s entire body vibrated with pent-up nerves as she listened to the man on stage giving the closing remarks for the conference. Walter Ling, CEO of NextGen Pharmaceuticals. The rich, arrogant asshole who’d become a millionaire tens of times over by profiting from other people’s misery once they got addicted to the shit his company made.

The blonde pixie who worked for him sat up front, watching her boss with a disgustingly pleased expression. The same woman Diane had seen here the other night with Hani and that dirty DEA agent, Kai. She was sure they were together.

Ling carried on with his speech, going on about how his company was making a difference in the world, spinning his lies about how the poison they manufactured and pedaled were improving the quality of life of so many suffering people throughout the world. And worse, how their latest drug wassafe.

Diane clenched her jaw as she stared at him. He had power, money and prestige, the admiration of almost everyone in this room. But not her. And he was about to get a firsthand lesson in just how fragile and fleeting life could be. Him and that blonde bimbo.

She cast a furtive glance around the room. Her wig made her look a good ten years older, but she wasn’t supposed to be here. A composite sketch with an uncanny likeness to her was all over the news and social media. She hoped her disguise would buy her the time she needed to pull this off.

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