Page 54 of The Lady Has a Past

Lyra folded her arms very tightly and glared. “I picked up some clues and another lead. What did you accomplish today?”

“I found the damn car.”

Her hands dropped to her sides. Her eyes widened. “Raina’s car?”

“No. The one they used to take her away.”

“It’s here? At the hotel?”

“It’s in the employees’ parking lot. A nice new Buick convertible. It belongs to a bartender named Kevin Draper. He told his pals here at the hotel that he came into a small inheritance from an uncle.”

Excitement lit Lyra’s eyes. “How do you know it’s the right car?”

He paused a beat and then shrugged. She didn’t seem to have a problem with his psychic side.

“The heat on the driver’s-side door handle,” he said. “Whoever drove that car last was scared. Frantic. Close to panic. He was probably afraid of being caught.”

“Psychic heat.”

He nodded. “It sounds crazy when you say it out loud, doesn’t it?”

“No, it sounds like a reasonable explanation for what you sensed.”

“Whatever is going on here is an inside job, Lyra.”

She nodded. “I agree. If a gang is kidnapping women from this hotel on a regular basis, they would need a vehicle that wouldn’t arouse suspicion or curiosity. A car that is seen regularly in the parking lot. That means they have to have at least one person inside.”

“At least two or three, I think. In addition to the actual kidnapping, someone has to change the hotel records and explain the late-night checkouts.”

Lyra began to walk in a circle around the table in the middle of the sitting room. “How do they identify their victims? And why did they take Raina? As you said, it would be extremely risky to try to force Luther Pell to come up with ransom money. I have no doubt that he’d pay whatever it cost to get Raina back, but after she was safe he would spend the rest of his life hunting the kidnappers.”

“And given his connections both in the criminal world and the government, sooner or later he would find the people who took Miss Kirk. When he did, he would be... ruthless. You’d think the kidnappers would know that, but bad guys make mistakes in judgment all the time. Look, I don’t have all the answers. That’s why it would have been in our best interest to keep from drawing attention to ourselves. Now that you’ve effectively destroyed our cover, we’re going to have to change course.”

“If you would stop yelling at me we could get to work on a new strategy.”

“I am not yelling.”

“Technically, no, but you are definitely reading me the riot act,” Lyra said. “Okay. You’ve made your point. I don’t need to hear any more lectures. I would like to remind you again that I went through a rather stressful experience today. I know I didn’t handle things the way you think I should have, but I got solid information, damn it.”

He couldn’t tell if she was angry or crushed. He wasn’t sure what to do next.

“Are you going to cry?” he asked.

She glared. “No, I am not going to cry. That would be extremely unprofessional.”

“Yes, it would.”

A sharp rap on the door made them both flinch in surprise.

“Bellhop. I have a delivery for Mrs. Cage.”

Simon looked at Lyra. She shook her head.

“I didn’t order anything,” she whispered.

“Just a minute,” Simon called.

He crossed the room, opened his briefcase, and slipped the gun out of the holster. He motioned to Lyra to step out of the line of sight and then went to the door. Leaving the chain on the lock, the gun concealed against his thigh, he opened the door.

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