Page 61 of Blood & Loyalties
This was really killing her, seeing her friend like this. Hell, it was killing me simply from hearing it.
“This all started when she stopped talking to me. Today, she told me she didn’t want anything to do with me, so that would lead me to think something happened to her to make her stop talking to me. The questions are, what is it, and why is she hiding it?” I was pretty much thinking out loud. If I was going to figure this shit out fast, I needed Kiera’s help.
“I don’t know what it could have been. She didn’t act any differently that day except to come and tell me she was done messing around and wouldn’t have a boyfriend over the phone. She said she ended it and didn’t want to take any more calls from you. I thought it was a bit strange since it was all of a sudden, but I took her at her word.”
“Can you tell me anything else about that day?” There had to be some sort of clue there.
“I don’t remember much, just what she said. She didn’t look too different, but she has a way of hiding things if she doesn’t want you to see them.”
I sat and waited, letting Kiera process everything in her head. From the look in her eyes as they moved back and forth, the wheels in her head were spinning.
“Lately, she spends a lot of time in her office. A lot. She never does anything. If she’s not at work, she’s in her office or at the gym. I don’t go in her office, but maybe I should have.”
That would be my starting point. “Thank you. I’ll get this taken care of.”
She looked up at me, chewing the inside of her mouth. “Don’t let her push you away. She loves you. She won’t say it, but she does. For months after you left, she would light up each time you called and act like a damn teenager in love. That’s why, when she cut it off, the whole situation felt strange, but she’s my best friend, so I stood by her. That means not talking to you.”
I reached over and patted her hand. “We’ll get through this.”
Leaving the coffee shop, I dialed Vino’s computer guy.
“Jag, my man, how’s it going?” His chipper voice answered.
“Fine. You’ve still got cameras all over Catarina’s house, right?”
“Yep.”
I continued walking, getting into the car. “I’m on my way there. I need you to pull all of the footage of Catarina’s office.”
“You’ve got it. I’ll have it ready when you get here.”
Techie, Vino’s computer guy, lived in a little house right in the middle of the Lambardoni compound. It didn’t hold a candle to the other houses around it, but it didn’t need to. It was the camera hub for all of Lambardoni’s dealings, housing a single man.
When we pulled up to the house, Techie wrenched the door open before we could get to it, a big smile across his face.
“Come on in, my man!” Techie was in his twenties with glasses and blond hair that was shaggy and fell into his eyes. He was super smart when it came to anything electronic, and that was exactly why he had been hired for the job.
“Follow me,” he called out, walking through the living room.
There wasn’t garbage littered everywhere, but the room was in chaos. Magazines and books were scattered around the tables and floors, and clothes were thrown throughout the space. Something told me he didn’t entertain much.
He led us back to what would be considered the master bedroom, but instead of a bed, there were computer monitors, big machines that hummed, and tons of flashing lights were on every wall, even covering the windows. Unlike the living room, this room was pristine with nothing out of place.
He moved to one of the large, black chairs. “Have a seat.”
I did, staring up at all the monitors. There must have been twenty, if not more, all anchored to the wall. Some monitors showed four pictures on it, each one somewhere on the Lambardoni compound. The others showed full screens of the different properties, inside and out, flipping to different scenes. Yet more were focused on different streets and buildings throughout the city.
Techie tapped on his keys and pointed to the screen in front of him. “The camera looks a slight bit turned. Hang on.” He pressed buttons, and it looked like he was rewinding a tape quickly. Each time, it showed Catarina moving the cameras upon entering the space then putting the cameras back when she left.
“Go to the first time she did it,” I told him, wanting to know when all this shit had started, although I had a sneaking suspicion that I did.
“That was about three months ago. Look here.” He pointed again to the screen.
As Catarina’s beautiful face came into view, her eyes looked scared and her face a bit pale. She turned each camera one at a time, the cameras shaking from possible tremors in her hand as she did so.
“Shit,” I growled.
“Yeah, shit. I don’t know how I didn’t catch that,” Techie said, rubbing the back of his neck. “But look, she moves them back when she’s about to leave the room, and it’s only for no more than fifteen minutes at a time.”
