Page 28 of The Wicked

“Was here,” Blue said. “Nobody’s seen him since Saturday night.”

A small mercy. Or was it? Had the monster crawled back under his rock? Or was he lurking in the shadows, waiting to make his move against me? Over the past four days, when the bogeyman didn’t show up with a gun or a pillow, the chains wrapped around my chest had loosened just a smidgen. Enough that I could breathe again. A tiny ember of hope sparked inside me, but its future depended on what Blue had found out.

“Why was he there?” Brooke asked. “Was he a hotel guest?”

Blue shrugged. “Nico doesn’t know. He was understandably reluctant to divulge details about possible guests, but he had his head of security review every tape from Saturday night, and I can tell you one thing—our mystery man is a pro.”

“A pro at what?”

“Being a slippery motherfucker. See that picture?” She gestured toward the still she’d dropped onto the coffee table. “That’s the only good image of his face. He kept his head down around all the other cameras, but that one was hidden.”

“Why?” Brooke asked, shuddering. “That’s a little creepy, having hidden cameras around the place.”

I understood why she felt uncomfortable—last year, she’d had her own experience with a stalker, and that stalker had watched her through hidden eyes. I glanced around and shivered myself. When I’d refused to stay with Brooke—despite Blue trying to railroad me into going—Luca had roped Brie’s protection team into giving the pool house a thorough security audit, which included checking for hidden electronics and installing motion detectors outside. If anyone was creeping around the property, I’d receive an alert on my phone. And then I’d call Luca, and he’d either come to my rescue or arrange for an autopsy.

He was frustrated with me, I could tell. And if I was being honest, I was frustrated with me too. Luca wanted me to spill every detail I could remember of the night my parents died. But he didn’t understand these people. If they could cover up the murder of a senator’s chief of staff, then a small-town sheriff’s deputy wouldn’t worry them, no matter how much military experience he’d had in the past. The monster was untouchable. So all I wanted to find out was whether he’d been in Baldwin’s Shore for me or for some other reason. Nothing more. Then I’d know whether to run or to carry on with the same miserable existence I’d survived for the past sixteen years.

But the fear, the terror that had paralysed me for so long before it turned into an all-encompassing numbness, I was struggling to keep it at bay.

“One of the bar staff had his hand in the till,” Blue said. “Nico set up the camera to catch him, and he never bothered to remove it.”

“Wow. That nice guy with the dimples?” Brooke asked. “I thought he’d just gone on vacation.”

“I’m not sure about the dimples, but Nico definitely fired him. Maybe we should send him a thank-you note because otherwise, we wouldn’t know that Sara’s suspect ordered a sparkling mineral water and a whisky on the rocks. Macallan 18, to be precise.”

“The replacement bartender dropped a cocktail shaker when I went to the Peninsula for dinner with Brie last week. Actually, it was more of a toss. I think he was trying to do that fancy trick where you throw it over your shoulder and catch—”

“Can we get back to the investigation?” I asked. Who cared about whisky or cocktails? I didn’t, although there was a certain attraction in drinking myself into a stupor right now. Dying from liver damage was probably more fun than being forced off the road and into a tree. “I thought Nico had hundreds of security cameras?”

“That’s a slight exaggeration,” Blue said. “Cameras cover the exits, the parking lot, the lobby, the hallways and stairwells, the beach area, Nico’s private villa, and the inner perimeter around Colt and Brie’s suite. Thirty-six devices in total, which is why it took so long for the staff to comb through the footage, but none around the pool or the gardens because nobody wants to—and I quote—make an accidental sex tape. There are guards, though. Four members of Nico’s security detail work each shift, plus Brie and Colt have their own team.”

All those cameras, all those people, and it hadn’t been enough.

“They only caught a single glimpse? There are no other leads?”

“I didn’t say that. He wasn’t a guest, and he didn’t eat dinner there, but we were able to track him around the hotel with a combination of camera footage and eyewitness accounts.” Blue rolled her eyes. “That threw up more questions than it answered. He wasn’t alone, though. He showed up late in the evening with another gentleman, older. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a great look at his face either. Too many shadows. They walked around the corner of the building, heading toward the ballroom, and at some point, your guy”—Blue tapped the photo—“paid a visit to the bar. Then the two of them left together forty minutes later. A security guard saw them standing on the terrace, but they didn’t mingle.”

“So why would they be…” Brooke started, then trailed off. Probably because she already knew the answer. They’d been there because they were looking for someone.

Watchingsomeone.

“We don’t know that they were looking for you,” Blue said.

“Oh, sure, it was just a big coincidence.”

“Even if they were, all they would have seen was you dancing with a dude dressed as Prince Charming. Who was he, by the way?”

I put my head in my hands. “I have no idea.”

“Really? Because Nico’s security guy showed me the video of you two in the bar, and you looked pretty cosy.”

“He covered for me when I dropped Kayleigh’s phone in the fountain. I owed him a dance.”

“You drowned her phone? Hey, good going.”

“It was an accident.” My whole damn life was an accident. “I should book an airplane ticket.”

“No, no, not yet. We still have one lead to follow up.”

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