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It’s clear.
Aiming my weapon, I step through the foyer. It’s a fatal funnel, anyone could fire on me here, but I don’t care.
Someone was in here minutes ago.
The room opens to a king bed, unmade, in the center. Gun up, sight ready, I check the other side of the bed. No one. No cigarette butts. Just an empty room, Sarah’s luggage on the dresser and a window, its curtains open to the morning light.
I kick the burgundy bedspread draped over the floor aside, and hope rushes in—two vials peek out from under the bed, like they rolled there, unseen and forgotten.
Minutes later, while I’m with the medics in the hallway loading Sarah onto the gurney, Jameson comes running down the hall.
“What do we got?” His eyes scan the scene.
I don’t need to explain except I tell him the good news. “We got this.” I lead him into the room and point to the floor. We’re waiting for forensics to take pictures, but I’m elated to show him the evidence left behind.
One vial on the floor.
He nods, encouraged.
I grin back.
The other vial? It’s in my pocket. And part of my deal.
It’s after two o’clock before Sarah wakes at the hospital. Whatever he drugged her with, it was potent. In that time, I learn she’s from Miami. She’s here with her boss for Redix’s golf tournament.
I texted Redix earlier to keep him posted. He texted back once with a quick:
REDIX
I love it when you kick ass, Candy Cade
I don’t hear from him the rest of the afternoon and I understand. We’re busy.
When her boss storms into the Emergency Room, his face is red with anger and sunburn from the golf course.
“Is she okay?” He glances at Sarah resting behind the curtain. “Shit, she’s like a daughter to me.”
I can tell he really does care.
“She will be. Was she with you last night?”
“Yeah. We were with a tournament group at The Deck Bar. It got late. She told me she was tired and going back to her room. That’s the last I saw her.”
“What time?”
“Between midnight and one.”
We’ll check the hotel tapes for that hour. That’s all her boss can offer while he waits for Sarah to be released into his care. The rest is the usual. There’s evidence of assault but not who did it. But now we have that vial. Jameson rushed it to the lab for analysis.
The other one is still in my pocket, calling to me like a siren’s song demanding revenge.
That cigarette smoke? That was TJ. I don’t need proof to know his smell. If he was dumb enough to leave vials behind, he’s getting sloppy, and maybe… we finally have his prints.
It’s five o’clock when I open the door to my and Redix’s hotel suite at the golf resort. I already checked the hotel bar, where a party rages after the tournament.
“Where’s Redix?” I asked Luca, returning his quick pecks on my cheeks. He’s so European, so sexy that way.
“He left a long time ago,” he answered. “He went up to your room, I guess.”
