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“So the band probably isn’t at risk,” she said.
“We don’t think so, but we’re still keeping security tight,” Cam answered. “The rest of the tour’s been cancelled, but they all want to stay until Teag’s out of the woods. We’ll keep bodies on them while they’re out here.”
Maria caught Cam’s eye and the message passed between them. Teag’s survival wasn’t a given. Another thought hit Maria, sending a chill straight up her spine.
“He’s a witness,” she said softly.
Cam’s flat expression told her he’d thought of this already.
“If Teag wakes up,” Cam started, then cleared his throat. “When he wakes up, we’ve instructed the publicist to keep the info under wraps until we know more. For now, we think it’s safer if the world believes he’s in a coma.”
Maria nodded her agreement. “What else? Was there any footage from the hotel’s security camera?”
Cam drummed his fingers on the table and looked to Jake.
“I made a copy before the police confiscated it,” Jake said, as casually as if he’d just told them he’d ordered donuts. Maria couldn’t help her grin.
He cued up the footage and motioned for her to move beside him. “They’ve seen it all already,” he said, waving his hand at the guys.
She pulled a chair up next to Jake and stared at his laptop monitor. His fingers moved over the keyboard effortlessly, and an image appeared, taken from an elevator. The same elevator Maria had used the night before, when she thought she’d be breaking up Teag’s middle-of-the-night kinky escapade.
A tall man appeared, dressed in a hotel uniform, but with a dark baseball cap pulled down over his eyes. He kept his face away from the camera, as if he knew exactly where it was. When he exited the elevator, Maria pointed to the tell-tale bulge of a weapon beneath his shirt.
“Can you stop the video?” she asked.
Jake tapped a key, and the image froze.
“Look at the ink under his collar,” she said. “Can you zoom in on that?”
Again, tapping keys and the image zoomed, blurry but close-up.
“We noticed that too. I’m going to try and clean this up to see if we can make out anything distinctive.”
“He looks Caucasian to me,” Maria said, tracing a finger over the dark ink contrasted against pale skin.
“Agreed. So I looked through feeds from the other cameras in the building, and I was able to find him here,” Jake said, pointing.
“That’s the front entrance, right?”
“Yep. He strolled right in a little after midnight. That’s the only other time he’s captured on camera, and he’s still wearing the hat.”
“Nothing to run through facial recognition software,” Maria mumbled.
“Nope. He’s a pro.”
“On the one hand, this makes me feel better about the rest of the band’s safety. But on the other hand, he may want to tie up loose ends if he knows he left a witness,” Maria said.
“Which is what we have to plan for now,” Cam said, drawing all eyes to him.
“What are you thinking?” Maria asked.
“Let’s take things one step at a time. First, we’re going to quietly increase our security presence in the hospital. I’ll continue to monitor the progress on the case for any new intel, and we’ll go from there.”
They spent the next hour or so working out details, and then Maria left with Jake, Fiona, and two members of her security team to return to the hospital.
Jake wasn’t thrilled Fiona insisted on returning to the hospital and could potentially be in the line of fire, so to speak, but she’d emerged from the bedroom resolute. Diego and Julian agreed to wait for news at the hotel.
On the ride over, Maria’s head was filled with the task ahead, namely keeping an unknown hitman from getting to Teag. Fiona’s soft voice pulled her from her internal list-making.
