Wicked Intentions

24

I don’t speak the language, but my life has been threatened enough times by dangerous men speaking foreign tongues that I get the gist.

But I don’t mind. The sooner I discover how Angeline is connected to these men, the sooner I can start working on a way to find her.

By the time I’m dressed and emerge from the bathroom, the police officers are busy sniffing around my room. They’ve dismissed the crowd with the exception of Connor, who stands to one side of the bed with his legs spread and his bulky arms crossed over his chest. He’s biting the inside of his cheek, trying not to smile.

I snap, “Okay, brother. Here’s the part where you tell me what you think is so damn funny!”

His dark eyes dance with laughter. “You sure can pick ’em, my friend. This is even better than the time you hooked up with that Mafia don’s wife.”

“She said she was divorced!”

“Nobody divorces the mob, dummy. Remind me, how many goombahs did he send to kick your ass?”

He’s having way too much fun with this. I make an impatient motion with my hand that basically translates to get to the f*****g point.

“When you didn’t come down for breakfast, I figured you were still…occupied…with your new friend. But an hour later when you didn’t pick up your cell or the room phone, I knew something was wrong. The police were just about to have the hotel manager open your door when we got here.”

“And the suits who’d like to separate my head from my body? Who’re they?”

Connor says drily, “Personal security for one Ahmed Akbar Khan Khalid.”

“Saudi?”

“Yep. Super rich. Oil money, of course. And a bona fide prince, to boot.” He jerks his chin at the ceiling. “Honeymooning in the suite right above this very room.”

We stare at each other for a beat as I process what he’s told me. After a few seconds, it clicks. I feel like the biggest i***t on the planet.

“Aw, s**t. What’d she take?”

From outside on the balcony, the head officer answers. “A Burmese pigeon’s blood ruby necklace once owned by Queen Ingrid of Denmark. It’s worth fifteen million dollars.”

I look over at him. He’s craning his neck to peer at something on the side of the building that’s fluttering in the gentle morning breeze. He looks at me and points in the direction of the flutter. “You want to explain this?”

Connor and I join him outside. Hanging down from the railing of the balcony above mine is a makeshift rope composed of white bedsheets. We lean over and discover three more tied to the first, dangling down the side of the building, all the way to the ground.

My brain switches into Special Ops mode. “Four king-size sheets tied together with square knots. Readily available, easy to work with, anonymous…”

Connor and I glance at each other. He says, “And excellent weight support. Especially at a high thread count like these.”

I look down again, assessing the distance to the lawn below. “Building stories are about ten feet tall. Each king-size sheet would provide about twelve feet of length.”

Connor says, “And we’re probably what, fifty feet up?”

Exactly what I’d calculated. I remind myself to unclench my jaw. “I gotta admit it. That’s pretty smart.” I look at the officer. “They’re from Khalid’s room. She wouldn’t have burdened herself with the climb up from here to there carrying a stack of sheets.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “How do you know she climbed up?”

I smack myself on the forehead. “You’re right. She took the invisible jet.”

Connor warns, “Ryan.”

Ignoring him, I cross my arms over my chest and level the officer with a hard stare. “Okay. Here’s every fuckin’ thing you need to know in a nutshell. I met the woman who calls herself Angeline Lemaire yesterday at the pool bar at approximately fifteen hundred hours. No, I didn’t know her before that. No, I’m not an accomplice. No, I didn’t know anything about her plans. We went to dinner with my friends, including this big ape here, and then came back to my room.

“What happened after that is none of your damn business, except that she doped me with something she put in a bottle of orange juice.” I jerk my head toward the bed. “The empty’s on the nightstand. You can test for residue. My guess is Rohypnol, modified with somethin’ to make it work faster. Took me down in thirty seconds. When I woke up, you were outside my door.”

Though it hurts my ego something fierce to admit it, I add, “She obviously targeted me because I was stayin’ in this particular room. If it were next week, you’d be talkin’ to some other dude. End of story.”

The officer is busy trying to think of something to say next when one of his compadres lifts a high-heeled red shoe from the floor. The platform sole is broken off. Examining it, he asks, “You two have a fight?”

Connor speaks before I can. “He doesn’t fight with broads, only the husbands he didn’t know they had. But that’s a nice little hidey-hole carved in there. Perfect size for some cash.”

“Or a flash drive,” I say, grudgingly impressed. “Or a compass, an ID—”

“A map,” he finishes, looking at me. His sharp gaze flicks to the bedsheets, then to the view of the verdant hills. To the head cop, he says, “Lemme guess. She didn’t check out of the hotel. She hasn’t been seen since she left dinner with Ryan. You don’t have any video feed of her leaving the property.”

The cop looks uncomfortable. “Correct. The hotel doesn’t have security cameras pointing up at the outside of the building—”