Should Dieter destroy a man’s career for having chapped lips in the desert?
His mind twitched back to Flicka, as it had so many times during Julien’s interview.
He grabbed his phone but didn’t know what to text. If he demanded her location, she would lie.
He wanted to goddamn bite something.
The next fewWelfenlegionguys told their stories.
Matthias Williams was a newer hire after Dieterand Wulf had mustered out of the military. He came with excellent references from friends on SEAL Team Six, but he had no intrinsic, personal loyalty to Wulfram von Hannover.
Dieter stared at the man, looking for any twitch or calming gesture like running his hand through his short, dark hair, but found none.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Dieter couldn’t feel shit through thecomputer monitor. He might be a sell-out, and Dieter would never know it. This charade was a waste of his time.
Romain Belmont was another newcomer, hired within the last few years, and Dieter examined every twitch as Romain drummed his fingers on the table, every flick of his dark eyes as he watched something in the background of the monitor he saw and anything that moved around the room. Hedidn’t look anxious so much as hyper-alert and suspicious of this set-up.
Dieter would have been suspicious, too.
Wulf’s sister was missing. Wulf should have called in Rogue Security, not some new and unknown operation. Sin Nombre Security didn’t even exist. Its name literally meant “Without A Name” in Spanish. If Dieter had been there, he would have been all over this situation and demandedanswers.
If Dieter had been in Las Vegas, he would be tracking Flicka and then hiding her away from Pierre Goddamn Grimaldi.
His hands were practically shaking with anger that she would leave the hotel room and expose herself to being kidnapped or actually murdered. If Prince Rainier had tried to have her killed once, her murder might be his primary plan.
Dieter said to Theo, “I don’t thinkthis is working. I can’t tell a damn thing about these guys. I need to be in the room with them.”
Theo popped into a chat window on the screen. “Come on. You have to be able to see something.”
“Run them through faster,” he said. “I don’t think I can tell a damn thing. I can’t feel their energy. I can’t smell them.”
Theo bobbled his head to the side. “Yeah, it is harder to detect deception withoutthose clues.” He turned his head. “Noah, step it up. We’re just looking for red flags.”
They ran through the rest of theWelfenlegion.For every single person, Dieter could give you a hundred reasons why they were absolutely loyal, perfectly trustworthy, and definitely the weak link that Monaco might have exploited.
All of them displayed nervous traits that might indicate deception or mightbe a result of the dry desert air, the early afternoon time frame right after lunch, or the bottomless coffeepot in Wulf’s kitchen.
Meanwhile, Flicka was walking around Vegas, not answering his frantic texts.
After two hours, Theo asked, “Well?”
“Nothing,” Dieter said. “Not a goddamn one of them stood out. I can’t give you a list of top three suspects. I can’t even rule out if Pierre was blowingsmoke out of his ass. I can’t tell you if someone in there is a hired assassin and Wulf is in extreme danger, or if every one of theWelfenlegionis as loyal as the goddamn French Musketeers.”Flicka. Out there. Somewhere. In danger.“I have to go.”
He shut off the computer and stood. The office chair fell over behind him.
He had to pick up Alina before he went to the airport to catch the nextgoddamn flight back to Vegas.
He texted to Flicka,I’m on my way back to Vegas. I’m going to the airport within an hour to catch the next flight. Tell me a code.
While he drove to Alina’s babysitter’s house, his phone was silent for half an hour until Flicka finally replied:Fiddlesticks.
He smiled at the phone, glad to see her code word that meant she was safe, under her own control, and allright. If she hadn’t been all right, she would have texted a different word, maybelimestone,which meant that she was generally not safe, ordecorating,which meant she was in active danger, such as a kidnapping or other crime in progress.
He texted,What are you really doing?
Again, a half-hour pause elapsed while he picked up his toddler daughter, Alina, from her babysitter Suze Meier, aretired kindergarten teacher who doted on the child.
Retrieving Alina was his last errand of the day. After that, he could finally board a plane to find Flicka and sit on her until the six weeks were over.
