Theo handed me a pen, and I wrote Hoffman’s and Minnie’s names below their photos. I added anxunder the man’s silhouette. Then I stepped back to survey what we had.
“So, we’ve got Hoffman and Minnie and Wyatt’s unknown mystery man from the pub as our suspects.” My thoughts strayed away from the investigation. “Of course, Wyatt’s a bit of a mystery man himself.”
“Not really,” Theo said.
“He won’t even tell me his last name.”
“You let a little thing like that stop you?” Theo shook her head. “You need to get some investigative chops if you want to make it in this business.”
I was about to tell her that I didn’t have any intention of trying to make it in the private investigation business, but I had a more important thought to follow. “Are you saying you know his last name?”
“I know a lot of things.”
I planted my hands on my hips. “Did he tell you his surname?”
“I didn’t need him to.” Theo produced a package of Twizzlers from her bag. She pulled one out and took a bite. “Google told me all I need to know.”
“But if you just type ‘Wyatt’ into the search bar, you get eleventy billion results that have nothing to do with him.” I knew that for a fact, since I’d tried googling him the other day. Even adding the name of the country club hadn’t elicited any relevant results.
“Haven’t you heard of image searching?” She offered me the package of candy.
I took one of the Twizzlers. “Sure, but I don’t have a photo…” My gaze snapped to Minnie’s picture on the murder board. Then I whirled around to face Theo again. “You took a picture of Wyatt and used it to find him online.”
Theo raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Finally, she gets it.”
I pointed my floppy rope of candy at her. “Okay, dish. Who is he? What’s his secret? Why doesn’t he want us to know his last name?”
She lifted her chin. “I can only share details about the agency’s employees on a need-to-know basis.”
“But I really,reallyneed to know.”
She sized me up, and her wicked smile made an appearance. “You’ve got it bad.”
“Just tell me.Please.” I wasn’t above begging, not when my curiosity was about to kill me.
Finally, Theo relented. “His name is Wyatt Quintal Alessi.”
I took a moment to absorb her words. “Quintal Alessi.” I rolled the names around in my mouth, testing them out. A light bulb went off in my head. I repeated Wyatt’s last words to me. “ ‘Who says I have one?’ ” I slapped a hand to my forehead and groaned. “He has two last names, not one.”
It was probably best that Wyatt wasn’t there with us, because in that moment I was sorely tempted to throttle him. Far more than I wanted to kiss him. Because I didn’t want to kiss him at all.
Liar, liar, pants on fire!the traitorous voice in my head yelled.
I practically dove at the coffee table, where I’d left my phone. I typed Wyatt’s full name into the search bar, my thumbs moving so fast they were little more than a blur.
“Oh. My. God.” My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I scanned what came up on the page.
I clicked on the image results, and my jaw dropped. Numerous photos of Wyatt looking smoking hot filled my screen. In some he was dressed casually; in others he wore a designer suit or a tux. A few photos featured him alone, but in others he was pictured alongside a striking woman who had glowing brown skin, sharp cheekbones, and gleaming black hair. She looked vaguely familiar, and it didn’t take more than a second or two to figure out why.
“Holy shit!”
“Right?” Theo said with a grin, coming over to join me by the coffee table. “He’s the son of Rosângela Quintal, former Brazilian supermodel and megarich businesswoman.”
“That explains the car and country club membership.” My voicesounded faint. “But she looks more like his older sister than his mother. What’s her secret?”
There was a knock on the door a split second later, and then it opened. Jemma breezed in before I could even make a move toward the entryway.
“Maybe you shouldn’t barge right in,” Theo said to her. “Emersyn and Wyatt could be doing somevery privateinvestigating.”
