I bring up the cameras again, this time watching Daisy. She’s on the dance floor, and then she leaves Mavand goes into the bathroom. She comes out a few minutes later, looking like everything is normal.
‘There,’ Shade points at the screen. ‘Go back.’
I rewind by ten seconds and watch it again.
‘There,’ he says again. ‘She grabs her arm while she’s on her way back to Mav and looks over her shoulder.’
I nod, and we watch as she stumbles against the wall by the cellar door a few seconds later and a guy in a mask and a top hat approaches her.
‘That’s the same dude she looked at when she grabbed her arm,’ I say.
We watch as he takes hold of Daisy, looking like he’s helping her, and goes to the cellar door. He tries the phone in his hand. When that doesn’t work, he glances around and puts in the access code. The door opens and he slips into the bunker. A few seconds later, the club starts to fill with smoke, and Shade and I appear upstairs.
‘Where was Mav?’ I can’t help but accuse.
‘There was a fight around then. He was helping to break it up.’
‘Son of a bitch,’ Shade grinds out. ‘The guy in the top hat drugged her and brought her down here while we were in the next fucking room. We must have run right past them. He must have messaged us from her phone so we wouldn’t come looking for her.’
I hear Mav’s footsteps coming quickly down the hall and he bursts into the room. ‘Sandy gave the number to the new kid to restock the bar earlier. Idiot wrote it on a sticky note and stuck it on the wall by the phone behind the bar in case he forgot it. I told Dom to fire him.’
‘Fuck. Anyone here tonight could have seen it.’
Shade sinks down. ‘We should have put cameras downhere. Fuck. I wanted her to have privacy for once, you know? This is my fault.’
‘Shut up,’ I snarl. ‘We don’t have time for this. Let me think. Her phone was used on the main tunnel door forty-five minutes ago. I have a camera in the tunnel. I haven’t tested it, but we might get something from that that we can use.’
‘What camera do you have in the tunnel?’ Mav grinds out.
I side-eye him and cringe a little. ‘The camera I put up yesterday. I’m all for Daisy’s privacy, but with the cartel and the stalker…’
‘Why didn’t you tell us?’
‘I didn’t get around to it. Sometimes it’s good to have an ace up your sleeve,’ I shrug.
I make sure we can all see the screen as I find the camera, bringing up the right time.
‘This is just before her phone was used.’
‘There,’ I say.
We see a grainy picture of movement in the tunnel as the thick door opens partway into the frame.
A figure appears, leaving the bunker with an unconscious Daisy flung over his shoulder. He rips off the top hat like he forgot he was still wearing it and frisbees it down the passage, but we still can’t see who he is. He turns and shuts the door to the bunker, seeming to carry our girl easily, his face hidden in shadow.
‘Look up,’ Shade practically yells. ‘Look at the camera, you fucker!’
Miraculously, he does, and I find myself staring into the face of Shade’s brother. The mask he wears obscures his face, but there’s no doubt.
I freeze the frame. How many secrets does this son of a bitch have?
‘Andrew,’ Mav snarls, and he sounds so shocked that I know Shade hasn’t yet told him what he realized just over an hour ago about his brother.
‘What the fuck? What the hell was he doing here? I don’t…. What?’
‘He’s the stalker,’ Shade says, sounding completely bewildered.
‘And we think he killed Larson and then framed Daisy for the murder.’
