The room key falls from my hand, and I scoop it up and slam it into the lock. With a quick twist, the door opens, and Marina’s there, catching me so I don’t fall. “Lock it. Now. Please,” I beg.
Marina shuts the door firmly but doesn’t flip the deadbolt. “Sloane—”
“Now! Max… Max is…shit. Call your cousin. I need…I need help.”
Someone pounds on the suite’s door, and I skirt the couch. Like that’ll protect me. “Don’t let anyone in!”
“Sweetie, look at me.” Marina takes me by the shoulders and forces me to meet her gaze as the pounding continues. “That’s what I was trying to tell you.”
Keeping one hand held up in the universal gesture forstand still, she checks the peep hole, then opens the door.
“Stop!” I scream.
The man—the one I ran from only seconds ago—stalks into the room, slams the door, and fixes me with a cold stare. “Did you touchanythingin that room?”
I jerk back, looking around wildly for anything I can use as a weapon, until Marina wraps her arm around me. “Sloane, I called Clive before we left New York. This is his guy,” she says.
What?This…this man who followed me, who’s glaring at me like he’s ready to kill… Her cousin sent him?
She offers me a weak smile. “This is Griff.”
Chapter Eleven
Griff
Wide blue eyes stare up at me, equal parts terrified and livid. After what she saw in that room, I’m amazed she’s still standing.
But she hasn’t answered my question, and before I doanythingelse, I need to know if her prints are anywhere in that room.
“Did you touchanythingin your manager’s room?” I ask again, using my foot to kick the door shut behind me so I don’t have to tear my gaze from Sloane’s face.
“What?” She blinks back tears as she stares at Marina, then me.
“Fingerprints. Are your fingerprints anywhere in his room?”
“N-no? I…the door wasn’t locked. I pushed on it. The outside. And I turned on the light.”
Shit. I’ll have to call the guys, but I flipped the latch to rights and set out theDo Not Disturbsign, so I should have at least an hour.
“Good.” Spotting a tea service on the table, I glance at Marina. “Pour her something and keep her calm. I need to call Clive and then we’ll talk.”
Sloane wriggles out from under Marina’s arm and straightens her shoulders. Her lips are doing that thing again. The nervous pursing and mashing together until she clenches her jaw and the rapid movements transfer to her fingers tapping against her thighs.
“Wait. You knew who I was in the bar, didn’t you? I thought I saw you at the cocktail party too. Were you following me?”After a beat, she shakes her head. “You were. You were following me.”
Thank fuck she didn’t destroy my glasses. She’s talking too quickly for me to read her lips, and I suspect she’s about to lose her shit all over the place once my presence stops distracting her from the memory of her manager’s dead—and very bloody—body.
“Yes, I was following you. That’s my job. And yes, I should have introduced myself, but then again,someoneshould have admitted she called me in before the party tonight so I could have been with you the whole damn time.”
Sloane sinks down to the floor and covers her face with her hands. Her voice is so muffled, even the glasses can’t pick up what she’s saying, and Marina rushes over to her.
“Go. Make your call. I’ll take care of her,”she says, and I close myself in what appears to be Sloane’s bedroom. It smells like her. Aloe, along with a hint of coconut and something decidedly tropical.
The space is pristine, except for a velvet and silk bathrobe draped over the end of the bed and several tubes and bottles—lotions and shit, I assume—lined up on the dresser.
Clive answers almost immediately, and his words scroll across the phone screen. “What’s wrong?”
“Can you call Austin? Or Dax? Conference them in? Max is dead, and it’s fucking obvious someone killed him to send Sloane a message.”
