Vero’s eyebrows shot up. “Come again?”
I nodded.
“You couldn’t have opened with that yesterday?”
“It didn’t seem as important as the evidence Cam stole.”
Vero threw up her hands. “Thisis why you need an accountant!”
“People who havemoneyneed accountants. And right now, we don’t have any.”
“You think Hector took it?”
I shook my head. “If he’d found a key to fourteen million in the car, why would he have been so hung up on getting thirty thousand dollars for storing it for—”
“Louis,” we said at the same time.
Suddenly, I was seeing a new angle in the story. Louis could have found the thumb drivebeforehe’d had the car delivered to Hector’s garage. All that time, we’d been searching for clues about where Louis had taken Javi. We hadn’t been looking for the flash drive when we’d searched his hotel room, we’d been looking for the car.
Vero rushed to the Aston like her ass was on fire. “Come on, Finn. We’ve got fourteen mil in crypto to find.”
As Javi drove us back to the Royal Flush, Vero came clean with him about her debt to Marco and the subsequent theft of the Aston Martin. She left out the gruesome discovery we’d made in Marco’s suite. She also conveniently omitted Ike’s death from the story, the fact the car was now wanted by the Russian mob, and exactly what information the missing thumb drive contained. Considering how angry Javi looked after hearing the few watered-down facts wehadelected to share with him, Vero’s choice not to divulge more than necessary seemed wise.
Javi did a double take as we got close to our hotel, craning his neck to read a glowing marquee as we passed the entrance to the Villagio. The car behind us honked their horn as Javi braked hard, making an impossibly tight U-turn.
Vero grabbed the back of his seat. “Where are you going? That’s not our hotel!”
“I know that logo,” he said, pointing at the Villagio’s marquee. “That’s the same logo that was on the soap in the bathroom where those assholes were keeping me. That must be the hotel where those two guys are staying.”
“What exactly are you planning to do?” I asked as he swerved into the Villagio’s parking garage.
“I’m going to find those jerks and get your thumb drive back so we can all go home.” He revved the engine, urging the Aston faster up the ramp to a dark, vacant corner of an upper deck. He swerved into an empty space behind a column, obscuring the car from view. “Let’s see how tough these guys are without the zip ties.”
We scrambled out of the car after him.
“Wait!” I said, chasing his long strides to the lobby. “I promise, these guys are not tough, Javi! Vero and I can definitely handle them. Why don’t you let us take you back to the Royal Flush and get you a room?”
He stormed into the hotel, ignoring the stares of the other hotel guests as he shouldered his way into a packed elevator before it could close.
“We don’t even know what room they’re in,” Vero reminded him as we all crammed inside.
“I know exactly what room they’re in. I saw it on the placard as they dragged me out.” The other passengers darted uncomfortable looks at his bloodied clothes and his bruised face, inching away from him as he punched the button for the fifteenth floor.
I returned their stares with a tight smile as I whispered in Vero’s ear, “Dosomething.”
When the doors opened, Vero and I scurried after Javi. He followed the room numbers to Louis’s locked door, glaring at theDO NOT DISTURBsign on the knob. “Give me the key,” he said to Vero in a low voice.
She feigned ignorance. “The key?”
“The master key you said you took from housekeeping. The one you said you used to get into Marco’s suite.”
She blinked at him, yelping in protest as Javi jammed his hand into her pocket to retrieve it. He reached into her waistband for the gun and pressed the pistol’s grip into her hand. “We’ll go in on the count of three. You block his exit. I’ll beat him until he talks.”
“This should be interesting,” I muttered.
“Maybe we should reconsider this plan,” Vero suggested.
On the count of three, Javi rushed into the room. I waited for the cacophony of a barking dog and a pissed-off teenager protesting the interruption of his telenovela, but the room was silent. The TV was off, and Cam’s computer bag was nowhere in sight. For that matter, neither was Kevin Bacon.
