"If she turns up, just give me a call, and we’ll bring the laptop right back. I promise if we find anything incriminating on her laptop, we’ll ignore it. I just want to make sure she's okay.”
Bebe nodded. "Sure. Do whatever you need to do.”
I closed the laptop, took the charger and wrapped it up, then scooped the device from the table. “Do either of you have amanager?”
“You mean, like a pimp?”
“Yeah.”
“No, we’re independent.”
“How do you keep clients in line?”
“We vet them thoroughly. Online research. And then there’s always Smith and Wesson.”
“You carry?”
“Always. But I’ve never had an issue. Like I said, at the rate these guys are paying, you get treated well. They’ve got too much to lose to do anything stupid.”
“If that were true, we wouldn’t be here, would we?”
She frowned, and fear crept into her eyes.
I gave Bebe a card and told her to get in touch if she heard from Kendall. “Be careful out there.”
Another grim frown tugged her lips, and she nodded.
Bebe escorted us to the door, and we said our goodbyes.
JD and I banged on neighboring doors, but no one remembered seeing anything suspicious. The Delphine had video cameras in the lobby and the parking garage, but not in the hallways. We talked to the property manager and pulled feeds from Friday afternoon and evening.
We huddled around Patty’s desk and watched the monitor. A glimpse of Kendall walking through the lobby around 7:00 PM flashed on the screen. Somebody had either picked her up or she had hopped into a rideshare. There wasn’t an angle on the parking lot.
The property manager exported the clip, and I sent it to the sheriff. It wouldn’t do us much good, but might be handy to have in evidence.
We thanked Patty, then headed down to the lobby and stepped outside. The Florida sun beamed bright.
I texted Isabella and asked her to track Kendall’s phone. As the head of one of the largest clandestine agencies, she had quite a few intelligence resources at her disposal.
As we walked back to the Porsche, Jack said, "That girl is either on a yacht somewhere or in a dumpster."
He was probably right about that. I hoped it was the former.
2
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked Jack as he grimaced while chewing on his steak burrito.
We’d grabbed lunch at the Conch Cantina. It was a chill Mexican restaurant with a tropical vibe and great fajitas, of which I made a feast—steak seared and seasoned to perfection, grilled onions, yellow rice, sour cream, guacamole, pico, and dripping with cheese.
“My tooth hurts, and I keep forgetting to not chew on that side,” Jack said.
“I don’t know, just throwing this out there. Maybe you should go see a dentist.”
He sneered at me. “You think?”
I shrugged. “Seems like the logical thing to do.”
“They’re just going to try to sell me some procedure.”
