I frown, looking at my boyfriend for input. “Do you know anything about this?” I ask him, and he waves his hand, unconcerned.
“Anthony didn’t like the butterfly. I guess he decided to use something else.”
“Well, I didn’t fucking approve that,” I growl. “What was the symbol?” I ask Sam.
He winces. “It looked like an eggplant emoji,” he admits, and Sage stutters out a choked laugh, but I’m fucking fuming.
“That’s classy,” Lacey says dryly, and I can’t say I disagree, “but it’s also weird. I got a delivery of product last night, and they still had the same standard butterfly on them.” She pulls one of the drawers open and throws a bag onto the table in front of us. Sure enough, they are the same as the ones Sage used to make.
“So where did the eggplant emojis go?” Sage asks, scratching his head.
“Right, I guess we are taking a trip to Banebridge once we are done here. I need to have a little chat with our new friend.”
Sage winces, and I drum my fingers on the table impatiently. Lacey finally turns the laptop around for me to view the security footage. As clear as day, sitting in a booth with Lorenzo is Mario Maricuso.
“Ballsy of him to walk into our establishment. It’s like he’s flipping you the finger,” Dean comments when he sees the man.
“But it helps solidify the idea that the two of them are working together. To what end though? Lorenzo wants to be the head of this family. Does Mario want an alliance, or does he want to make Lorenzo the head then kill him and absorb our organization? That is the million dollar question. And what is Penelope’s role in all this?” I have so many questions and notenough answers. “We have a week before Lorenzo and his goons send out his next shipment of people. We need to find a way for the FBI agent to catch him red-handed. That will take him off the board completely. We need to find out where they are keeping the victims.”
“And for the moment, we don’t have any idea, not even a hint of where they might be.” Sage sounds dejected. I know he’s as anxious as I am to help the missing people.
“Oh, speaking of clues.” I dig into the pocket of my pants and take out the crumpled note that was left under my wiper yesterday. “Someone left this on my car when I was at the Lucky Diamond. Lacey, can you google the address? I’m worried it might be a setup, but I’m also curious.”
I pass it over to her, and she takes it, running her fingers across the keyboard.
“Did you check the hotel footage to see who left it?” Dean asks, and I shake my head.
“My spot is in a dead zone in case I ever need to defend myself with extreme measures. No cameras.”
“Huh.” Lacey sounds surprised. “It’s an address in Banebridge.” She spins the laptop around so we can all see.
“Hey, that isn’t far from the warehouse Anthony works in.” Sage points at a building on the map. “Let’s see if there is a street view.” He leans in and does something, and sure enough, pictures of the warehouse come up, and Sam whistles quietly.
“That is a mighty high security fence around it.”
“Look, they have dogs and security cameras.” Dean points at two different images.
“What could they be guarding that needs such high security?” I murmur, starting to feel excited. “What do you say to a little breaking and entering tonight?” I ask Sage who winces.
“Are we going to be able to get past all that?” He waves at the dogs, cameras, and fence.
“Ah, my little green thumbed chemist. While you were playing with plants and chemicals back when he was alive, Dad had me doing extensive training, and one of them just happened to be with a world-class thief. I have some pretty nifty tricks up my sleeves.”
“So I’ll be like the magician’s eye candy?” he asks, and I chuckle.
“You sure are pretty enough for it.” I give him a wink, and he grins before shrugging.
“I guess we’re committing a felony tonight.”
“What if the tunnels and all of that was just a smoke screen?” Sam has his fingers steepled in front of him. “What if they were deliberately seen going into the basement so we would follow them and find the tunnels? I’m sure Lorenzo would guess that someone would tell you eventually. It would be a good way to distract us, so we actually weren’t looking in the right direction. With us distracted, it gave them an opportunity to get the merchandise into town without being seen.”
“And they’ll probably just ship them to the docks by truck. No one would question a container coming and going from a warehouse like that. Hell, anyone would see it on the street and not suspect anything,” Dean remarks, following his partner’s train of thought.
“We need to find out who owns the building. Is it one of ours?” I ask Sage, and he shakes his head.
“No, I don’t think so, but I don’t have the list of our assets memorized. If it was, I probably would have picked it for Anthony. It has wicked good security.”
Lacey turns the laptop toward her. “I’m sorry I don’t have those kinds of computer skills.”
