Evan watched as Becs paced the room, her phone to her ear.
“July eighteenth?” She stopped walking, a frown marring her forehead before it cleared, and she continued. “Now that you mention it, that does sound about right. Can you tell me how many nights he stayed? I only expected him briefly, so the charge seems high. That’s why I thought he got charged for two rooms.”
Evan watched as Becs listened to the person on the other end of the phone. She walked over to the desk and began jotting something on the notepad.
“Yes. Uh-huh. Can you tell me this? Did he check out through the in-room system or at the desk?” She laughed, and while he could tell it was fake, he doubted the caller could. “He’s always telling me they didn’t give him a receipt. That’s his excuse for not giving it to me.”
She laughed again, smiling as she stared at the wall and listened to the caller.
“At the checkout desk. I knew it. I’m gonna have to water down his coffee for a week as payback. I knew he lost the receipt.” Becs laughed again. “That’s perfect. Thank you.” She stood tall. “Actually, yes. If you’d send me a copy of that receipt, that would be great.” She rattled off the email address. “Yes, thank you. You, too.”
She disconnected the call and grinned.
“Gladys Overwith?” Evan prompted.
Her grin widened. “Yeah. You know. Glad it’s over with,” she enunciated slowly. “Gladys Overwith. It’s a name we use when calling for information that we probably shouldn’t be privy to.”
“And the email address? Is it real?”
“Yep. We can thank JJ for that. It comes in handy at times like this. He would’ve been suspicious if I didn’t want a receipt since I’m reconciling Mr. Bromwell’s credit card statement and all.”
Evan set his bag on the floor by the door.
“It only took four calls for me to find the right hotel.” She leaned over and jotted more notes on the notepad.
“Right hotel for what?”
“Where Decker was staying. In Chelsea.”
Evan frowned. He got the feeling there were details he was missing.
“Oh, sorry.” She took a breath and sat in the desk chair. “I recalled a conversation we had at HQ. Me, Holly, Luca, Darius, and Decker. We were talking about places we wanted to…” She waved a hand. “Never mind. That’s not important. Decker mentioned he had a friend in Chelsea. I only remembered it because he seemed off when he said it. Like, he didn’t mean to mention it at all. But he did, so I thought I’d see if that friend was what brought him to New York this time. I still don’t know if they were, but I did find out he checked into the Holiday Inn on July 18thand checked out on August 1st. He stayed for two weeks and checked out himself. At the front desk. Which means he likely wasn’t under duress at the time.”
Evan had to admit that was quite a bit of information she’d managed to obtain with a very simple question.
“I need to let Brantley know. I think we should go over there and check it out.”
“Let’s go,” Evan said.
“What?”
“You and me. Let’s go check it out. If we find something, we can call Brantley and tell him.”
Becs stood slowly, her grin growing wider by the second. “Seriously?”
“Sure.”
Her eyes danced with excitement. She morphed from being pretty to being downright gorgeous right before his eyes.
Evan felt that strange churning in his stomach. Suddenly, pushing her in Slade’s direction seemed like the worst idea in the history of ideas.
Chapter Eighteen
If Atticus didn’t know better, he’d saySlade was acting weird. Like the kind of weird that made it awkward to be around him.
“Hey, are you pissed that I told Evan you like Becs?”
Slade shot him a sideways glare.
