Page 43 of Wrecked With You

My shoulders sag a bit with relief. “Reporters,” I say. “People who might leak photos. Violate confidentiality.”

“Right. Exactly.”

“You had a camera.”

She blushes. “My boss likes me to come back with souvenirs. And he’s tight with the owner. So I kind of get a pass.”

I grimace. “Nice to know the place abides so strictly by its own rules.”

“Oh, my boss only looks at them himself. I, well, he’s not big on traveling. I think it’s his version of amateur porn.”

“But it’s safe to talk in here?” Tony presses. “No one’s listening? Or looking?”

“Not here, no.” Thea looks at both me and Tony in turn. “Some of the cabanas have hidden cameras and recorders,” she tells us. “But this one’s clean.”

“Right,” Tony says after coolly studying her. “Follow me.”

He leads her into the small kitchen and points at the table. She sits, and I do the same. A moment later, Tony joins us with a bottle of wine. I bite back a smile. The cabana is well-stocked with alcohol, presumably for lowering sexual inhibitions. It also tends to loosen lips.

As I expect, he pours her a generous glass, then does the same for me. I hide a smile, wondering what kind of interrogation he has in store for me later tonight. Whatever it is, I imagine I’ll like it.

“Okay,” he says after pouring his own glass. “Tell us how you know all of this. And after that, I want to hear about The Serpent.”

She takes a sip. “My boss is friends with the owner of the island. He comes here a lot, and sometimes he sends his colleagues. And competition, too. Just offers them a vacation, no strings attached.”

She rolls her eyes. “But of course he makes sure the staff assigns them one of the cabanas with the microphones or cameras. He finds it useful. And since he’s gotten the owner out of a few jams, he knows which cabanas are wired and which aren’t.”

“And you’re confident in your information?”

“Do you think I’d be talking to you if I wasn’t?”

Tony’s face doesn’t change, but his body stiffens in a way I find telling. I’m certain he’s thinking what I am—this could so easily be a set up. But why? It’s not as if he’s ever gotten close enough to The Serpent for the assassin to suddenly decide to send Thea in order to lure us here. If The Serpent was trying to draw Tony out, there’d surely been many opportunities over the years. To The Serpent, Tony—and me, for that matter—were essentially nothing. Gnats to be ignored. The man was a ghost, after all. And it’s hard to chase a ghost.

So unless he was severely breaking pattern, Thea was most likely the real deal. Someone with intel, who decided to reach out.

As for why … well, that remained to be seen.

“Who do you work for?” Tony asks.

“Harvey Dailey,” she says, and I sit up a little bit straighter, recognizing the name.

While Dailey is hardly an upstanding citizen, he’s not someone who’s ever been in my crosshairs. As far as I know, Dailey isn’t interested in buying little girls for his own personal use. Instead, he’s in the business of blackmail, and he uses the various arms of his legitimate business network to launder the proceeds from those schemes.

Securities fraud and similar white collar crimes are also on the menu, but none of that ever got my juices flowing, either as a PI or when I was in covert ops. As far as I’m concerned, paper-pushing crimes don’t require my particular skill set. And if someone can be blackmailed, they’re at least a little bit culpable. Not that I can’t sympathize, I do. But if it’s a choice between helping someone keep their illicit affair secret or rescuing a runaway who’s gotten sucked into prostitution, it’s really a no-brainer for me.

I glance at Tony and can tell from his expression that he recognizes the name, too. “And The Serpent?” he asks. “I suppose he works for Dailey now as well?”

That’s my guess, too. That after the death of Tony’s father, The Serpent signed on with a new master.

Thea nods. “Exactly.”

“And now for the bonus question, Thea. What’s The Serpent’s real name? And how the fuck did you track me down?”

His voice is deadly calm now, every hint of lightness snuffed out. It’s the first time I’ve really seen that side of him, and I’m impressed. Possibly more than I should be, as I realize that I’m starting to envision him as a partner, when really, I should only be thinking about him in bed. And that, only temporarily.

She takes a large gulp of her wine, swallows, and then finishes the rest of it. Tony raises his brows, and she shrugs. “You’re really kind of scary,” she says, and at that moment, it hits me how young she is. Probably not even twenty-five.

“I try. Talk.”