Page 299 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

‘Right now!’

‘OK, shit. Fuck, OK. It’s my mom’s card. Francesca Delaney.’

Lachlan quickly gives Rook the information he needs while keeping Megan on hold for five seconds.

‘Thank you. What condition was he in the last time you saw him?’

‘He’s drunk off his ass,’ she tells him bluntly. ‘Never seen him like it.’

Fucking hell.

‘Was he with anyone?’

‘He met some older guy. I warned him off, but…’ She sighs. ‘You know Jules.’

‘Yeah, I know Jules.’

Rapture looms up ahead.

Six floors of black glass driven through the shell of an old Beaux-Arts bank. Hot-red and electric-pink neon veins thread the stonework, its name burning vertically above a line that wraps around the block.

Bass pounds through the pavement.

Lachlan counts two public entrances, a service alley, underground loading access and a rooftop terrace before he even reaches the doors.

Thousands of people. Untold risk.

Jules couldn’t have chosen better.

‘Kestrel, that card was used one minute ago.’

‘Inside the club?’

‘Card-present transaction through Rapture’s merchant account.’

‘Floor?’

‘Terminal fourteen, which, according to the merchant’s terminal register, is at the third-floor east bar.’

‘Tell Danya where I am.’

‘Heard.’

Lachlan cuts back to his car, locks his holster, gun and med kit inside the concealed compartment, then returns to the club. He scans around and spots a group of twenty-something girls huddled together as they approach the entrance.

He pulls his hair loose, undoes his top buttons and loosens his tie.

‘I’ll pay your entry plus a hundred cash if I can go inside with you,’ Lachlan offers. ‘Please.’ The girls give him varying degrees of wary looks.

‘And then you’ll go away?’

‘Yes. I’m trying to find my boyfriend. He’s inside and he’s drunk.’

The transformation is instant.

‘Aww, OK, we can help. That’s cute.’

‘For two hundred in cash,’ one adds, nodding sagely.