29. Ryder

29

When Luna first disappeared, Ryder hadn't been too worried. More mildly concerned. But after a full sweep of the hotel and grounds had taken place with no sign of her, he was panicking. So was Frank Serafini. Luna's show that night was sold out, and the star was nowhere to be found.

Romeo had knocked on her door twice, once at ten forty-seven with Alessia, and again at eleven nineteen. When he didn't get an answer the second time, his gut told him that something wasn't right, and that was when he'd opened the door with a master keycard. The suite had been undisturbed.

And silent as a grave.

Now Ryder was sitting on Blackwood's jet, high over the Black Sea as they headed back to join the search. The only person happy with the situation was Elene because she was going to Vegas, just as she'd wanted, albeit in handcuffs. With the money situation still unresolved, Emmy had told him to load her on the plane and they'd worry about the details later. They'd collect Emmy when they stopped in London to refuel, so she had a few hours to come up with a plan.

"We'll find her," Ana said, sipping her coffee. "She didn't vanish into thin air."

"She isn't on any camera leaving the hotel, and they've pulled the place apart looking for her."

Luna's suite was at the end of a hallway, a dead end, and the only way out was through the vestibule that contained the elevators. There was a camera in front of each elevator bank, which also covered the entrance to the emergency stairwell, and she hadn't left that way. Romeo and his team were checking every room along the hallway, just in case another guest had pulled her inside as she passed, but so far, they'd found nothing. Nobody had heard Rocky's strange whisper-bark either. Where the hell was the dog?

Information trickled in as they flew over Europe. The last person to see Luna was a waitress, who reported that when she'd collected the breakfast dishes just after eight thirty, Luna had been sitting on the couch, watching TV with the dog beside her. Luna had offered a "Thank you" but hadn't continued the conversation. And at some point in the two hours between then and Romeo bringing Alessia to see Rocky, she'd vanished.

The police had been called, but despite all the evidence of a stalker combined with Luna's public profile, they still weren't taking the report seriously. It didn't help that Velvet Jones had gone AWOL from her hotel room two months ago, only to reappear beside the Hollywood sign in a bikini, promoting her new fragrance with the slogan "When you're wearing Velvet, it's hard to disappear." Gina was pushing her contacts to help.

Emmy had sent two investigators from the Vegas office, plus Dan, Knox, and Slater were on their way from Virginia. Caro had insisted on coming too, for moral support rather than for any practical reason. Priest-slash-Pale had stepped up, and he was at the hotel with Tulsa. He'd also facilitated a landing slot for the plane and offered to stash Elene out of the way at the Cathouse while everyone else joined the hunt.

Fear clamped around Ryder's guts. Mark Antony had been threatening for weeks to reclaim Luna. What if he'd been successful?

Five hours since they'd departed Tbilisi, and Emmy was waiting when the jet landed at Northolt in pouring rain. She ran up the steps, dripping water all over the cabin when she got inside.

"Fuck, it's pissing down out there, but I brought Maccy D's for everyone. It might need reheating."

Ryder's stomach turned at the thought of eating. "No, thanks."

"Suit yourself. Any more news? I need to charge my phone."

"Nothing useful."

"Well, look on the bright side: they haven't found a body."

Emmy dropped into a seat at the six-person conference table and opened her laptop. Cheeseburger in one hand, she began scrolling through Blackwood's file on Luna, which included everything from the original executive protection contract to the notes from Mark Antony to the events of today.

"Anything more from our illustrious stalker?" she asked.

"I don't know. He was sending Luna dinner every night, but nobody's been at her apartment for the past few days to check."

"He has to be the number-one suspect, unless she just took a wander. When did you last speak to her?"

"Late yesterday evening, Vegas time."

"What was her state of mind?"

"Fine. We only spoke for a few minutes. She'd been watching dog training videos on YouTube, and Rocky learned to roll over."

"Nobody's seen the dog either, that's what I don't get." Emmy studied the screen again. "Pale says there's a blind spot in the vestibule. If the guard by the elevators was looking the other way, Luna could have headed down the next hallway to suites 1207, 1208, and 1209."

"But why would she do that?"

"Who knows? It's possible someone took her there, and they could have slipped out while everyone was looking for Luna in her suite."

"Fuck."

"It's just a theory at the moment, and Pale's getting access to those rooms. I want to see the security video. Do you know what the hold-up is with that?"

"I chased Derek Monroe. He said they were prioritising reviewing the tapes themselves over sending them to us."

"Because they're so great at running an investigation. Chase them again."

Ryder reached for his phone, which was linked to the jet's comms system, but before he could dial, it rang. Mack was calling.

"Tell me you have something," he said, putting the phone on speaker so Emmy and Ana could listen in.

"Not exactly. At least, I don't think so. I realise you're tied up with Luna's disappearance right now, but the autopsy results for Julius Whitlow came through. You want me to email them?"

"Any surprises? Small-calibre pistol, right?"

"Wrong. Snakebite."

"What?"

"The two holes in his chest? They were caused by fangs, not bullets. Cause of death was cardiac arrest. His blood was full of clots."

"Can a snakebite kill that fast?"

"I'm being told it would take at least half an hour," Mack said.

"He didn't try to call for help?"

"It's possible he did. The cops found him face down in his kitchen with his cell phone on the counter six feet away. As best they can ascertain, he got bitten, figured he'd dial 911, then tripped over and hit his head on the edge of the marble."

"Unlucky."

"Not really. He had a prescription for diazepam, and he'd washed it down with Scotch. There was a near-empty bottle on the table in his study, and he was well on his way to alcohol poisoning before the snake got involved."

"So a snake got into his home? Or did he keep one as a pet?"

"No pets. And maybe a snake crawled inside, but there are three types of venomous snake in Las Vegas, and the herpetologist says the fangs were too far apart for any of them. The lab work is still outstanding on the species."

"Nobody spotted a snake when they were picking up the body?" Emmy asked.

"Guess not."

"Are they going back to look?"

"I don't have that information."

"Try to find out. Fifty bucks says the snake was an asp."

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that we've got a fruitcake who thinks he's Mark Antony and a dead dude named Julius. He was taking out the competition."

A chill ran through Ryder. "You think Julius's death is connected to Luna's disappearance?"

"You don't?"

Truthfully, it hadn't crossed Ryder's mind. He'd just assumed one of Julius's victims had plucked up the courage to take revenge. After all, it was a task he'd considered carrying out himself, only not so creatively.

"There are other reasons a person might want to kill Julius Whitlow."

"Oh?"

He'd promised Luna that he'd keep her secrets, but he'd also promised to keep her safe and look where that had gotten them. Now, with her life potentially at stake, he had to disclose any information that might be pertinent to the case. Ryder kept his voice soft in case Elene was listening in from the back of the plane. Emmy had put a pair of headphones over her ears and instructed her to sit down and shut up, but he wasn't taking any chances.

"Whitlow raped Luna when she was sixteen."

"You're kidding me? And she still kept him as her agent?"

"Her mother kept him as her agent. Luna didn't have much of a say in the matter. I'm the only other person who knows, and this needs to stay quiet."

"Understood."

"When does a man like that ever stop at one? Especially if there are no consequences?"

"I'm surprised you didn't kill him yourself." Emmy twisted her lips to one side. "It wasn't you, was it?"

"With a fuckin' snake?"

"Just checking."

"Luna told me not to."

Ana snorted quietly. "I killed a man with a snake once. But it was a sculpture of a basilisk, and I hammered it up his?—"

"Let's stick with Luna's case, okay?" Emmy ate a couple of cold fries. "There are two possibilities. Either her disappearance is an escalation of the ongoing saga with Mark Antony, or it isn't. Ryder, what's your gut telling you?"

"Fuck, I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. These past few months have been a mind fuck."

"Bullshit. You're good at your job. Start at the beginning and talk us through everything that happened in Vegas."

So he did. He pushed feelings and fear aside and told the story from the beginning, from Luna's first panicked phone call, through the gifts and the dinners and the notes, ending with Luna's relocation to the Nile Palace.

"At first, I thought it was Cordelia messing around, or maybe Jubilee. As revenge for Luna firing her, you know? But the tone wasn't right for Cordelia. The words were too sincere. Love notes, not hate notes. I didn't see anyone lurking in the shadows, but Mark Antony had to be close. He knew what was happening in Luna's life. I thought he might be with the paparazzi, but Romeo Serafini ran them off a couple of weeks ago."

"So maybe that tipped him over the edge? Being blocked from seeing the object of his obsession? Do we have IDs for the reporters?"

"Luna knew most of them by name. Hallie was looking into their backgrounds in her spare time."

"I'll get her to coordinate with Pale. We need to find out if any of them checked in to the Nile Palace recently. And we need those fucking security tapes." Emmy leaned back in the cream leather seat and closed her eyes. "Assuming it was Mark Antony, and I'm eighty-twenty on that because who the fuck else would kidnap Luna, he had to be close because he knew you were out of the way." A pause. "If I was Mark Antony… If I was close… And I was watching without being seen… And I knew the blind spots…" Emmy's eyes popped open. "Fuck."

"What?"

"Tell me everything you know about the security centre at the Nile Palace."

A chill spread through Ryder's veins when he realised where Emmy was going with this. There was no warmth left, only ice.

"We spent time there. The head of security was cooperative, but his staff lacked discipline. I got the impression they were focused on the casino floor above all else."

"That's not unusual, and in a high-end hotel, nobody wants to feel as if they're being constantly watched." Emmy was on the phone again, and she put it on speaker, presumably so she didn't have to repeat the conversation. "Hey, there are some leads we need to look into."

"Tell me the details," Pale said. Why him? Why hadn't Emmy called Blackwood in to take the lead at the hotel?

"We know the asshole who sent the notes to Luna was watching her, but Ryder didn't see anyone out of place. Who followed her around constantly? The paparazzi. Hallie was already looking into their backgrounds, but we need to get a handle on who's still in town and who's AWOL."

"Haven't seen any paparazzi here at the hotel. Figured they'd be everywhere."

"Romeo Serafini got rid of them, which makes our job harder, but they're like rats in a sewer. Extermination is impossible, and they keep popping up whenever they sense an opportunity. Are there any other celebs in town? Someone famous enough to draw them out?"

"I'll get Sin to look into that."

"What we need is for Velvet Jones to dance naked in the fountains at the Bellagio."

Pale chuckled. "I'd take a walk down there myself if she did."

"Dude, you have terrible taste in women."

"The worst," he agreed. "What's the other lead?"

"The security centre at the hotel. We need the names of everyone who isn't there, so anybody who's not scheduled to work today or who called in sick. And we also need the security tapes from the twelfth floor."

"There's a problem with those."

"What problem?"

"Some kind of data corruption. They're trying to restore the footage from backups, but the system keeps glitching."

"Accidental or intentional?" Emmy asked.

"That's unknown at present."

"I'll get Mack to call you."

"No need; Echo's already involved. Tulsa's on the twelfth floor with the two Serafini men, and Dusk will be available in a couple of hours. She can help with the legwork and act as referee between Tulsa and Romeo."

"The two of them know each other?"

"They've crossed paths in the past."

"Have they checked the three suites in the blind spot?"

"1207 was unoccupied, no signs of a disturbance; a married couple was staying in 1208—they cooperated fully; 1209 contained two businessmen and five hookers in varying stages of consciousness."

"Well, somebody's lying. Who spoke with the guard from the elevator vestibule?"

"Derek Monroe."

"Given that the security team is now under suspicion, can you have another try?"

"One step ahead of you there. He's waiting for me upstairs. How long until you get here?"

"Ten fucking hours."

And with every hour that passed, the chances of finding Luna got smaller. No way had she just wandered off. The crime scene had been compromised, people's memories faded, and the population of Vegas changed by the hour.

Ryder had promised to protect his girl, and he'd failed spectacularly.