CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Despite the busyness of the hotel, the three men were able to take the stairs to the third-floor offices without being seen. Before opening the door, they initiated the camera scramble, and they were locked in place.

"Up ahead," said Luc. Finding the offices for the staff, they got past the keypad and easily into the workspace. Angel pointed toward the offices designated for marketing personnel and found the empty office formerly belonging to Amber. With gloves and fingerprinting kits, they began to go through the drawers.

"I'm surprised they haven't cleaned out these drawers," frowned Angel. "This shit is disgusting."

"That's why they haven't cleaned it out yet," said Miller. "Look at this. Miss Amber had a serious sweet tooth. Half-eaten candy bars, candy wrappers everywhere, and full sugar soda cans. This is gross! I can't believe she wasn't reprimanded for keeping her office like this. It had to have smelled or, at the very least, attracted bugs."

"Just dig. It won't matter if we make a mess. No one will know the difference."

The file cabinets had been emptied of any pertinent hotel folders, but the desk and credenza had been left, obviously for a hazmat team to take care of. As Angel pulled out wrappers from the desk drawer, something caught his eye.

"Hey, look at this. It's a bank statement, but there is only one deposit made once a week for five hundred dollars. She was getting paid for referring clients."

"Who is the deposit from?" asked Miller.

"It just says AZY Corporation. Did you get that Code?" he asked, tapping his comms.

"Got it."

"I've got something," said Luc. He pulled out several printed sheets of paper, but they were covered in photos. "These look like photos that would have been taken from a webpage. They're kind of grainy, but they're of all different men and women. She's printed out their profile along with their pictures."

"She was fielding these people for them. She was the one finding the marks for them, or at least him," said Miller.

"I think this might be our guy," said Angel, holding up a profile and picture. "She's marked meeting him several times, even where they met. This poor girl was looking for her Prince Charming and damn sure didn't find him." He flipped through several more pages, laying them out on the desk.

"She kept their communications," frowned Luc. "She printed every conversation they had on the site when they first hooked up, then every text and e-mail she sent him after that. Little Amber might not know it, but she might have helped us with this case. Look at this one."

This doesn't feel right. I just want 2 C you and spend time with u. Why r u asking me 2 find these other wmn?

What did u do 2 Shelby? She's pissed at me.

Answer me or I'm going 2 the police

Don't threaten me Amber – meet at the usual – 6

"That's the last one. It's dated the night she was found dead in her apartment."

"Well, that's not suspicious at all, is it?" said Miller. "Do you see anything with an address? Maybe a phone number? Where were the text messages sent?"

"It's a weird ass number or name," frowned Angel. "FRDDY87. That's all it says."

"Maybe Code can get into her phone records and try to trace that. It could mean Freddy, or fry daddy?" smirked Luc.

"Fry daddy? Seriously," growled his brother.

"What? I'm just trying to figure this shit out. Do you have a better idea?" asked Luc. Miller stared at the name, trying to come up with something clever, but he was struggling.

"While you idiots are thinking," said Code into comms, "I think I know the name."

"Why didn't you say something?" growled Miller.

"I was curious to see what you would come up with next. It's Frank Didier. I think he was born in 1987."

"And how did you figure that out, genius?" said Angel.

"Simple, I let the computer dial the number from her phone and then traced it back to the phone company. I've got it now, and I'm right. Frank Didier. Born in Chicago, Illinois, received an associate degree from Chicago Community College. He worked in stocks and bonds for a while but was fired. No reason given. He left Chicago about five years ago and moved to Phoenix. Took a job at a lending institution and was fired for filing fraudulent loan applications."

"Let me guess. The money was going directly to his own account," said Miller.

"They couldn't prove it, but that's what was suspected. He left Phoenix and went to Los Angeles, stayed in a rental home for a year. After that, no record of where he was. We know he was here or is here. That's it."

"We have to find him," said Angel. "Can you send a message to the number that Amber was using? Maybe pretend it's her contacting him from the dead."

"I could do that if the number weren't disconnected. He must have changed it once he was done with Amber, or he has several phones. I'm not sure which. We might have a different lead, though.

"Shelby said she met one of the men that we found on video talking to Amber at a bar. The guy was into running marathons, iron man, that kind of thing. A dude like that doesn't just stop running to pick up women and rob them. He's out there, training."

"Are we sure it wasn't just bullshit, trying to impress her?" asked Angel.

"She said he knew a lot about the topic and seemed passionate when speaking about it. I've got facial recognition running on him now, and if we can find his name, we can see what events he's run in the past and maybe even any that he's running in the future if he's already registered.

"One thing we still don't know, is if this guy Frank is the real brains of the outfit or is it someone else. It seems far-fetched that he got involved with the Syrians unless it was just a stupid accident."

"Are there any marathons coming up in the area? If he's here, he might be training for something that will happen close to us," asked Luc.

"The French Quarter Festival Half-Marathon is in two weeks, but it sounds like this guy is way beyond half-marathons. There's a big one in Houston in a month. That could be a possibility. It's possible he's running just to get ready for a race, but again, there are thousands of people running. We need a name."

"Alright, brother. We'll keep searching here. You try to find a name to match his face, and we'll go from there. They're out there somewhere."