Page 7 of In Shining Armor

“She’d been kidnapped. Rogue Security got her back.”

“We noticed your men circling around us. Where did she go last night, then?” His sarcastic sneer pissed Dieter off more.

Dieter checked his phone. “She entered this suite at two-forty this morning and intended to be in for the night. I have a photo. Pierre Grimaldi and Quentin Sault entered the suite at approximately three-oh-five. What happened then, Pierre?”

Wulfram was only watching Pierre now.

“She wasn’t here,” Pierre said, glaring at the carpet under his shoes.

“We didn’t see her leave. There is no record of her exiting the suite.” Dieter was daring Pierre to contradict him.

Pierre didn’t look up, and his voice was even flatter than before. “I said, she wasn’t here.”

So Pierre sucked at lying. Good to know. “Right. And what did she ask you aboutAbigai Caillemotte?”

“Get out.”

Damn, Dieter had been hoping that Pierre would storm out and Quentin Sault would go after him, leaving Dieter alone in the suite to retrieve Flicka’s passport, but Pierre hadn’t even raised his voice.

He said, “I need to look at her things to see if anything’s missing. And you need to tell me what she said to you last night.”

“Nothing is missing,” Pierre said.

“Her purse?” Dieter asked, knowing the answer to that one. “Her phone? Her charging cord? Clothes? Her passport?”

Pierre shook his head. “All here.”

“Wouldn’t she have had her purse and phone with her at the reception?”

“You said she came back here,” Pierre said.

“You said she didn’t. But you said her purse is here.”

Pierre looked up, exposing his beaten face again. One deep abrasion near his eye looked like a diamond ring might have been involved. “Quentin?”

“We don’t have her purse or phone,” Sault said, staring out the window. Reflected sunlight shone on his white skin.

“Then where are they?” Dieter asked.

“Missing,” Sault said, “just like Mrs. Grimaldi.”

Dieter didn’t twitch at the dig. He knew that wasn’t Flicka’s legal name. “Did you check surveillance footage?”

“Some of the security cameras were not working,” Sault said. “A surprising number were not functional, including one near the lift in the parking garage. She might have left the hotel.”

Dieter had electronically disabled the cameras at each end of his floor out of habit because he didn’t like other security firms watching him come and go, but he’d expected the others to be working.

“I’ll review the footage.” And thereby find a route to get Flicka out of the hotel without Pierre’s Secret Service seeing them. “I want to look at her luggage and clothes.”

“How would you know if anything were missing?” Pierre asked.

“I’m also looking for anything that shouldn’t be there,” Dieter said, lying his ass off. He just wanted to be alone with Pierre’s safe. “I’m looking for evidence or clues.”

Quentin Sault didn’t even respond. Dieter suspected depression or deep, deep guilt, and he hoped that Sault felt it like a knife stabbing his back during his every waking minute and suffered nightmares when he slept.

Pierre said,“Fine.Fine. I don’t care. Do what you want.” He stood and strode out of the suite.

Quentin Sault sighed and followed him.