Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
“She’s fitting right in,” John observed before taking a sip of coffee.
Standing next to him, a dozen feet away from the ball pit, Xavier nodded and took a sip from his own mug before adding, “You should have seen her face light up when she saw all the Little outfits.” He took another sip and then added, “She went for a pull-up too. But, you know, I didn’t stay and help her get dressed or anything. ”
“Give it a day,” John said.
“Ha!”
The two turned away—though Xavier certainly wanted to stay and watch the women having fun in the ball pit—and walked toward the nearby room that housed the Daddy Guard’s command center.
As they walked, the sound of Little Nova’s laughter reached his ear, and his heart was warm knowing she was having fun. Poor cutie had been under a lot of stress lately. She deserved this.
Inside the command center, Breaker and Marco were sitting at the bank of monitors, watching the giant screens and analyzing a familiar scene.
“Right there,” Breaker said, pointing. “Look at that.”
“It’s amazing. I’ll rewind it,” Marco told him.
Xavier and John stopped behind them and watched for a moment.
“Do I want to know how you got that footage?” Xavier asked.
Breaker swiveled around in his chair. “Well, you might as well know. You’re part of the Daddy Guard now. We occasionally bend the rules and do things like hack into resorts’ security databases.”
Marco turned around, too, and smiled. “Sort of like how we sometimes run an emergency vehicle down the streets of Las Vegas even though we aren’t official first responders. It’s a sort of gray area we operate in.”
Xavier considered it all while he took a sip of coffee. “I’m not surprised, coming from you, Mr. Mafia.” He grinned at Marco before turning his attention to Breaker. “But an ex-CIA field agent? You’re okay breaking the rules like that?”
Breaker through his head back and let out a loud guffaw before saying, “We compared notes. Turns out, the CIA breaks way more laws than the Mob does. So, I guess it’s par for the course for me.”
Xavier nodded in agreement and drank some more coffee.
“The important thing,” John said, “is that you’re both reformed and upstanding members of the Daddy Guard now.”
“Law and order is my new motto,” Marco told them as he spun back around with Breaker to look at the flat-panel screens that hung on the wall once again. Typing on the keyboard, he rewound the footage and said, “Watch this.”
“I don’t have to watch it. Hell, I lived it,” Xavier said with a shake of his head as the image of the possible stalker appeared, bounding onto the blackjack table and then off of it without ever stumbling or even slowing down much. “It’s a damn ninja.”
John leaned in, as if carefully studying what he saw. “Who is this guy?”
Breaker and Marco swiveled back around to face them again.
“That’s just it,” Marco said. “What if it’s not a guy?”
Xavier was stunned but open to the idea. “I’m listening.”
Turning back around, Marco rewound the footage again. “See right there? They run right past that blackjack dealer before jumping onto the table. If I stop the footage here, you can compare the height difference.”
“And just overall size difference,” Breaker added. “Look, I know there are smaller men. Not everyone is huge and bulging with muscles on top of muscles like us.”
He and Marco gave each other a high five without even looking at one another before he continued.
“But this person is pretty little. And super agile! And look at the way what bulk they do have seems to shift sometimes under their hoodie. It’s almost as if they are trying to appear bigger or wearing something to disguise their body shape. But it doesn’t move like real skin.”
Xavier considered it all. Now that he was seeing it on the screen, it was evident. In the heat of the moment, during the chase, he hadn’t been able to pick up on any of that.
“So, the stalker is a woman?” John proposed.
“Maybe,” Breaker said. “We don’t know this person is the same one who’s been sending those letters or who took the photo in Nova’s backyard.”
“And,” Marco chimed in, “we don’t know for sure this is a woman, either. But it’s a possibility. And the more we analyze this footage, the more we’re convinced it’s a likely possibility.”
Xavier was growing more convinced too.
“I was thinking this was probably the stalker. But the vast majority of stalking cases are men,” he said.
“Not all,” John replied. “I’ve seen enough of those Dateline and 20/20 episodes to know there are some messed-up women out there, too.”
“True,” Xavier conceded.
The room was quiet as they all thought about it for a few moments.
“There’s only one way to confirm any of our suspicions,” Xavier said. “We need to find this person.” He pointed at the screen. “And, if it’s a separate person, the stalker.”
“Any thoughts?” John asked the men.
It was quiet for another moment. Xavier raised the mug to his lips but lowered it again when he realized the coffee had gone cold.
After some more thought, he said, “We need to set a trap. Maybe broadcast on social media or something where Nova will be. The only problem is, I don’t like using her as bait.”
“And,” Breaker said, “if we put it out on social media than every fan in the greater Las Vegas area will show up. It’ll be a frenzy.”
“Didn’t think about that,” Xavier admitted. “Okay, what if we just make it easy enough for a stalker to follow her?”
“Ah. Something that the casual fan won’t even think about but someone lurking and watching might take the bait on,” John said. “I like it.”
“Exactly,” Xavier said. “But again, I don’t want to put Nova in danger like that. We need a decoy, but someone who is trained and able to protect themselves just in case things go wrong.”
John nodded. “I have an idea. I’ll make some calls.”
They discussed the idea for a few more minutes before breaking up to go about their business.
Xavier used the opportunity to hurry back to the ball pit.
He needed to set his eyes on cute Little Nova again. And fast!