Chapter Twenty
When Cal opened the door to his room a mere ten minutes later, the rest of the team was already gathered.
Derek could still taste Alayah’s sweetness on his lips and wanted nothing more than to be back in bed with her, pretending that the outside world didn’t exist. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Josh and Hugo died at the same conference.
Someone was killing tech giants, and he wanted to know who and why.
“Fill us in,” Alayah said as she sat next to Selina and patted the chair beside her. He slipped into the seat and rested his hand on her knee. When he touched her, his center calmed, and he could concentrate on what Cal had to say.
“I got a call from Detective Henry about thirty minutes ago that Josh Hunt was found floating in the Superior Harbor by a passerby. As we are security for the conference, he had to notify me that another speaker was killed.”
“Is he sure the guy didn’t just fall in? Maybe he was drunk or something?” Efren asked from the other side of the room.
“While he wouldn’t share how Josh was killed, he assured me it was undoubtedly murder,” Cal answered.
“Josh was an attendee and guest speaker, but he wasn’t staying here,” Derek said. “At this hotel, I mean.”
“He wasn’t,” Cal agreed, walking to the whiteboard he’d propped up against the television. He wrote “The Suites” in black. “He was staying at this hotel a few blocks away. When I spoke to him yesterday, he said he preferred hotels directly on the water when he was in Duluth.”
“Okay, but why would they find him all the way in Superior and not just outside his hotel room door? If he was found in Superior, the trip was purposeful. He had to drive across the bridge to get to that harbor. There had to be a reason,” Efren deduced.
Cal nodded. “That was mine and Detective Henry’s thought, too. Had he just fallen into the water outside the hotel or at Park Point, you could assume he was drunk or slipped. Driving all the way to Superior feels purposeful.”
“Maybe he went to one of the restaurants over there?” Eric suggested with a shrug. “Or he had a hookup planned at a hotel where no one knew him?”
“According to the information I received from the detective, which was reluctantly, I might add, there’s video footage of Josh leaving his room at 0300 hours.”
“Bars are closed by three a.m. around here,” Roman said, and Cal nodded before he started writing again.
“Right, so he leaves Duluth at 0300 hours, and assuming he drove directly to Superior, where they found his car, that’s a ten- to fifteen-minute drive, probably ten when the roads are relatively empty.
He arrives at the marina, or at least that’s where they found his car, and does what?
It’s 0315 or 0330 at the latest. Maybe he was hooking up with someone on one of the docked boats? That’s a possibility.”
“Do we have any footage from the marina to show his arrival and what he did while there?” Zac asked.
“Not yet, but it’s supposedly coming. I doubt we’ll be privy to it once they have it.”
Alayah’s laughter lifted Derek’s lips. “Like that’s ever stopped us before.”
Cal pointed at her, his metal-and-plastic fingers making a telltale clicking sound in the room.
“And it won’t stop us this time, but my guess is, whatever the footage shows, it won’t be his death.
Maybe we’ll get lucky, and it will show him entering a boat or meeting someone, but if it was anything more than an innocent hookup, there’s no way he’d meet someone in an area with cameras. ”
“That’s the odd part,” Alayah agreed. “Why would he park his car somewhere with security cameras if he wasn’t going to meet them there?”
“Proof of life at the time he parked,” Selina answered, and everyone swiveled to her. “Think about it. If this was something other than a hookup on a houseboat and he didn’t return to his car, it would be found as soon as the marina opened, and people would start asking questions.”
“Like someone took him hostage?” Derek asked, and she nodded with a shrug.
“That or he knew the meeting could result in his death. There’s no way to know what he was thinking when he parked there.”
“Well, we know that whatever he was doing, he didn’t want anyone to know,” Cal added. “He didn’t leave a note, at least on paper. The police are looking at his electronic footprint.”
“So that brings me back to a hookup,” Alayah said. “Working on that theory, the question is, how did he end up in the water? Obviously, if the detective said he was murdered, it likely wasn’t by drowning. He had to have been killed before he went into the water. Why would a hookup end in death?”
“Unless he was lured there on the pretense of a hookup, but it was a setup,” Derek said, and Cal clapped once.
“Yes! Now that makes more sense,” he agreed, writing setup with a question mark on the board before writing who and why. “Our job is to answer these questions,” he said, tapping the board.
“Isn’t that the cops’ job?” Derek asked.
“Technically,” Cal said. “But we don’t have to work around the bureaucracy that they do. Since the conference has officially been canceled, but we’re all suspects, we may as well focus on clearing everyone to extract ourselves from this mess.”
“We’re all suspects?” Alayah asked. “Let me guess. Detective Henry told you that.”
“But who else?” Cal asked, tongue in cheek. “Actually, the only ones who are cleared would be me, you and Derek since we were meeting with him at the time Josh left his hotel.”
Alayah did the math in her head. “We returned to the room about 0330 hours. If they move his time of death to even thirty minutes later, then we’re still suspects. We won’t know for sure until the autopsy is complete. That said, the only person with a reason to meet up with Josh would be Derek.”
“Gee, just when I think I’m in the clear,” he muttered.
“But you were with me all night,” Alayah reminded him. “Uh, I mean, we were in the same room, so I’m his alibi,” she clarified, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t see the smirk on Selina’s face.
“And we will need your skills to prove that alibi to the police. While it’s true Josh was not my favorite person, I had no reason to meet up with him at that time of the morning.”
“How do you want to break this down, boss?” Roman asked, leaning forward. “Our security services are no longer needed, which frees us up. Do you want us to head back to Secure Inc.?”
“You can’t,” he answered, leaning on a table.
“Not until you’ve all been cleared. I want Zac and Declan to focus on using the hotel footage to clear everyone on the team.
Text Zac the time you went to your room, if you left it at any point after that, where you went, and when you returned.
” He turned to Zac and Declan. “Clear the security team first.” Zac nodded, so Cal continued.
“While you’re waiting, start packing up the equipment.
I want to send everyone out of here in waves to ensure we have enough vehicles left here to get everyone home. ”
“What do you want me to do?” Alayah asked, and he held up his finger to her, which signaled to Derek that he wanted to discuss that in private.
“Roman, check in with Mina and see if she can get us that video footage from the marina. Have her send it to Alayah once she has it.”
“If she has it,” Roman said, pulling his phone out.
Cal grinned. “Right, if she has it,” he said, putting if in air quotes, which made everyone in the room laugh.
Roman left the room with the phone to his ear, and Selina and Efren stood. “Since there’s nothing we can do,” Selina said. “We’re going to the museum.”
“The museum?” Cal asked in surprise.
“I heard that the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center shouldn’t be missed. It’s in Superior near the harbor.”
Cal smirked and dug into his pocket, tossing her some keys. “Have fun, you two lovebirds. Don’t get caught doing something I wouldn’t do.”
“Hooah,” Efren said as they left the room.
“Hooah?” Derek asked. “I thought that was what the Marines said.”
“It means heard, understood and acknowledged,” Cal said as he sat down. “H-U-A, but you say hooah. It’s an army thing.” He tapped the table to get them back on track. “Did you guys leave the room last night after you returned from the meeting with Detective Henry?”
“No,” Alayah said. “We went back to the room and passed out until I got the all-call alert.”
“Good, when we’re done here, text Zac that information.
What I want you and Derek to do is track Josh and his interactions in this hotel during the conference.
Who did he talk to? How many calls did he make?
What was his body language on those calls?
That kind of thing. I also want you to dig into his company and see what you see.
Derek should be able to help you with questions about apps, sales, mergers, or contacts, right? ” he asked him, and Derek nodded.
“At least as much as my knowledge of the industry goes. I won’t know the inner workings of his company, but we all deal with many of the same contacts, so I can help in that regard. What are you looking for exactly?”
“Any business dealings over the last year that may have angered someone enough to want Josh dead. A personal relationship that went bad over the last year or year and a half that was messy. A mistress who worked for a competing company or who had a secret. That kind of thing.”
“Josh was a known player,” Derek said with an eye roll. “That could take time.”
“Which we don’t have much of, so use your judgment. I’m hoping a pattern develops that will lead us in the right direction.”
“I won’t let you down, boss,” Alayah said with a nod. “We’ll work on that until the camera footage comes in from the marina. Once it does, I’ll break and search for any leads there. Do you want me to call you once I have the footage time-stamped with his movements?”
“Yes. I’ll come up, and we’ll talk in your room. The less we talk in areas under camera surveillance, the better. That’s why we all crammed into my suite. I’m at the trust-no-one stage of this debacle.”
“Can’t blame you there,” Derek said with a shake of his head. “This is madness that I never could’ve predicted a few days ago. We’ll head back to the room now and get started.”
With a nod from Cal, they left his room and headed to their own, both silent as they processed the information they’d just learned. Hugo Victor and Josh Hunt were murdered. That brought him back to the questions of why and by whom?
When they returned to their room, he set about ordering breakfast while Alayah logged on to her machines.
He could tell she was aching to get to work, and so was he, something didn’t sit right with Josh having gone to Superior for a hookup.
Did Derek doubt for a second that he’d entertained someone while at the conference?
No, that was totally on-brand for the guy, but Josh was always about the wining, dining and being seen with a beautiful woman on his arm and money in his hand.
A houseboat in the middle of the night was a bit too sleazy for him.
Especially when he had a posh hotel room.
Unless the woman he was meeting was married, he supposed.
After he finished making each of them a cup of coffee, he carried hers to the desk. “Thanks,” she said, glancing up at him with a smile when he set it down beside her.
“I ordered breakfast. It’ll be here shortly.”
“Good, I’m starving,” she said, rubbing her belly. “I normally eat six times a day, which hasn’t been possible here.”
He rubbed her back and then leaned in to tease her lips in a gentle kiss. “Part of that is my fault, but I promise to make it up to you. Let me steal you away for a few days when this is over. I’ll feed you good food, we can drink expensive wine and get to know each other better.”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she stared him down for several seconds before responding. “I’d love that more than anything, but it may not be a good idea, Derek.”
“Because I deserve to be with someone who looks different than you? A woman who’s ‘normal?’” he asked, using air quotes. It was her sad nod that broke him.
“And a woman who can give you children. I’ve learned that men want to pass their name and DNA down for generations. The buck stops with me.”
“This is the perfect example of why we should spend that time getting to know each other better,” he said with a smile as he trailed a finger down her cheek.
“For instance, I don’t know who my father is.
My mother does, but she’s never told me, and honestly, since he’s never had anything to do with me, it doesn’t matter.
My stepfather adopted me when I was four, and he was the only father I’d ever known until he passed away five years ago.
Passing my DNA down means nothing to me.
As for sharing my last name, any child I love, whether through surrogacy or adoption, would still bear my name.
Family is family, no matter how it’s made.
Seems like you’ve already learned that being adopted as a child and now working for Secure Watch. ”
“Fair,” she agreed with a small smile.
“And any guy who made you feel less than for something outside of your control is not a guy you’d want to share a life with anyway, in my opinion. You deserve so much more than that, sweetheart.”
Then he gathered her into his arms and held her, praying that she understood he could be the one to offer her everything.