Chapter Fourteen
Dean
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I STARED AT THE PICTURE a little longer, making sure it was really her. But who else could it have been? Of all the chaotic, thrilling women I had met on my undercover mission, none had come close to Arianna. But what the hell was she doing with Arnold?
“Who is she?” I pressed. I wanted to know everything they did. I wanted to find out every little detail available about this woman; my mind ached with curiosity, and I wouldn’t be able to rest until I knew everything I could about her.
“We just know her as Arianna,” he explained. “We’ve been keeping an eye on her for the last month or so – she’s been with some powerful men down in Chicago, some of them not too far removed from the Schwindels, and I figured it was only a matter of time before she actually came into contact with some of them.”
“What is she? An escort?” I asked, and he shook his head.
“From what we’ve been able to gather from the people unfortunate enough to get caught up in her schemes,” he explained, “she’s a con-woman.”
I nodded. It made sense. She had been so confident when she convinced the woman behind the counter at the airport to let her on the plane, it was clear it wasn’t her first time doing something like that. But it still didn’t fit with the fact she had decided to get involved with me. If there was one thing con-artists knew, it was when to cut loose and keep their nose clean, and she had dived in head-first to get closer to me. How did that make any sense? I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
“A con-woman,” I muttered, testing out the words on my tongue. Even though she had hidden so much from me, I still felt as though I knew her, as though I had been able to get under her skin on some level. Maybe that was what she had wanted, waited for; someone she didn’t have to hide from.
“Yeah, and she closed in on Arnold the day before you met,” he continued. “Looks as though she’d been keeping an eye on him for a while and decided to make her move when she got the chance. The two of them went back to his hotel room together, and, well...”
He trailed off. My mind raced. Had she slept with him? Surely she hadn’t come from a night with him just to spend one with me. I couldn’t exactly get mad if she had; the two of us had only just met one another and I didn’t have any claim to her, but I felt a flare of jealousy as I considered it. I wanted to keep her all to myself.
Even though I didn’t even know her last name.
“Whatever happened, she was up in his room for a while, that’s the last time anyone saw her,” he continued. “And it looks like you ran into her not long after that.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about her?” I asked, and he shook his head.
“There was no way for us to reach out to you without blowing your cover,” he reminded me. “We couldn’t tell you about her. Besides, we’re not even sure she has anything to do with anything. She might just be out there looking for rich men and taking them for what they’ve got; she seems to be particularly good at it, and she’s popped up a few times on our radar.”
“Why didn’t you just arrest her?” I wondered aloud. “If she’s conning people.”
“Because she’s conning people we want to find out everything we can about,” he replied. “And we might be able to use her at some point down the line; we can’t do that if we take her off the board so soon.”
I nodded. It made sense. As much as some part of me wanted to find out all I could about her, I knew I had to play it cool. I didn’t want to expose how much I liked her to Rafael, especially not when I had just returned to Chicago. It would have been too much for him to take, and I wanted to leave the door open to get back to Arianna if the opportunity arose.
But I couldn’t keep lingering on her; I had the rest of my mission to think of, and I needed to start sooner rather than later.
“How did the Vogons find out I was at the airport? And where I was going?” I pressed. It didn’t make sense to me, especially given how quick Arianna had been to sweep me out of that place and get me to safety.
Rafael furrowed his brow; I could tell this was a sore spot for him.
“We think there’s a mole in the department somewhere,” he explained. “Someone who’s playing the Vogons and the Schwindel cartel against each other, but I haven’t been able to figure out who. And the team is so stripped-back as it is, I don’t have room to kick anyone out on some unfounded suspicion.”
I nodded. I got it. We were already up against the wall with this, especially considering how badly my meeting with the Vogons had gone. I was sure there had to be more to what had happened, especially to Ian, than just suspicion.
“Do you think Arianna might have something to do with it?” I wondered. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I had put the sanctity of this mission in danger because of her. Rafael shook his head.
“I doubt it,” he replied. “She doesn’t seem to have much interest in people like us. She’s interested in the guys she can get money out of, and none of us have enough to make it worth her while.”
I chuckled to myself. Yeah, I got that. When I took her out to that restaurant, she had made it pretty clear she wasn’t used to going to places like that – she was interested in the finer things in life, the expensive places with fancy wines and entrees that cost more than our whole meal. Which made it even stranger to me that she had agreed to spend the night with me; what had she been planning to get out of me? She must have known from the start I didn’t have cash to my name, but it didn’t seem to bother her. She wanted to be with me anyway. And for what? Why?
“But we’re keeping an eye on her anyway,” He continued. “She seems like the kind of person who might be good to have around in the long run. Especially if she decided to help you with getting out of New York.”
“Can we get eyes on the hotel?” I asked him. “We might be able to track where she’s going or what she plans to do.
“I’ll call them,” Rafael replied, and he grabbed his phone as I went to grab another beer. I gave him the room number I had booked into, and he passed it on to the people at the desk.