I nodded. Great, stuck in Vegas. At least I had a nice suite of my own, and I could make sure Luna stayed with me. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, I’d steer clear of your suite at the hotel and the casino. Our team has been through your room already, but considering the crime scene being two floors down, we wouldn’t want you contaminating anything.” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug as if it made good sense.
“You mean I can’t even go back to my suite to get my things? I have important belongings there. Couldn’t you arrange for someone to go with me?” I slammed my hand down on the table, and Mason shot me a look that said he wished I’d stop.
He leaned in and whispered, not trying to hide his words from the investigator. “I’ll make sure you get your things and another place to stay. You need to sit back and let them do their job. Consider yourself on vacation.” He then turned his attention back to the detective. “So what evidence are we looking at? What can you tell us?”
“I can tell you that there are two women dead and evidence that points to your boy here.” The use of the word boy chapped my ass good and hard, but I didn’t react. I had a feeling he wanted me to so I kept quiet in my seat as he continued. “Both ladies were bound and strangled with a garrote.”
Mason winced. “That’s brutal. I can assure you that my client is not the person you’re looking for, so I hope you’re keeping your eyes open for another lead.”
The detective let out a huff as if he’d been offended. “Of course we are.”
Mason leaned in, posturing over the detective. “Then what aren’t you telling me? Where are the surveillance videos?”
I nudged him. “I know that place has the best security in Vegas.”
“It’s funny you should mention that.” Detective Hatcher rubbed his chin, his eyes directed toward the paper in front of him. “It seems the entire system went down on that level last night. The incident went unnoticed, or perhaps ignored.”
“You’re suggesting that I had something to do with it because of a security glitch or some human error?” I was outraged, to say the least, but in my head, I was scrambling to figure out what had happened. My security was top notch, however, nothing was perfect when humans were involved.
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m only telling you the facts.” He leaned back and crossed his arms, glaring down his nose at me from across the table. “I’ll leave you to let it all sink in, and remember – we’ll be in touch.” He got up from his chair, the legs of it screeching against the floor as if some final kiss off before the door shut me and Mason in.
Mason stood up, but I took my time and sat staring at the coffee in front of me until he gave me a nudge. “Come on, we’ve got a lot to talk about.”
I got to my feet and noticed him staring at my clothes. “What? It’s not like they gave me time to dress properly, so the last thing I need from you is a fashion critique. Besides, I’m lucky they let me have my shoes.”
“You sure are. The floors in these kinds of places are no place for bare feet. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen.” Mason curled his lip in disgust.
“I could imagine, but at the moment, forgive me if I don’t give a fuck.”
He pulled me to a stop when we rounded the corner. “Look, I’ve got to warn you. The press is already all over this, but someone leaked that you’d been arrested instead of being taken in for questioning.
“Joe’s waiting with the car, but when we go out there, I want you to keep your head and eyes down. I’ll keep hold of you, but I don’t want you looking up, and for all that is holy, please keep your mouth shut.”
“Wait, was I the only one brought in? My assistant, Luna, is she here?”
“She’s not here. They would have mentioned it. I was briefed before I went to see you. Nothing like walking into the shark tank without knowing you’ve got chum on your hands.”
I nodded as he took my arm, and we bullied our way out the front door and through the massive crowd of people that were all pushing into me.
“Why did you kill them?”
“Was it a crime of passion, Mr. Grant?”
“Did you think your money would get you out of this?”
“Is it true that you’re married?”
Ignoring the questions being thrown my way, I ducked into the car as fast as possible once we’d crossed the expanse of chaos and the door was closed quickly behind us.
When I looked up, Mason’s eyes were hard on mine. “You see the kind of nonsense those vultures will put out? Thankfully, they are already correcting the story, but what’s done is done.” He shook his head and went right into business as Joe slowly pulled away.
“We’ll get you a room across town.” He leaned up and told Joe to take us to the High Roller Hotel. Once he righted himself in his seat, he turned back to me. “You have some explaining to do, my friend, and I don’t want you to leave anything out.”
“I have to find my assistant. She’ll need to be safe, too, and she can’t stay at that hotel, either. Oh, and I need you to work on getting me my damned briefcase back as soon as possible. I signed a new deal with a huge client, and everything is in that case. Thankfully, I have my phone.”
I took the thing out of my pocket and brought it to life. The screen had dozens of missed calls. Most were from my sister-in-law, but some of the later ones were from Luna. There were a dozen in between, many from concerned friends, my staff back home, and clients. Unfortunately, my battery was at nine percent. Damn, this all needed to be sorted as fast as possible and before my reputation and company suffered.