“Why didn’t you call me before?” she asks me.
“Because this is illegal. Besides, we were told there was no footage.”
“By who?”
“My boyfriend, who incidentally woke up with two women,” Jeremy answers.
“Hmm.” She types at the speed of light.
My heart is hammering hard.
Please, please, be innocent, I silently pray.
Something comes up, and she hits enter. Something rolls on the screen. “We’re in.”
“What?” Jeremy and I sit up. “You’re into the security system?”
“Yep.” She types more things in. “Piece of cake.” She picks up the piece of paper and reads the date. “Do we know the room and floor?”
I scratch my head. I look to Jeremy, and he shrugs. “I don’t, sorry.”
“That’s okay.” She brings up a second screen and logs into the reservations.
“Holy fuck,” Jeremy whispers in awe. “This is the Motherload of fucking motherloads of spying.
Penelope smirks proudly. “Right?” She scrolls down. “Here we go. Sebastian Garcia, room 313, level 3.” She flicks back to the other screen. “What time are we thinking?”
I think for a moment. “He last called me at 8:20 p.m., so sometime after that.”
“Okay.” She scrolls down and hits play, then she narrows her eyes in concentration. “So, this here…”—she points to a door on the right of the screen— “is his room.”
We all lean in and watch.
A man walks down the hall and out of sight. Two women walk out of a room and get into the elevator.
The elevator opens, and we see a security guard struggling with someone. He puts his arm around a man to help him.
“Sebastian,” I gasp.
He’s so out of it, highly intoxicated and unable to walk alone.
The security guard walks into his room with him, and then he walks back out alone after another minute.
“So, that part of the story is true,” I whisper.
Jeremy smiles and taps my leg. “Told you.”
Penelope speeds up the footage and we all sit and watch. She goes forward one hour… then two, and then three.
“This has to be, like, midnight by now.” I frown.
Penelope points to faint numbers at the bottom of the screen. “That’s the time there. It’s 11:42 p.m., do you see?”
“Yes, okay.”
A man walks down the corridor and looks left and right, eventually stopping in front of Sebastian’s door. Penelope puts the footage onto real time.
We all sit up and lean into the screen.
He looks left and right again and brings a key out of his pocket. He swipes it through the lock and steps into Sebastian’s room.
“Who’s that?” I whisper, wide-eyed. My blood runs cold just knowing that someone was with Sebastian while he was unconscious.
“It’s not Helena, that’s for sure.” Jeremy puts his arm around me and pulls me close.
We watch on and wait. Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty.
“What’s he doing in there? This is a long time,” I say.
The door opens slightly, and the man peers out to see if the coast is clear. He walks out, and we get a full-frontal view of his face.
“Gerhard!” I gasp.
Jeremy’s mouth falls open. “That fucking snake.”
We watch on as he walks to another room before disappearing into it.
“He was staying on the same floor,” I whisper. “What the fuck?”
“How else would he have gotten up to the floor? It’s all secured.”
Holy shit.
Penelope speeds up the footage again and we watch on while I hold my breath.
3:00 a.m.
4:00 a.m.
5:00 a.m.
I begin to hear my heartbeat in my ears. This seems promising.
7:30 a.m., and the door opens. Sebastian strides out, dressed in his suit. He marches down the hall and gets into the elevator.
“It was a set up.” Jeremy claps his hands in glee.
Tears of relief fill my eyes, and I drop my head into my hands. “Oh, thank God.”
Emotion overwhelms me, and tears fill my eyes in relief. “He was set up.”
Penny laughs. “Stupid fucking bitch. We’ve got you.”
Wait a minute. That means…?
My eyes meet Jeremy’s, and he exhales heavily. “I know.”
“Penny, can you look up someone else for us, please?” I ask.
“Sure.”
“The name is Bart McIntyre.”
Penelope flicks through to the book screen and looks up his room. We watch on in silence as she flicks through to his floor.
She puts the fast forward on, and we wait. Bart walks out of the elevator on his phone.
“Do we have audio?”
Penelope frowns.
She plays with some dials, and then Bart’s voice comes to life. He appears tipsy but nowhere near as bad as Sebastian was. He walks toward the camera and stops right in front of it.
“Goodnight, babe, I love you.” He smiles as he listens to whoever is on his phone.
“Is he talking to you?” I whisper.
Jeremy shakes his head. “No.”
My eyes flicker to his.
“We had a fight earlier that night. He wasn’t talking to me.”
Bart listens and then smiles. “When I get home, baby, you’re going to get it good.” He listens and laughs. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll call you when I get back to my room. I’m still with the boys. It won’t be for a few hours.”