Blow(98)

Lizzy.

The angle of the camera only allowed me to see the back of her, though, so I couldn’t be certain. Tommy paid the cab driver and it was then that I noticed she had nothing on her—not a coat, not a purse—but she was holding something in her hand.

My mind rewound to the first night I met Elle. The perp in the bushes dressed in black with what I thought was a gun in his hand. Elle thought that the he was a she. Was she right?

“Can you pause it and zoom in on her hand?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure,” he said.

The image was blurry at best, but the metal clip and rectangular shape peeking through her fingers looked an awful lot like a garage door opener.

Everything started to make sense. That night it wasn’t Tommy or Patrick after Elle, it was her sister. And more than likely it was her sister in O’Shea’s house the following night. My mind seemed so much freer knowing Elle wasn’t on Tommy’s radar.

On the screen, the two walked into the hotel, and the image kept playing with little activity at that late hour.

“Okay, what else do you have?”

“I have some cuts from them entering the lobby, but that’s all I had time to find. I’ve seen him here quite a bit over the past months, but not her. It will take longer than a few hours for me to locate any more footage.”

“Show me the lobby.”

He hit a few keys and clicked his mouse. “This is a short clip.”

A different angle, a new camera. Tommy and the girl walking into the lobby and over to the desk. That’s all there was. A short view, five seconds at most. “Can you zoom in on her face?”

He rewound the footage and stopped when they first walked in. The image was clear. He was good. He zoomed in and I pulled my phone out and brought up the picture Elle sent me. I compared the two. It was her. No doubt about it.

“Do you know what room they’re staying in?”

“I asked the girl that worked reception that night. Since it was so late, it was easy for her to pull up the records of the encounter at the desk. Turns out he was checking out.”

Fuck!

“There’s a clip of them leaving and another of them getting into a cab. It shows nothing different from the other two. I can show you, but not now. I have to get you two out of here.”

I nodded in understanding. I didn’t want him to lose his job. “Thanks, man—that’s what I needed.” I pulled out my wallet and peeled off twenty one-hundred-dollar bills. Luckily, I had withdrawn ten thousand dollars before my grandfather sealed my access to my trust fund.

Miles was watching me with a cold sweat breaking across his forehead.

I handed it to him.

“That’s more than you promised.”

I picked up a pen and tore off a corner of one of the papers littered on the desk. I wrote my number down and my email. “The extra is for a phone call the minute you see either of them again. And if you don’t mind, email me whatever clips you can find.”

“Yeah, sure. Now, I need to get you guys out of here.”

We exited the same way we’d entered. He left us to walk down the corridor and into the lobby on our own. Exiting the hotel doors, I handed the valet my ticket.

Declan did the same.

The air was cold and the rain was coming down in sheets. I leaned back against the wall to wait.

“I want to help you with whatever you’re doing,” Declan said.

Exhausted, I turned to look at him. “You have and thanks. I can take it from here.”

He stepped closer. “Tell me what’s going on.”

I considered it for a moment. “I can’t do that.”

“I’m not afraid of him and I want to make sure what happened to Peyton doesn’t happen again—to her or to anyone else.”

It’s not that I didn’t understand where he was coming from, because I did. I just didn’t think it was the best idea to involve anyone else. “Watch over Peyton and I’ll call you if I need anything else.”

“I can help you. You know I can.”

The valet pulled up with my car. “I’ll call you after I get the videos.”

He nodded.

I slipped behind the wheel and took off. In the dark of the night, all I could see was Tommy’s face in my mind. I could hear his voice, “Watch this, McPherson.”

The level of fury building within me wasn’t going to help anything. I needed to stay focused, and waking the angry demon that lived inside me wasn’t going to help the situation.

I dug my fingers into the steering wheel as I sped back to the hotel. I knew what I had to do. Elle needed to go back to her life—without me. I closed my eyes, hating myself for the things I’d done that had put me where I was today.

But until I could take care of Tommy, she wasn’t safe with me. She might not be 100 percent safe with O’Shea, but I knew she was a hell of a lot safer with him than me.

Something felt off as I drove.

Was someone tailing me?

I took a swift turn and then another.

Looked again.

No one.

What the f*ck was up with my imagination?

I had to cool it.

Concentrate.

Focus.

The lobby of the hotel was empty and I strode up to the desk, paid my bill with the cash in my pocket, and told them I’d be checking out in the morning.