Sounding out of breath, but no less flirtatious, Vance answered right away. “What’s up, love?”
I bit my lip, hating what I was about to do. “I need you.”
His tone turned serious. “Give me six minutes.”
Twenty-four minutes. Not nearly enough time, but I agreed anyway. “Okay.”
“On my way, pet.”
I hung up.
I met Luna downstairs. Getting into his Escalade, I scanned the underground garage as I closed the passenger door. “Any luck?”
“Some.” Luna opened a folder. “Nothing more on the courier in the lobby. I ran a background check on him, and he was exactly who said he was—some low-level exec from Ohio here on business, blowing off work to day drink. Zero connection to Sanaa or anyone in her past. And I didn’t get a hit on any of the security feeds either inside or outside the property on the mysterious woman who supposedly handed him the envelope and cash. I’m not bothering to try to run prints on the hundred she gave him, because it’d take too long and I doubt we’d get anything.”
I nodded. “And the other lead?”
“This is where it gets interesting. Kyle Abernathy. All-around asshole.” Luna handed me a file. “He worked as a talent scout for Leo Amherst up until ten years ago, just like you said. Rumor has it that not only did he have a penchant for underage girls that Trinity had been covering up, but he was the one who originally signed Sanaa. Then an incident at a house party occurred. His assistant wound up dead, and Abernathy was beaten unconscious. The police reports say Abernathy doesn’t remember the incident or his attacker, that he and the assistant had been drinking, and there were shockingly no other witnesses. The assistant’s cause of death was a single blow to the face that twisted his neck hard enough to tear an artery. It was either a lucky fucking punch or accidental homicide, but either way he died instantly. Abernathy then spent two weeks in the hospital before Trinity fired him, then he disappeared. My guess is Amherst paid him off to avoid headlines, or Abernathy decided to go off the radar because he was the one who killed his assistant.”
Fighting to keep my expression neutral, I didn’t say a word.
Luna continued. “Adding more convoluted shit to this whole story, I found out that the house the party was at was owned by a shell corporation associated with the Irish mob, and supposedly used as a corporate rental. The night in question, some dude with a fake ID said he’d been renting the place, but the police never followed through on that lead. If you ask me, I think whoever was renting the house paid the cops off. At any rate, a few months later Abernathy was caught in a DEA raid with a shitload of drugs and three underage girls being held against their will. He was charged with intent to sell both the girls and the drugs, and the judge brought the hammer down. For the next nine years, he lived rent-free in maximum security where he had a problem playing nice with the other inmates.”
My jaw tight, I paged through the information and the outdated photos. Abernathy looked exactly like the asshole I remembered. “Where’s he been the past year?”
“He was supposed to be on parole for twelve months, no travel outside the county, but his PO hasn’t heard from him for the last five months, and shit fell through the cracks. A warrant’s been issued, but Abernathy hasn’t surfaced. My best guess is he got a hold of a fake passport and made his way to Europe.”
“He didn’t have a passport in his name?”
“He did before he went to jail, but it expired, and it wouldn’t have done him any good. His name is on a TSA watch list.” Luna pointed at one of the pages I was about to flip through. “But here’s the best part. Look who his cellmate was.”
I skimmed the document. Fucking Christ. “An explosives technician?”
“Not just any explosives technician. One serving life for blowing up his neighbor after the man allegedly screwed his wife. I’m still working on getting the details of what kind of bombs this pendejo built so we can compare them to the ones your brother found and see if