"That's how I feel, so it's really no surprise." I rubbed my free hand across gritty eyes, then glanced at the clock. It was just after six, meaning I'd had a whole five and a half hours' sleep. "You'd better have a good reason for waking me, because otherwise I'm going to send Azriel over there to beat you up."
Stane laughed. "No, you wouldn't. You're too much of a softie to do something like that to your friends. Besides, you need my hacking skills."
His hacking skills wouldn't be impaired by a little beating or two, I thought grumpily. "Stane, what do you want?"
"A night out at the Red Iris, no expense spared."
I sat up abruptly, and bit back a groan as my head just about exploded. "You found Nadler?" I said, the words little more than a hiss through gritted teeth.
"Well, I've found the version currently striding around as Nadler. He has a little beach house down at Portsea. I've just sent you the address."
Portsea being the sort of place where even the littlest of houses meant big prices. "Don't suppose there's any way you can check if he's down there?"
After all, according to his neighbors, he hadn't been sighted at his Brighton home for some time, so there was no guarantee he'd be in Portsea, either.
"There's no handy-dandy traffic cameras nearby, so I had to resort to more underhanded tactics. In this case, that meant digging up his cell phone number. Which, I might add, was not an easy thing to do. Phone companies are fierce when it comes to protecting the private numbers of their customers."
But not fierce enough, obviously. Although it did have to be said that Stane was one of the best when it came to hacking.
"So, the dinner will include the finest bottle of champagne the Red Iris has," I replied dryly. "Just get on with it."
He chuckled softly. "Our Mr. Elusive is, according to the GPS tracker on his phone, at his Portsea house right this moment."
Finally, we'd caught a break. I closed my eyes in relief. "For that, you can have two bottles of their finest."
"Excellent," he said. "Let me know how it goes."
"Will do." I hung up, then twisted around as the surge of energy told me Azriel had appeared. "You heard?"