It was a wonder I could breathe at all.
* * * * *
11:13 – That Night
I stood in my great room, staring out the front windows, the old burner phone I used to use when I called the club in my hand.
I’d looked up the number in the phonebook. That way, no one could trace the search.
I’d memorized it.
I shouldn’t do what I was thinking of doing.
I couldn’t not do it.
I looked down at the phone, punched in the numbers and put it to my ear.
It rang four times before I heard a woman answer, “Slade.”
There was dance music in the background—not loud, muted. She was in an office at a nightclub.
Knight Sebring’s nightclub, Slade.
“I’d like to speak to Knight Sebring,” I stated.
“Mr. Sebring doesn’t take calls through this line. You have to talk to his PA, Kathleen, during normal business hours. I’m sorry, but if you don’t have her number, it’s difficult to get to him.”
This meant she wasn’t giving me Kathleen’s number.
“Tell him it’s Olivia Shade.”
“Ms. Shade, it’s unlikely—”
I cut her off.
“He’ll want this call and he’ll know why he wants this call. What he won’t want is to find out an employee got this call and didn’t share the information with him the call was placed. He can call me back. But tell him Olivia Shade wants to speak to him. He has tonight to call me. I won’t answer any other time.” I gave her my burner number and finished, “He has tonight.”
I then hung up.
She clearly had a direct line to “Mr. Sebring,” because in astonishingly little time, my burner rang.
The small display on the flip phone said, Unavailable Number.
Definitely Knight Sebring.
I answered with, “Mr. Sebring.”
“Olivia, it’s—” Knight Sebring started.
I didn’t let him get any further.
“My sister is interested in your brother’s whereabouts. He knows that as I’ve told him before. He’s undoubtedly taken measures. Even so, he should know, she’s getting impatient.”
“Oliv—” he started, sounding irked, urgent and impatient.
I flipped the phone closed.
Before it could ring again, I slid the back open and pulled the chip out. I took it to my sink, dropped it into my garbage disposal and turned it on.