“Jesus Christ on a crutch.” Hernandez moaned. “I knew it was a mistake talking to you. Don’t you understand? This is an active investigation. You’re putting it and yourself in jeopardy. The last thing I need is some amateur mucking around in things.”

“I wasn’t mucking,” Drue said, refusing to be intimidated. “Do you want me to tell you what I found out? Like how both Jazmin and Neesa were trading sex for favors from Herman Byars, the head of housekeeping? Or do you want to keep bitching me out?”

“What I want to do is go home and have dinner with my family, which I promised my husband I would do tonight,” Hernandez groused.

“Okay, fine.” Drue disconnected.

Her phone rang again. She waited three beats and picked it up.

“Don’t hang up on me again,” Hernandez said with a growl. “This isn’t some game you’re playing.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Drue said, matching the detective’s tone. “Can we meet? Or not?”

“We don’t need a coffee klatch. Just tell me everything you learned,” Hernandez said.

“I was thinking I could tell you what I know and you could let me see the rest of the video from the hotel.”

The sheriff’s detective swore softly. “I don’t need this shit.”

“What kind of pizza do you like?” Drue asked, reaching for her purse and keys.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I haven’t had dinner and I’m starving. I’ll pick us up a pizza on the way to your office.”

“Pepperoni. Cheese. No green peppers and no goddamn anchovies.”

“Goes without saying,” Drue agreed.

Rae Hernandez eyed the grease-spotted pizza box warily. “What took you so long? I’m starving and I almost gave up on you.”

“I was all the way in downtown St. Pete,” Drue said, as Hernandez led her back to her office, stopping in the break room to buy soft drinks from a vending machine.

Drue put the pizza box on top of a file cabinet, and Hernandez opened a file drawer and pulled out paper plates and napkins. The smell of warm tomato sauce and gooey melted cheese filled the small, cluttered office.

Hernandez rolled her desk chair over to the cabinet and put a slice of pizza on her plate. “Tell me more about these porn parties. It would have been nice if I’d heard about this two years ago.”

“Jorge said he only went once,” Drue said, putting aside her own slice of pizza. “But he said Shelnutt and his buddies had them all the time. The head of engineering, Larry Boone, would designate a room as ‘out of order,’ so that the front desk staff wouldn’t rent it out.”

“And who were the guests at these little soirees?”

Drue ticked off the names she’d been given. “Shelnutt, Herman Byars, Boone for sure.”

“How about the hotel manager?” Hernandez asked.