‘And where was your partner? Huh? Why didn’t you have back-up?’

His face red from the dressing-down he was receiving, he admitted the truth. ‘He called in sick. I didn’t think it was necessary for someone to take his place.’

‘Clearly, you thought wrong!’ Alyssa was shouting, and she didn’t care. ‘I expect to see you in Captain Hammond’s office at the end of your shift.’ And then she dismissed him by turning her back on him.

‘Lorna, I need to see the room this man was attempting to break into. Can you get me a key?’ She tried to ignore the wide-eyed look of fear on the woman’s face, probably at Alyssa’s loss of temper as much as the events of the early morning hours.

‘Sure, sure.’

A few minutes and a phone call to Cord later, Alyssa was inside the hotel room. Though she didn’t expect to find much, she wondered what Yarmini could’ve possibly been searching for. After checking the shelves and opening both water-stained nightstand drawers, she found nothing but the relics of an old, seedy hotel room. Still, she planned on sealing off this room until she could get a team of technicians in to comb it. Worst case scenario, she found nothing. Best case, there was something here she’d overlooked that would lead them to the missing girls.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Saturday, May 25

It was almost eight-thirty on Saturday morning before Alyssa and Cord finished at Hotel Camino and strolled into the precinct. Ever since he’d squealed into the parking lot of the hotel shortly after three, Cord’s usual poised self-control had been slowly splintering. Maybe not so much that others would notice, but enough that she definitely did.

Hal, Tony, and Joe were already in the conference room when she and Cord walked in, all of them more than willing to come in on a Saturday. On the drive over, Hammond had called to inform her that both the officers who were supposed to be surveilling the hotel were being pulled from that particular duty and disciplined, though he declined to say what that punishment entailed. It didn’t matter; she’d hear it through the grapevine eventually, and right now, she had other things to deal with.

They settled themselves around the table, and Alyssa filled everyone in on last night’s events. When she was finished, she pointed to Joe and Tony. ‘You two canvass the businesses around Hotel Camino, see if any of them have security systems in place that might’ve caught Yarmini, what he’s driving now, which direction he went when he took off – whatever you can find. Hal, I need you to dig into Yarmini’s financials. See if he’s had any big or unusual deposits that stand out. We—’

Alyssa’s phone rang, and she glanced down, the number familiar, but not one she readily recognized. ‘Detective Wyatt speaking.’

‘Detective, this is Bartholomew Rosenfelt. Do you have a few minutes? I have something that might be of interest to you and your investigation.’