I climbed out. “You take the cart back.”
Rico slid over behind the wheel. “What about you?”
“Trey will make sure I get back to my cabin. But listen to me—I want you to leave, tonight. You and Dante both. Things are going down here, bad things, and I…I…”
“Yeah?”
I leaned over and hugged him. And he hugged me back. A real hug, the kind that crushed a little. It reminded me that I was a flesh-and-blood body, dependent and contingent and destined for dust, but at that precise singular moment, alive and loved.
“Dante and I are out of here,” he said.
I straightened. “Good. Talk soon?”
“That’s a bet.” He jabbed his chin toward the station. “Go detect shit.”
And then he puttered away. Just as he did, the back door opened, and Trey stood there, silhouetted against the amber light.
I stepped forward. “What’s up?”
He opened the door wider. “Come in and I’ll show you.”
The first thing I noticed was the security array—four screens, each one broken into four quadrants showing real-time video feed. Each quadrant was linked to a single camera, which meant sixteen cameras overall. That left exploitable dark places aplenty. The second thing I noticed was the man standing in the corner. He was tall and well-built, with dark hair and solemn earnest eyes and feet splayed, hands folded right below his belt buckle. Cop stance.
Trey gestured in his direction. “Jonathon Davis, former MP. He’s one of Finn’s.”
“Tai Randolph,” I said. “I’m one of hers too.”
The guard nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Mr. Seaver told me, ma’am.”
I didn’t tell him to drop the “ma’ams.” Cops loved to “ma’am” and “sir,” and military police got a double dose of it.
Trey motioned for me to sit at the monitor where he had a separate screen set up. It was dark, but he tapped at the keyboard, and it flickered to life. The images showed the feed from the parking area, the valet-only section. The time stamp let me know it was recorded footage.
The video began with stillness, broken by movement twenty seconds in. A club cart drove up, and Oliver James got out. He looked nervous, furtive. He pulled a keyring from his pocket and abandoned the cart on the path and climbed in a Mercedes. He threw a small overnight bag into the backseat.
Trey pointed to the time stamp. “As you see, at approximately midnight Mr. James got into his car using a spare set of keys he had on his person, not the set he turned over when he had the car parked. He left those behind in the valet podium.”
“Which is locked, I assume?”
“Yes.”
“So Oliver decided to leave quickly and deliberately without telling anyone?”
“Correct.” Trey held down the space bar. “Now watch this next part.”
Another car pulled into the lot, barreling right through the gate arm. Oliver took one look and ran into the woods. Two men got out of the backseat, one climbing into Oliver’s car and the other heading straight for Quint’s Jaguar, which he had cranked and ready to go in less than sixty seconds. Before they could pull out of the lot, Jonathon approached. Immediately, the man in the Jaguar peeled out of the lot while the man in Oliver’s car pulled a long-barreled handgun and started firing. Jonathon took cover, and both cars hurtled out of the lot behind the first one.
I looked up. “Jonathon! Are you okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He looked at Trey. “But I’m not sure what to do now.”
Trey was absolutely sure. “We call the authorities.”
“My orders were to run all such decisions through Ms. Hudson.”
“Yes, she will want to know. But this decision is beyond her preferences. Or mine. Do you understand?”
Jonathon relaxed a little. He was caught between two protocols, not sure which to use. Trey had no such divided loyalties.
I was still confused. “They walked right by the Ferrari and headed straight for Quint’s Jaguar. Why would a car thief pass up a Ferrari?”
Trey tapped at the keyboard to rewind the video. “Ferraris are easily recognized and tracked. They’re complicated as stolen goods go, too complicated to sell or send to a chop shop.”
“So these weren’t professionals?”
“They were professionals, just not that kind of professional.”
“A repo team?”
He shook his head. “Legitimate repo teams don’t shoot at security. Or use suppressors.”
Of course. No wonder the guns had looked enormous. “So nasty professionals?”
“Yes.”
I sat in the desk chair and rolled it closer to the screen. Yes, that was definitely Oliver. And yes, he looked terrified as he bolted into the woods.
“Where’s Oliver now?”
“I don’t know. I’ve alerted security, but he hasn’t been spotted.”
“Hiding? Fled?”
“I don’t know.” Trey took a seat beside me. “You mentioned attempted arson.”
“Oh, yeah. That. Should I explain before we call the cops?”
“I’ve already called them. So yes, please explain.”
Which I did.
I gave the same rundown to Finn when she called thirty minutes later, with all the extras added in—the quickie wedding, the injunction, and the legal team headed up at the crack of dawn. I also described the barn burning that hadn’t happened and the parking lot robbery that definitely had. I made sure to include angry Quint, conniving Nick, scheming Addison, sneaky Bree, and possibly drunken but certainly adulterous Portia. Also the fact that Oliver was onto us.
Finn sighed. “Okay. Keep everybody in their cabins until dawn’s early light. I’ll be there as soon as I get finished with this situation in Florida.”
“You heard about the Buckhead Burglar too?”
She didn’t speak for a second. “So much for filling you in on that. Can you two hold down the fort until tomorrow morning?”
“Of course.”
“You’ve got Jonathon. Sybil and Mickey too. That makes five of y’all on the team, plus the regular resort staff. That’s enough to keep
