“I should check on the facial recognition.”
My body flushed with heat as I realized all at once that I either missed my opportunity or was saved from making a fool of myself. I nodded, watching him walk away, wondering the whole time what would have happened if I had just said three simple words.
I like you.
25
ROB
“Found her,”Knight said as I walked back into his office.
I hurried over to him, grateful I had something to distract me from Krista’s lack of response when I basically poured my heart out to her.
Snatching the paper from his hand, I stared at Krista’s doppelgänger. She was a pimped-up version of Krista, with way too much makeup and glazed-over eyes, but it was her.
“Alicia Kay,” I murmured.
“Also known as Kay on the streets,” Knight said, pulling her information up on the screen. “She works the strip, going after the high rollers. She has a studio apartment in one of the most luxurious complexes. Going rate is five grand a month.”
“For a studio?”
He shrugged. “It’s Vegas.”
“How does she afford that?”
“Like I said, she goes after the high-rollers. Up until a month ago, she was linked with Danny Prescott. He was a regular at the MGM, but he replaced her with his wife, and she wasn’t very happy about him paying for an apartment for his hooker.”
“And the money disappeared,” I surmised.
“Along with her dream apartment if she couldn’t come up with the money.”
I scrolled through the information, looking for her bank accounts. “How is it possible that she has only five hundred dollars to her name?”
“The life of luxury is expensive. She had ten grand deposited into her account every month, but between rent and her expensive lifestyle, she was never able to keep more than a couple hundred at any time.”
“So, she needed fast money. But still, how could she possibly steal enough drugs that the Ratti Crime Family would hunt us down across the country?”
Knight flicked an image on the screen. “This is Angelo DeLuca. He’s the underboss of the Ratti Crime Family. He’s married with three kids and seems to have it all. Except that his wife is always drunk, and two months ago, he checked her into rehab. That’s where Alicia comes in.”
He flicked to an image inside one of the casinos. Alicia was hanging on DeLuca’s arm, clearly trying to pick him up.
“Two weeks ago, she approached DeLuca. She spent the whole evening with him, and afterward, he took her up to the penthouse, where she spent the whole night. Since then,” he said, flicking through various images of the two of them together, “she’s been following him around like a lost puppy, taking whatever scraps he throws her way.”
“Scraps? So, he’s not giving her money.”
“No deposits into her account,” Knight confirmed. “But he makes regular visits to the back of the casino where you and Krista were taken.”
“How did you find all this?”
“Casinos have cameras everywhere,” he smirked. “They also have all live feeds of all their cameras so they can keep an eye on their product.”
I shot him a look. “You mean their kidnap victims.”
He flicked to a new shot. “The night before you and Krista were taken, Alicia followed DeLuca to the back room and snuck in after he left. She hardly paid any attention to the women, but she searched their office and came out with this case,” he said, freezing the screen on her glancing over her shoulder as she escaped with a briefcase-sized black case.
“What’s in it?”
“No idea, but whatever it is must be worth a lot of money.”