Page 4 of West

Nothing to see here.

So of course I walk down the sidewalk toward the hotel so I can get an angle through the glass face of the lobby. Listen, it’s my job.

The hotel lobby runs across the full ground floor behind a wall of glass. Sand-colored terrazzo floor. Reception on the right wall. Two leather club chairs on the left wall under a potted palm in a brass planter. The elevator bank sits deeper, in the middle of the back wall.

The woman in the camel coat stands at the reception counter.

Ziggy is positioned away from her, watching the room. And right then, of course, she glances out toward the window.

I duck down like an idiot.

But yep, it’s her.

I hightail it across the street, not looking and again tuck myself into the recessed shadow of the tabac doorway, outside the streetlamps' throw of light.

She probably didn’t see me, right?

But she’s walked to the window and is looking out.

My heart thumps like the traitor it is. I hold my breath, as if she could hear it. My heartbeat is hard in my ears.

Then she turns and disappears back into the lobby.

I stay in my doorway thirty more seconds, then I walk.

At the corner, I put the earpiece back in.

“You okay?” Logan says.

“Walking.”

“And?”

“A woman arrived. Late forties. Dark hair. Her driver called her Doctor. There’s something going down at the hotel. Have Coco look into it.”

“And the guy?”

“Neutralized.”

“Roy—”

“He’s not dead.”

A beat. “Just tell me you didn’t blow this.”

“I didn’t blow this. I tucked him in the doorway and walked away. I pulled two phones off him. I’ll upload the contents of the SD card to Coco.”

“Okay. She did manage to pull him off the CCTV, and she thinks she has an ID.”

I cut east through a side street. A tabby cat sits in the middle of the alley and holds its ground when I come up. I go around the cat.

“Who is he?”

“We ran him through our database from the Key West event last summer, from the attack on the yacht. Facial match. He’s working for Tomas, no doubt.”

I swallow a word. “So, what, Tomas is assembling a group? Dragan, now this guy?”

“Looks like it.”