Alex and Warlock were silent, but Alex knew Cooper was right. She and Shaggy were acting like five-year-olds.
Not that Deuce had any problem with it.
“Damn,” he said, “I really gotta get me some popcorn.”
There was a knock at the door.
They all turned in surprise, then Warlock touched the frame of his glasses, shifting his gaze to the upper right corner. His eyes went wide and he rushed over to the rolling computer cart in the middle of the room. “It’s him. It’s Favreau.”
Alex sat up. “What? You’re sure?”
“I’m not blind. He’s standing in the hallway with a bottle of bubbly.”
There was another knock and Alex and Deuce jumped to their feet as Warlock rolled his rig toward his room. While the others cleared out, Alex went to the door, took a deep breath, and said, “Yes?”
“It’s me, Frederic, your new smoking buddy. I hope it’s not too late to cash in that rain check.”
“Oh…uh…I thought you were going to bed?”
“Turns out I wasn’t as tired as I thought I was. I got my second wind.”
“Okay…” she said. “Give me a minute, all right?”
“Take your time. I’m in no hurry.”
Alex stepped away from the door, wondering how she should play this. It was one thing to share a lighter on the beach and maybe get a drink at the hotel bar, but showing up at her room was a bold move. One that told her Frederic Favreau was used to getting his way.
She left the foyer and crossed to her bedroom. She closed the door behind her, slipped out of the dress, then pulled on one of the hotel robes from the closet. Taking her cell phone from her purse — which doubled as a comm transmitter — she dropped it into a pocket.
When she opened the door again, Cooper stood only a few feet away.
“Perfect,” he said, eyeing the robe. “This guy’ll never know what hit him.” He tossed something to her and she caught it. “These should buy us some time.”
A bottle of pills. “What are they?”
“Think roofies, only a lot stronger and a lot faster acting. We’re talking seconds, not minutes.”
Alex was surprised. “You carry these around, do you?”
“They were a gift from McElroy. Something the Stonewell labs cooked up, just in case.”
She slipped them into her empty pocket. “Thanks. You’ve just made my job infinitely more palatable.”
“Thank McElroy,” he said, then tapped his ear. “I’ll be on comm.”
As he disappeared into his room, she crossed back to the front door, took another breath, then opened it to find Favreau staring down at the screen on his cell phone.
He quickly pocketed the phone and looked up, taking in the robe and the subtle swell of her breasts. “Damn, I think I like this even better than the dress.” He held up the bottle of champagne. “I hope you have glasses.”
“How did you know what room I’m in?”
He grinned. “I’m a pretty resourceful guy. Place like this, you just have to know who to bribe. And when I found out we were hall mates, I thought we might as well get to know each other.”
In the cafe and on the beach he hadn’t struck her as a man who lacked confidence, but now he displayed a cockiness Alex hadn’t seen before. She figured Warlock was right — Favreau had done some checking and found she was safe. At least where it counted. He likely assumed she was nothing more than a gold digger and decided he’d take advantage of the situation.
All she had to do was run with it.
“I guess I should be flattered,” she said.
“I guess you should be, because I’m not usually this proactive. But then a woman of your caliber doesn’t come along every day.” He gestured. “Are we gonna do this or what?”
She stepped aside and let him pass, taking the bottle of champagne from him as they moved into the living room. “Have a seat. Let me find those glasses.”
He looked around. “Whoa, this place looks bigger than mine. You’re not here alone?”
“I wish,” she said, heading into the kitchen. “I’m sharing it with my crew. But don’t worry, they’ve all gone to bed. Early call tomorrow.”
He sank to the sofa and leaned back. “The three guys from the lobby?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you tell them about me?”
“No,” she said. “Should I have?”
“I don’t want to be stepping on anyone’s toes. Things can get ugly that way, and I don’t like complications.”
She laughed, set the bottle on the counter, and began searching the cupboards for wine glasses. “I’m new, remember? I barely know these guys.”
“You don’t know me at all.”
“Yet I already like you better. Besides, two of them are gay and the other one’s married.”
“Okay, I’ll give you the gay guys, but the married one, trust me, he’s checking you out. He’d be crazy not to.”
She found the glasses and set them on the counter. “You really like to say what’s on your mind, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “I’m a man of many faults and few regrets.”
“You’re also good for a girl’s ego.”
He grinned again. “I aim to please.”
“And I aim to drink.” She tore the foil from the bottle, removed the crown, and popped the cork. As she poured into the first glass, she dipped her free hand into her robe pocket and thumbed the cap off the bottle of pills.
“Go easy with mine,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you taking advantage of me.”
She laughed again, then took the hand from her pocket and dropped a pill inside the glass as she poured. From his vantage point on the sofa, Favreau couldn’t see a thing, and by the time she crossed to him, the pill had completely dissolved.
She handed him the doctored drink. “What shall we toast to?”
He raised his glass. “To gay guys, married men, and painfully gorgeous women.”
They clinked glasses and drank and she sat next to him, close enough that their thighs were touching. He put a hand on her leg and a small shiver of revulsion ran through her. She hoped Cooper had been right about the pills. The faster this happened, the better.
He finished his drink in two long gulps, set his glass on the table, and turned to face her. He took her glass from her hands and set it next to his.
“I’m not finished with that.”
“Finish it later,” he said, then pushed her against the cushions and leaned in to kiss her. His breath smelled of mints and tobacco and champagne, and Alex braced herself for impact, silently cursing McElroy and Cooper and even Warlock and Deuce. But most of all, she cursed herself for saying yes to this nonsense.
What had she been thinking?
But before his mouth could touch hers, Favreau got an odd look his face and said, “Jesus, that champagne is stroooo…”
Then collapsed against her chest.
CHAPTER 19
“He’s out,” Alex said, then climbed out from beneath him as the others emerged from their rooms and joined her at the sofa.
Patting him down, she took out his cell phone and handed it to Warlock, who turned it on and scrolled through the menu. “It looks like a burner and he’s wiped the memory. Nothing of use here, but I’ll put a tap on it so we can monitor his calls.”
Alex removed Favreau’s wallet, quickly thumbed through it and found two hotel key cards, several hundred euros, a French ID card with his name, address, and date of birth, and a handful of credit cards, each with a different name.
Warlock looked hopefully at the wallet. “Any SD chips? Thumb drive?”
“What you see is what you get.”
“No real surprises so far,” Cooper said. “He’s not stupid enough to keep the codes on him. We need to get past his perimeter alarm and search his suite.”