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Dela led Heath into the security office. A young man who didn’t look old enough to be a security guard glanced up from a book. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Dela Alvaro, here to review your security team. A maid was supposed to be brought in here for me to question. Do you know anything?” she asked.
The man shook his head. “Sherman hasn’t been back after getting a phone call from you. Sidney was here all morning on the computer. I’m not sure where she went about ten minutes ago.”
Dela pulled out her phone and called Sidney.
“Hi. I wasn’t able to take care of that matter. I’m helping the FBI with surveillance. Gotta go.” The call ended.
“Crap!” She faced Heath. “Quinn is upstairs bothering Sidney. It’s her day off.”
Heath stared at her. “And you have her working for you on her day off. That’s why he’s bothering her.”
Dela shrugged. “Do we go up and see what we can find out or find a way to get him to leave...” She pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts. Touching Quinn’s name, she waited for him to answer.
“What’s up, Dela?” he asked.
“Hey, someone ransacked my room while I was picking Heath up from the airport. Any chance you can spare a forensic person to check for fingerprints?” She waited, while he spoke to someone else.
“I’ll bring someone over right away.” The call ended.
She smiled. “Let’s go watch for them to leave and we’ll go see Sidney.”
Dela and Heath stood in a shadowed corner not far from the stairs leading up to surveillance. They stood there five minutes before Quinn and another Fed jogged down the stairs. Once they cleared the “Employee Only” entry, Dela led Heath up the stairs, through the surveillance room, and into the back room.
Sidney swung around in her chair. “Wow, if I had known telling him about your room being tossed would have gotten rid of him, I would have said something.”
Dela smiled. “Who is the maid? We’ll go looking for her.”
“Tamara Dorsey. I can call housekeeping and have them send her over now that I’m not answering the FBI’s questions.” Sidney reached for the phone on the desk.
“Yes call, but ask them to have her come to housekeeping, that won’t be as suspicious as having her go to security. And it will keep us away from Quinn a little longer.”
“Housekeeping is in the building by the registration building,” Sidney said, before announcing who she was and that someone wanted to speak with Tamara Dorsey. “No, just ask her to come to housekeeping, please. Thank you.” Sidney hung up the phone. “They’ll contact her and request she come to the housekeeping building. I suggested they not say who was coming to talk to her.”
“Good. If she ransacked my room, she’s going to be suspicious.” Dela turned to the door and then back. “Did you find out if someone diverted the video during the kidnapping and the murder?”
“I’m still going over it, but I do think the cameras were overrode. The FBI wanted to take all the footage but I stalled them by saying I couldn’t do it without Enos’s okay.” She shrugged. “I think Agent Pierce is going to go to the casino board.”
“We’ll worry about that later. Just keep digging until you need or want to leave. I’m sorry for taking up your day off.” Dela did feel bad. Just because she worked 24/7 didn’t mean everyone else had to.
“I can hang around a couple more hours, then I’m going to my folks’.”
“Thank you,” Dela said and opened the door.
“Where are we headed?” Heath asked when they reached the bottom of the stairs.
“By now Quinn will know I wasn’t in my room when I called him. Let’s go out and walk the beach to the rooms and then walk between the buildings. We’ll have to make sure we don’t see Quinn when we cross to the registration building. I don’t want him butting into the conversation.” Dela entered the security office. She asked the young security officer, “Let us out this back door, please.”
The young man put down his book and punched in a code to let them out. “Do you want to come back in this way?” he asked.
“Is there a way I can?” Dela thought it might be a good thing to know in the case of an emergency.
The security guard walked over to a desk and pulled out a keycard. “This will get you into any place that is locked on the resort.”
She stared at him. “You just hand this out to anyone?”
He shook his head. “No. Enos said if you needed access to the building this week to give you a master keycard.”
Dela glanced at Heath and back to the guard. “When did he tell you this?”
“Before he went on his vacation.”
She nudged Heath and they stepped out the door behind the casino that faced the ocean. She breathed in the salty damp air and shook. “Enos knew something was going to happen this weekend. Why else would he leave and tell that young man to give me a master keycard this week? I was supposed to go home today.”
Heath nodded as they used the steps down to the beach. He directed her out to the hard-packed sand where walking was easier. “It does seem as though he had prior knowledge of the kidnapping. I’m sure he didn’t know there would be a murder.”
“But the kidnapping. Why would he turn the other cheek and let a child be taken from his parents?” She knew exactly why. The FBI.
“Don’t jump to conclusions. Have you checked up on Enos’s background? He could have debts that someone like Benedict would pay off if he was gone on a particular weekend.”
She had to concede she’d not looked up anything about the man. She’d liked him and believed him to be law-abiding. “I know nothing. Looks like I need to dig into that as well.”
She pointed to the steps leading up to the hotel buildings. “Remember, don’t just walk out from between the buildings. We need to make sure Quinn isn’t going to see us.”
They climbed the stairs, with Heath ahead of her. He had offered to hold onto her hand, but her stubbornness refused his help. He waited at the top for her, and they walked between the buildings and cautiously peered both ways.
“There, that looks like a Fed vehicle driving toward the casino. It figures they wouldn’t walk over here.” She waited until the driver wouldn’t see them in the rearview mirror and crossed to the registration building. When she didn’t see the laundry, she walked inside.
“Where is housekeeping?” she asked.
“It’s that building where the pool is. On the far end,” a male registration clerk said.
“Thank you.”
Dela led Heath over to the building in the middle of the parking area. Bypassing the pool entrance, she used the keycard to enter the end of the building which appeared to be where the laundry was done.
“What are you doing in here?” a small Hispanic woman asked.
“I asked security to have Tamara Dorsey meet us here,” Dela said.
The woman still had her hands on her hips but she nodded. “I took the call. Tamara is in that room.” Her head tipped to the right.
Dela walked to the room. The door was open. Two women sat at a table drinking sodas and talking.
“Tamara Dorsey?” Dela asked, walking in and taking a seat. Heath pulled out the chair next to her and sat.
“Are you the person who had me called in here?” a slender brunette asked.
“Yes. I’d like to know why you trashed my room, number two-eleven, this morning?”
Tamara’s eyes widened and she set her can of soda down with a clunk.
The other woman leaned away from her. “What have you done?” It was at that moment that Dela realized the two must be related. They had the same shaped face and eyes. The second woman appeared older. Mother and daughter?
“I didn’t take anything. I was asked to make it look like someone was looking for something.” Tamara faced the other woman. “Mom, I couldn’t pass up two hundred dollars just to mess up a room.”
“Is that illegal?” her mom asked. “Will she go to jail?”
Dela shrugged. “I’m the one who has to press charges. If she can tell me who asked her to mess up my room, I won’t say a thing.” She studied Tamara. “Who paid you to do it?”
Tamara glanced at her mom, then at the open door. She shrugged. “It was Mr. Benedict. He said it was a joke he was playing on someone.”
Dela leaned back. “Mr. Benedict told you to toss room two-eleven?”
“Yes.”
“How did he know that you cleaned my room?” Dela decided she needed to dig deeper into the man whose son was missing.
Tamara shrugged. “I don’t know. He came up to me this morning when I rolled the cart out of the elevator. He asked me if I was cleaning room two-eleven. I said, if the guest wasn’t in, yes. He laughed and said, here’s two hundred to play a joke on my friend. And told me to make a mess of things like I was looking for something. And not to tell anyone.” She peered at Dela from under her fake lashes. “Will you tell him I told you?”
There wasn’t a trace of fear. The man must not have threatened her if she told someone, just not to say anything.
“I won’t tell him but don’t do that again. Or if someone approaches you with a tale like that, go to security and they can determine if the person in the room is really a friend of the joker.”
Tamara nodded. “Do I have to give the money back?”
“No. He shouldn’t have put you in this position.” Dela stood. “Thank you for talking with me.”
Heath stopped when they stood outside the building. “What was he trying to do having that girl mess up your room?”
“I think he is trying to scare or intimidate me.” She went on to tell him how she separated him from his wife the night before when he had a hurtful grip on her arm.
“He also didn’t like me mentioning the ransom note to Felicity last night. He’s a bully and I won’t let him get to me.” Dela said, noting the security ATV coming their direction.
Sherman stopped the vehicle beside them. “Hop on. Special Agent Pierce sent me to retrieve you.”
“Oh joy,” Dela said sarcastically and waited for Heath to climb into the back seat before she sat beside Sherman.
“He was upset you weren’t at your room when he got there and no one seemed to know where you were.” Sherman studied her as he drove through the parking lot.
“That’s because I didn’t want him to know where I was. How did you know where to find me?”
“Oscar said he saw you enter the laundry building.” Sherman glanced at her again. “What were you doing there?”
“Talking to someone.” Dela met Heath’s gaze over her shoulder. She didn’t know who to trust, now believing that the head of security knew what was happening this weekend and the second in command's disinterest in finding a kidnapper and a killer.
“Is it someone we need to be aware of?” Sherman asked.
“No. It was a dead end.”
Sherman parked the ATV behind the building at the door where she and Heath had exited. Preferring not to let anyone, other than the young man who gave her the keycard, know she had it, she waited for Sherman to unlock the door.
He motioned for her and Heath to go first. Quinn and another agent stood in the room facing the door.
“Why weren’t you at your room when I arrived?” Quinn asked.
“Because I was chasing down leads with Heath.” She crossed her arms and planted her feet.
“He has no jurisdiction here.” Quinn turned his attention to Heath. “Why are you here?”
“To give Dela support. She just lost a good friend,” Heath said in his soft, unassuming voice.
“I’m aware there has been a murder and kidnapping here. Which is why I think you should hand over the copy of the card you made, unless the person who ransacked your room has it.” Now Quinn crossed his arms and glared at her.
“The copy wasn’t in my room.” She noted his eyebrows rose as if he didn’t believe her.
“Where is the copy?” He held his hand toward her, palm up.
“I don’t know. We gave it to Trent to hide in case we wanted to look at it some more and today is his day off.” She shrugged.
Quinn stared at her and one side of his mouth went up. “Like hell you did. Did the person who trashed your room get the copy?”
“No. We discovered the whole event was a ruse paid for by Hugo Benedict. He told the person who did it that it was a joke he wanted to play on a friend. But I see it as a threat. He wanted to show me he had power.”
“And why would he be threatened by you?” Quinn asked.
Dela walked over to a chair and sat. How much did she tell a man she believed might have helped or organized the kidnapping?