Page 97 of When He Plays

“Champagne? Someone gifted Harper with a bottle of champagne?” They were still waiting on tox screen results on the recovered bottle from Ares’s place, and the docs at the hospital still hadn’t given Charlotte back her own test results. But, if Harper had been given a similar bottle…

Then we can all assume the champagne was the source of the drugs.

“That’s exactly what happened,” Jezebel told her. “A big, sealed bottle of champagne was taken to Harper.”

Charlotte’s grip tightened on Logan’s arm.

In her cool voice, Jezebel continued, “I am literally watching a feed of a slender, dark-haired Caucasian woman walk up to Harper Channing’s room with a bottle of champagne. She knocks on the door. Harper answers. Harper lets the other woman come inside.” Noise in the background. A man’s voice. Not Jamar. She knew he was the one who’d been tailing Pierre, so he was probably somewhere in the hotel she and Logan had just entered. Whoever was talking in the background with Jezebel had to be another operative. Then after a muffled response to the man, Jezebel told Charlotte, “Nothing happens after that. Five minutes of an empty hallway. Then the dark-haired female comes out, minus the champagne bottle.”

Slender, dark-haired… “Send me her picture.”

“We are running her photo through our database right now but, sure, here you go. Incoming.”

Charlotte’s phone beeped. She pulled the phone from her ear and peered down at the screen. “I know her.” Excitement sharpened her voice. “That’s Evelyn.”

“Evelyn Marteen,” Logan supplied as he stared down at the image on her phone’s screen. “What did she do?” Logan wanted to know.

“Delivered a bottle of champagne to Harper Channing,” Charlotte summed up.

“A drugged bottle?”

“I’d bet on that.” She pulled the phone back to her ear. “Did you hear Logan? The woman is Evelyn Marteen. She was the one who led me to the study at Ares’s place. The one who had the unopened champagne brought in to me.” The bottle had obviously been tampered with before it came into the study. “She was the one running the game with Ares.”

“They’ve been fucking for a while,” Logan murmured. “In case that’s relevant.”

She relayed that info to Jezebel. Definitely could be relevant. So Ares’s lover is helping him to subdue his victims?

“We’re going to launch a full search for her.” Jezebel’s immediate response. “This is close to a smoking gun. We have her delivering champagne to the victim. We have it on video. If you and Harper were both drugged because someone added a sedative to your drinks, then the proof will still be in the bottles. The bottle recovered from Ares’s study. The bottle from Harper’s hotel room.”

Evelyn certainly looked guilty, however…“We’re after a man,” Charlotte argued. “All of the profiles pointed to a male perpetrator.” But… “Evelyn could be helping her lover.” It wouldn’t be the first time that a duo killing team had been at work.

“It makes sense,” Jezebel mused. “A female accomplice would be one who could slide past the guard of the other vics. They wouldn’t be as vigilant when faced with her. She could seem like a friend, when all the while, her intent is to weaken them.” Then, as if talking to someone else, probably to the agent she’d addressed before, “I want her found. Call in local law enforcement. Get a team to rush over to the building Ares owns. Find Evelyn Marteen.”

Charlotte waited a beat. She was sure the agents near Jezebel were jumping to carry out her orders. “Jezebel?”

Jezebel’s throat cleared. Her focus seemed to shift back to Charlotte as she said, “We’ll get Evelyn to turn on her boss. Ares must have been the one getting her to make that delivery to Harper. This is what we needed.”

Was it? Would it be enough?

“I’ll have my team keep recovering and reviewing the video feeds. We’ll discover how Harper was taken out of that room, and we will find Evelyn.”

Unease slithered just beneath Charlotte’s skin. “We’re going to find Harper, too, right?”

“Yes, yes. We will find them both.” Rushed.

“Alive, though,” Charlotte clarified because this was a very important point for her. “We’re getting Harper back alive.”

No response from Jezebel.

That lack of response worried Charlotte. “Jez…”

“He keeps them a week.” Brisk. “That’s been his MO in the past.”

Logan’s watchful stare never left Charlotte’s face.

“But his MO is changing, isn’t it?” Charlotte understood the unspoken part. “By drugging us both. Two vics. Not one. That has never been the way he operated in the past. And if his MO is changing, she may not have a week.” In fact, Harper might not have any time at all. She could already be dead.

“The mission’s goal is to find him,” Jezebel reminded her. “Evelyn is the key right now. We get her. We make her roll on her boss.”