Page 38 of Ravaged With You

“Not me hacking in,” he continues. “I can manage that even if it’s local. But how long it takes, if we need a team, and how long they store records are all open questions. Plus, are they storing on tape? Digitally? Transferring over wi-fi or coax cable or, oh, you know.”

I glance sideways at Red who, unlike me, does seem to know. “Can we unpack that a bit? Maybe slower? And with definitions?”

“Yeah. Sure. No prob.” Mario’s young, late-twenties, I’d guess, and has so much energy I’m already exhausted. “What exactly do you want me to run back over?”

“How do we know what kind of system? And what does it matter?”

“Right, gotcha. I can pull the plans and get some idea, but basically, that building is so old they might be on something ancient and, you know, wired.”

He says it like a curse, then pauses to run his fingers through thick brown hair tipped with bits of orange. “What I’m hoping is that the cameras talk to the network through wi-fi, because that’s gonna be the easiest to hack. And then I’m hoping the files are stored on disk, without any sort of overwrite protocol.”

“What’s that?”

This time, Red answers. “It’s what we do at the distillery. We don’t need years of surveillance. We only need to be able to look back if there’s an incident. So we overwrite our hard drives every ninety days.”

“Exactamundo,” Mario says, pointing a finger at me. “But none of that is a you problem. It’s a me problem. I do my job, then I ring you up and tell you if it’s good news or bad news. And if it’s bad, I’ll tell you how bad.”

I glance at Red, who nods. “The sooner you can get started, the happier we’ll be.”

“Renly says you two are a priority, so I’m calling this his wedding present and pushing you guys to the top of my pile. Well, except for some shit I have running in the background about some fucking human trafficking network. Those people are the worst kinds of monsters.”

“Human trafficking?”

It might be my imagination, but it sounds like Red’s throat has gone raw.

“Yeah, we did some work a while back for a monarch whose daughter had gotten trafficked. Nasty business, but we got her out. Since then, we’ve had our fingers in a few things, working with an EU task force. The situation’s depressing as shit, but it’s a solid high when we get a win, you know?”

Red only nods, and I have the impression that he knows more than he’d like to.

“Anyhow, I’ll ping you as soon as I have something. You’re looking for a woman with dark hair hanging with Mel anywhere in the hotel.”

“Right. But flag any woman you see him with.”

“Will do,” Mario says. “And I’ll search the exterior cams, too. There’s a rooftop pool and bar, both of which should have cameras, plus the valet area’s probably wired. The parking structure, elevators, presumably the floors. I think we’re going to luck out on this one,” he adds as Red and I stand.

“Yeah?” Red asks. “Why’s that?”

“Because Scott Lassiter was a prick,” Mario says.

“The previous owner,” I say.

“Right. He was time-sharing girls for fast fucks in the hotel rooms, pardon my French,” he adds to me. “But you gotta know he was filming every naughty thing that went on. That’s currency, too.”

“Blackmail,” I say, and Mario taps his nose.

“You may be right,” Red says. “I hope you are. And thanks.”

“Not a problem. To me, a job like this is better than a drawer full of Snickers.”

I manage a straight face when I say, “It looks like Ryan’s still busy. Can you tell him what we talked about?”

“Not a problem. He may be a while, anyway. He’s in with the new guy. Or maybe the borrowed guy. Not sure, honestly.”

“Yeah, what is the deal with that?” The question comes from behind me, and I turn to see Renly standing there. “He was setting up his desk earlier. I thought I’d offer him those tickets for the Moon Raiders red carpet premier, and you would’ve thought I’d ask him to scrub my toilets.”

“You still get free tickets?” Renly used to consult on action movies before coming full time to Stark Security.

He shrugs. “What can I say? They miss me.”