Total pages in book: 181
Estimated words: 171979 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 573(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171979 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 573(@300wpm)
“No, that was not mentioned.” Justice’s voice could be heard in a growl.
“It’s not like it matters, anyway. Everything that could hold memory or data, I wiped clean once I brought it home. Anything I might’ve taken wasn’t worth taking to the scrapyard. They were older than me—” Valerie broke off, suddenly remembering something while she waited for Justice’s next life to regenerate. “There was a flash drive I found a while back, though. I had actually forgotten all about it. I bet it’s still in my stash of loose items I keep in the pot of a faux plant. It came with the desk, so when I got fired, I couldn’t take the plant and forgot I had hidden some stuff in there.”
“Where exactly did you find the flash drive?” he asked, sensing where this was going.
“On the floor … in someone’s office,” she finally admitted.
“So, you took it,” he corrected her, sighing, “Whose office was it?”
“Um … let me think …” Valerie shot down Justice, who was finally on his last life. She did another fist-bump in the air to celebrate. She was surprisingly on her game, considering she hadn’t been playing lately.
“Valkyrie!” Justice yelled. “Quit playing and think.”
“I think it was my boss’ office. Edmond’s …” As she said the name, it suddenly clicked with her that those charges were not only never going to be dropped, but they were never going to let her see the inside of a courtroom. To make it worse, she didn’t even have what they wanted, and she didn’t know how many people were involved for certain, past Gerard, until she got the part back.
“Justice, I have to go. Thanks for the game and the help! I have to go find Sal and get him to take me to the Horseshoe. I think I left it inside the potted plant on my desk. Love ya! Bye!”
“Valkyrie! Don’t go ye—”
She quickly turned off the game. She didn’t have the time to explain it to Justice, whether he sounded nervous for her or not.
She had only one mission: Find Salvatore.
TWENTY-THREE
ONCE IN A BLUE MOON
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Sal shot up from the chair in his office when the unannounced man barged in.
“Where’s Valerie?”
He was one second away from pulling his gun out to kill the man he had a high distaste for but thought better of it, considering Valerie still might need his services. “Kent, I understand you are representing her at the moment, but you can’t just barge in—”
“I don’t have time to explain,” Kent said, holding up his hand to silence him. “Now, where is Valerie? This is important.”
“She’s in my penthouse.” Sal felt safe enough to divulge that information because Kent didn’t know which one he lived in. The lawyer had only known this was his office because Sal took a meeting with him for personal reasons a little over six months ago.
He figured he must have heard about Lyle and Gerard and wanted to speak with Valerie, but he wasn’t sure why it couldn’t wait until morning, until he heard the worry in Kent’s voice.
“I need you to check—right now.”
Seeing just how serious the lawyer was, Sal sat back in his chair while biting down his fury, and pulled up the personal cameras in his penthouse. They were the only cameras he had access to in any of the penthouses on the top floor. Those cameras were all personally watched by their respective owners.
He flipped through them but didn’t find her. She might be in the bathroom, where no camera was placed, but when he rewound the footage a bit, he realized she had actually left the penthouse.
“She’s not there anymore, is she?” Kent asked gravely.
Sal shook his head, trying not to let the same worry overtake him just yet.
Quickly, he followed her tracks after leaving the penthouse, flipping through the camera viewpoints. Kent came up behind him to watch the screens, as well. Valerie had first come to his office, which made Sal’s heart sink even lower.
Kent hissed at him, “Where were you?”
“I caught someone cheating at one of the tables. I went down to the casino floor to make sure with my own eyes. Look.” Sal put a split screen of the two cameras in each of the elevators. When she hadn’t found Sal in his office, she had gone straight to the elevator. At the same moment that Valerie had entered one at the top floor of the Casino Hotel, Sal had entered one at the bottom after dealing with the situation, so they rode a different one side by side. Sal had only just returned to his office when Kent barged in a few minutes later.
“That’s why I couldn’t get on the elevator and had to wait so long. You both got in and must’ve done something to cause the elevator not to stop between floors.” Kent had still been staying in one of the hotel rooms for quite some time now.