"What is it?"
"There was a report of an accident the day of the regatta, but we knew that. What it says here is that the boat the boys were on had eight boys on board. But there is an interesting story here that said that there were, in fact, nine."
I frowned. “But it was a sailboat. If there had been a stowaway, surely someone would have noticed.”
"Exactly. Anyway, there was a crash. And the boys had to be rescued. One of those boys was, as we know, Lord Jameson. He was wearing his family's crest on a nylon vest.”
I pulled out my phone and pulled up the image I’d taken of the photo in Jameson’s office and then handed it to him. "Is this the one?”
He took my phone and nodded. "Yup. It's the same one. Okay, so, what it's saying is that he was found dressed, his face badly battered. One of the other boys identified him as Walter Jameson."
"Who was the other boy?" I asked. He took a moment to search the report.
East's breath whooshed out of his lungs. "Holy fuck."
"What?"
Since he wasn't saying anything, I dropped my box off my lap and went over to him. "What is it? Tell me."
He glanced up at me. "The lad that identified Walter Jameson was Marcus Van Linsted."
My stomach flipped. "Holy fucking shit. You're telling me Marcus Van Linsted identified Henry Warlow as Walter Jameson? Do you think he knew?"
"It's hard to tell. The only reason it was noted was because there was another witness, presently unnamed." He frowned. "It doesn't say who it was, it just says a young man on site to watch the regatta was the witness who declared that there was another passenger on the boat. But everyone else on board insisted that there were only eight of them."
"Okay, so someone's aware that there was another person on board that sailboat. Who was it?"
He scanned the photos that were in his hand. "I don't know. Check the other box over there."
They were all marked with the same date, and I pulled them out. There were several news clippings from the day of the regatta, and I looked through all of them. Most of them were inconsequential, the crowds, the boats… And then I stopped and frowned at one photo in particular. East leaned over. "What? What do you see?"
I pointed. "Okay, it's low light in here, but who does that look like to you?"
He leaned over me, and his scent immediately enveloped me, making me wish we'd stayed in bed that morning. He must have noted the sudden tension around me because he lifted his brow and smirked. "Is something wrong, Agent Kincade?"
"You just focus on what you're focusing on."
He gave me the devil’s own grin. "Yeah, okay, for now. But I have certain parts of Milan I want to show you desperately."
I laughed. "Is that what we're calling him now?"
"What, Agent Kincade? You're being lewd and suggestive. And I love every moment of it."
I shook my head. "Focus."
He leaned over me once more, and then he stopped suddenly. "That's Theroux."
I nodded. "Right? That looks just like him."
“Sure. He’s younger, but that's fucking Theroux."
“Christ. What does this mean?”
East’s voice was distracted. "Actually, hold on, hold on. There was one investigator, Mathias Tutone, who interviewed the witnesses. He pulled all the fingerprints from the boat that day just in case there was evidence of foul play. But then the crash was ruled accidental, the fingerprints were considered inconsequential and never matched up."
I pulled the fingerprint files out and scattered them. "All right, so we have fingerprints, but it will be impossible getting anyone on the boat to surrender theirs after thirty years. Van Linsted’s we have, but not the others.”
East grinned at me then. "Unless we figure that if Theroux is looking for Warlow, that means Warlow associates with thieves. And if he associates with thieves, he has probably been in trouble before. So his fingerprints would be on file.”
I stared at him. "I could fucking kiss you."
"Well, I'm game, because you are looking very, very sexy."
I laughed. "God, I love you so much."
"The feeling is mutual. And while I could, you know, make this day even more festive, I'd much rather show you the sites of Milan then spend the rest of the evening in the comforts of our own bed."
I grinned. "Yeah, I can get behind that plan." I held on to the fingerprints and the photos that we found. “We are this much closer to having him, East.”
He stood, closing up his box and ridding the table of all the files that we weren't taking. "I know. We make a hell of a team, don't we?"
"Yeah, we do." And I meant it. I’d thought that Denning and I made a great team because we had the same interests and worked at the same place, had the same career goals, but with East, this felt like a true partnership. The kind that lasted forever. And for the first time, that was something that I actually wanted.
East
Thankfully, we returned to the hotel without incident. We had Pietro as our security detail, but I’d also hired an invisible team that Nyla didn’t know about. Better safe than sorry. The lads were already trying to Facetime us before we even managed to close the door behind us. I liked that Nyla had already gotten used to my need to double-check security parameters before fully walking in, and she waited for me in the foyer while I ran all the checks to make sure that everything was good. Pietro was posted at the end of the hall. Two more were in the lobby, and the other six were somewhere close by.
My phone buzzing gave me a jolt, but I picked up nonetheless, and saw Bridge's face on my phone. "Oh, you look happy."
Drew and Ben crammed into the frame, making Bridge purse his lips. "Do you see what I'm dealing with?"
I had to laugh. "I'll just hook up and connect you to the laptop, and then we'll update you."
I quickly changed my setup and put the phone on my tripod as I connected it to my laptop, and Nyla dragged off her long sweater, tossing it on the back of the couch before she sat down next to me.
When I could see them in a better frame, I could see that Livy and Emma were there, too. I saw Amelia as well, so I could only assume that Telly was off camera somewhere. "Hey, loser."
“Hey, loser.” Telly popped into the frame and then stuck her tongue out at me.
I could only shake my head. "What's it like to be second place, Tells?" All I could hear was her laughter as she ran off camera. I heard another female voice too. Ah yes. Telly’s wife, Carmen. “Looks like a proper party.”
Bridge just rolled his eyes. “We all wanted to celebrate a weekend without you. Now, can we get to the matter at hand? What did you find?"
I glanced at Nyla. "You tell them."
"Okay, well, good news and bad news. We've found nothing big we can use right away. But we did find some fingerprints that were taken from the boat that crashed."
Telly popped into the frame, pushing Ben out of the way. "I can run them if you want. Just send me the files, and I'll get on that."
I nodded my thanks. “Actually, if you can first find a record of any possible arrests Henry Warlow might have had and pull his prints, then we can compare them to those found on the boat.”