Brielle paused for a moment, sending him one emotion-laden look from under her lashes. “I think better when I’m moving and I need a bigger space. If you’re going to make me stay in a really small room, then I have to pace.”
“Doc says you’re not supposed to be up,” Dario intoned in his usual expressionless way.
“He did not.” Brielle glared at him. “You just make things up, the same as Elie.”
“This is not a really small room,” Val objected, looking around at the large suite. “You’re just trying to find a reason to go snooping around to find the mole. You’re not a detective.”
Emmanuelle sighed. “I think you’re just frustrated, Brielle. Do you want to talk it out? Does that help?”
Brielle swept her hair out of her eyes, wincing, turning away from them in the hopes that none of them saw that it still hurt like hell if she moved wrong. The shoulder and her temple weren’t really that bad, but if she raised her arm without thinking and then hit her temple like an idiot, pain ripped through her and not in a good way. Really, it was her insides that hurt the worst. Well, that and her thigh.
“It isn’t like I don’t have a suspect,” Brielle admitted and then instantly bit down hard on the side of her lower lip. She slapped her hand over her mouth. Stupid, stupid mistake.
Valentino turned around and Dario quit pretending to play with his phone. Not only did he stop pretending, he put it away. All the way away. In his pocket. His dark eyes had taken on the “look,” the one that scared her a little bit.
“What the fuck, Brielle,” Val snapped. “You have a suspect and you haven’t said a word? You don’t think sharing is a good idea?”
Brielle stepped away from Dario, crossing the room toward the nearest shadow, trying not to appear as if that was what she was doing. Dario seemed so menacing and Valentino didn’t look much better.
“I misspoke. Sheesh, you two. You look like you’re about to leap on me or something.” How to play this off? They might not be able to hear lies, although she suspected they could. They knew body language. They interrogated people all the time. Emmanuelle definitely could hear lies. “I’m used to finding information immediately. This is a huge puzzle. I can’t find a single link to the Santoro family with any employee here at the hotel. There are a lot of employees to go through, by the way.”
“You’re stalling,” Val accused.
Dario didn’t say anything. His soulless eyes didn’t leave her face. She felt like he could see right into her. She took another step closer to the shadow, so close she felt the pull on her.
“Brielle, don’t,” Emmanuelle whispered. “The doctor did say the wound inside wouldn’t hold. It’s too dangerous. We’re here to guard you, not hurt you. Why do you feel so threatened?”
Why did she? She knew they were there to protect her.
“Because she’s lying her little ass off, that’s why,” Dario said. “She does have a suspect and she doesn’t want to name him—or her.”
Dario was so right. She felt guilty and she knew the two men would be able to tell she was lying to them. Elie always knew. These men weren’t shadow riders, but they were like Elie, very perceptive.
“Why wouldn’t you want to tell us, Brielle?” Valentino asked. “We can’t keep you alive if we don’t have all the facts.”
She pounced on that. “That’s just it, Val. I don’t have any facts. I don’t have anything at all. No reason to be suspicious. I’m not going to chance naming an innocent person and be wrong. I’m an investigator. I deal in facts. I get suspicions and I follow those until I hit on trails that lead me to real facts. It’s the only reason I’m good at my job.”
There was a small silence. She knew her voice rang with truth because she was telling the absolute truth. She did have a suspect because the moment her fingers touched the keyboard, every instinct went in the direction of Stefano’s chef’s assistant. His name was Constantine Babell. He was forty-three years old, divorced and had lived in Chicago his entire life with the exception of the years he’d gone to culinary schools.
She’d tried every other employee she could input and her keyboard wanted her to go back to Babell. She followed him as far back as she could and there was no connection she could discover between Babell and the Santoro family. He had never been to New York. She couldn’t find that he’d ever been near organized crime in his life. She’d checked for weaknesses. Prostitutes. For the possibility that he had used any part of Santoro’s human trafficking operations. She’d checked his computer for porn. For any evidence he might be a pedophile. She’d found nothing.