An Offer You Can't Refuse by Sal Bianchi (best beach reads .txt) 📕

slid the keycard into the electronic reader. “The officer who came by earlier said he was here to take over. Oh, it’s not locked…”

She gasped as she pushed the door open and peered into the room, and I nearly did as well.

The entire suite had been ransacked. The mattress on the bed had been overturned, and there were clothes scattered all over the room as well. The drawers below the TV stand had been pulled out and emptied of their contents, and a small desk in the corner of the main room was lying on its side with papers and pens strewn around it.

“Oh my word,” the young woman gasped as she took in the state of the room. “I--I need to call my manager or the police.”

“Yeah, you should,” I muttered bitterly.

She nodded shakily before running from the room. As she did, I took another long look at the disaster in front of me. Someone had beaten us here.

Still, I couldn’t just give up. I stepped into the room and took a quick survey. It was a mess, but it didn’t seem like anything had been specifically destroyed or taken, though it was difficult to tell since we didn’t know what Ryan had in here to begin with.

“There’s no laptop anywhere,” I sighed in disappointment. I distinctly recalled seeing one the last time we were here, sitting on the same desk that was now overturned and broken on the floor.

“I don’t see anything useful either,” Jase replied. “Whoever did this must have been after the same thing we were.”

“Damn,” I muttered through clenched teeth. “I’m calling Flint. Ryan had his phone on him when we arrested him, right? The police should still have custody of it.”

I tapped my foot impatiently as I put the phone up to my ear and waited for Flint to pick up.

“Hello?” He answered on the fourth ring.

“Someone beat us to the hotel,” I explained without preamble. “They turned it upside down and took whatever was here. According to the receptionist, someone claiming to be a cop suddenly showed by to take over guard duties.”

“Someone really screwed up if that’s the case,” Flint grumbled. “I’ll call the station and figure out how the hell this happened.”

“On that thought,” I continued, “Do you know if the cops still have Ryan’s phone? That’ll be our best bet now.”

“They should,” Flint replied. “I can call to confirm, but it might be faster for you to head straight there and ask for yourselves.”

“We’ll do that then,” I replied before ending the call and turning to look at Jase. “We need to get to the police station ASAP.”

“We need to wait for the police first,” Jase replied. “We can’t exactly just leave after finding the crime scene like this.

“Damn,” I growled. “We don’t have time. Whoever was here beat us by just a few hours, according to the receptionist. We don’t have time to waste.”

“I know,” Jase sighed. “But we can’t just leave. At least I can’t. And it’s not like the police are going to hand over evidence to an independent private eye.”

I gritted my teeth as I realized that Jase was right. The clock was ticking, but we had no choice but to wait for the police to get here.

It felt like an eternity as we waited for the police to arrive, though it really wasn’t more than about ten minutes. Once they were here, I left Jase to handle the talking and trudged back down to the lobby of the hotel. It was infuriating to think that someone had swooped in and stolen our evidence from us at the last moment. I only hoped the same wouldn’t happen with the phone.

“Okay,” Jase declared as he joined me in the hotel lobby. “I’ve brought the police up to speed with everything that’s happened. I also talked to Flint. Apparently, he’s really mad about what happened and working with the police chief to figure out how this could have happened. He also said the cops confirmed they have the phone.”

“Good,” I replied with relief. At least we still had one piece of useful evidence. “Let’s go.”

I didn’t waste another moment before rushing through the entrance of the hotel and toward the car.

I had hardly closed the door before Jase took off at a fast speed away from the hotel. I hopped out of the car as soon as we made it to the station. The station was one of the biggest in Miami, and the inside was bustling with activity. A sleepy-looking police officer was sitting behind a desk in the lobby of the station, separated from the rest of the room by a thick pane of bullet-proof glass.

“Hello,” Jase greeted him. “I’m Agent Park with the SDCT. Our director just called a few minutes ago. We’re here to pick up a phone that belongs to a suspect in an ongoing case, Ryan Rothschild.”

“Just a minute,” the sleepy-looking officer replied before speaking into his radio and relaying Jase’s message.

“I’ll be right there,” a staticky voice on the radio replied. Someone about the response gave me pause, and I exchanged a concerned glance with Jase. A few minutes later, a frazzled-looking officer stepped through a door on the other end of the room and approached us.

“Agent Park?” he asked nervously. He looked tense, and I noticed he wasn’t carrying anything with him.

“Yes,” Jase replied. “What’s going on?”

“I’m Officer Warren,” the man introduced himself. “I’m afraid we have a bit of an issue. We can’t locate the piece of evidence you asked for.”

“What?” I exclaimed as I stepped toward the officer.

He fidgeted nervously as I glared at him.

“I’m not sure how it happened,” he explained. “It’s definitely recorded in our systems, so we had possession of it at one point. What most likely happened is that it was misplaced somewhere while it was being transported here. Ryan Rothschild was never actually here since he was taken straight to the hospital after being arrested. It’s unlikely, but it was probably improperly handled