and figure out how, when and where they were taken, so Dirk could do his best to prevent others from being snapped in the future.
Even though Juliana had lived her entire adult life in the public eye, attention that had become even more rabid when she married the King of Zakhar, Alana had never understood just how little privacy celebrities had these days until she’d gone to work for Dirk. Until she’d experienced firsthand what almost amounted to harassment when a photographer had lain in wait and snapped pictures of Alana, the twins and their nanny outside the ladies’ room of the restaurant Dirk had taken them to her first week on the job. And she’d quickly realized the steep price Dirk and his family paid—would always pay—for his superstardom.
The morning passed in a busy blur. When she’d first started her new job she’d been overwhelmed by the barrage of incoming data. But she had a system now, so she quickly dealt with the backlog of fan communication, divvying them up into her little “buckets.” Adoring. Begging. Threatening. And the category that always made her laugh at how creative people could be: investment “opportunities.” Not a single one was anything other than a scam, but she’d shown a couple of them to Dirk to make him laugh, too.
Mostly the scam emails were deleted after reading the first couple of sentences, but not the threats. Dirk would have had Alana just delete them, too, but Mei-li had shaken her head, saying in her soft voice, “Don’t respond, but don’t delete. We need to keep a record, just in case...” And when the eyes of the two women had met, Alana had understood without another word being spoken.
Mei-li was a highly regarded private investigator and a ransom negotiator, and was unwaveringly protective of her beloved husband. She read every threatening communication, ranking them on a scale of one to five, with one being “no threat,” three being “credible threat,” and five being “imminent threat.” The “imminent threat” communications were turned over to the Hong Kong Police for investigation.
The begging requests were more problematic, because Dirk, Alana had soon learned, had a tender heart. Which meant another of Alana’s duties revolved around investigating the legitimacy of whatever the senders were asking Dirk to do. And on three separate occasions in the past month Dirk had quietly and without fanfare fulfilled a request—including sending money to the parents of a child with a severe form of spina bifida whose dying wish was to visit the Eiffel Tower, and a personal visit to the bedside of a longtime fan dying from cancer.
But the vast majority of the emails, tweets and posts were of the adoring variety. And Alana had a stock response she sent out on Dirk’s behalf, thanking the sender and promoting his latest movie, including links to positive reviews.
She’d just replied to the last email when Mei-li walked into the office. “Hannah said you needed to talk with me?”
It took Alana a moment to come out of the zone she’d been in. “Oh,” she said. “I wanted to ask you...” Her cheeks felt suddenly warm. “The man who rescued me last night. Do you know who he is?” When Mei-li didn’t immediately respond, Alana rushed to add, “You said he and the other men are with a group called RMM. I know you said they don’t look for thanks, but I...” She faltered. “I just wondered.”
An enigmatic expression crossed Mei-li’s face. “I know, but I can’t tell you.” She sat down in the chair in front of Alana’s desk. “I contacted RMM because they’re my last resort. But they operate in the shadows. And some of the things they do are illegal. Not bad, just illegal. So...”
Alana nodded. She wasn’t naive...not in that way anyway. She knew the difference. “Last night the driver and the man riding shotgun said I was abducted by members of a triad gang. That other women had disappeared in the same way, and they—RMM, I guess is what he meant—they’ve been after this gang for a couple of months. But...” She trailed off as another thought occurred to her, and she frowned. “How did they know where I was? I mean, I’m incredibly grateful someone figured it out and RMM rescued me, but...”
Mei-li’s lips quirked into a tiny smile. “Modern technology is wonderful...most of the time. You know those little lockets the twins wear, the ones with a picture of their mother?”
She wasn’t sure where the other woman was going with this. “Of course.”
“You probably thought they were a tad young for jewelry.”
“Well...yes,” she admitted. “But I just figured Dirk wanted the girls to know their mother loves them, even though she died when they were born.”
“You’re right, of course, but it’s more symbolic than you know. In Dirk’s mind Bree is protecting them from harm...but so is he. Those lockets contain tiny transmitters. Little beacons that can be remotely activated. The girls have worn them ever since they were rescued from their kidnappers. We were fortunate last time that they were sending Dirk pictures of his daughters that had been geotagged, but we can’t rely on that happening again.”
When Alana raised her brows in a question, Mei-li explained, “Geotagging just means the pictures have GPS coordinates embedded in them. Most people don’t realize this is enabled in their smartphones, and neither did the twins’ kidnappers. But that was a fluke. Dirk wanted to be sure we could track the girls if they’re kidnapped again, and the locket beacons were the best thing he and—that is, the best thing he could come up with.”
Alana wondered why Mei-li had hesitated, then said, “Okay, I get that. But...”
“But how did we know where you were?”
“Yes.”
“You carry the same beacon transmitter as the twins. Just as I do.”
Alana gawked at her. “What?”
Mei-li made a face. “I told Dirk he should tell you, but...”
“But what?”
“He didn’t tell you because he was afraid you’d think he was intruding on your privacy after he promised you he wouldn’t. And to be honest, he really didn’t think we’d need to activate it, so you’d never have to know.”
“Why didn’t he ask me? I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t have refused to carry something that would protect me.”
“I know, I know. But he didn’t know you when you first came to work for him, and he couldn’t take that chance. He’s hyper-concerned for the safety of everyone around him, not just his daughters. Not just me. And given what he suffered when Linden and Laurel were kidnapped, I can’t really blame him. I hope he never has to go through that again with anyone.”
“How...?”
Mei-li’s tiny smile returned. “Didn’t you ever wonder about the key fob on the key ring we gave you when you moved in last month? The one that looks like something you’d use to electronically open a car door...even though you don’t have a car here in Hong Kong?”
Alana opened her mouth, then closed it. She stared at the other woman for a moment before admitting, “I thought it was a key fob for one of the cars in the garage. Not that I would even think about driving here as a general rule, not where everyone drives on the opposite side of the street. But in an emergency...”
“They do operate as a car door key fob. But they also contain a transmitter beacon, which can be remotely as well as manually activated. They’re deliberately designed to look like something innocuous, so no one would suspect their true purpose. Even if the men who abducted you went through your
