shook his head. “Real mature, Sam. And accurate. Our mission parameters have changed. We were charged with bringing in Diego Marcos, but now we’ve got a second target. Marcos has a brother, who operates as his right-hand man.”
“Would that be Santiago Marcos?” Maybe Maddie had it wrong. Maybe she wasn’t planning to shoot the wedding of a notorious drug dealer who, according to her, had invited his equally notorious younger brother to the celebration.
Gray eyed him. “Are you psychic? Or is there something else we need to know about? Levi already mentioned that you hit a snag earlier today.”
Maddie was definitely a complication. A beautiful, very alluring complication.
“We had a resort guest up on the hillside lookout spot.” The place had some froufrou name like Lovers Lookout. He didn’t think Gray needed to know that, or that the spot apparently starred front and center in Maddie’s bridal portfolio. “She had a camera.”
Gray scrubbed a hand over his head. “How long was she up there? Did she shoot the Zodiacs coming in?”
Yeah, but that was only the first problem in a long list. “The guest is Madeline Holmes. She’s a blogger, one of those girls who hangs with Ashley.”
Ashley waved a hand. “Maddie runs Kiss and Tulle. She covers destination weddings, wedding favors, wedding cakes, wedding dresses. Last month her blog had over two hundred thousand unique visitors.”
“In other words, any noun that can be modified by the adjective wedding,” Levi interrupted. Mason was willing to bet that Levi wouldn’t recognize a wedding blog—or a wedding anything—if it bit him on the ass.
Ashley made a face. “Pretty much.”
“Well, today she was covering sunrises.” He had no idea why a bride would want to hike up a hill at dawn in her dress for a few photos, but far be it from him to judge. “And she set up her camera yesterday to do time-lapse photography.”
“She likes to vlog,” Ashley said with a sigh. “And live post.”
Whatever vlogging was, he’d bet it was a security risk because Ashley made another face.
Gray cursed. “Give me options.”
“I snagged her media card, but she claimed she’d already transferred her pictures over the resort’s Wi-Fi.”
Ashley leaned forward. “I’ve been monitoring traffic in and out, but she’ll likely keep copies on her laptop. Unfortunately, our resident wedding blogger has been experimenting with time-lapse photography. Even more unfortunately for us, her photos got picked up by a national travel site.”
Ashley flipped her tablet around, exhibiting a series of sunrise photographs shot over the pier. The first half dozen shots were harmless unless you had a thing against waves and pretty colors. The next-to-last picture, however, was a problem. It showed a Zodiac shooting through the opening in the reef and heading toward the dock. Mason had a bad feeling that if he zoomed in, he’d see Marcos’s bodyguards bouncing over the water in that Zodiac. Worse, there was no sign of the Zodiac tied up to the dock in the next and final frame. The boat had disappeared in the thirty minutes between shots.
Gray nodded slowly. “We need to see what else she got.”
“There’s more,” Mason said. “Maddie mentioned she was planning on shooting a wedding later this week and the bride’s and groom’s pictures are a match for Diego Marcos and Julieta Ortiz. She’s been emailing Julieta and she expected them to show up yesterday. She doesn’t know their real names, but she knows their faces.”
Gray pointed to Ashley. “Have the resort notify Maddie that the wedding has been canceled.”
Ashley nodded. “Got it.”
“She also mentioned Santiago,” Mason divulged. He relayed what she’d told him about Santiago coming to the island to attend his brother’s wedding. “What do we know about him, and do we have confirmation on his current whereabouts?”
“He could have been part of the advance team we took out. I’ll reach out to command and see what they’ve got for us. In the meantime, no one breaks cover until we’ve got a bead on where Santiago is currently. Mason, you stick by Maddie’s side. Use the time to find out exactly what she has—or doesn’t have—on her laptop and to re-verify the identities of the other guests on the island. Make sure no one slipped past us, because if Santiago is here, he knows that Diego isn’t and that’s a problem.”
“Smash and grab on the laptop?” Levi stepped up like he was ready to volunteer.
“Do I need to define undercover for you?” Gray crossed his arms over his chest. “You steal or break her laptop, and she’s got a problem that becomes our problem. How much crime do you think there is on a luxury private island? The first people she’s going to point a finger at will be staff.”
“We could bring her in,” Mason suggested reluctantly. “Interview her. Or ask US Customs to intercept her on her return trip.”
If Maddie had had her camera trained on the lagoon overnight, there was a very good chance she’d captured faces. Given what even amateur photo-editing software could do these days, leaving any images in Maddie’s hands was a security risk. Put it together with the rest of her vlogging and... Diego’s brother could connect the dots. Plus, if Santiago was here, Maddie could ID him, and he’d bet Santiago had come undercover if he’d come at all.
Gray nodded, apparently coming to the same conclusion. “Worst-case scenario, that works. The customs boys can seize her laptop and go over it, although she’ll be asking questions.”
“Okay, then, let’s go with plan A. I’ll find out what she’s got. If she’s got anything.” For some reason, he wanted to play nice. After all, he’d already scared her once, and she’d almost hyperventilated on the spot. She was a civilian, not collateral damage.
Ashley examined her fingernails. “She’s here for another week.”
Good to know the timeline.
“I’ll make sure she didn’t record anything.” If she had, Mason would wipe whatever device it was.
Gray frowned. “Be discreet, okay? Scrub her media and shadow her in case there’s any blowback from Diego’s people or Santiago.”
Levi whistled as the meeting broke up. “You just scored bodyguard duty. Enjoy.”
Playing bodyguard wasn’t exactly the worst job in the world. He was all for sticking as close as possible to Maddie—up to and including getting naked. No. Wait. Resist that thought, sailor.
Ashley rummaged in her bag. “I’m helping, too.”
“Really?” Levi smirked, and even Mason recognized condescension when it stared at him. “How are you going to do that?”
Ashley pointed to Mason. “Penis angle.” And then she pointed to herself. “Girlfriend angle.”
“You think Maddie’s going to make Mason her new boy toy?”
Mason punched Levi in the shoulder when his teammate snorted. Sure, he was an introvert and no flirt,
