“In the end, although I let go of the girl he’d managed to chat up, and against Alexis’ advice, I signed him up. But I did as she’d suggested also, and brought his file to a lawyer, one of the big-shot types based out of LA, who was a client. Before I knew it, SSA Black here came calling, along with Fraser Soames, and someone else. Long story short, they kinda took over things here and we entered into an arrangement concerning the escort service. I was allowed to continue managing my client list, but they also started to monitor the activities of a few people who turned out to be people who could be doing big-time financial or other similar crimes. My client list had not included those types before…”

“And this target tomorrow? Why are you concerned about him? What’s the nature of his danger to Aerin’s friend?” Jack asked, interrupting Allegra.

“Because he’d told the girl that he’d started to ask for regularly that my initial rejection of him, based on someone’s analysis, still stung. And that he swore he’d find out one day who’d done the analysis that had soured me on him,” Allegra started to explain. “He said he didn’t blame me directly. He thought that the real culprit was whoever had done the analysis.”

I swallowed, and ventured a theory, “So when Annie started asking about her …”

Allegra nodded, “I thought that he could have been trying to find out about Alexis, through surrogates, especially since Annie had somehow managed to compile quite a bit of information already before coming to me.”

Her assistant spoke up, “I’m afraid I goofed a little, because I’d answered and kinda confirmed some of Annie’s guesses that Alexis had worked here.”

I expelled an angry breath out as I looked at the assistant sharply. To avoid shooting him another deadly glare, I looked up and stared at the far-away corner, at the darkened Limoges crystal chandelier. I continued to process everything that they’d been sharing about Harley and her time here.

“And now, you were just asking about her … so we naturally assumed that maybe this target was gathering other information about her,” SSA Black added.

I drew a breath in. This target was the real danger now, though. I steered the conversation, “So about the event tomorrow …”