Free Deep Desire: The Deep Series, Book 1 by Z.A. Maxfield

sir.” Donnelly looked around the room one last time. “Was the manuscript insured?”
    Adin felt a surge of irritation. He raked his hand through his untidy hair. “Of course it’s insured, but what difference does that make? You can insure the California coastline, but if an earthquake causes it to drop into the sea, it’s not like you can use the money to make a new one, is it?”
    “I understand you’re upset, sir,” said Donnelly quietly. “We’ll do everything in our power to help you, but this looks like this was done by professionals. I’m sorry. The police will be here shortly.”
    Adin thanked him. Later, he answered the questions of the LAPD. They were meticulous, and it seemed to take hours. Hotel security and the officers finally left him, conferring with each other on the way to the elevator. He watched as they got on and the doors closed behind them. He was about to shut his own door when a shape melted away from the wall down the hall. It proved to be Donte, who came to him, a question in his fine brown eyes.
    “What has happened?”
    “As if you didn’t know.” Adin entered his room, leaving the door propped open for Donte to enter behind him.
    “What do you mean?” Donte remained where he was.
    “All right. I’ll play along. The manuscript is gone . The least you could have done is leave my Bushmills alone. You should know better than anyone how much I’ll need it after I make the calls I have to make.”
    “Are you saying you think I did this?”
    Adin laughed out loud. “When you first came to the airplane bathroom, I thought, actor . You missed your calling. Or have you done that too? Oh, for heaven’s sake. Why are you still standing in the damned hallway?”
    “I cannot come in unless you invite me, Adin. You know this.”
    Adin rolled his eyes. “I’m past worrying about minutiae, Donte. You can drop the innocent act. I have to make some calls.”
    “I really, really cannot come in, Adin. Is there no one else who might have done this?”
    Adin froze. “Donte, don’t do this to me. The manuscript is gone, and if you have it… Well…maybe that’s not my best-case scenario, but it’s not my worst.” He spoke quietly. “But if you tell me you don’t have it, I swear by all that’s sacred, I’m going to be sick.”
    “I don’t have it,” confirmed Donte from the doorway, and from the pain in his eyes, Adin knew it to be true.
    Adin rushed to the bathroom and threw up. He washed his face and hands and rinsed his mouth, and only then did he recall that Donte was probably still in the hall, waiting. Adin got gooseflesh from cold that had nothing to do with the temperature.
    “Come in.” He wrapped his arms around himself to keep from shaking. “I’m sorry, Donte. I lost your journal.”
    Donte caught Adin by the shoulders. “It was stolen. It could have happened to any one of the people who have had it over the years. As I told you, it was stolen from me in the first place. Which is why I’ve been so desperate to get it back.”
    “How did someone steal it from you?”
    “Let’s just say I put my faith in the wrong man. I’ve regretted it for more than sixty years. Did it never occur to you that I wouldn’t have let that journal out of my possession if I’d had a choice?”
    Adin shook his head. “What happened?”
    “I lost all my possessions when the Germans marched on Paris in the Second World War. There was a man there I trusted, a café owner named Philippe, in whose care I left my things when I went to help some friends who were going into hiding. Jews weren’t the only minority scorned by the Third Reich. Two of my acquaintances were sent as criminal incorrigibles to Mauthausen, an Austrian concentration camp, and I believed I could get them back.” Donte sighed heavily. “After failing utterly, I came back to Paris to find that Philippe was collaborating in bed with a rather dashing SS officer, and all my things were gone. Sold or stolen or on