The Scam

by Janet Evanovich

  Once again, Trace was amazed with himself. The $2.6 million that he’d given back to Nick and Kate was a daring gamble, and it was already paying off. It was gratifying to know that his instincts bordered on clairvoyant and that his powers of persuasion were nearly irresistible.

  And he had to admit, he was looking forward to welcoming Kate Porter back into his life and enticing her into his lair. He had romantic plans for her, and he was sure she’d find those plans to be excruciatingly pleasurable.

  —

  The turquoise water was eighty degrees and clear at Kailua Beach. The stretch of sand was lined with multimillion-dollar homes, widely spaced apart and set back among tall, slender palms, flowering plumerias, and colorful hibiscus hedges.

  Nick had rented a plantation-style retreat with an ocean-facing veranda. He and Kate were hanging out on the porch, enjoying the view and sipping pomegranate iced tea. They were side by side on a thick-cushioned wicker chaise longue that was as big as a king-size bed.

  “I’m feeling lucky today,” Nick said, looking out at the surf. “Let’s go swimming.”

  “How does ‘lucky’ equate to swimming?”

  “You would put on a little bikini, and we’d go into the water together, and then I’d get even luckier.”

  “That’s a fantasy.”

  “True, but I plan to make it a reality.”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  “It’s inevitable. I always thought we’d eventually get together,” Nick said.

  “Well, so did I, but I imagined it would be in an interrogation room, a courtroom, or your jail cell.”

  “This is better.”

  “I suppose, but it was fun when I hit you with a bus.”

  “Yeah, and I enjoyed crashing into you with the armored car.” He moved close and kissed her just below her ear. “Thinking about it gets me feeling romantic.”

  “Listen, mister, there’s no romance.”

  “Okay,” he said, “no romance. Just hot, sweaty sex.”

  “No!”

  “Just a little.”

  “No.”

  “A kiss.”

  “Maybe a kiss.”

  His mouth found hers and some tongue got involved. It might have been Kate’s tongue that started it. Or it might have been his. It was definitely Nick who started the groping. Then again, she wasn’t far behind. His hand was under her shirt, cupped around a breast when a shadow fell over them.

  Kate looked up to see if a cloud was blocking the sun, and gasped when she saw that it was Lono Alika standing over them.

  “Mr. Alika,” Kate said. “What a nice surprise.”

  “Dis a bad time fo’ you?” Alika asked.

  “No, not at all,” Kate said, sitting up, rearranging her clothes. “We’re glad to see you.”

  “Da bruddah don’t look so happy.”

  “Maybe you could come back in an hour,” Nick said.

  “You tink it take dat long?” Alika asked.

  “Nick’s just kidding,” Kate said. “What have you heard about us?”

  “Good tings or yo’ face be buss’up already, yeah?” Alika sat down on the edge of the chaise. The wicker crackled under his enormous weight, but it held. “I’m in for two mil. When do we go to Macau?”

  “In two or three days,” Nick said. “I’ll make all of the arrangements and get in touch with you.”

  “One ting,” Alika said and held up one of his huge hands. “You see dis?”

  “That’s a big hand,” Nick said.

  “Look closah. You see da lines here?” He pointed to faint white scratches that crisscrossed the dark skin on the back of his hands, between the knuckles. “You know wat dat from?”

  “Breaking faces,” Kate said.

  “Dat’s right. Back in da day, I used to hammer a lot o’ faces, yeah? I’d get all kine o’ teeth stuck in my skin. Dat my old life.” Alika leaned close to them. “But I will do worse to you if I get screwed.”

  “We can’t guarantee that you won’t lose everything,” Nick said. “That’s up to you and your luck.”

  “I lose my money, dat’s okay,” Alika said. “You lose it, dat’s death. Fo’ you, fo’ sure.”

  The threat didn’t bother Kate. It reassured her that at least Alika would behave as they’d hoped and that maybe, barring any more bad luck, like Dumah showing up, Nick’s ballsy con would go exactly the way they’d planned.

  “Fine,” Kate said. “We’re in business.”

  —

  Nick and Kate spent the rest of the day and the next making all of the necessary financial and travel arrangements to get themselves, Lono Alika, Boyd Capwell, Billy Dee Snipes, and $15 million to Macau.

  On the morning of their third day in Hawaii, Nick and Kate met Alika in front of their private jet on the tarmac at Honolulu International Airport. Alika was in his usual tank top, board shorts, and flip-flops, as if he were heading out for another day at the beach instead of to a casino in Macau.

  “Ho, brah, dis is choice,” Alika said, referring to the plane.

  “The only way to fly,” Nick said.

  “I like yo’ style.” Alika climbed inside, grabbed two beers from the galley, and dropped himself into one of the big chairs. “I’m gonna chillax, dat okay witchu.”

  “Go for it,” Kate said.

  Once they were in the air, Alika washed down a pill with a bottle of beer. Kate assumed it was a sleeping pill, because thirty minutes and three beers later, he was out cold. Loudly snoring and farting his way across the Pacific.

  Kate and Nick moved to the rear stateroom, settled onto one of the couches, and watched three of Nick’s favorite movies: The Sting with Paul Newman and Robert Redford, The Thomas Crown Affair with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, and the original Ocean’s 11 with Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack.

  “I’m sensing a theme here,” Kate said when the movies were over.

  “Just getting myself in the mood.”

  “For what?”

  “For work.”

  —

  The plane arrived in Macau in the late afternoon of the following day. Two Rolls-Royces, one for Lono Alika and his enormous girth and one for Nick and Kate, were waiting at the airport to transport them the seven miles to Côte d’Argent.

  Natasha Ling greeted them in the lobby with the key cards to their eighth-floor rooms. Boyd and Billy Dee wouldn’t be arriving until later, so the games in the VIP suite wouldn’t be starting until the next day.

  “Two questions, yeah?” Alika said. “Where da women an’ where da buffet?”

  “We’re going to leave Mr. Alika in your very capable hands,” Nick said to Natasha.

  Natasha smiled politely and inclined her head. “Of course.”

  Kate couldn’t blame the hostess for going pale under her makeup. If Kate had been tasked with keeping Alika happy she would have handed in her employee name tag and taken the first plane off the island.

  Nick walked Kate to the elevator. “I’m going to the casino floor for some blackjack,” he said. “Would you like to join me?”

  Kate shook her head. “No. I’m going to my room to take a shower and do some paperwork.”

  “What paperwork?”

  “Our expense account, for one thing. Helicopters, private jumbo jets—”

  “It wasn’t a jumbo.”

  “You order expensive wines and caviar. You rent sports cars.”

  “You should be happy I’m not stealing them.”

  “And you buy me designer dresses that are too small. How am I going to explain all this to Jessup?”

  “They aren’t too small. They fit you perfectly, and you look amazing in them.”

  “Thank you, but that’s not the point.”

  “Of course it’s the point. You’re a distraction.”

  “Oh great. Oh joy.” Kate flapped her arms. “Now my role is reduced to being a distraction. That’s all I am in the grand scheme of our partnership.”

  “You’re more than just a distraction,
” Nick said.

  “Oh really? Like what?”

  He pulled her flat against him and kissed her. Their tongues touched, and Kate got a rush that rivaled the time she parachuted out of a rust-bucket plane in the middle of the night over Mount Athos.

  “This isn’t the time or the place for me to go into detail about what you mean to me,” Nick said. “So let’s keep it simple. You’re everything.”

  “Um, okay then,” Kate said, inching back, adjusting her shoulder purse. “G-g-good to know.”

  The elevator doors opened, and Kate stepped inside and pushed the button for the eighth floor.

  “Be careful what you put online or on paper,” Nick said. “I’m sure the instant we leave our rooms someone combs through them for information.”

  “Roger that.”

  The doors closed and Kate slumped against the wall of the elevator. Everything. Holy cow. He liked her. Maybe he even loved her. She was pretty sure she’d never been everything to anybody before. Maybe her father. Everything was big. She wasn’t sure if Nick was everything to her, but he was definitely a lot.

  Good thing she was such a badass, dedicated FBI agent or she might still be back there kissing Nick. Or worse, she might have dragged him into the elevator and pressed the hold button between floors. She looked around. Undoubtedly there were cameras, so good thing she didn’t have her way with Nick between floors. They would have ended up on YouTube. She’d never hear the end of that from Megan.

  She let herself into her suite and found that her bags had already been delivered. Nick had chosen blackjack as a way to unwind from a long flight. Kate opted for a run. She changed into a tank top, shorts, and running shoes and headed out.

  Dumah was still on protection assignment and was caught unprepared for her jog. He was forced to keep up with her in his Dolce & Gabbana suit and dress shoes. Kate didn’t make it any easier for him by running through the narrow, winding streets of the old town and up the grand staircase to the ruins of St. Paul’s Cathedral. A three-story sculpted stone façade was all that remained of the ancient cathedral and was the required selfie backdrop for every Macau tourist.

  She paused on the cobblestone plaza to look down at the tangled warren of European-style streets, the Forever 21 and Starbucks at the base of the grand staircase, and Dumah struggling up the steps. She smiled to herself as she jogged west across the plaza and up the much steeper steps to Mount Fortress.

  Kate ran alongside the ramparts that bordered the park, all that remained of the fortress that had protected Macau for centuries from invaders. Now the dormant cannons that lined the battlements were aimed south at the Grand Lisboa and the invading forces of greed, democracy, and Forever 21. She noticed that there wasn’t a single cannon pointed north anymore toward mainland China.

  She headed back down the steps as Dumah was coming up. He was out of breath, his fitted dress shirt drenched with sweat, his wrinkled jacket clinging to his damp back.

  He held up a hand to her. “Could we rest up for a minute?”

  “Sure.” She stood in front of him, bouncing in place to keep her heart rate up.

  “Thanks.” He leaned his back against one of the stone walls that were on either side of the steps.

  “You’re out of shape, Dumah.”

  “I’m a security guard. All I need are muscles and attitude. My work doesn’t usually involve chasing.”

  “I wasn’t running from you, I was jogging,” Kate said. “If I was running, I would have lost you long before we got to the grand staircase.”

  “I wish you had,” he said. “That was a lot of stairs.”

  “So what do you do when someone runs away from you?”

  “They don’t. I hit them or shoot them before they get the chance. Mostly I just need to look menacing.”

  “I suppose that’s enough to handle most people.”

  “But you’re not most people,” he said. “I’m still trying to figure out what you are.”

  “Catch up with me and maybe you’ll find out.” She started jogging down the stairs.

  He took a deep breath.

  “At least it’s downhill from here,” he said to himself and jogged after her.

  There was a fruit basket and fresh flowers on the coffee table when Kate returned from her run. The handwritten note stuck into the flower arrangement was from Evan Trace, inviting her to his penthouse for dinner in an hour. No mention of an invitation for Nick.

  Great. Just fanfreakingtastic. Dinner with the megalomaniacal pervert. She shoved her earbud transmitter into her ear and she could hear the din of the casino floor and people shouting in Chinese.

  “Do we still have money left?” she asked Nick.

  “I’m on a roll,” Nick replied. “I’m up seventy-five thousand.”

  “That’s a relief,” she said. “I have flowers and a dinner invitation from Trace. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Enjoy the meal,” he said. “But don’t take the seat next to the piranha pond.”

  —

  Kate showered and left the bathroom to stare at the clothes in her suitcase. She didn’t want to send the wrong message by looking too sexy. A dress was definitely off the table. She didn’t want to give Evan Trace an opportunity to slide his hand up her skirt.

  She pushed the earbud back into her ear and connected to Nick. “I don’t know what to wear,” she said to him.

  “Wear whatever feels comfortable. Go with your instincts.”

  “My instincts tell me full body armor, but I didn’t bring any.”

  “Definitely not the red dress,” Nick said. “I have erotic dreams about you in the red dress.”

  “I figured that one out on my own. I’m going with jeans and a T-shirt. I wish you were invited, too.”

  “I’ll be there,” Nick said. “You’ll just have to be my eyes, ears, and hot body.”

  “Are you referring to my attributes or yours?”

  “Yours, but I can see how that comment might have been confusing if you think I have a hot body, too.”

  “Now you’re blatantly fishing for compliments.”

  “More like testing the water.”

  Kate wriggled into the jeans. “Where are you?”

  “In my room,” he said. “I’ve got a platter and a bottle of wine coming up.”

  “Are Billy Dee and Boyd going to be listening in on my dinner when they arrive and power on their earbuds?”

  “Nope. I brought my clicker with me,” he said, referring to the remote control, disguised as a key fob, that he used to control their transmitters, muting some and keeping others live. “You don’t want too many voices in your head when you’re trying to think.”

  “I’m not sure I even want yours.”

  She pulled out a red blazer that was stuffed into the corner of her bag.

  “It would be there anyway, answering you when you ask yourself ‘What would Nick do in this situation?’ ”

  “I’d never ask myself that.”

  “You should when you’re conning someone,” he said. “I’d ask myself what you’d do if I was ever investigating something.”

  “Like that’ll ever happen.”

  She checked herself out in the mirror. Her blazer was slightly wrinkled, but that was how she liked it. The only way she could be more comfortable was if she had her Glock holstered on her belt.

  “Are you going to iron that jacket?” Nick asked.

  Kate narrowed her eyes. “Have you got a camera in here?”

  “Of course not. You swept the room for bugs already or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  He was right. She had a nifty device built into her iPhone protective case that detected bugs, audio or video, and it vibrated if it picked up any signal besides the unique one emitted by her earbuds.

  “I just know you, that’s all,” Nick said.

  “Then you’d know that I don’t own an iron and I’ve never used one, at least not for ironing.”

  “What have you used one
for?”

  “Hitting a guy. He was coming at me with a knife and it was the only weapon handy.”

  “Irons are also handy for removing wrinkles from clothes that you’ve rolled up instead of folding.”

  “That’s how we pack for an op in the military.”

  “Honey, this isn’t an op in the military,” Nick said.

  Kate blew out a sigh. “So sadly true.”

  She laced up a pair of running shoes and headed to the elevators.

  “Going silent,” she said. “Showtime.”

  The elevator doors opened, and she stepped inside, slid her key card into a slot, and pressed the button for the penthouse. When the elevator doors opened again, Evan Trace stood there to greet her.

  “Thank you so much for coming, Kate,” Trace said. “I was afraid you might not accept.”

  “Curiosity overwhelmed me.”

  “You and the cat.” Trace led her into the circular foyer that was lined with marble and lit by an enormous dragon-shaped chandelier.

  “I’m counting on ending up better than the cat did,” she said.

  “That’s a safe bet,” he said.

  “Never believe a casino owner who tells you that,” Nick said. It was like he was right there, hiding under Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak and whispering in her ear. “There’s no such thing as a safe bet.”

  The foyer opened onto a wide living room that, like in the penthouse in Las Vegas, opened onto a terrace with an amazing view and an infinity pool that seemed to spill out over the city. On a table in the center of the room was an intricately detailed architectural model.

  “I wanted to show you this.” Trace stepped up to the table and swept his hand over the model. “It’s the Côte d’Argent project that I’m building on the Cotai Strip.”

  A tiny neon sign atop the hotel tower model glowed with the words “Monde d’Argent.” Lights were lit up in many of the windows, and tiny cars moved on the streets to create an illusion of activity. What grabbed Kate’s attention were the actual flames that flickered from the water, in front of the casino mock-up.

  “What’s with the fire?” she asked.

  “I was looking for a striking, signature image for the resort so I hired some engineers to create a lake of fire, fed by hidden gas jets. Spectacular, isn’t it?”