by Carolina Mac
Travis finished his second plate of ribs and coleslaw and was working on his third beer, when Rudy opened the door to Sandra and her new potential victim.
“I have your seats ready for you, Miss Beauchamp. Could I have the name of your guest?”
Sandra beamed a smile down at Rudy. She towered over the short Italian by six inches at least. “This is Philip Wellston.”
“Welcome, Mr. Wellston, if you follow me I’ll introduce you to the other players.” Rudy pointed to the two reserved seats and introduced both players.
Wellston sat down in seat ten and stared across the table at Annie. “Are you sure we haven’t met before, Mrs. Powell?”
“It’s possible,” said Annie, “I meet a lot of people. What do you do for a living?”
“I’m an attorney in San Antonio.”
“Dave had an office in San Antonio—Powell and Associates, perhaps that’s where we met.”
“Or at Powell Corp. I’ve spent many hours in that impressive building,” he smiled. “Your building.”
“Me too,” said Annie with a giggle.
“Your blind.” Sandra spoke none too politely to Wellston.
Wellston tossed chips in for his blind and continued chatting. “I had the pleasure of doing a considerable amount of business with Jim Powell when he was at the helm.”
Annie inhaled a breath and wiped away the vestige of a tear. “Jim was my best friend,” she said in a whisper.
“But I thought…” Wellston paused thinking he was sticking his foot in it.
“You’re right, I was married to his son, but Jim and I were partners in an endeavor long before that.”
“Interesting, I didn’t realize.”
“I miss Jim every single day.” Annie peeked at her cards and said raise.
Jesse folded and watched the hand play out. He noted Sandra Beauchamp seemed to be mentally tallying up Phil Wellston’s chips—calculating what kind of a haul she’d be getting later.
There was noise in the lobby of the suite and Jesse turned his head to look. A lanky brunette had arrived with her date who seemed to be having trouble staying upright.
“I want to play poker,” he hollered. “I’ve got cash. Lots of cash.”
“No seats open right now, sir. Miss Singer, could you take your friend to your suite for a while until seats open up?”
“Sounds like a good idea, Rudy. I might need a hand with him.”
Rudy glanced at the bar and nodded. “Major Bristol, would you mind giving Miss Singer a moment of your time?”
“No problem.” Travis strode over from the bar. “Help you, Miss?”
“I need to get Ron back to his room. He needs to sleep.”
Ron crashed into the doorframe on the way into the corridor. “I don’t need to sleep. I want to play in the big, huge no limit game. I’m good for it.”
“You can play when you wake up, sir,” said Travis. “No seats open right now, anyways.”
Ron grumbled all the way down three floors in the elevator, and he kept it up along the long hallway to the room.
“Here we are,” said Amanda. She stuck the key card in the slot and opened the door.
Travis thought he got a strong whiff of weed from inside the room, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Thanks for your help, Travis,” said Amanda. She remembered him from the one other time he’d played with Annie. “Appreciate it.”
“No problem.”
When he returned to the poker suite, Annie and Jesse were cashing out. “You take over, Trav,” said Jesse. “Wake me up if you need backup.”
Shit, I don’t want to play in this high class fuckin game.
He leaned close to Annie at the cash cage. “Why don’t you keep playing and I’ll wait at the bar.”
“I’m tired, Travis. I need to sleep, and so does Jesse.”
What about me? I don’t need any sleep?
Annie pressed a wad of bills into his hand and gave him an icy stare. “Don’t lose her this time.”
Fuck you, girl.
Travis bought chips and sat in Annie’s vacant seat.
Rudy strolled over and said, “You all know Major Travis Bristol.”
A few of the regulars gave him a finger wave from across the table.
Still fuming from Annie’s words, he played like a man with his ass on fire and soon doubled his buy-in. As he stacked up more and more chips, he noticed Sandra Beauchamp’s interest in him growing by leaps and bounds.
“Where are you from, Major Bristol?” she asked in a honey sweet voice.
“San Angelo, Texas, ma’am,” he drawled.
“And you served your country, Travis?”
“Marines, ma’am. Helo recon.”
“Thank you for your service, Travis.”
“You’re welcome,” Travis mumbled and concentrated on his cards.
A half hour later, Sandra’s date had lost most of his chip stack and seemed ready to cash out. “I have an early tee-off time in the morning, Sandra. We should go soon.”
“A couple more hands and I’m ready,” she said.
Phil Wellston picked up his remaining chips and headed for the cash cage. “I’ll wait for you at the bar.”
Sandra’s face blushed pink as she watched him walk away from the table. “Rudy, bring me some racks, please,” she called out a little too loud.
That’s an angry woman. I better get ready to leave too.
JESSE FOLLOWED ANNIE downstairs to the suite. It had been an exhausting day for him and he desperately needed sleep. His heart health depended on routine—proper food, adequate rest, moderate exercise and the avoidance of stress. If any one thing got too far out of whack, the consequences could be life-threatening.
Annie tossed her purse on the bar and headed straight to the fridge. She popped the top on a can of Coors. “Want a beer, cowboy?”
“No thanks, Ace. I need sleep.”
“Want to sleep in my room?”
Jesse grinned. “Is that a trick question? Of course, I want to. You’re my wife and I love you—at least you were for a while—the ‘love you’ part is still true and always will be.”
Annie rounded the bar and wrapped her arms around him. “We will always love each other, Jesse. It’s just the way it is.”
He leaned down and kissed her. “I wish things were different, Ace.”
“I wish that every single day. More than ever now that you have that sweet baby girl. I’d give anything to be that baby’s mother.” Tears rolled down her face and Jesse brushed them away.
“Don’t cry, Ace. We tried, and it didn’t work out. You know better than anyone that it can’t work for us.”
TRAVIS LINED UP behind Sandra Beauchamp at the cash cage. She turned her head and smiled at him.
“Have a good night, Major Bristol?”
“Uh huh. Not too bad,” Travis tried to sound casual when in the real world he’d never had so much fuckin money in his hand at one time. More than a third of it was Annie’s and he wouldn’t be able to draw a calm breath until he gave it back to her.
“You were more aggressive tonight than the last time I saw you play,” she whispered close to his ear. “I like that in a man.”
Jesus, is this killer bitch coming on to me?
Philip Wellston stood at the door waiting politely for his date. Sandra cashed out, stuffed the wad of bills into her purse and rushed over to him. “Sorry to keep you waiting, but I kept getting good cards.”
“No problem,” his voice sounded strained. He pushed the door open and they disappeared into the corridor.
How the hell am I gonna keep track of her?
Travis entered the hallway and it was empty.
Should I go straight to Aria?
“I’ll get rid of this fuckin money first,” he mumbled to himself as he pushed the elevator button. He entered Annie’s suite silently and piled her buy-in money on the bar beside her purse.
“There you are, sugar. Are you on Sandra?”
&nb
sp; “Uh huh. I’m heading to the Aria now. I don’t know how I’m going to watch her when I don’t know the guy’s room number or anything.”
“I’ll go with you. I’ve got your back.”
Travis raised an eyebrow. “Is Jesse sleeping?”
She nodded. “He has to sleep.”
He pointed across the room at the bar. “I put your money by your purse.”
“Thanks. Hope you made a pile.”
Travis chuckled. “I can pay off my truck when I get home. It was my lucky night.”
Annie wadded up the money and stuffed it into her purse. She grabbed a jacket to cover her Beretta and shrugged it on as she headed for the door. “Let’s go.”
In the elevator, Travis asked, “Any clues on how to find them?”
“I tagged the lining of her purse. It should be easy.”
“Fantastic. I didn’t know you had that skill.”
“I have a lot of skills, mister. You only know about a few of them.”
“That could be true.”
“That is true.”
A lot of your skills, I can’t get out of my head.
Travis remained silent as he drove to the Aria and parked in the ramp. In the elevator he asked, “Where is she?”
Annie stared at her phone. “Looks like the pool. What do you think?” She showed Travis.
“Uh huh, the indoor pool. Isn’t it closed this time of night?”
Annie shrugged. “No idea. Let’s check it out.”
They tried the door to the pool on the fifth floor and it was locked. The hours were posted on a sign attached to the wall beside the door.
“Is she still beeping in there?” asked Travis.
“Not now, but she was just before we got here.”
“Shit, she’s gone. We better check anyway.” He picked up a courtesy phone and asked for security. “Ranger Travis Bristol on the fifth floor. I need security at the pool ASAP.”
Two minutes later the elevator chimed and two security officers in dark uniforms ran down the hall. “Problem, sir? Are you Ranger Bristol?”
Travis flashed his creds and one of the guards opened the door. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, we’ve got a floater.”
“Fuck,” hollered Travis. “Is it him?” The drowned man was fully clothed—suit, shoes—he hadn’t intended to go swimming.
“Who?” asked the guard. “Do you know this man?”
“Not sure. I can’t see his face. I’ll call Lieutenant Zystra in homicide, he’s my contact.”
TRAVIS CALLED it in, then called Jesse’s cell. No answer.
“You shouldn’t wake him, he needs his sleep,” said Annie.
“Yeah, but he’ll be pissed at me if something is going down and he doesn’t know about it.”
“I guess so,” said Annie. “I worry about his health.”
“We all do, but he wants to work. He insists on it.”
Travis plopped down at a table in the corner of the pool area to wait for first response. The air in the pool enclosure was humid, a little too warm and smelled strongly of chlorine.
Annie sat across from him and fiddled with her phone.
“Can you see where Sandra is now?”
“Nope, I can’t. What does that mean?”
“Don’t know. Pass your phone over here.”
Travis still hadn’t figured it out when the homicide Loot walked in with a couple of detectives in his wake, along with the medical examiner and two techs from the crime scene unit.
“Ranger Quantrall isn’t here?” Zystra asked.
“I called him, sir, but he hasn’t answered me yet.”
“Okay, let’s get started. I’ll need statements from both of you. I assume you are working together on this case?”
Annie nodded. “Yes, sir, we are.”
Zystra eyed Annie taking special note of her cleavage, “And you are?”
“Annie Powell. I’m undercover in the high stakes poker game.”
“The Annie Powell—as in Powell Corp? That’s kind of high, even for high stakes poker, isn’t it?”
Annie shrugged. “Doing my part, Lieutenant, that’s all I can tell you.”
“I don’t get it.” Zystra frowned as he pointed at the body being scooped out of the water. “Was that gentleman playing in the game tonight?”
“I haven’t seen his face,” said Annie, “but I believe he was with Sandra Beauchamp.”
“And where is that lady at this moment?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know. I do know she was staying in a comped suite on floor twenty at Caesars’. The same floor as me.”
“I’ll send someone over there right now.” He got up and gave orders to one of his detectives.
The other one, Detective Padgett, ambled over to take their statements.
DAWN WAS BREAKING over the mountains in the distance when Travis and Annie drove back to the hotel.
“Wonder if they brought Sandra in for questioning,” said Annie. “Should have been you guys.”
“But we’re not on our turf,” said Travis. “We’re lucky LVPD is cooperating with us.”
“Yeah, I guess cooperation is good, but I stay below the radar. I have my own methods.”
Travis grinned. “Your methods are a tiny bit more… basic and to the point. You might even say they were bordering on vigilante.”
“I don’t give a shit about legalities,” hollered Annie. “I get the job done, and that’s what I get paid for.”
“Do you even care if you get paid?”
“Nope. Do not. I’m all about justice.”
Travis stifled a chuckle and pressed the button for the twentieth floor. Outside her suite, he stuck the card in the slot and held the door open.
“You’re such a gentleman.” She tossed her purse on the sofa. “I’ll order breakfast and then we’ll sleep.”
“Together?”
“Shut up, Bristol.”
“Food and sleeping sound good to me,” said Travis. “I’ll check on Jesse.”
Travis opened the door to the second bedroom and Jesse was awake and sitting on the side of the bed. “You okay, boss?”
“Not okay, but I’m still breathing. Bring me up to speed.”
Travis related the events of the night.
“She killed another one?”
“Don’t know for sure if Sandra is the one, boss. Not her MO.” Travis frowned. “The others were lying peacefully dead in their hotel beds—they weren’t fuckin drowned.”
“Wonder why she took him to the pool area?”
“When we left the scene, homicide was on their way here, to our hotel, to bring her in for questioning.”
“I’ll call the lieutenant later and see how that went.”
“Annie ordered breakfast for us,” said Travis. “Then I need to sleep until noon.”
CHAPTER SIX
NINE A.M. Blaine sat in Chief Calhoun’s office at DPS. The Chief took a sip from the Starbuck’s container Blaine had provided and shook his head. “Fisher took the bus to his home town and set fire to his house. Uh huh. Crazy is as crazy does—that’s something my wife says.”
“Could be, Chief, but Killeen PD put forward an all-out effort on the streets looking for him right after the fire call came in, and they came up empty. If he was hiding out with an old friend or army buddy or something, we have no way of knowing. Only his brother is listed in his file.”
“Did Killeen use their K-9 Unit?” asked the Chief.
“They used Waco’s tracking dogs.”
“Was the bus terminal checked?” asked Blaine. “Maybe he took the bus to Killeen, then hopped back on and went… where?”
“The bus terminal was checked. Standard procedure. Along with the train station and every other method of transportation.”
“If he hitched a ride, we wouldn’t know,” said Blaine.
“Damn. I don’t know what to suggest.”
Blaine drained his coffee and tossed the container in the Chief’s waste basket. “I’m ru
nning out of ideas, but I have one sketchy one left to try.”
“Y’all will get him, Blacky. You always do. Don’t get down on yourself. Tenacity is your strong suit. Keep the faith.”
Despite the Chief trying to bolster his spirits, Blaine left headquarters in kind of a gray funk. He called Farrell before he revved up the big diesel. “Have you still got that shirt of Fisher’s stashed somewhere?”
“Yeah, sure, boss. It’s in the duffel with the rest of the dog’s stuff in the back of my truck.”
“Meet me at Misty’s and make sure you bring it with you.”
“Half an hour.”
“MARY HAD a…” A man sat down in the seat next to him on the bus and Zach stopped singing. He had too much to think about and didn’t feel like talking to a stranger. He turned his head and stared out the window all the way back to Austin.
The bus pulled into the terminal at noon and all the passengers got off. People met them and gave them hugs and Zach watched. A sad feeling overtook him, and he missed Mary more at that moment than ever before.
I’m sad that you’re dead, Mary.
He trudged away from the terminal fighting back the tears burning behind his eyes.
I want to go home.
The Amoco station came into view two blocks ahead and he could see the pay phone in the corner of the lot. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of change. Yep, he had lots of quarters for a phone call.
A kid with a skateboard was using the phone when he got there, and he had to wait a couple of minutes. When it was his turn, he put the money in, then took Doctor McIntyre’s card out of his shoe and punched in the number.
“I want to come home, Doc.”
“Zach, is that you?”
“It’s me.”
“Thank God. Oh, Zach, I’ve been so worried. Tell me where you are, and I’ll come and get you.”
JESSE CALLED Tyler to check on Charity as soon as he was showered and dressed.
“She’s fine, Jesse. Stop worrying. You have something more pressing to worry about.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“That Alexa girl called again. She ain’t giving up on you.”
“Shit. I didn’t like her that much.”
“When you get back, you better make it clear.”
