Cabe sighed, but it wasn’t one of frustration. She was right to put the brakes on. While he was certain that spending the night with Amy would have redefined the term “sin city,” he didn’t want there to be any regrets the morning after. And she was uncertain … not of their growing feelings, but of their timing. As was he.
“Fine, Ames. Put a note in your calendar for the night after the op is over. Hell, make it thirty-six hours long. I’m a guy with plans.”
Amy laughed. “So noted. And I’m a girl who needs a cold shower. Good night, Cabe.” With that, Amy turned down the corridor, that cute ass of hers swaying side to side.
Cabe stood exactly where he was until he saw the door to her room click shut. For a smart guy who was well read in just about every form of literature, he couldn’t think of a word to say.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The count at the blackjack table was plus two, and Amy, back at her table in San Diego, was relieved it was dropping steadily from the plus nine it had been only twenty minutes earlier. A run of picture cards had thankfully been put into the hands of amateur players who didn’t know whether to ask for more cards when the two in their hands added up to fourteen. Fourteen felt like such a long way from twenty-one, that they never realized that asking for another card only ever gave them a fifty-fifty chance of not going over. Most of the time they looked shocked when they did. Thankfully, the players had gotten greedy and asked for extra cards, landing a run of tens and nines.
It was the last hand she was going to deal that night, and she was ready to get home. Vegas had been a lot of fun, but thinking about the flight home yesterday, sitting so close to Cabe, had her wound up tighter than a banjo string. Occasionally, her hand would brush against his, or his knee would touch hers, all of which had left her frustrated. Sleep had taken a long time to come around last night.
Amy risked another glance toward the cage. It was her first day, and nobody was expecting her to solve the op in one shift. This was the long game. Her main goals were to fit in and get to know people, especially those who were familiar with the ins and outs of how the casino was run. Johnnie Ortega, the man who had interviewed her and the current pit boss, caught her eye and cast a reassuring look in her direction. During her break, he’d caught her lingering in the hallway near the main offices as she’d watched the comings and goings while pretending to sip a cup of coffee. She’d played it off as needing to stretch her legs, and Johnnie, who knew firsthand how hard it was to stand still as a dealer for hours on end, had been fine with it. He’d even taken a moment to let her know that he thought she was doing a great job and would be an asset to the casino.
“Hit me with another,” the gentleman in the ball cap said.
She looked at his cards. A four, a two, and a five. No matter what card was dealt, he wouldn’t go bust. Not on that hand. Quickly, she slid another card in his direction. A three. She grimaced internally. Valentina had warned her about amateur blackjack players chasing the Five Card Charlie and then expecting something incredible to happen once they got it—a reward only offered on online betting sites, where bonuses were paid out for staying under twenty-one with five cards. According to Valentina, amateur gamblers were the most likely to claim they were getting screwed when the casino didn’t come through.
The house had stuck at nineteen.
Woods, the manager, approached Ortega. Woods was tall and lean, with a slight slouch that made him appear shorter than he was. He placed his hand firmly on Ortega’s shoulder and leaned forward to whisper in his ear. Whatever he said made Ortega blanch. Woods tilted his head to one side and glared at Ortega, who nodded.
“I’ll take another,” the gentleman said, bringing her thoughts back to the table. Of course he would. She knew the card would take him over, though, before she even turned it to face him. “Nine of clubs,” she said, “brings you to twenty-three. House wins.”
“Darn it,” he said. “That was meant to be my lucky last bet before I fly home tomorrow.” He grinned at her as he flipped a five-dollar chip onto the table. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
As Valentina had taught her, she cleared the chips quickly. It was one o’clock, according to the small clock under the table. The casino didn’t close until two, but tables began to close toward the early hours as both patrons and card stacks dwindled. There were spaces at other tables that didn’t warrant her pulling another card stack together. Plus, it was always better to have lots of players at the same table. People tended to be more risk averse when they were alone with the dealer, even though they appreciated the one-on-one attention. When a group of men play against one another instead of against a pretty dealer for the house, ego always took over. Valentina had said that after all these years, she could smell the testosterone when it kicked in.
Amy ensured the players at her table settled themselves elsewhere, cleaned everything down, and made sure her chip tray was accounted for.
She made her way to the ladies’ changing room, where a number of girls were in various stages of getting ready to leave: dealers in the black-skirt-and-white-blouse uniform, bar staff in all black, and servers in black-with-gold vests. A small group sat chatting in the corner. Two women stood by their lockers, minding their own business, intent on getting out as quickly as possible.
As much as she naturally wanted to talk, introduce herself, and get to know these women, she didn’t engage in conversation. The women who were missing had been good at what they did, but hadn’t been the most popular, and had often kept to themselves.
She grabbed her sports bag from her locker. Many of the girls were simply changing out of their heels and into flats or sneakers, but since Amy was fully aware that the girls who had gone missing had worked here, she was not going down in a restrictive pencil skirt and an unnecessarily sexy white shirt if someone put her in his sights.
Since they had no idea what had happened to these women once they were abducted, she had to assume the worst. She changed into boyfriend jeans, which allowed her to move but were way more difficult to remove than yoga pants. On top, she went for workout attire: sports bra, T-shirt, and hoodie. Last, she put on sturdy sneakers in case she needed to run.
Because security insisted on checking their bags as they came in and went out to ensure that there was no criminal behavior such as theft of chips or having devices that could be used to commit fraud, it was impossible to bring in her firearm or any other weapon of significance. Fortunately, they’d allowed her to bring mace, which she now pulled from her bag before stuffing her uniform into it.
“Are you Amy?” asked a woman in a black suit and bright red heels. She appeared to be in her early fifties.
“I am,” Amy said, offering her hand.
The woman shook it. “I’m Elaine Dumont. I’m one of the day-shift pit bosses here at the casino, but the evening-shift assistant called in sick, so I offered to stay and provide cover. We’re thrilled to have you join us. Why don’t you let me introduce you to some of the other girls?”
If she was going to meet the girls, it was better that someone more senior in the organization introduce her rather than seeking it out herself.
“Oh, are you the new girl who left Vegas … why on earth would you do that to come here?” asked a young woman with a sharp bob in a bright red color.
Amy couldn’t help but smile. There were days she asked herself the same question.
“That’s Tanya, one of more recent hires. She’s been here four months,” Elaine said, rolling her eyes like a tired mom with a hyperactive child. “I thought we’d finally have a full roster, but then Eve Canallis left suddenly and we were back to being shorthanded.”
Lines appeared on Tanya’s brow. “I don’t get it,” she said. “She was a natural in the pit. Made good tips. And I get that she missed home, talked about her family and Cleveland like it was the center of the universe instead of The Mistake on the Lake, but seriously, why the disappearing act?”
Amy dec
ided to play dumb and curious. “Disappearing act?”
“She just didn’t show up for work the Friday before last,” Tanya offered helpfully. “No call, nothing.”
Another woman joined them. An older woman with thinning peroxide-blonde hair pulled up in a shellacked beehive got up from the bench she’d been sitting on. She was wearing a server’s uniform. “That girl just went home. Enough with the drama. I swear you watch too many mysteries, Tanya,” the woman said in a deep husky voice that suggested a lifelong smoking habit. She offered Amy her hand, and Amy took it. “Pleasure to meet you. I’m Edie.” Edie turned to face Tanya. “That girl followed that good-for-nothing boyfriend of hers here, but as soon as he took off, all she wanted to do was to save enough to get back to Cleveland. I’m happy for her.”
Amy wanted to ask so many questions. Who was the boyfriend? Where did he take off to? What was the nature of their falling out? But she didn’t want to draw attention to herself on her very first shift. Not if she was going to be here for the long term. She needed to play it cool despite the urgency tugging away at her mind.
She wondered where the police were at with searching through Eve’s laptop. If Eve was on social media, she would have posted something online as soon as she’d made plans to leave. It would be a simple matter to check her name, find her parents’ address, and see if she’d arrived back home. Surely the SDPD could let them know if she’d been reported missing. Maybe they could get ahead of the investigation if the girl was missing but nobody had reported it yet.
There were at least two traits Eve shared with the missing women. The first was being new-ish to town with no immediate support network. It was easier to take a person when nobody was looking out for them. Which was yet one more reason she couldn’t get involved with Cabe or even write it into the script. Even if they tried to hide it, there was always a risk someone would see them together. She was a great undercover operative, but as a woman, would she really be able to hide any developing feelings from those around her? As soon as anybody even suspected she had a boyfriend, the kind of boyfriend who would report a girl missing within hours of a disappearance, her potential as a target disappeared.
The second trait was homesickness. It was easy enough for anybody to imagine a super-homesick person leaving to go back. And if that person had been pretty isolated, with few new friends, nobody would think to call the police because the obvious explanation for the woman’s disappearance would seem to be that she’d simply left. Playing into it, Amy came up with a plan. “I guess I understand why Eve left then,” she said to Edie. “I miss my family back in Vegas.” It was the truth. After seeing them over the weekend, she missed them even more. “I’m sorry Eve left you in the lurch, but this vacancy really saved my bacon,” she said as she picked her sports bag up and threw it over her shoulder. “Eve’s loss is my rent.”
She took the few steps out of the casino, and counted the seconds until she could get on the phone, ask for an update on the data search of Eve Canallis’s laptop, and begin to look for Eve’s boyfriend.
* * *
“Well, don’t you look all GQ,” Six said as Cabe walked into the conference room two days later.
“Ha fucking ha,” Cabe responded, pulling his white shirt cuffs so they showed a little under the edges of the sleeves of his black jacket. He spun the compass rim of his watch that Jess had bought and hidden from him before both of them left on tour. Discovering it nearly a year to the day after her death, when he’d finally decided to clear out her side of the closet, had reduced him to a shell. Clearly, she’d meant it to be his wedding present. He’d gone to work, put one foot in front of the other, but he had no recollection of that time other than the gaping hollow feeling in his gut. At night, he’d held the watch in his hand, spinning it around and around, pausing every now and then to look at the inscription: To Cabe. IOU forever. Jess x.
It was one of those things she’d always said. He’d fixed the dripping faucet in her apartment when they’d first started dating, and she’d told him that she would owe him forever because she could finally have a good night’s sleep. When he’d showed up with his friend’s tow truck on the day her car broke down twenty miles outside of San Diego on the way back from a girls’ weekend in L.A., she’d again said, “I owe you forever”—this time with a smile and a glint in her eye that said she’d thank him in bed later. And when he’d proposed, she’d said she didn’t have an engagement gift for him, that she’d just have to owe him forever instead.
“Ignore Six. You brush up well, dude,” Mac said just as floor plans were projected onto the wall.
In truth, for all the years he’d worn a uniform, he liked wearing civilian clothes. Dressier ones than the usual jeans and polo shirt. It was nice to dig them out of the closet and have a reason to wear them. Plus, it felt like a disguise. They’d decided that although Amy would have a fake identity, Cabe would keep his own, because it was possible that somebody from the military base would recognize Cabe in the casino. Thanks to Mac’s multimillionaire brother Lochlan, Cabe’s bank account had been temporarily padded, Between the FBI and CIA, he’d been provided cash to bankroll his gambling, but not the kind of money that would secure him a place at Sokolov’s table, should that ever become an option. Now, thanks to a significant loan from Lochlan, should anybody choose to check if he could afford to gamble with the big boys, he’d pass with flying colors.
Plus, there was no risk that Eagle’s government contracts would be uncovered. They were completely sealed.
The only difficult part was that they’d decided he should pretend to be disenchanted with the military, and even, if necessary, support and perpetuate the allegations of Russian interference with the current military and political regime. The rest he’d play by ear.
“Harley and Lite are in the casino, sitting by the bar having a beer. Lite’s got an eye on Amy’s current position, which is here,” Mac said, pointing to a table not too far away from the cage. “He’s lost her a couple of times when she’s gone into the staff-only area for her break.”
It had bothered him to have to listen to what was going on up until now instead of actually being there, but they’d decided as a team that he shouldn’t make himself known at the casino on Amy’s first day. The live-stream video from the hidden cameras the guys carried wasn’t the best. It was often jerky, always moving, and at one point he’d begun to feel motion sickness watching them.
But he needed to know that place inside out before he stepped in there. “Harley’s completed a full three-sixty walk-around, taking in every point of entry and exit. Places to hide, places to fade into the background,” Six said.
Thanks to that effort, Cabe felt like he’d already been inside.
Now he couldn’t wait to get started, his usual patience feeling sorely stretched. But Mac had pointed out that arriving too early in the evening would have smacked of being a tourist or a gambling lightweight. He needed to play later, with the big boys.
His lessons with Amy’s father were about to be put to the test.
“You know the key guys,” Six said, going through photographs pinned to the wall of the main targets. “Pit boss, Johnnie Ortega. Casino manager, Faulkner Woods. His father Hemingway Woods is still moored in Monte Carlo on a yacht that is still bigger than my house.”
Cabe listened intently as Six went through the names. Repetition was the key to remembering, and he wasn’t going to take it for granted that he’d remember everything. There was a first time for his memory to let him down, and he didn’t want this case to be it.
“I’ll call just before I head in. Get an update,” he said, grabbing the keys to his rental car. Knowing where Amy was, knowing Lite’s eyes were on her for now, would help him resist the temptation to look for her so that he could focus on his own role. Which was the money, not the women. Although those lines of demarcation were starting to make him itch, just like the tape holding the wires of his microphone to his chest. They’d decided to wait on his wearing
an earpiece until Cabe was officially on the inside, so for now he’d be able to record information, but not be able to receive it. The feebs were taking care of hacking into the feed from the existing cameras installed in the casino, which of course heavily focused on the gaming floor, but the behind-the-scenes areas were still very much a mystery. And they needed a better sense of what happened back there from Amy before Eagle could break into the casino and place cameras where they needed them.
A small pen camera, held strategically in place in Cabe’s top pocket, was all they could rely on for now. It was small, discreet, and actually worked as a pen should anybody try it.
“I’ll check in after I’ve been there a few hours,” he said, heading out of the door.
As Cabe neared the casino, large lights appeared alongside the highway along with billboards declaring that a wild night of fun was just around the corner. He ran through his key objectives: to determine how and where the laundering was taking place; and to identify what, if any, involvement Faulkner Woods had in the illegal activity. There was a chance the man could just be running a shoddy ship, in which case his actions, while still illegal, were not criminal with intent. However, if there was a chance he was in on it and profiting from it, Faulkner Woods was going to end up in a world of hurt.
Cabe parked his car in the lot in front of the casino. Given the later hour, there were still an ungodly number of cars there. As he walked up to the front entrance, he took another look at the external security setup. There were cameras all over the front lot and aimed at the main entrance. Anybody who tried to sneak in through the front would be caught in a heartbeat.
The intel he’d been given claimed that the back door had only twenty percent of the coverage of the front, but he now wished he’d taken an extra moment to drive around the rear to confirm it.
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