The double doors opened automatically, and he stepped inside. The rhythmic, mind-numbing repetition of the slot machines hit him first. He pushed past his gut reaction to the grating noise and forced himself to settle into a place of stillness, a place of calm that allowed him to rise above the problem he was facing to see it from all angles. Knowing that even his entry could be traced back on video if he was to make his way into Woods and Sokolov’s inner circle, he made a show of looking around as if deciding where to go play. Days of studying floor plans and watching video from the rest of the team meant that he knew even minutia about the space—there was a floor vent twenty steps to his left and an ATM forty to his right. But it was important, for character and appearances, for this to seem as though it was his first visit.
He grabbed a beer at the bar, his first port of call. Though he had no real intention of drinking, the location was prime real estate, and from his position up against the solid wood, he could see the cage, check … the manager, check … and, there she was. His eyes glanced over to Amy at her table but went right back to looking at his beer.
Faulkner Woods, the casino manager, walked by with a purposeful stride. Staff asked him questions as he passed their stations. His answers were short at best and abrupt and curt at worst. It took two minutes to decide he didn’t like the guy. Five minutes after that he’d doubled-down on that opinion when he saw how Woods got handsy with the female staff. He slipped a hand around the waist of a server asking him a question and leaned his lips so close to the ears of both a dealer and a bartender when he spoke to them that he could swear there must be contact. Cabe noticed a couple of the women sidestep Woods, and Cabe wished he was there on a day off so he could teach the guy how you worked professionally alongside women.
Which was ironic, given he’d kissed Amy.
But she’d wanted him to.
And he’d wanted to.
And it was everything he’d expected.
No.
It was more than everything he’d expected.
But now he had a job to do.
Woods walked over to the back corner of the bar where three men were sitting in a booth. The lights were a little darker back there, casting it in shadows. Ten, fifteen, and then thirty minutes went by, Woods’s head seeming permanently tilted in deference the longer he sat there, his shoulders becoming ever more rounded. When he finally walked away, his face had the ashen hue of a man used to subservience.
When Woods was finally out of his line of sight, Cabe was able to make a positive ID on Sokolov as one of the men in the booth. Certain that he couldn’t spend much longer in a casino bar without actually playing a game or doing something as a cover, and hoping to hear what the men were saying, he contemplated approaching a pretty woman in a simple black dress who sat at the round wooden table in front of the booth, her back to Sokolov, and using the old chestnut, “Is this seat taken?”
He had a flicker of doubt about the strategy, but his sense of duty was stronger. If Amy happened to look up and see him, she’d realize it was his cover. Wouldn’t she? Either way, he needed to park his thoughts of the two of them. They were only muddying his concentration. Now it was time to do what was best for the op.
As Cabe was about to stand, Woods returned to the bar, heading straight toward him. “Anthony,” he said, leaning over the bar toward the bartender, “please set up Mr. Sokolov’s usual tray and have it sent to the Como private gaming room.”
Cabe ran through the Italian-named private suites that he’d reviewed from the floor plans and seen from the three-sixty video. They ran in alphabetical order. Amalfi and Bergamo to the left, Florence and Genoa to the right. “Private suite” was a bit of a misnomer. Though the general public wasn’t supposed to wander back to them, they were really just open-fronted booths partitioned from the casino by glass walls. He quickly made his way to the cage and requested fifty thousand dollars of chips, and made inquiries about where he might bet in a less public setting. Once he’d filled out the appropriate paperwork and the transaction had been cleared, he walked toward the private area and looked around for a moment, hoping to appear as if he had no clue what he was doing.
“Mr. Moss,” Woods said, hurrying up behind him. He’d outright ignored Cabe at the bar, but Cabe assumed he’d been now made aware of his sizable stack of chips. “I’m Faulkner Woods, manager of the casino. I understand you require a private table this evening.”
“I do,” Cabe said. “I’d like that one,” he said, pointing to Florence, right next door to Como.
Because watching was what he did best.
* * *
“Amy,” Six yelled, popping his head around the door of his office as she walked along the corridor to the conference room. “I need your opinion.”
She’d worked at the casino four out of the past five nights. She would be there again tomorrow, Saturday, but she wasn’t scheduled to be on tonight, for which she was eternally grateful. The late nights and long days were already catching up with her, and she was looking forward to a solid night’s sleep. Plus, Saturday was the peak night at the casino, which meant more customers she needed to get to know.
She was also more than thirty minutes early to meet Cabe.
“Sure thing,” she said. She liked the high energy that followed Six. It was the complete opposite of Cabe’s steady strength. “What do you need?”
Six spun his monitor. “Which of these do you like best?”
Incredibly, there were images of three small handheld bouquets on the screen. “Erm … these are for the wedding, right?”
“Yep, can’t decide which Lou will like best.”
“Well, shouldn’t you ask her? I mean … what color is her dress?”
Six looked confused. “White, right?”
Amy sat down on the chair opposite him. In so many ways, she admired the way he was taking responsibility for arranging the wedding, but she really wanted to meet his elusive bride-to-be. She’d done a little snooping about Louisa North, and from what she’d read, the extremely wealthy woman was a research prodigy whose drive to find a cure for Huntington’s disease had been fueled by her father’s death from it. “She could wear any color she wants. What’s her favorite color?”
“She wears a lot of that blue color, the same shade as that fancy jeweler.”
“Tiffany blue?” Amy asked.
Six put her words into the search bar on his computer and looked at the images. “Yeah. That color. She has clothes, and Chucks, and jewelry, and other shit in that color.”
Amy ran through all the things she’d consider if she was picking her own colors. “Is she having a bridesmaid? A maid or matron of honor?”
“Mac?” Six yelled, almost deafening her.
Mac wandered into Six’s office hugging a cup of coffee. “Do you have to be so loud?”
“Did Lou ask Delaney to get a specific-color dress for the wedding?”
Mac’s frown burrowed. “She probably mentioned it, but … you know…” He gestured something going in one ear and out the other.
“Can you check?” Six asked.
“For fuck’s sake,” Mac said, rolling his eyes. “Is this our life between now and November twenty-third? Inane questions about weddings? Is there any reason you can’t ask Lou? Never mind, I’ll call Delaney.”
He pulled out his phone. “Hey, Buttons, sorry to wake you.” Mac smiled as he listened to whatever she said. “Yeah, sweetheart, I’d have liked that too, but I had to be here early.”
Amy blushed at the suggestive tone of his voice.
“Listen, what color dress did Louisa tell you to get for the wedding?”
There was a pause.
“Got it. Thanks, babe. Go back to sleep.” Mac hung up the phone and slipped it back into his jeans pocket. “Black, with a Tiffany blue sash or ribbon or something around her waist.”
“Thanks, bro.” Six turned back to the flowers as Mac left the room. “None of these are Tiffany blue,” he said, looking to Amy.
>
“No,” she said, leaning forward. “They aren’t. But, see that white bouquet there? I bet the florist could add a ribbon around the stems in Tiffany blue. You could get a large one for Louisa, a smaller one for…” She searched for Mac’s girlfriend’s name but couldn’t think of it. “Buttons.”
Six laughed. “Delaney.”
“Yes, Delaney. Then have boutonnieres made for the men with a small ribbon the same color.”
“Shit. Do I have to wear those flower things in the buttonhole?”
Amy laughed. “It’s your wedding. I don’t think you have to do anything you don’t want to.”
Six looked across the desk, straight at her. His stare was oddly compelling, the whole Scandinavian god thing working for him. But he wasn’t Cabe. “You’re right. I don’t need to deal with this shit if I don’t want to. I was just going to wear a suit. I guess I should wear black.”
Amy nodded. “And if I can suggest, a Tiffany blue tie or pocket square or something.”
“Pocket square?”
“The handkerchief square that goes in the top left pocket of your jacket,” Cabe said from behind her. She’d recognize his voice anywhere. And it sent shivers through her. Cabe placed a hand on her shoulder and left it there for the briefest moment, but she felt the heat of it for much longer. “Morning, Ames.”
Ames. She loved the familiarity of it.
“For your apartment,” he said, placing a little cactus in an eggshell blue ceramic pot in front of her. She looked at it, then at Cabe. He’d noticed she had no plants in her new apartment and had done something about it. Her heart tripped over with happiness.
“Thank you,” she said, hoping her eyes conveyed the rest.
“You’re welcome.” He sat down in the chair next to hers. “Wedding stuff?”
Six nodded. “Ames was just helping me figure out bouquets.”
Cabe eyed Six as if his humor wearied him. “Good. One less thing I have to help you figure out. And yes, for the record, the Hotel del Coronado can do a wedding brunch for twenty on November twenty-third. I booked it with my credit card for now, so don’t change your mind.”
Six leaned back in his chair and grinned. “You know what, Cabe?” he said, placing his hands behind his head, a move that showed just how big his biceps were. “I’d be lost without you. I can’t help but think it’s going a little too smoothly. I’m beginning to worry we are forgetting something important.”
“You are so lucky it’s going so well. My cousin turned into a total bridezilla. She uninvited her maid of honor when she found out she’d be seven months pregnant on the day of her wedding,” Amy said. “Told her it would ruin the aesthetic of the wedding pictures.”
“Shit, we need a photographer,” Six said, and quickly made a note in his phone. “Lou’s going to hate that.”
“What if you just had a couple of candid photographers?” Amy suggested. “Nothing formal, just people who could capture moments as they unfold? Sometimes those shots can be better than anything staged. Those would be the kind of shots I’d prefer.”
She looked at Cabe, whom she could have sworn was studying her. She wondered what kind of wedding he would want. Not that they were anywhere even remotely close to that kind of conversation.
Six grinned. “That sounds perfect.”
“Let me take care of organizing that,” Cabe said. “We’ll just get whoever we hire to capture candids when Lou isn’t even looking. And if I deal with the photographer, it means the girly shit of decorating the room gets to be Mac’s job.”
Amy couldn’t help but laugh.
“I have news,” Cabe said finally. “About Eve Canallis. Noah sent me the SDPD report—with all the appropriate approvals of course.”
Six closed his laptop, and Amy leaned in his direction. “And?”
“There was a bunch of crap in there,” Cabe said as he continued to stare at her. “Her friend was right. She did have multiple viruses. But they managed to get it cleaned up while retaining much of the original data. And I think we have a lead.”
“What? Is there something on there about her plans?”
Cabe rubbed his fingers across his jaw. “Sort of. You have to triangulate, but it’s pretty clear. The first thing was, she’d been researching seasickness cures. Natural and chemical solutions. Plus, she’d placed an order for a pair of travel-sickness pressure-point bracelets.”
Amy leaned forward. “Did she have travel plans? Was she taking a cruise? Is she on vacation and just out of signal range?”
“According to the Department of Homeland Security, she hasn’t traveled anywhere on her passport, even though it was missing from her apartment.”
“Just spit it out,” Six said. He turned to Amy. “He’s been like this since we were little. He likes to lead into something, make it sound mysterious, then rain down some epic ending to the story so it sounds even more amazing than it really is.”
Cabe grabbed a paperclip off Six’s desk and threw it at him, hitting him square in the temple. “Okay, here’s the thing. Outside of cures for seasickness, she’d googled one other thing before she disappeared.” Cabe took his phone from his pocket and pulled something up on it. “She looked up whether offshore gambling was illegal, whether gambling in international water is legal, and whether card rules changed in international water. Are you catching a theme here?”
Amy’s pulse raced. Oh, my god. She was going offshore to gamble. “Who the hell was organizing that? Lucky Seven? Faulkner Woods? Sokolov?”
Cabe shook his head. “That’s something we are going to have to find out. But let’s play this out for a second. If there is an illegal syndicate gambling out on international waters, it’s the perfect foil for drug running, money laundering, or sex trafficking.”
“I hate the idea that sex trafficking is the reason women are going missing, but it’s the only explanation. If this was a serial killer, we’d have found a body by now. Their modus operandi is show-and-tell for the most part. Also, there is too much precision to the timing. Serial killers escalate. The duration between victims decreases. Plus, the fact that all the women are still missing says something.” Amy ran her fingers through her ponytail and gripped it tightly. It cleared her head.
“It’s a workable hypothesis that the women were handpicked to join the cruise and were invited to deal or serve there.” Cabe paused for a moment as the reality set in for both of them. “Perhaps they were promised extra shifts or extra money. Maybe they even worked their shift on the boat as normal but were never allowed to return home.”
Eve’s face and those of the other women flashed into Amy’s mind. “If there are offshore gambling games, I need to get picked to check them out. I need to be on the next boat.”
“In that case, so do I,” Cabe said.
CHAPTER NINE
By the way Woods was marching around in a mood that was as dark as his slate gray suit, something was happening in the casino—something important. Amy made a point to maintain eye contact with her guests, do her job, and maintain her count at the blackjack table, but when she could, she looked around, filing away critical pieces of information.
Like why had Edie, the server she’d met on her first night, taken a silver tray loaded with bottles of spirits through the employee door? At first, she’d considered the possibility of overstock, but then Edie had been followed by another server with mixers, and a third with bar snacks. People were convening behind the scenes, and she needed to know who.
There was a slim possibility that the drinks had been for some high rollers in private rooms, but then why would have Edie taken the circuitous route that involved locked doorways and corridors and passes when she could just as easily have taken them around the customer floor and walked straight in?
It was hard to believe that it had been only a week ago that she had started there. In that time, she’d managed to create and maintain the persona of a newcomer who was isolated and homesick. She’d also made about eight hundred dollars in
tips, which she intended to donate to a missing persons charity or maybe to a private effort to raise a reward for information if the FBI would let her. While she was still new, she should be able to get away with playing dumb and pretending to be a girl with no sense of direction. She intended to make the most of it.
In cultivating that part of her persona, she had started small, pretending to head in the wrong direction to the employee room, only to have Ortega turn her around and point her the other way. When she saw someone she’d gotten to know, she’d point in the direction in which she was walking and then ask the person if she was taking the right route to something she knew was at the other end of the casino. Word was getting around that the new kid couldn’t find her way out of a paper bag, and that suited her just fine.
First, however, she needed a reason to step off the floor. She began with a subtle, casual flapping of the collar of her uniform and a small sigh. After a while, she pressed the back of her hand to her forehead as if checking her own temperature. Then for effect, she gripped the edge of the poker table with both hands and allowed her head to drop forward.
“Are you okay, Amy?” Ortega asked.
She shook her head and tried for a wobbly smile. She leaned toward Ortega’s ear, as if embarrassed by what she had to say. “I feel dizzy,” she whispered. “It’s my own fault. I was running late, so I skipped dinner.”
Ortega called for Vanessa and asked her to take Amy’s place. “You,” he said, “go take a minute. Get some water. Swing by the kitchen and grab a snack. Do you need me to walk with you?”
“No, I got this. I’m so sorry.” Amy felt shitty lying to Ortega—an odd emotion, she knew, to feel, given that he could be, well, one of the bad guys. But he just didn’t feel to her like a bad guy.
Using her pass, she let herself back into the employee area. While the customer-accessible areas of the casino were richly decorated, saturated in hues of deep red and gold, the employee areas were much more subdued and had the user-friendliness of a rabbit burrow with corridors running in all directions from the offices where the finance and HR teams were situated to the kitchens and storage areas.
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