Seven-Card Stud

by Ava Drake

  “That’s the optimal type of frequency for attracting sharks.”

  “Where did you say you do this research?” Oliver asked curiously.

  “We’re based over in Gibraltar.”

  “What kind of radios are you guys using to generate these signals?”

  “They’re pretty simple, just a small transmitter with a bunch of wires attached that send the signal out into the water.”

  Sonofabitch. “Do you guys keep track of the radios, by any chance? You know, count them and account for them routinely?”

  “Nah. They only cost a few bucks apiece. We’ve got a big box of them in the lab.”

  And he would lay odds the research team was down at least one radio. Either that, or he was having paranoid delusions. Somebody could easily have tampered with his board in the past week, while it had been sitting in the luggage closet at El Rocca. Someone could have planted a shark-attracting radio in the core of his surfboard and then repaired the hole, which would explain the ridge he’d felt on the bottom of it before.

  It was a far-fetched conspiracy theory. But was it any more far-fetched than poker players murdering each other? Or homicidal hookers? He was well-known in the poker community as a surfer. And his surfboard had been the only one in the luggage closet this morning when he’d gone in to fetch it.

  Temptation to head straight for the airport and take the first flight out of Gibraltar was high as he rode back toward the resort and its homicidal guests. The only thing that made him walk across that broad expanse of runway and hail a cab for El Rocca was Collin. Smart though the guy might be, and nosy as he might be about other peoples’ private lives, he was not up to taking on the worst of the worst in the gambling world alone.

  Chapter Nine

  COLLIN stepped out of the bathroom, a smile on his lips. But it faded as he saw he was alone in his hotel room. Perplexed, he looked around for a note or something to explain where Oliver had disappeared to. And then he realized the neoprene wet suit that had been hanging in the closet was gone. Ah. He’d gone surfing. Relieved not to have been included in that outing, Collin finished dressing and sat back down at his computer.

  A message had come in from Wild Cards, Inc. in his absence. It was the final psychological analysis of Oliver and his father. No surprise, the elder Elliot was a control freak who’d bullied his only son mercilessly until Oliver finally revolted. All in all, he was proud of Oliver for getting out from under his old man’s thumb—

  The door burst open behind Collin, and he jumped, turning to greet his lover. But the words died on his lips as a pair of burly men in dark suits loomed in the doorway.

  “You need to come with us, Mr. Callahan. Right now.”

  Shocked, he stood up. As he did so, he surreptitiously hit the emergency shutdown button on his laptop that would back him out of every program he was running and power down the system.

  “Bring the laptop too.”

  Uh-oh.

  As he scooped up his laptop, he shoved aside a stack of notes, conveniently covering up Oliver’s laptop, which still sat on the desk.

  Thinking fast, he followed the hotel security men out of the room. His hack must have been discovered and tracked back to him. If one of Wild Cards’ field operatives were to call in to him at HQ in a similar situation, what would his advice be? Claim to merely be engaging in a little snooping in an effort to get ahead in the tournament. Admit to the lesser crime—watching the secret tapes of other players playing—and distract his accusers from the larger crimes of reading private e-mails and watching the security camera feeds from the entire resort. Oh, and stay calm.

  Easier said than done.

  He was startled when the men led him out of the elevator on the ground floor and headed toward the rear exit of the resort. They weren’t going to take him somewhere and kill him, were they? Frantically he made a point of turning his face up toward every security camera they passed, to make sure a clear shot of him was left behind for Oliver to find. He prayed it wasn’t the only trail he left behind.

  The men slogged out onto the sand of the beach in their dress shoes, and Collin frowned, confused. Where were these guys taking him? If he didn’t know better, he would say they were heading for the marina. Sure enough, they crossed the sand and stepped up onto the wooden pier. He watched as one of the men punched a security code into a number pad and opened a steel-barred gate onto the dock itself.

  Were they planning to take him out to sea to dump his body? He knew all too well how fast hypothermia would claim him if these two didn’t strangle him first. There had to be a spot between a couple of boats where he could make a break for it, dive into the water, and then duck behind a boat for cover. Then what? Hang out in the water until he was too cold to swim for shore? Or make a swim for freedom that would take him the entire length of the broad beach to rocks barely visible in the distance before he could safely climb out of the water without being seen and shot?

  Maybe he could make his way into a boat unseen, hot-wire the engine, and make a getaway. That was probably his best bet. He eyed a cluster of small craft and gathered himself to jump off the—

  One of the men reached out to take his upper arm in a ham-sized fist. “Mr. Elliot wants to talk to you.”

  Oliver was out here on the dock? Confused, he looked around. Oliver hadn’t said anything about having access to a boat. And then his brain kicked in. The other Elliot wanted to talk to him. The one on the bigass boat. Crap.

  It was possible the thug meant Oliver was out here on the pier, but Collin had never really believed Oliver was actually spying on him. It had to be George Elliot having him dragged out here.

  Momentarily derailed from his plan, he realized with a start that they had passed by the cluster of likely boats for his escape. The only boat moored ahead of them now was the gigantic yacht, Erebus. So many questions swirled around in his head, he didn’t know where to start searching for answers.

  Two more burly men, these dressed in matching navy blue polo shirts and khaki slacks, met him at the gangplank and ushered him aboard the Erebus, leaving behind the hotel security men. Interesting. And alarming.

  “This way, Mr. Callahan.”

  To say the yacht was luxurious didn’t begin to do it justice. Highly varnished wood inlays lined the hallways, plush carpeting silenced his footsteps, and there was glass everywhere. Murano glass, cut crystal, and shining prisms throwing rainbows of light surrounded him. He was led to an office that Collin estimated was only halfway to the top deck, and still it was huge and spacious, with floor-to-ceiling tinted windows. The decor was Italianate, all whites and golds with incredibly intricate workmanship everywhere he looked—from the etched mirrors to the painted ceiling frescoes to the carved crystal desk accessories. The room dripped of limitless wealth.

  Okay, color him intimidated.

  He took a deep breath and sat down in the delicate chair in front of the empty desk. The stuff in here was just stuff. And it was clearly calculated to impress visitors. He gave the decorator credit for having achieved his or her goal, and then he set aside his initial reaction.

  He’d been brought to a beautiful office whose owner would likely take umbrage with blood being sprayed all over the place or the smells of death being released in here. That was good news, at least.

  The owner of the desk, presumably George Elliot, took his sweet time showing up. If the intent was to scare him, it had the opposite effect of giving him time to collect his wits and regain his equilibrium. When the door behind him finally opened, he intentionally did not crane his head around to look at whoever entered. Instead, he continued to gaze out to sea through the picture windows.

  A large man stepped into his field of vision and sat down at the desk. Collin’s first impression was that the delicate décor emphatically did not suit its gruff-looking owner.

  Collin focused on the man’s face and experienced an unpleasant jolt of recognition.

  “Mr. Callahan,” the man said accusingly, ob
viously trying to throw him off balance.

  Collin snorted mentally. Two could play that game. “Mr. Elliot,” he replied.

  George Elliot looked up sharply. Thought his identity was a deep, dark secret, did he? Hah.

  “You’ve been a naughty boy, Mr. Callahan.”

  Going on the attack, was he? Collin had been fully trained in various interrogation techniques and how to resist them all. “Indeed, I have,” he agreed readily.

  “Which infraction would you be referring to, specifically?” Elliot demanded.

  He shrugged. “You’re the one who had your thugs drag me aboard your boat. Obviously you have one in particular you want to talk about. So talk.” There. Collin had squarely taken the initiative away from Elliot.

  Oliver’s father scowled darkly. The surfer must take most of his looks from his mother, for George had dark eyes, dark, thick hair, and the bronze complexion of his Greek heritage. Oliver’s features were more finely drawn than this man’s heavier ones.

  Silence stretched out between them as George glared and Collin stared back impassively. Ah, the uncomfortable silence gambit. See if Collin would blurt out something in order to break the rising tension. That would be a solid no. It could get as awkward in here as ol’ George could stand.

  The silence went on for upwards of three minutes. Collin never looked away from his host and possible captor, never flinched, never let his face register anything other than bland disinterest. It was a fascinating exercise watching the various emotions and thoughts flicker across Elliot’s face. The guy was good, but not anywhere near as accomplished as his poker-playing son at hiding his interior thoughts and feelings. It didn’t hurt that Collin had spent most of the past two weeks studying professional poker players, all of whom were excellent at disguising or outright not revealing anything about themselves.

  Collin occupied himself by reviewing everything he knew about George Elliot from the Wild Cards dossier. It was hard to believe this formidable man in front of him had a small penis and insecurity about his masculinity, but the source of that particular detail had been rated as impeccable. Must have been a former mistress or escort talking out of turn.

  Finally Elliot broke the silence. “My men tell me you broke into El Rocca’s computer and stole certain videos you shouldn’t have.”

  Computer. Videos. The word choices signaled someone not particularly tech savvy. “That’s correct,” he answered.

  Elliot seemed startled by his ready admission. “Why? What were you trying to accomplish?”

  “I’m here to win the tournament. Isn’t that why everybody’s here?” He was happy to answer a question with a question. The tactic often threw off inexperienced interrogators.

  “How did breaking into the computer help you win?”

  There it was. The genuine curiosity of a man who’d been derailed from his original line of questioning. A good interrogator never asked a question he didn’t already know the answer to. Or at least most of the answer.

  Collin leaned back in his chair and tucked his thumbs in his pants pockets, letting his arms hang loosely, signaling with his body language that he was entirely comfortable having this conversation. It wasn’t how he felt at all, of course.

  “Being able to study how my opponents play when they’ve got various hold-card combinations is invaluable in helping me spot their tells, in knowing when they bluff, and how they give away their bluffs. I’ve shot up in the rankings as a result.” Truth be told, it was Oliver’s tutoring that had allowed him to move up in the chip standings, but George didn’t need to know that.

  “I should throw you out of the tournament for cheating.”

  Should. The key word there. The guy wasn’t planning to toss him out. Which meant Elliot probably also wasn’t planning to kill him. A huge weight lifted off Collin’s chest.

  Collin asked gently, “But isn’t cheating the point of this tournament?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Elliot demanded.

  Didn’t like being transparent to anyone, and certainly not to some upstart unknown, apparently. Collin leaned forward, idly fiddling with a crystal inkwell on the desk, turning it sideways before withdrawing his hand. It was an invasion of Elliot’s territory to do so. Collin started a mental clock on how long it would take the guy to put the inkwell back.

  Three. Four. Five. Six seconds for the man to reach out and turn the inkwell back to its original position. Control issues. A tendency toward obsessive-compulsiveness.

  “What do you mean, cheating is the point?” Elliot demanded, rather like a man who knew he’d lost control of this conversation.

  Collin shrugged. “You tell me. You’re the one who invited hustlers and criminals to your game. Obviously, you expected them to behave badly. Compared to some of your players, my garden-variety hack to look at footage of game play is a very minor infraction, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes. I do. And that’s why I’m going to let you continue in the tournament. For a price.”

  Collin let his right eyebrow rise questioningly.

  “As you may know, my son is playing in this tournament as well.”

  Interesting. Elliot didn’t know that Oliver was Collin’s lover, then.

  “I have big plans for him,” George announced.

  Oh Lord. The man thought he was going to get Oliver back under his thumb, and somehow, this tournament was the mechanism by which he planned to do it. Ugly suspicion that Oliver and his father might be in cahoots after all coiled in his gut. Was Oliver the heir to whatever throne George imagined himself perched upon? If George owned this massive yacht, the wealth Oliver stood to inherit sooner or later was mind-boggling. Who wouldn’t play ball with their old man to get all this?

  George forced him out of his thoughts with “I want you to help him win.”

  Rather than readily agree to what was a no-brainer for him, Collin went on the offense instead. “What’s the prize for winning?”

  “Why do you care? If my son wins, it won’t matter to you.”

  “Before I agree to forgo my own shot at the prize, I want to know what you’re asking me to give up.”

  “That’s not how this works. You help Oliver win, and I let you live.”

  Collin let one corner of his mouth turn up into a smile, signaling his disdain for Elliot’s threat, while he quickly considered how to respond. Unfortunately, the man had regained the upper hand in this conversational chess game.

  He was saved by answering, however, by the office door bursting open behind him.

  “What the hell are you doing, Dad?” a familiar voice demanded from behind Collin.

  Collin’s head did swivel around this time. “Gun? What the hell are you doing here?” Collin’s mind leaped into hyperdrive. Oliver must have seen George Elliot’s goons drag him aboard the ship, and come racing down here. But why? To rescue Collin? Or to help pound a few nails into Collin’s coffin with Daddy dearest? What did Oliver’s presence at this meeting signify? Had this been a carefully timed interruption coordinated between father and son to play him? Or had it been Oliver’s idea to barge in just when George was questioning him?

  “I gather you’ve met my old man.”

  “Indeed I have. We were just discussing my extracurricular activities watching stolen security footage of my fellow players at work.”

  “Were you now?” Oliver asked cautiously.

  Oliver seemed to have taken the hint that Collin had the situation under control.

  “Nice boat your father has,” Collin prompted, curious to gauge Oliver’s reaction in front of his father.

  A shrug. “I guess.”

  George demanded, “How did you get aboard?”

  Oliver shot back, “It turns out flashing the Elliot name opens doors around here.”

  Intriguing. He seemed genuinely disinterested in the luxurious vessel and wasn’t afraid to show his disdain in front of his father. But how to interpret that? Did Oliver truly see himself as independent from his father, or was this
merely another expression of youthful rebellion toward George? Or was this all an elaborate act being staged for him?

  “When did you buy a freaking huge yacht, Pops?”

  “If you’d spoken to me any time in the past decade, you’d know when,” George shot back.

  Oliver responded, “That would involve me giving a flying fuck.”

  “Quit swearing. You know it upsets your mother.”

  “And she’s where in this room?” Oliver shot back.

  Why the reference to the mother? George was a control freak who would exert power over his spouse. All the reports painted Phyllis Elliot as a classic mousy, submissive wife. George had spoken like his wife would see this conversation. Via surveillance camera, maybe? Or perhaps he would show the bereaved mother who missed her son the footage later. There was some family dynamic he was missing here.

  Collin’s gut red-flagged the mother as a dangerous topic. He frowned infinitesimally at Oliver, hoping he would catch the hint to tread lightly with wherever George was trying to take this conversation, assuming Oliver was legitimately here by chance.

  “So. Are you kicking him out of the tournament?” Oliver demanded baldly of his father, lifting his chin toward Collin.

  So much for the treading-lightly hint getting through. Not long on subtlety was Oliver. Collin sighed. At least Oliver had changed the subject.

  “No. I’ve given him a stern warning, though. And I’m giving you the same warning. No shenanigans out of you, boy. Do your job and win the damned tournament.”

  Your job? Warning klaxons and flashing red lights exploded in Collin’s brain. Oliver was working for his father! So. This tournament was a giant setup after all, to establish Oliver as top dog in the poker world. But why? What did George have to gain out of enhancing his son’s reputation? It would only matter if Oliver was planning to go to work for his father in the near future and they wanted competitors to be intimidated by Oliver’s prowess at… at what? Bluffing? Mental math? At manipulating odds?

  “Just because you’re my son doesn’t mean I won’t throw you out of this event on your ear.”