Ironically, Robert was murdered by Carl.
It happened two years ago, when Evan’s mother, Catherine, was running for the office of U.S. President. Catherine won the nation’s highest office. But prior to the election, she sanctioned her husband’s murder because he threatened to divorce her. He’d discovered her campaign was being funded by a terrorist organization: the Quorum.
I got her to admit to her role in Robert’s death. My efforts got me stabbed, but it also got her sent to prison before she could take her oath of office. Instead, that honor went to her Vice President-Elect, Lee Chiffray.
As for my dealings with our current POTUS? Let’s just say that it’s complicated.
Robert built a conglomerate of technology companies. Someday Evan will inherit them. In the meantime, he is doing all he can to feel worthy of his father’s sacrifice and to erase his mother’s duplicitous acts.
Jack and I love him as if he were our son.
“What did Jonathan want?” Jack asks.
Evan frowns. “Unfortunately, I was in class and only heard his voice message—something about a very important BlackTech project funded by the U.S.’s Defense Intelligence Agency. He was concerned that it had been compromised by an outside source. He suspected there may have also been an in-house accomplice. When I rang back on his company extension, the call was rerouted to Human Resources. I was told he’d just been involved in a hit-and-run accident.” Evan’s eyes are ringed with tears. “Jonathan Presley was the victim.” He pulls something out of his jeans pocket and hands it to me:
A flash drive.
“This came in the mail to me,” Evan explains. “The envelope had Jonathan’s initials on it.”
“Any return address?” Jack asks.
“Yes. A post office box,” Evan replies. “I couldn’t tell you if it was his.”
I nod. “We can check it out. And if it is—”
The faint buzz of my cell phone is echoed by Jack’s.
The text is from Ryan:
Special showing of THE TRUMAN SHOW.
President Harry Truman established the National Defense Agency’s predecessor, the National Intelligence Authority. Jack and I aren’t being invited to a movie but to Acme headquarters for news on our next mission.
Quite a coincidence. I guess we’ll know soon if it has anything to do with BlackTech and Jonathan Presley’s death.
Jack and I sigh in unison. So much for a quiet weekend at home.
The backyard’s white picket fence separates the cloudless sapphire sky from our emerald green lawn. Sunlight sparkles in the morning dew. Two sparrows dart in and out of the branches of the live oak tree, playing hide and seek.
It’s always sunny in Southern California.
It’s always tranquil in Hilldale.
Until it’s not.
* * *
—THE END—
About the Authors
DEBORAH COONTS
Deborah swears she was switched at birth. Coming from a family of homebodies, she is happiest with a passport, a credit card, her computer, and changing scenery. She flies airplanes, rides motorcycles, travels the world, and pretends to be more of a badass than she is.
Deborah is the author of the Lucky O’Toole Vegas Adventure series, a romantic mystery romp through Sin City. Wanna Get Lucky?, the first in the series, was a New York Times Notable Crime Novel and a double RITA ™ Award Finalist. She is also the author of a thriller, After Me an iBooks Best Of and a Nook First choice and the high-flying romantic suspense Sam Donavan Series.
Although rarely there, Deborah calls Houston home. You can always track her down at www.deborahcoonts.com.
* * *
JOSIE BROWN
Josie Brown’s parents instilled in her the notion she could do anything, and she took that to heart. However, after losing a fingernail in a swing-set accident, Josie figured out fast that the life of a daredevil wasn’t her calling. And despite an uncanny ability to shout out the murderer within the first six minutes of any Perry Mason episode, the thought of law school somehow made capturing bad guys something she should only do as a fictional device—
* * *
All good, since writing has always been Josie’s passion. To perfect the skill, at ten she read aloud as she followed behind her mother’s straight-line trek with the lawnmower, never realizing her mother never heard a word of it.
* * *
Still, proof of Josie’s pithy prose is the thirty-some-odd novels now in print and in the hands of over a million readers.
Josie finds much of her inspiration in her family (her husband, Martin, and her children) and in her home base: San Francisco, California. Follow her on Facebook, where she posts photos of the latter if not the former (shy family). Find out even more about Josie and her books at JosieBrown.com
WANT MORE LUCKY?…
Read a short excerpt below
CHAPTER ONE
AS HER final act on this earth, Lyda Sue Stalnaker plummeted out of a Las Vegas helicopter and landed smack in the middle of the pirates’ lagoon in front of the Treasure Island Hotel, disrupting the 8:30 p.m. pirate show.
The video ran as the lead-in for the 11:00 p.m. news. I caught it on a television in the sports bar. Actually, it was amazing I caught it at all. My name is Lucky O’Toole, and I am the chief problem solver at the Babylon, the newest, most over-the-top mega-casino/resort on the Las Vegas Strip. I’d been fighting my way through the crowds packing the casino on my way to Stairwell Fifteen to deal with a naked man asleep under the stairs, when I caught the television feed out of the corner of my eye.
A grainy video of a helicopter with the Babylon’s script logo painted on the side appeared on the screen with a small headshot of Lyda Sue in the corner—it was Lyda Sue’s sweet smile that actually captured my attention. I leaned over the backs of two guys playing video poker at the bar, a sinking feeling in my stomach. In Vegas, nobody gets their picture on the news unless they’ve committed some grisly crime or have been a victim of one themselves.
Of course, I couldn’t hear what the talking heads on the television were saying. The clamor of excited voices from the casino combined with the pinging from the video machines and the piped-in music to create a cacophony of excitement that made it not only impossible to talk, but to think as well.
Eyes wide, I watched as the station ran the video again—this time the full version as part of their newscast.
Hovering above the lagoon as the show began, the copter began to buck and roll. A body tumbled out, backward or forward—it was hard to tell. Thankfully, the final impact with the water was hidden behind the pirate ship advancing toward the British with cannons belching fire and smoke. The picture tilted, then went dark—a head shot of Lyda Sue taking its place.
“Ms. O’Toole?” My Nextel push-to-talk vibrated at my hip. “Are you coming?”
I grabbed the device and pushed the direct-connect button to shout. “What?”
I pressed the thing to my ear as I tried to hear.
“Ma’am, this is Sergio at the front desk. The doctor’s with our naked guy. He’s fine—apparently sleeping off a bender. But we got another problem—some guy in Security by the name of Dane is insisting we call the paramedics just to be on the safe side.”
I stared at Lyda Sue’s picture on the television, my mind unable to process what I saw. The video switched to the police and a body covered with a white cloth, one delicate hand dangling from the stretcher as they loaded it into the back of an ambulance. Nobody was in a hurry.
“Ma’am, are you there?”
The question snapped me back. “Sorry. Naked guy in the stairwell, right. Do not call the paramedics unless the doctor wants them. We don’t need to cause a scene and have this guy splashed across the pages of the Review-Journal in the morning—I’m sure he’d love that.” Trying to steady my nerves, I took a deep breath. Instantly, I regretted it. Smoke-filled air assaulted my lungs, bringing tears to my eyes. “I’ll be right there, and I’ll deal wi
th Dane.” I choked the words out as I struggled to catch my breath.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
I reclipped the Nextel at my waist.
I fought to not only clear my lungs, but to clear my thoughts as well—a Herculean task as hundreds of questions pinged around inside my head.
Lyda Sue, dead? I’d seen her just last night, holding forth on the end stool at Delilah’s Bar. We’d talked for a minute or two; her world had seemed stable enough. Twenty-four hours later, she took a header out of our helicopter, landing smack in the middle of the 8:30 p.m. pirate show. What had I missed?
Damn. Lyda Sue was dead. Double damn. She fell out of our helicopter. The Babylon would be big news. My job was to keep the Babylon out of the news. Or to take the fallout when I failed. The Big Boss was not going to be pleased.
Tonight was shaping up to be a doozie.
I muscled between the two guys intent on their video poker monitors and leaned across the bar so the bartender could hear me. “Get the news off that television. Find a sports feed or something.”
The real world had no place in this fantasyland.
My mind clicked into gear. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on that pilot. He should have called me right away. Lyda Sue hit the lagoon at 8:30. Damage control was tough enough without giving the newshounds and gossip mongers two and a half hours head start. I had a feeling that nothing short of an overnight nuclear test at Yucca Flats would keep us out of the morning headlines now.
Nevertheless, I grabbed the Nextel, and started in. “Jerry?”
“Yo,” our Head of Security answered in his laid-back manner.
“I want our pilot in my office right now—handcuff him and drag him there if you have to. Next, get over to Channel Eight. I want all copies of a tape Marty ran on the eleven o’clock news of a woman falling out of our helicopter. If he refuses, remind him of that awkward little situation at the opening gala—he’ll know what you’re talking about. Bring the tapes to me when you get them.”
“I’m on it.”
“Oh, and Jer? I almost forgot. What’s the status on the mega-millions winner? Did she actually hit it?”
“We’re working on it. I’ll have an answer for you in the next half hour—our plate’s sorta full.”
“Welcome to the club. Thanks.”
I disconnected, then scrolled through the stored numbers looking for Dane’s as I turned to head toward Stairwell Fifteen. Paramedics! Was the guy nuts?
As fate would have it, his number didn’t matter. Two steps with my head down focusing on my phone and I ran smack into the rather solid chest of the man I was looking for—Paxton Dane, the new hire in Security.
At a couple of inches taller than my six feet, Dane was the poster boy for the testosterone-laden, ex-military, jet-jockey set. Square jaw, soft brown hair, green eyes, great ass, and an attitude—which I didn’t need right now.
“Did I just hear you tell Jerry to threaten to blackmail the manager of the television station?” His voice held the soft traces of old Texas, yet the sexy timbre of a man confident of his appeal.
“I never threaten. I offered him a deal.” I had neither the time nor the patience to educate Dane tonight, but it seemed that was in the cards.
“A rather fine distinction.”
“Dane, you’ll find those black-and-white lines painted so brightly in the rest of the world blur to a nice shade of gray in Vegas.” I put a hand on his chest and pushed him away, since his nearness seemed to affect what rational thought I had left at this time of night. “I was already up to my ass in alligators, and the suicide dive just upped the ante. I really do have to go.”
I pushed away the images of Lyda Sue’s final moments. If I kept them at a distance, maybe, just maybe, I could make it through the night. If I spoke of her cavalierly, maybe I could hold back my emotions.
“What makes you think she was a suicide?” The soft traces of old Texas disappeared. Dane’s voice was hard, flat, and held an edge like tempered steel.
The question and his tone stopped me cold. What did he know that I didn’t? “You got any reason to think otherwise?”
Murder, now that would be a real problem.
He waved my question away, arranging his features in an expressionless mask. “I need to talk to you about one of our whales. Apparently, the guy had a mishap in one of the Ferraris. If you want me to handle it, I can, but you’ll have to make the call as to what the hotel is willing to do. The whale in question is…” He consulted a folded sheet of paper he had extracted out of his back pocket and gave a low whistle. “A Mr. Fujikara and he seems to be quite a whale—he keeps several million in play during his monthly visits.”
“I know Mr. Fujikara well.”
Dane glanced up, one eyebrow raised, but he didn’t ask the question I saw lurking there, and I felt no need to explain.
“We also have a Pascarelli. Apparently, he wants a hug from you,” Dane continued, not missing a beat as he absently rubbed his chest where my hand had been. “And the naked guy…”
“He’s all mine as well,” I interjected to speed up the conversation. With major problems to solve, I had little time and even less patience. “And, Dane, for the record, never call the paramedics unless it’s an all-out emergency or the doctor wants them. Casinos are closed worlds here—we protect our own—and we zealously guard the privacy of our guests. Remember that. Outsiders are allowed in to help with problems only, and I repeat, only when the problem gets out of hand.”
Dane’s eyes narrowed—his only response. A tic worked in his cheek.
I rolled my head and rubbed the back of my neck. “I need to take Mr. Fujikara as well; this is a game we play. For his millions, he likes some personal attention—apparently I’m the anointed one. You can help me with one thing, though. We had a lady hit the mega-million, but we need to make sure she played the six quarters. Jerry’s shut down the machine and is reviewing the tapes. While we’re in the process, why don’t you offer the Sodom and Gomorrah Suite to the winner and her friends for the night? Make double sure that she understands her winnings have not been confirmed. I’ll follow up with her when I get the results of the diagnostics from Jerry.”
“And who will authorize the comped suite?”
“I thought I just did.” My words sounded harsher than I intended. “Sorry. If Sergio wants confirmation, have him call me.”
“Right. Oh, and The Big Boss wants fifteen minutes of your time. He’s in his apartment.”
“He’ll have to get in line.”
“He told me, ‘Now,’” Dane said, as he rubbed his eyes.
“I said, he’ll have to wait.” Now that I took a closer look, Danes eyes were bloodshot. The guy looked totally wrung out. I put a hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” Dane shrugged my question off, then shrugged out of my grasp. “You leave The Big Boss hanging, it’s your funeral.”
“It’ll take more than that to put me six feet under.”
My relationship with The Big Boss was none of Dane’s business. I turned and took off through the casino with more questions than answers bouncing around in my skull: Why the swan dive, why did The Big Boss send Dane to bring me to heel, and why did Dane sidestep my question?
Murder! What made him think Lyda Sue was murdered?
The casino at the Babylon is much like any other. An intimate labyrinth, subtly decorated, windowless and, tonight, jam-packed with people all paying and praying for whatever it was they hoped to get in Vegas. A thin layer of smoke hovered over the crowd, as the slot machines sang their come-on songs and occasional shouts arose from the tables. Cocktail waitresses wearing painted-on smiles and little else darted in and out delivering fresh libations and collecting the empties. Young women paraded around in tight-fitting clothes they wouldn’t be caught dead in back home. Pierced and tattooed young men, their jeans hanging precariously across their butts, followed the young women. How the boys kept their jeans from falling straight to the floor was an end
uring mystery.
The nightly line of the young and the beautiful snaked from the entrance to Pandora’s Box, our popular nightclub and body exchange. Pulses of dance music escaped each time Ralph, our bouncer, opened the door to let one of the hip and trendy in or out. The entrance to the adjacent theatre was empty; the 10:30 show was well underway.
I knew where to find Mr. Pascarelli—thankfully he was on my way to Stairwell Fifteen. Like all serious gamblers, Mr. Pascarelli was a creature of habit and superstition. Dressed in the same shirt, a now-threadbare Hawaiian number his wife, Mildred, “God rest her soul,” had given him decades ago when I guessed he weighed forty pounds more than he did now, he always started his night of play at the third slot machine from the end of the third row.
A gnome-like eighty, Mr. Pascarelli was cute as a bug, bald as Michael Jordan, a night owl and, I suspected, a bit lonely. Three was his lucky number, and I was his good-luck charm.
Lucky me.
Truth be told, giving Mr. Pascarelli his hug was usually the high-point of my night, a fact that—had I time to think about it—would probably have concerned me.
“There you are, my dear!” He waved his glass at me. “I was beginning to worry.”
“Worry? Don’t be silly, but this one will have to be a quickie.” I gave him a squeeze, careful to not crush him too tightly.
He laughed at the innuendo. “Hard night?”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Little Lyda taking a header out of the helicopter?”
“Bad news travels fast. You knew Lyda Sue?”
“Sure. When she wasn’t busy, she used to pull up a stool and talk to me for a while. Sweet kid, from somewhere in Texas, I think.” He shook his head and crinkled his brow. “She’d been sorta jumpy lately.”
The Housewife Assassin Gets Lucky Page 25
