"Trust me," Tate added, seeing my face fall, "if that painting is still here, it isn't leaving this building."
"Thanks, Tate."
He smiled back at me. Then his face instantly morphed into a look of panic. "Oh, honey." His eyes scanned from one side of my face to the other. "One of your earrings is gone."
My fingers flew to my ears, and sure enough, the right one was bare. "My dad bought those for me." I felt sick.
Britton's face mirrored Tate's concern. Or, attempted to through the Botox. "When did you last have them both?"
I bit my lip. "I don't know. I mean...they were here when I was with you, right?" I asked her.
Britton nodded. "I think so?" She looked down at her empty glasses. "But I'm not sure. I've had a little bit to drink." She punctuated that statement with a hiccup, which she tried to daintily cover in one manicured hand.
I nodded. "No, I think you're right," I said, remembering how I'd fiddled nervously with it in Stintner's office. "I'm going to backtrack to see if I can find it," I said, sliding from the table.
"Want me to help?" Britton asked, standing also. Well, trying to stand. As soon as she stood her legs wobbled, and her hand shot out to catch herself on the table.
"Uh, maybe you should go lie down for a bit," Tate suggested instead.
Britton nodded. Then her eyes welled up. "But I can't go to the penthouse. The police are all over it."
"No worries, honey," Tate told her, steering her gently toward the door. "I can set you up in a room until they're done." He sent me a wink over his shoulder, and I had complete confidence that Britton was in good hands.
Myself, I made a bee-line for the elevators, scanning every inch of carpet along the way. Ditto the elevator tile as I made my way to Stintner's office again. When I got there, my heart fell to see all of the lights off. I tried the door and, thankfully, it swung open.
"Mr. Stintner?" I called out as I walked inside.
I scanned the flooring in the lobby, using my phone for light as I made my way down the hall toward his office. Luckily the light switch was easier to find here. Overhead fluorescents immediately illuminating the room. I checked around the chair I'd sat in, and then ran my hands over the desktop. I was just about to start to panic when I saw a glint of something shiny tucked between two papers. I dove for it, almost crying out in relief when my hands clutched around my earring. The back was nowhere to be found, but the important part was now slid into my pocket.
I looked down at the papers it had been wedged between. The forms I'd just signed. Only the earring was lodged into a page I hadn't looked at—one without a sticky arrow. I felt a frown pull between my eyebrows as I glanced at it. It was the page stating the value of the loss the hotel had sustained, just like Stintner had promised. Carvell's name was on it, the value of the theft easy to calculate as it had all been in cash. But in the box where the dollar amount was supposed to be, someone had filled it in to read $15,000. I slid the paper closer. There had only been $5,000 in Carvell's safe. Vaguely I wondered if Mary Beth had made some sort of clerical mistake as I shuffled through to the next stack of papers, the claim for the diamond necklace. Only this one seemed to have increased as well.
As I stared at the papers, my mind swirled, puzzle pieces magically clicking into place in perfect unison. Why the diamond necklace, why the Vermeer. It was never about the items themselves. It was about the insurance. And I was pretty sure I knew who had insured everything.
"Hello, Tessie," I heard his voice coming from the doorway.
I turned slowly to find Stintner watching me, his eyes sharp, his voice calm, and his hand gripped around a pistol aimed right at my forehead.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I held my hands out toward the gun. "Mr. Stintner, what are you doing?"
"Me?" he said calmly. "I believe you are the one trespassing."
Pointing at my pants pocket, I forced an innocent look to my face. "I just came back to get the earring I lost. I knocked, and yelled to let you know I was here."
His eyes narrowed, still staring at me over the gun barrel. "And that justifies your actions?"
"My dad bought me the earrings," I continued babbling, hoping to convince him that I hadn't seen the documents. "They were supposed to be for my birthday. I just didn't want to lose one of them. They mean so much to me."
He looked past me at the desk and disheveled papers. "Nice try. I see you were digging through the insurance documents. Find anything that interested you?"
"No." I shook my head emphatically. "I swear."
"It isn't nice to lie to your elders." His expression softened a bit. "I watched you grow up, Tessie. It shouldn't have had to end this way."
"What way? Please, Mr. Stintner," I said, hearing the desperation in my own voice. My mind was numb, unable to come up with any sort of escape route, all attention focused on the gun pointed at me.
"I'm sorry, Tessie," he said, shaking his head as if he really were.
"Wait! What are you talking about?" I tried to play dumb and stay calm, but panic blazed through every cell in my body.
"You aren't stupid, Tessie. More importantly, I'm not stupid."
Dammit. I swallowed hard, looking left and right. There was only one way out of the room, and Stintner was blocking it. I glanced above myself at the ceiling. It was one of the few places not graced with black security cameras. I cursed attorney client privilege as my mind raced for some way to get out. I needed more time. I needed to stall him.
"Okay, look, yes, I...I'm not that dumb," I said.
"Obviously," he observed, dryly.
"I know it was you who orchestrated the thefts, wasn't it?" I asked, trying to appeal to his ego. "You were the genius behind the scheme?"
At this, a small smile quirked the corner of his mouth. "It was genius. I mean, who ever reads the entire fifteen pages of an insurance claim?"
I'll admit, I hadn't.
"All I had to do was inflate the claims a little, and pocket the cash," he continued. "All the checks were drawn out to the company account where I was a signer. No one noticed, no one questioned."
"But these sorts of claims are few and far between normally," I prompted, keeping him talking.
He nodded. "Normally, yes."
"So, you found a way to create more."
"It was so simple, really. I was surprised no one else had thought of it before," he bragged. "One day I overheard the valet talking about a whale he'd seen come in with cash for a high-stakes game. I realized he saw everything that came into our casino. So, I paid him to keep me informed when a high roller was checking in with extra cash on hand. As soon as they hit the tables, I'd let myself into their rooms and helped myself to the contents of their bags. Just one every now and again, nothing to raise any suspicions or scare anyone off." He paused. "Then I met Mr. Dunley. This is, if you think about it, his fault." Caught in thought, he looked down for a few seconds.
I took the opportunity to close the gap between myself and the door by a few steps. Stintner's eyes shot up.
I froze.
"Uh, Dunely? How is everything his fault?"
Stintner blinked, pulling himself back to present. "He told me he could help grow the payout. Get the whales to order in more cash. He said he'd done it before in Vegas. I gave him a shot with a percentage of the payout. Then he said he needed to bring in Cannetti in order to get the safes open. Fine by me. I just got to sit back and collect the cash. It was a perfect scheme—get paid once from stealing the cash, then get paid again through the insurance company."
I was only half listening at this point, trying to remember how many other doors were in the hall outside his office. Storage? Stairwell? Emergency exit? There were at least three, maybe four. I inched a bit closer to the door. "How did you get the security footage shut down?"
He snorted. "That was thanks to your dear old dad. He gave me his login information once."
"Once? Don't they change that often?"
"Yes, they do, b
ut once was all I needed. I had a hacker set up a ghost login for me. It was expensive, but it's paid for itself several times over, and no one even knew I was in there." He tossed his head back to laugh.
Which explained why Alfie hadn't been looking into him. I inched closer.
"What I don't get is why?" I said, calculating just how quickly I could dive for the doorway versus how quickly his finger could pull a trigger. I wasn't sure I was a fan of the odds.
Stintner blinked at me as if I was an idiot. "For the money, of course. You think I'm stupid?"
"Uh...no?" And even if I did, I certainly wasn't going to say that to the guy holding a gun on me.
"Of course not. I knew every aspect of your father's business. I knew the casino was in trouble. Another year, and your father would have run this place into the ground. I'd be dammed if I was going down on that sinking ship. I gave twenty-five years of service to Richard King. I deserved a payout."
Clearly he was losing his grip on reality. Unfortunately his grip in the gun seemed as strong as ever. I licked my lips, running out of stall techniques. Wasn't there anyone else on this floor? Didn't anyone work around here on a Saturday? A janitor, someone?
"So what happened?" I asked. "If it was all going so well, why stop?"
"Those assholes got greedy," Stintner said, spittle flying from the corner of his mouth as he talked. "Bastards were going to sell me out to Weston. They heard he was trying to take down the Royal Palace while it was vulnerable and mortgaged down to your dad's socks. They turned on me. The traitors!"
Which I found ironic considering he was the one calling the kettle Benedict Arnold.
"So, I had to make some changes in my plans," he continued. "The police and feds were everywhere, you and that blonde bimbo nosing around. It was time for me to retire. I just needed one more score. So, I took the Vermeer from the penthouse. It will look lovely on the walls of my estate in a non-extradition country."
If he wasn't holding a gun on me, I'd have killed him. Instead, I tried to employ some of my mom's yoga breathing to calm my rising anger at the thought of a priceless work of art in the hands of this psycho sleaze. "I suppose your plans also included killing off all of your crew?"
He rolled his shoulders, gaining his composure as he steadied the gun on me. "The valet, yes. I caught him at the end of his shift, then took him for a ride to the lake. Turns out, he couldn't swim. At least not with his hands tied."
I felt my stomach churn over itself, icy goose bumps breaking out on my skin at the thought that "Smith" was now somewhere at the bottom of the crystal blue waters outside the windows.
But if Stintner felt any emotion at the thought of killing a man, he didn't show it. In fact, a small smile curled his upper lip. "That's how we used to do it in the old days, you know. We took care of things our way."
"And Dunley?" I took a deep breath, not really wanting to know about the old days or the recent ones. But I had to keep him talking.
But Stintner shook his head. "He saw his buddy was missing and took off. Good riddance. He knows what happens to him if he talks."
"He gets killed. Like Smith...and Cannetti."
Stintner grinned in earnest this time, showing off two rows of stained teeth. "That one practically fell into my lap. With one little push I got rid of Cannetti and sent a nice message to Weston as well. I believe that threat will make him think twice."
I blame the fear pumping adrenaline through my system that it wasn't until that moment that it dawned on me. "You sent Cannetti to break into my room. You were threatening me."
Stintner nodded slowly. "I didn't mean for him to hurt you, Tessie. Honest. It was just supposed to scare you."
"It did," I said, meaning it.
"I don't know why you had to go nosing around where it wasn't your business."
I felt my chin rise and before I could stop myself blurted out, "It is my business. This is my casino, remember?"
Stintner let out a sharp bark of a laugh. "You are so stubborn. Just like your dad."
I fought back emotion at the mention of him. "You killed him too, didn't you." I swallowed past the bile in my throat at the thought of standing in front of his killer.
This time any smug bragging about his crimes vanished, as a look of true sorrow crossed his features. "He was my friend once, Tess. But the man was so short-sighted. He thought he could run this place just like he always had. Old school. He was running it right into the ground."
"So you killed him for being a bad businessman?" I yelled, feeling anger replace some of my fear.
But Stintner shook his head. "No, I killed him because he was going to find out everything. I never thought it would come to that, I swear!" he said, emotion rising in his voice. His hand was shaking, the gun wagging back and forth at me. "It was my last option. I tried everything to get him off my trail. He just wouldn't let it go!" His grip wavered, trigger finger falling away.
And I realized it was now or never.
I lunged forward, shoving an elbow into his gut, and pushing him to the ground. The gun stayed tight in his hand, but the barrel was now pointed at the ceiling as Stintner tried to regain his footing. I didn't stick around to see if he succeeded, instead flying into the hallway. I tried two doors, both locked, before I heard the gun go off behind me and felt fire erupt in my shoulder, a bullet exploding into the door jamb next to me.
Ohmigod, I'd been shot!
I gritted my teeth past the searing pain, diving for the next door and trying the knob. I said a silent thank you that it was unlocked and shoved inside. It was some sort of large archive room, rows of racks filled with file folders in neat rows. I pulled my phone from my pocket, my fingers fumbling as I simultaneously tried to pull up Alfie's number and search for another way out. I was only able to get the number queued before Stintner's keys jingled in the door.
I tore down the middle aisle, and hunched down at the end in the shadows.
"Tessie," I heard Stintner's voice fill the room. "You know I can't let you leave here alive. I'm sorry for everything. There's no way out of this room, and I've got nothing scheduled for the rest of the day. I can wait as long as you can."
I bit my lip, wanting with all my heart to hit send on my phone. But as soon as I did, the light would give me away. I looked up, again seeing a void of cameras. The entire legal department must be without them. Damned things were everywhere until you needed them. I slowly stood, ignoring the pain in my shoulder, trying to remain quiet as I slid along the back wall in the darkness, feeling my way. My fingers grabbed a door handle. I said a silent prayer for another unlocked room as I turned the knob.
Despite not having been to church since I was twelve, my prayers were answered. The door opened easily in my hands. Unfortunately it also creaked on its hinges, instantly giving away my position. Stintner ran toward me, his shadowed features contorted to look like some scary Halloween mask of a mad man.
I slipped into the next room, which I quickly identified as not a room but a supply closet, then slammed the door shut, pushing on it with all my weight. I set my back against the door, bracing with my right leg against the wall, while balancing on my left. Then I pulled my phone back out and pressed send.
"Answer the phone, Alfie, please," I pleaded breathlessly, a death grip on the handle. Only the call dropped. I stared at the bars on my phone, desperation bubbling up in my throat. No reception in the supply closet.
I felt Stintner shove at the door from the other side, jarring my balance. "Tessie, you can't hide forever," he sing-songed.
I fought down a whimper realizing just how far gone he was. I was stuck in a supply closet, bleeding, with a mad man outside the door. I took two deep breaths, feeling Stintner push on the other side of the door again. Come on, Tessie, keep it together.
Using the light from my phone, I scanned the room for anything I could shove against the door to bar Stintner's entrance. My legs were quickly giving out. After having re-swiped my phone to life twice, I finally spied an
old style rag mop in one corner. I stretched out my good arm, my fingers just grazing the handle. I took a deep breath and stretched again, just as Stintner threw his weight at the door.
I cried out as the wood jarred against my shoulder, but the push gave me the extra inch I needed to reach the mop handle. I spun, wedging it between the square door handle and the corner of the small room, then stepped back taking a moment to breathe again.
"Tess-ie," he sing-songed. "It's only a matter of time before I get you, my dear."
I licked my lips. Not if I could help it.
I scanned the room again, this time looking for anything I could use as a weapon. The room was a hodge-podge of antiquated items—some old winter clothing, abandoned fax machines and Xerox toner, a badminton net with a hole in it, and a broken snowshoe. I tried the weight of the fax machine, but the thing was way heavier than I could lift and throw with any accuracy with my shoulder wound. Snowshoe it would have to be.
I hoisted my make-shift weapon into my hands, watching as Stintner slammed his weight against the door again. The mop wavered. Another couple of shoves and it wouldn't stand a chance of surviving.
I just hoped that I did.
Taking a deep breath, I mustered all the courage I could, said a prayer that my cat would not end up an orphan, then removed the mop from its wedged spot.
When Stintner's weight came barreling into the door again, it flew open. And I swung the snowshoe at him with all I had, smacking him in the face. His own inertia ratcheted him backwards, falling onto his back on the hard floor. The gun skittered across the concrete floor of the closet as his head made contact with a dull thud. I dove for the gun in the dim light, my fingers clenching around the sweaty grip and turning it on him—even though he looked like he'd clearly been knocked out cold—as I scooted toward the door. I shoved Stinter's prone form into the closet and slammed the door shut. I locked the closet door and set the gun carefully on a shelf. Then I leaned against the wall, afraid my legs had turned to complete mush.
Luck Be a Lady (Tahoe Tessie Mysteries) Page 18
