One-Eyed Royals

by Cordelia Kingsbridge

  The shifty sideways glance Carlos and Jasmine exchanged was telling. For once, though, it wasn’t gambling cravings that had Dominic so preoccupied.

  “It’s one of my cases,” he said to reassure them. “The client’s been avoiding me for a day and a half, and I can’t move forward the way I need to until I talk to him.”

  Royce’s ducking of Dominic’s calls and even a visit to his office had become so pointed that Dominic had revised his opinion on whether Royce was totally oblivious to what was going on. Still, he was hesitant to go to the expense of putting Juliette under serious surveillance without Royce’s go-ahead.

  He’d dug deeper in the meantime, however, and he was certain Royce had been paying Juliette’s living expenses for months—not something a man did for a meaningless fling. He’d also gotten Juliette’s picture out to Paulie and his other criminal contacts, along with the name Bennett, to see if that stirred anything up.

  Carlos and Jasmine accepted his explanation without argument. He returned his attention to folding the programs, which featured abstract watercolors in pale peach, earthy green, and sunset orange against a white background. While a tattoo artist by trade, Jasmine was skilled in multiple visual art mediums, and she’d designed all of the wedding’s paper items herself, from the invitations down to the escort cards.

  “How’s Levi doing?” Jasmine asked after a few moments of industrious silence. “You know, with . . . everything. I called to check on him the day after he found that guy in his car, and he was even more wound up than usual.”

  Dominic shrugged. “I wouldn’t be the one to ask.”

  He was concerned that Levi hadn’t updated him on his side of the case since that morning. Levi must not have found anything on the gas station security cameras, after all. Or maybe he was still looking—he tended to get wrapped up in a case to distraction the same way Dominic did.

  “So,” Dominic said, aiming to shift the focus of the conversation off himself. “Bachelor party tomorrow. You excited?”

  “If by ‘excited’ you mean ‘nervous,’ then sure,” said Carlos. “You really aren’t going to tell me anything about it?”

  “Nope. It’s a surprise.”

  “As long as it doesn’t turn into The Hangover.”

  “I’d never roofie you,” Dominic said solemnly.

  Carlos and Jasmine both snickered.

  In the morning, Dominic would have to try confronting Royce at home; the man had left him no other choice. Carolyn Royce had helped force her husband to act like a human being once before, so she might be of assistance this time as well.

  Until then, Dominic’s mind belonged right here, with his friends. He concentrated on his task and sipped a beer while he listened to Jasmine wax poetic about a wild acid trip back in her college days.

  About ten minutes later, Rebel perked up her head and stared at the front door. Dominic noticed but thought nothing of it until she hopped to her feet, abandoning her bone, and barked twice.

  At that, Dominic jumped up as well, his hand going to his gun. Carlos and Jasmine went tense and quiet.

  “What is it?” Carlos asked.

  “I don’t know—”

  Rebel barked again. Dominic heard a thump out in the hallway, followed by the sound of running feet. He dashed to the door, wrenched it open, and looked up and down the hall—which, because their building was designed like a motel, was open to the night beyond. Rebel ran out beside him.

  “Stay,” Dominic told her when he caught sight of the runner. It was just a skinny kid in a hoodie, bounding down the exterior staircase like a parkour champion. The kid sprinted across the internal courtyard, through the property’s gates, and into a waiting car, which sped away with a screech of tires.

  Jasmine and Carlos came up behind Dominic. “What’s going on?” Jasmine said.

  Dominic frowned after the car’s rapidly disappearing taillights. “I’m not sure.”

  Rebel trotted over to the door of Dominic’s apartment, one unit over, and sniffed a thick manila envelope that had been dropped in front of it. He shooed her away, then flipped the package over with the toe of his shoe, his heart in his throat as he expected to see the insignia of the Seven of Spades.

  Instead of a playing card, however, the folder was inked with the image of a hornet poised to strike—the symbol of Los Avispones.

  “What the . . .” Dominic held out a hand to Carlos and Jasmine. “Don’t touch that.”

  He retrieved a pair of nitrile gloves from his apartment, then returned to pick up the package. His friends trailed after him as he carried it inside, cleared a space around the junk that had accumulated on his dining table since Levi had cleaned up, and set it down.

  Rebel hadn’t seemed concerned by the envelope’s contents, so Dominic wasn’t either; as a trained personal protection dog, she would have detected explosives. He slit the envelope open and tipped the contents out onto the table.

  “Whoa,” Carlos said, his eyes wide. “Are those . . .”

  “False papers.” Dominic sifted through them with his gloved hands. There were two sets of forged identity documents—birth certificates, passports, driver’s licenses, social security cards, the works—but the papers were only half-finished. There were no photographs yet, some of the demographic information was blank, and several of the designs were bleeding ink.

  Jasmine made a scoffing noise. “These aren’t great, are they? I mean, I could do a better job than this.”

  Dominic and Carlos both looked at her.

  “I’m just saying.”

  “These are the kinds of documents you have made when you’re preparing to start a whole new life,” Dominic said. “There are two sets here—one for a man and one for a woman. Nicholas Fox and Monica Bennett.” He rocked back on his heels.

  “Does that mean something to you?” Carlos asked.

  Dominic nodded absently. Fake papers for a man and a woman, one the same name as the kidnappers’ client and the other the name attached to the bank account that had received the ransom payments—Levi had been right all along. Royce and Juliette were planning to go on the run.

  His cell phone rang, startling all three of them. He withdrew it from his pocket and looked at the screen.

  BLOCKED.

  The bottom fell out of Dominic’s stomach. He knew exactly who was on the other end of the line, even if he wasn’t sure why.

  While Carlos and Jasmine watched with concern, Dominic cleared his dry throat and answered the phone. “Hello?”

  “Don’t say I never gave you anything, Mr. Russo,” said the harsh electronic rasp of the Seven of Spades’s disguised voice.

  Dominic gripped the edge of the table with his free hand. Though the Seven of Spades called Levi on occasion, both at work and on his cell, all of Dominic’s past interactions with them had been through texts or written messages. This was the first time they’d called him directly.

  He opened an app to record the call before he spoke again. “I’m assuming you’re responsible for the package I just found at my door?”

  “Compliments of my friends in Los Avispones.”

  “How?”

  “They caught word you were looking for a woman named Bennett who’s connected to these recent kidnappings. One of their forgers had been contracted by a third party to make those papers for a woman of the same name. Quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

  “So you made them give the papers to me instead?”

  “I didn’t insist. Only suggested. I wouldn’t have known anything about it if my friends hadn’t come to me first. They know about my . . . special relationship to you.”

  “Why would you do this?” Dominic asked. No way did the Seven of Spades care about adults being kidnapped for ransom—there was no betrayal of trust involved, and they didn’t concern themselves with ordinary crimes.

  After a brief pause, the Seven of Spades said, “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been planning my gift for Detective Abrams?”

&nb
sp; “Gift?” Dominic made a face. “You mean kidnapping and murdering the men who attacked him in college?”

  Though Carlos and Jasmine must have had their suspicions about who Dominic was talking to, that was what clinched it. They both backed away from the table, Carlos drawing a sharp breath and Jasmine pressing one hand to her mouth.

  “Months of careful preparation and strategizing,” said the Seven of Spades. “Tens of thousands of dollars. Not to mention the rather considerable physical effort I’ve expended. All that investment of time, money, and energy, and the very same week, these eye-gouging idiots blow their operation and reveal their kidnapping ring to the entire city?”

  Dominic lifted the phone away from his ear and stared at it for a second. “I’m sorry, are you saying you’re helping me with this case because you’re annoyed the people behind it are stealing your thunder?”

  “I’m saying that Las Vegas has more important matters to concern itself with. I want people’s focus back where it belongs.”

  “And by ‘focus,’ you really mean ‘spotlight.’”

  “This is my city,” the Seven of Spades said with sudden malice that broke through even the flattening effect of the masking algorithm. “When my plans for Detective Abrams come to fruition, nobody in Las Vegas will care about anything else. We haven’t even scratched the surface of what I have in store for him. Nothing is going to stand in the way of that.”

  A cold sweat broke out on Dominic’s forehead and along his spine. What the hell was this freak planning to do to Levi? More importantly, how could Dominic stop it?

  Giving his head a shake, Dominic said, “Why send these papers to me instead of Levi?” Then he answered his own question. “Right, of course. Because if the detective on the case got this information from a serial killer, a defense attorney would have it thrown right out. But if Levi gets it from a PI who can just say it was obtained from an informant, it’ll probably be ruled admissible evidence.”

  “Who says you’re just a pretty face?”

  “Still, this doesn’t give me much to go on. There aren’t even any photos.”

  “The forger hadn’t been provided photos yet. These were just a rough draft—a mock-up of sorts. I can’t do all the work for you.”

  “I—”

  “Are you a private investigator or not? Investigate, Mr. Russo. And quickly.” The Seven of Spades’s voice hardened. “Because I’m losing my patience.”

  The line went dead. Dominic ended the recording, saved it, and set the phone down. His hand was shaking.

  “Oh my God, Dom,” Jasmine said, grabbing Carlos’s arm as if for support. “That was the Seven of Spades, wasn’t it? You were just talking to a serial killer!”

  “Yeah.” He raked both hands through his hair. “I’m sorry, I have to take care of this. Rain check on the programs?”

  It wasn’t easy to evade their worried questions and exclamations, but he managed to usher Carlos and Jasmine out of his apartment and safely into their own. Back at his place, with all the locks thrown, the alarm engaged, and Rebel by his side, Dominic sat down at the table to peruse the forged identity documents more carefully. There was something about them that had nagged at him before the Seven of Spades’s call.

  “Monica Bennett,” he said aloud. The name sounded—not familiar, exactly, but it reminded him of something . . .

  A light bulb went off as he made the connection. He grabbed his cell phone and dialed Martine.

  “How did you hear already?” she said when she answered.

  “Hear?” Dominic had been so intensely focused on the question he wanted to ask her that it took him a second to process the unexpected greeting. “Hear what?”

  She said nothing.

  “Martine. Hear what?”

  “Okay, before I say anything, I want you to know that Levi is totally fine. A little banged up, but it’s nothing serious.”

  Dominic shot to his feet, startling Rebel. “What?” Oh God, had the Seven of Spades already gotten to him?

  “He and Leila were jumped by some Utopia gangbangers in a parking garage,” Martine said. “But they managed to get the upper hand. You know how Levi is, and apparently Leila can do some kind of crazy Filipino martial arts with sticks or batons or something.”

  “Arnis?” Dominic said, struggling to keep up. It was obvious from the way Leila carried herself that she was a trained fighter, and Arnis would be a good fit for her lithe build.

  “Yeah, I guess. Anyway, all the men have been arrested, and neither Levi or Leila were seriously injured.”

  Dominic sank back into his chair, rubbing a hand over his face. Rebel eyed him warily before she settled down as well.

  “You’re sure he’s okay?”

  “Yes. Actually, he’s in a great mood. He’s . . . Well, I don’t need to explain it to you.”

  She didn’t. They were both familiar with how much Levi enjoyed a good violent altercation; his brain must be soaked in endorphins right now. If the fight had been particularly intense, he was probably yearning for a nice hard fuck—

  Good God, this was so not the time to be having these thoughts. Dominic smacked the heel of his hand against his forehead.

  “That’s really not why you called me?” Martine asked.

  “No. I wanted to ask you a question—what would be the French version of the surname Bennett?”

  Martine sighed. “First of all, you understand that I’m Haitian, right? I speak Kreyol, not French. And even my Kreyol has gotten rusty since I moved out west.”

  “I know. I was hoping the names at least would be similar enough.”

  “They can be. Bennett, huh?” She was quiet for a moment. “I’d say . . . Binet, maybe? Or Benoit.”

  Dominic’s stomach flipped. He thanked Martine for her help, asked her to have Levi give him a call when everything was squared away, and hung up. Then he hunted down his research on Juliette, dumped it onto the table next to the fake papers, and flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for.

  Juliette’s middle name was Monique. And her mother’s maiden name was Benoit.

  Dominic grabbed his work-issued laptop, the only computer he had left, and dove into one aspect of the investigation he’d been avoiding so far: a background check on Nathan Royce himself. A few minutes later, he’d confirmed his suspicions.

  Royce’s mother’s maiden name was Nichols; his paternal grandmother’s was Fuchs. Nicholas Fox.

  “Jesus Christ,” Dominic said. This was the same amateur mistake that had tripped up a lot of his bounties in the past—choosing an alias too closely related to their real identities. Some people had no imagination.

  The evidence was circumstantial, but combined with other aspects of the investigation, it would be enough for Levi to obtain arrest warrants from a friendly judge. That should clinch it. Royce would crack under the pressure of an interrogation, and if Juliette was the kind of grifter her history suggested, she’d be willing to cut herself a deal. McBride would take a hit with the loss of Royce’s contract, but there was no way to avoid that.

  His phone rang again—Levi this time.

  “Hey,” Dominic said. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” said Levi, and the words rang true for a change. There was no stress or tension in his voice. “I’m almost home. Martine said you called her earlier?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got something on the kidnappings.”

  “Me too. But you first.”

  Dominic filled him in on Los Avispones’s delivery and the Seven of Spades’s phone call—though he left out what the killer had said about Levi himself, not wanting to harsh Levi’s hard-earned mellow just yet. He finished with his own research and the conclusions he’d drawn.

  “You’re right; I can get warrants off that,” Levi said. In the background, Dominic heard his car engine cut off, then the slam of his door echoing through his building’s parking garage. “I’ll call Judge Morales as soon as we hang up. But it gets better. Earlier, I ca
ught the kidnappers on the smoke shop’s cameras, and while I was tied up with Leila and Utopia, facial recognition was able to match them. We already had Charles Graham, and the system identified the other five men.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.” Levi’s words came in between quick, even breaths as he jogged up the stairs—he rarely took an elevator for anything less than five stories. “They all have military backgrounds, and a few have criminal histories as well. I just put BOLOs out; every cop and FBI agent in the Las Vegas Valley is looking for them now. We’re closing in.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Yeah. I just need to shower and change, and once I have warrants, I can arrest Royce and Juliette tonight.”

  Dominic smiled as he listened to Levi’s apartment door open and shut, followed by the soft beep of the alarm system before Levi disarmed it. He hadn’t heard Levi this energized in a long time.

  “Hey,” Levi said, “are you sure you—”

  But Dominic would never know what Levi meant to say next, because his words were abruptly cut off in a strangled scream that made all of Dominic’s hair stand on end.

  “Oh my God,” Levi said, his voice so twisted with horror that Dominic barely recognized it.

  There was a loud clatter, as if the phone had been dropped, then a thump like a body hitting the floor. Then nothing.

  “Levi,” Dominic said, his heart pounding. “Levi!”

  There was no response.

  Levi stayed where he’d fallen, crumpled on the floor after his knees had given out. He stared numbly at the dining room alcove.

  A glittery Happy Birthday! banner had been strung along the wall. Beneath it, George Quintana’s corpse sat at the head of the dining table, a paper party hat perched jauntily on the side of his head with a seven of spades card pasted to it. His clouded eyes were open, his once-golden-brown skin drained to gray by the emptied arteries in his neck. Blood drenched his clothing and had pooled on the floor below his chair.

  An elaborately frosted birthday cake sat on the table in front of him, ringed with unlit candles, with one blood-red novelty candle at the center in the shape of a seven. Quintana’s arms had been rigged to rest on the table, a fork and knife clutched in his hands like he was about to dig in.