by Maggie Price
“The big dent. What about it?”
“I told you Rocco and I had been out all night, playing poker, right? A guy sitting in on the game had the same tattoo as in that picture.” Danny pointed to the web between his thumb and index finger on his right hand. “Here. When the professor moved his thumb, it looked like the crow was flying.”
“The professor.” Bran stepped closer to the long-legged stool on which Danny sat. “What’s his real name?”
“Beats me. All anybody called him was ‘Professor’. I did hear the guy who set up the game call him ‘prof.’”
Tory watched Bran shuffle through the other photos that had spilled across the counter, coming up with the mug shot of Easton Kerr. “Is this the man with the tattoo? Is he the professor?”
Danny shook his head. “Doesn’t look anything like the dude.”
Bran laid the photo aside. “Who sets up the games? And where are they held?”
“A guy named Jazz runs them. The one I went to was in one of the hotels on Meridian. Rocco was the one who knew about it, so I rode there with him. Didn’t pay much attention to which hotel we wound up in.”
“Where’s Rocco now?”
“That’s always a good question,” Danny said. “I can try to get him on his cell. Thing is, he told me the games Jazz sets up are never in the same hotel twice in a row. And never on any type of schedule.”
Tory shoved the remainder of the reports she’d spilled back into a folder. “That’s a good way to make it hard for the cops to track an illegal game.”
“One of the best,” Bran agreed. “Danny, tell me about Jazz.”
“He’s a big black dude. He goes by Jazz because he likes that type of music.”
“What’s the game?”
“Five card draw.”
“And the set-up?”
“First thing, nobody gets in the door without a referral. I only got in ’cause Rocco knows Jazz. Once you’re in, buying into the game costs one hundred dollars up front. And Jazz pulls ten percent from each winning pot.”
“How many tables?”
“We were in a suite, so there were three set up.”
“How many players at each?”
“Seven.”
“That’s about the maximum number who can play that game using one deck of cards,” Tory said. “So, on a good night Jazz has twenty-one people paying him one hundred dollars each just to play. Then he rakes in ten percent from each winning pot. Not bad when the only overhead he probably has is the hotel suite.”
“It is,” Danny confirmed. “You want to drink or eat anything, you have to bring it with you.”
“Is that the only time you’ve played in one of Jazz’s games?”
“One and only. I’m not planning to go back since Jewell put her foot down over me gambling.”
“You may have to go back,” Bran said. “When Santini picks you up from here he’ll drop you off with Alex Blade. I’ll call and have Nate take you off Blade’s hands. He can show you pictures of all of Heath’s associates we know about. If the professor is one of them and we find out his name, your work is done. If not, I’ll disguise my appearance and you’ll be getting me into one of those poker games.”
“Us,” Tory said. “He’ll need to get both of us into a game.”
Bran shot her a look. “Heath and his pals want you dead. You think I’m going to let you get anywhere near the professor, think again.”
“I am thinking. I worked a case where a woman hired me to follow her poker-playing husband because she suspected he was having an affair with a woman dealer. For a couple of nights I played at the same table as the two-timing creep. That means I learned a lot about how these games work.” She looked at her brother. “Jazz sets up three tables, and tells the players where to sit, right? In case people who know each other have some sort of system to cheat worked out.”
“Yeah. Jazz put Rocco and me about as far away from each other as possible.” Danny’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute, the professor brought a chick with him. She was playing at the same table with Rocco, so I never talked to her.”
Again, Tory watched Bran dig through the files, this time retrieving a photo of Leah Quest. “This is Heath’s girlfriend. Was she the woman with the professor?”
“Nope,” Danny said. “The woman playing poker had blond hair, not red. And her face was rounder. I saw Rocco talking to her during a break, so he maybe caught her name.”
Tory met Bran’s gaze. “It’s going to take three people to cover the tables. If the professor is there, one of us will play in the game he does. Same goes for the blonde. If we’re lucky, we might pick up information about where they both live. Work. Hang out. That could lead us to Heath.”
Bran folded his arms over his chest. “Three people need to go in,” he agreed. “You’re not one of them. Don’t forget they surveilled you. Took photos. The professor and his girlfriend might have been in on that.”
“Do you think Heath’s girlfriend is the only female who knows how to put on a wig and change an outfit to disguise herself? You’ve seen me when I had to tail people while I worked cases. More than once you said my disguises would have fooled even you.”
“Forget it. I’ll get some other cop to go in with Danny and me.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Name one cop who plays poker with the same skill I do.”
“She’s got you there, Bran,” Danny piped in. “Tor’s the poker queen. She taught me everything I know.”
“That’s right.” Her mouth took on a smug curve when she saw Bran frown. “You thinking about all the times I beat the pants off you playing poker? Literally.”
Sliding off the stool, she started to turn toward the coffeepot. His hand whipped out and locked on her arm.
“Hey—”
“Do you know what happens this afternoon?” His voice was low, and as hard as his fingers that pressed down to the bone.
All thought of jerking from his grasp died when her gaze rose. His eyes held the same look of danger she’d seen the night she was attacked.
“No,” she said carefully. “What happens this afternoon?”
“Funerals. Two of the cops who were at the credit-union shootout are burying their spouses. I talked to both cops on the phone. Listening to them, it’s like they’ve had their souls cut out. When I think about how close you came to winding up in a box….”
With a vicious oath, he let her go, turned and gripped the edge of the counter. “Dammit, Tory, I can’t stand the thought of you getting hurt again. Maybe worse. I put one wife in the ground. I won’t risk putting you there, too. Period.”
She let out a shaky breath as everything inside her softened. “I’m not a danger junkie,” she reminded him quietly. “I don’t have a death wish. I’m not going to do anything that will get me hurt. But I have to do something.”
“How about stay alive?” he asked as he rounded on her.
“That’s my plan.” The way he looked at her, his eyes so cold and fierce, his face so set, had the breath backing up in her lungs. Violence trembled around him. “Bran, listen to me. Just listen.”
Wanting to make him understand, she chose her words carefully. “In my car, when Kerr attacked me, I had a split second to think about how I didn’t want the world to go away. I thought of how my life was just going to wink out, like a soap bubble. Of how desperately I wanted to live.” She forced a swallow past the knot in her throat. “I was so scared.”
“I’m sorry.” He snagged her hand, rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. In the space of a heartbeat, his eyes had transformed into blue smoke and the emotions that swirled in them were painful to watch. “I can tell you a hundred times how sorry I am. How I’ll regret for the rest of my life they came after you instead of me.”
“It’s not your fault.” She fought the urge to curl her fingers around his. “I’m telling you how I felt because I need you to understand why I want to have a part in getting Heath. Why I need to be involved.”
She closed her eyes, saw the chain drop, felt the cold links cinch against her throat, tasted the fear. When an involuntary shudder swept through her, it was Bran who tightened his hand on hers. His fingers were warm and steady, and she very badly wanted to step into the comfort of his arms.
Her heart aching, she reminded herself that whether or not he was right about their not being done with each other, there was no way they could permanently close the abyss that existed between them. And even if they managed somehow to narrow it, she would never again trust that he would stay for the long haul. She had barely survived his leaving the first time.
The cold reality was that their marriage existed only on paper. They were together again temporarily. When Heath was no longer a threat, she and Bran would go back to their separate corners in the separate worlds they’d begun to create after they split up. And that would be the end of Mr. and Mrs. Bran McCall.
She slid her hand from his, curled her fingers into her palms. “I don’t know if it’s revenge or justice I’m after,” she said quietly. “Maybe both. Heath scared me. He made me feel like a victim. I hate that. I want to have a part in making him pay.”
When Bran remained silent, she angled her chin.
“One reason I’m a P.I. is that I can’t stand sitting at a desk, waiting for things to happen. That’s what we’re doing right now. We’ve barely been here three days and I’m going slowly nuts doing nothing.”
“Doing nothing is keeping you alive.”
“I know how to keep myself that way,” she countered. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have walked away from that car the other night. You know that. You know I can handle myself.”
He raked a hand through his sandy hair. “That’s not the point.”
“I need to work. Take some action. I’ve never asked you for anything, Bran. That’s a point you’ve made, loud and clear. So, I’m asking now. If you have to go into that poker game, take me with you. Give me a part in finding Heath.”
“Dammit, woman.” He put a hand on either side of her face, tilted her chin up. His eyes, burning blue, stared into hers. “You finally come to me for something and it’s the one thing I don’t want to give you.”
She felt a hitch under her ribs while she studied the lines and hollows of his face. If only, she thought. “This just proves how off the timing between us always was.” She attempted a smile, but it wouldn’t gel. “Still is.”
His expression closed up and he dropped his hands. “Everything,” he said, his voice cold and controlled. “If we do wind up at one of those games, you’ll agree to do everything I say. Follow orders. Otherwise, you’ll stay here.”
“Agreed.”
He shifted his gaze to Danny. “If we go into that game, I want your pal, Rocco, to get Tory in.”
“That’d be four of us,” Danny commented. “There’s only three tables.”
“Exactly,” Bran said. “You said Jazz won’t seat people who know each other at the same table. That means he’ll separate you and me. Jazz knows that you and Rocco are pals, so chances are good he’ll put Rocco at a different table from both of us. We’ll have all three tables covered in case the professor shows up to play.”
“And since I go in with Rocco,” Tory began, “Jazz will put me at a different table from him.”
“Right.” Bran’s eyes were sharp and intense and not entirely comfortable to look into when he was in cop mode. “You’ll wind up sitting with either Danny or me. And if the professor and his girlfriend show, you might wind up sitting next to a friend of Heath’s.”
“I can handle it.”
“I’m not sure I can.” Bran hooked his finger under her chin, tugged it up. “The disguise you wear had better be good.”
She thought about the chain, felt a faint, uncomfortable tug of panic. “It will be.”
“Uh, Jewell says I’ve got a lot to learn about relationships,” Danny said. “I know she’s right. Even so, I gotta ask this one question.”
Tory turned. “What?”
“Taking into account the way you guys look at each other sometimes, are you sure you ought to be getting divorced?”
Late that afternoon, Nate called Bran to let him know that Danny Dewitt had viewed photos of all of Heath’s associates. None of the pictures matched the man calling himself the professor. Nate also advised that the PD had no record of anyone using that alias.
That left a poker game as the sole lead to the nameless man with the crow tattoo matching Heath’s.
Bran consulted with Danny’s pal, Rocco, then orchestrated a plan to gain his and Tory’s entry into the next game run by the small-time gambling promoter named Jazz.
The game was scheduled for that same night.
Per Bran’s plan, Danny vouched for him in order to gain admittance into the hotel suite. The fake beard and mustache Bran wore was slam-dunk assurance no one would peg him as the cop involved in the credit-union shootout.
Ten minutes after Bran and Danny arrived at the suite, Rocco ushered Tory through the doorway.
Standing amid a grouping of the players assigned to his table, Bran sipped Scotch. He schooled his expression to one of idle interest while he watched Tory smile up at Jazz, a coffee-skinned hulking giant who looked as though he could snap tree trunks in his hands.
As he studied her, Bran’s gaze narrowed over the rim of his glass. He’d left the safe house while his sister Carrie was still helping Tory don her disguise, so he hadn’t seen the finished product.
He had to admit that if she hadn’t walked in with Rocco, he wouldn’t have recognized her right off. Not with her double-take-gorgeous face framed by raven-black hair cut in a chin-length swing. He saw nothing to hint she was wearing a wig. Or contacts that turned her green eyes to a rich, whiskey brown. And no way in hell would he have guessed the little mole right at the corner of her full, red-glossed mouth wasn’t a gift from the gene gods.
“There’s one sexy broad.” The comment came from a tall, wide-shouldered car salesman named George with a heavily lined face and dark hair. After several of the men in their group voiced their agreement, George added, “Let’s hope to hell Jazz points her to our table.”
Seconds later George’s hope was fulfilled. Glancing their way, Tory skimmed her heavily made-up eyes across Bran without any sign of recognition. She looked back and nodded to Jazz while unbuttoning her long black coat.
“I always enjoy these games a lot more when there’s some scenery,” George said.
The husband in Bran snuffed out his irritation and let the cop take over. “You play in Jazz’s games a lot?”
“Every time I get a chance,” George responded. “The one-hundred dollar cover fee isn’t too rich for my blood. And I figure Jazz earns the ten percent from each winning pot just by making sure no scam artists or worse get through the door.”
“You can’t be too careful these days.” Bran wondered what George would say if he found out he would be playing cards tonight with a cop and a P.I.
Thoughtful, Bran took another sip of his drink. He had covertly checked the right hands of all the players in the room and hadn’t spotted a crow tattoo. If the professor didn’t show tonight, the salesman might at least be a source of information.
Bran edged back his suit coat and slipped a hand into the pocket of his slacks. The small gold pin in his lapel secreted a camera lens the size of a pinhead. As he shifted, the wireless camera beamed images of everyone in the suite to a remote receiver. “Are most of the regulars here tonight?”
“Some.” George’s gaze swept over their fellow players. “A few first-timers like you. And the broad.” He shifted back toward the door. “Oh, man, get a load of that dress!”
Bran’s hand froze with the glass of Scotch two inches from his mouth. His initial thought was that his sister must have painted the form-fitting, cleavage-baring glitter of flame over Tory’s trim, lean body. His gaze slid downward to the shimmery, smoky black hose caressing mile-long legs that could turn a man to stone. The hand in his
pocket fisted when she strolled in his direction on spiky heels the same hot-sex color as the dress. Judging from the way the dress clung to her hips, he doubted there was room for even a pair of thong panties between material and flesh.
“Sweet mother of Finn,” George muttered. “I’d die a happy man if I could spend a couple of hours of sizzle and burn with that gorgeous number.”
Bran set his jaw. The lech might draw his last breath tonight, but he would not die happy.
No one had to tell him that every man’s gaze was on his wife. Or what they were thinking as she sauntered across the suite, since the same hot thoughts were presently scorching his own brain. But, unlike every other male in the suite, he didn’t have to imagine what it would be like to tumble her naked into bed. Consume her in slow, blood-stirring swallows. Feel those sleek, endless legs wrapped around him. Dammit, he knew. Knew, too, that on the day he’d walked out, he’d thrown away his right ever to claim her again.
And a hell of a lot of other rights, too. Rights he’d been thinking a lot about lately.
“Gentlemen, I’m Tracy,” she said as she stepped into their midst. The little mole at the edge of her mouth did a sexy upward slide when she smiled. “Jazz said I’m playing at your table.”
“I’m Brian,” Bran said, trying to ignore the come-and-get-me fragrance that pumped off her skin into his lungs. “Welcome to the game.”
Rings glittered on her fingers as she waved a greeting to each man who introduced himself. She cocked her chin. “Jazz told me he would leave it to some of you veterans to give me the specifics on what type of poker we’re playing tonight.”
Bran knew she wasn’t so much interested in learning they were playing three raise, ten-dollar limit, jacks or better to open as she was in identifying the regulars who might have played previously with the professor.
Beaming a smile, George offered his arm. “Why don’t you sit by me, Tracy? If you’ve got questions about the rules, I’ll be right there to give you answers.”
“Well, you’re really a sweetheart.” She slid her hand into the crook of his arm. “It’s a comfort to have a strong man looking out for me. Oh, and Jazz said he’s expecting one more gentleman to join our table, but that we should go ahead and get started.”
