Nine keys, for some reason, were all valuable enough to kill for.
And I had one of them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
White House, Washington, D.C. August 24
“THE LINE IS secure, sir,” Paul said to the president, pointing to the blinking light on the phone.
“Thank you,” President Dolan Chase said. “Recording devices off in here?”
Around him, the Oval Office felt smaller than it normally did. He sometimes didn’t much like this place, when the days got long and the decisions got ugly. And this was one of those times. It wasn’t even dinner time yet and it had been a very long day.
Paul nodded. “They’re off.”
Dolan wasn’t sure if he should trust that or not, but he wanted Paul to hear this conversation as well. He punched the speaker phone, then said, “What’s going on out there?”
“I met with Carson Hill’s son,” FBI Agent Heather Voight said. “Both last night and again briefly this morning. He told me that an attempt was made on his life yesterday in front of his father’s house.”
“Did he say what the person was after, and did he get it?” Dolan asked, almost afraid of the answer.
“All he told me was that the guy was after something of value and got nothing but a number of serious injuries. We found the guy, clearly just hired by someone, at a local hospital. Bad concussion and burns. We will be talking with him later today. Doc Hill really did a job on him.”
“Okay,” Dolan said, shaking his head. “I assume you have people on Doc Hill now. I want you to keep us informed on everything he’s doing. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Anything else?”
“I’m not sure how it ties into any of this,” Agent Voight said, “but a man by the name of Verne Adkins was also attacked later last night. It was set up to look like a suicide, but through sheer luck, it failed. Mr. Adkins is now in the hospital.”
“Not Verne,” Dolan said. Verne was one of the nicest men he knew, with a wonderful family. The guy wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he could sure take your money at a poker table.
“He was a friend of yours, sir?” Agent Voight asked.
Dolan glanced up at Paul, whose face had drained of all hint of color at the mention of Verne Adkin’s name.
“He was. Keep him protected as well. If you need more help, FBI Director Smith will send it.”
“I’m working with the Las Vegas bureau,” she said. “I called the director and he called them. We already have Mr. Adkins protected, thanks to Doc Hill.”
Dolan glanced up at Paul, very surprised.
“Doc Hill wanted you to protect Verne Adkins?” Paul asked.
“Yes. He called me this morning and alerted me. He was ahead of us with the connection of Verne Adkins to himself and Carson Hill. I don’t know how he made the connection. Or even what the connection is exactly, to be honest. But I am now pretty sure it has something to do with some keys. Nine keys, to be exact, which means there are more people involved.”
“All right,” Dolan said, a little too fast. His stomach felt like he had just eaten the worst rotted meat available. He reached for the bottle of Tums in his drawer and quickly took three of them, letting the chalky taste fill his throat.
At the mention of the keys, Paul had dropped into a chair beside the desk and was sitting with his hands over his face.
After a moment, Agent Voight said, “Mr. President?”
“Yes,” Dolan said. “Just thinking this over.”
“I understand, sir,” she said. Then hesitantly, she went on. “Is there anything you can tell me that might help in keeping Doc Hill and Verne Adkins safe?”
Paul looked up startled and shook his head.
“Nothing yet,” Dolan said. “And thank you, agent, for the good work.”
He clicked the phone off and stared at his long-time best friend and chief of staff.
Paul just shook his head and went back to staring at a spot on the floor between his legs.
There was nothing to say.
“Get some dinner,” Dolan said. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow morning. We might know more then.”
As he stood and left the Oval Office, Paul was still sitting in the chair, his head still down.
Neither of them were hungry, of that he was sure.
And he doubted Paul would get much sleep tonight. He knew he wouldn’t.
He was supposed to be the most powerful man on the planet, and yet he had no idea how to get this situation, and Doc Hill under control.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Las Vegas, Nevada. August 24
I DIDN’T EVEN get into the hot morning air of the parking area of the hospital before I had Fleet on the phone. He was at Carson’s house, working on more of the inventory for the estate.
“Drop everything,” I said without even a hello. “Get back to the Bellagio.”
“Sure,” Fleet said. “I’ve got a couple of errands to run, so it might take me—”
I didn’t let him finish. “No, now. Just get to the Bellagio like you’ve seen a snake in the house. No side trips, nothing. I’ll meet you in your suite and explain everything.”
“There aren’t any snakes here in the desert, are there?” he asked.
I could just imagine him looking around the floor in Carson’s house for a snake. If this wasn’t so damned serious, it almost might be funny.
“Believe there are for the moment and get out of there, get to the Bellagio. Trust me, there are no snakes in the Bellagio.”
“On my way,” Fleet said, hanging up before I could.
I climbed into my rental, got the air-conditioning going, then started to call Ace. I was halfway through dialing, then hung up. I decided that a few minutes one way or another wouldn’t make that much difference. At least I hoped it wouldn’t. I didn’t trust myself to talk to him at the moment. Or my mother. I was just too angry.
It might be better to let Fleet do that when he got to the suite.
I wanted them safe.
And I wanted to know just what they knew as well. This secret stuff had gotten real old about the time that guy with the tattoos said he was going to kill me. Now, with Verne lying there injured, all the not knowing was just pissing me off.
I got across the strip to the hotel and had the rental parked in the Bellagio south parking lot in my reserved spot on the second level in almost record time. There was no doubt I was ahead of Fleet by a good ten or fifteen minutes.
As I climbed out into the heat, a long white stretch limo pulled up behind my car, blocking me in.
I couldn’t see who was in the limo due to the dark windows.
I moved around my open driver’s door, keeping it between me and the limo, waiting, ready to duck and move in any direction I needed to move, depending on what came at me. Behind me was a cement wall. I would have to move along that wall in front of twenty parked cars to get to the entrance. It wasn’t much of an escape, but it was all I had.
A younger tourist couple was walking toward the entrance from another car, and three men were talking a hundred paces away.
Everything looked normal.
Except the white limo blocking me.
If some guy with a gun came out of that limo shooting, I was going to be in worse shape than I was in front of Carson’s house.
The back door of the limo opened. “Doc, would you join me for a moment?”
I still couldn’t see anything about the person behind the voice. It was just too dark inside to see anything but a shadow. And he wanted me to just climb in there.
The guy must have thought I was a total idiot.
“I don’t think so,” I said, staying right where I was. That guy yesterday had clearly been hired by someone with money. Enough money to have a white limo, more than likely.
I glanced around. Two Bellagio security cameras were pointed my way and not moving. Good. More than likely a security guard or two were already watching this very clos
ely. Of course, if I ended up dead, it wouldn’t do me a lot of good if they had my murder recorded.
An older man, heavy-set with thinning hair, climbed out of the limo and shut the door behind him, holding his hands away from his sides slightly to show me that he carried nothing. He was wearing a light dress shirt and light brown slacks with loafers. I knew him from somewhere, but at the moment I just couldn’t place him.
“Doc,” he said. “My name is Richard Scott. But everyone just calls me R.A.”
Of course, now I knew who he was. I had seen his picture dozens of times. He was one of the five hundred richest men on the planet. He owned the ranch that hosted the Big Game, the private poker game Carson had been flying home from when he was killed. How the hell did he even know who I was?
And what was he doing here? He normally never left his ranch on the Salmon River before September.
“How about we get in out of the heat?” R.A. said. “I’ve got something to tell you about.”
“I’m pretty comfortable right out here,” I said, glancing at the security cameras in such a way that made it clear to R.A. that he was being watched.
R.A. shrugged. “Can’t say as I blame you, after what happened to your father and then Verne yesterday.”
I said nothing, figuring I’d just let him talk. He found me after all. And he clearly had something he wanted to say to me.
“Sorry to hear about your father,” he said after a moment. “He was a friend and a great poker player. I understand you’re almost as good.”
“I play mostly tournaments,” I said. “Carson was a good high-stakes specialist.”
“That he was,” R.A. said. “And he seemed to specialize in taking my money.”
“I hear you can afford it,” I said.
He laughed. “Yeah, I can. And I hear you can handle the white water on the Middle Fork below my ranch better than anyone.”
I was not going to allow this man to get me off my guard. “I love that river. But I’m curious why you know so much about me.”
“I like to keep track of my friend’s families,” he said.
Verne’s words came screaming back at me. Protect your family. Was I already too late with Ace and my mother? The thought made my knees feel weak.
R.A. looked uncomfortable when I said nothing else, holding my composure as well as I did in any tournament when being stared down by someone who thought they could get a read on me. Around us, the morning just seemed to get hotter by the moment.
Finally, he wiped some sweat off his forehead. There was no wind blowing through the open garage at all, which made the heat even worse. At least we weren’t out in the sun.
“Look, your father and I shared many events in our lives. Because of one of those events, someone now wants to kill me, and you as well.”
I almost said, Tough to kill yourself, isn’t it? Then decided against it and went another direction.
“You have one of the keys?” I asked.
He nodded and pulled a key out of his pocket that looked like Carson’s, only this one was attached to a gold chain that was secured to a belt loop on his slacks.
“Which number?” I asked.
“Number two,” he said. “Someone is trying to kill me for this key. I’m sure that’s what happened with Verne and your father as well, and they dug up Jeff to get his. My sources tell me you now have your father’s key.”
I didn’t ask him how he knew that, and there was no way in hell I was going to confirm that I even had the key. But his knowing that was just another piece of evidence that he was behind Mr. Tattoo yesterday. But as long as he was alone, and we were where we were at, I figured there was no harm in playing along.
“So, who do you think wants your key enough to kill you for it?”
“I think it’s Nyland Harrison,” R.A. said.
“I don’t know him,” I said.
“Nyland Harrison, up until about ten years ago, controlled the world’s largest construction firm.”
“I thought you owned that,” I said.
“I do now,” R.A. said. “Nyland drove his company into bankruptcy with a string of bad decisions after a dam he built in Northern California collapsed.”
I remembered that. It happened back in 1995, in my first year of college. Ugly disaster. Killed over a hundred people in the valleys below the dam.
“So, why him?”
“Because he’s gone crazy. He’s so power hungry, he’ll do anything to get his company back. And I’m betting he thinks these keys are the way to do it, if he can get enough of them.”
“How many are there?” I asked.
“Nine,” R.A. said, confirming what Verne had told me.
“And what is in the box that these keys will open?”
“Secrets,” R.A. said.
I was getting disgusted at all the secrets people were keeping from me. “That’s what Verne said. And trust me, if someone doesn’t start telling me what these secrets are about, Carson’s key is going to end up in the hands of the police very shortly.”
R.A.’s hands came up like I had threatened to hit him. “Oh, God, no, don’t do that. Never think of doing that.”
“I’ve already had an attempt on my life because of that key. I think I’ll be a lot safer the moment it is out of my hands, don’t you? So why don’t you just let me in on some of these dirty little secrets that are in that box, so I know what I’m protecting.”
R.A. glanced around, the sweat pouring off his forehead. At the moment, there was no one around us, at least close enough to hear. Then he looked me right in the eye and said, “A murder. The secret is evidence of a murder.”
I felt disappointed. After all the buildup, I figured it would be something more.
Then the pieces fell into place like a perfect poker hand coming together.
The FBI in Idaho.
Carson, Verne, R.A., and the President, all old-time poker players.
Nine keys. Ten men, Verne had said.
A murder at a ten-handed poker game. Nine survivors.
I just couldn’t breathe.
Oh, God, could it be that the President of the United States was involved in a murder and a cover-up?
If it were true, that was certainly a secret worth killing me for. And a lot of other people besides.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Las Vegas, Nevada. August 24
I STOOD, FACING R.A. Scott in the hot late-morning, trying to decide how to ask my next question. He had no idea I knew that President Chase had sent the FBI to supposedly guard over me. Clearly, my father, R.A. Scott, Verne Adkins, Jeff Taylor, and the president had been involved in a murder and a cover-up a long time ago. And without that cover-up, Dolan Chase would have never gotten to be the president.
I suddenly had this very clear realization just how far over my head I was. We were talking about something here that could bring down a president. And a murder cover-up that had lasted for decades.
For all I knew, it was the President who was trying to round up the keys, having people killed. It didn’t make much sense, but he clearly had the most to lose if he was involved.
After a long minute of us standing, facing each other, with R.A. sweating and looking lost in the memory, I finally asked him what happened.
“Third year of the Big Game,” he said, sighing. “August, 1982.”
“Twenty-seven years ago? That’s a long time to keep this silent.”
“It is, isn’t it?” R.A. said. “I’ve never told anyone about it until just now.”
“You still haven’t told me.”
He sighed again, looked around to make sure no one coming and going in the parking garage was close enough to hear. “A guy by the name of Kevin DeFoe was cheating us and we caught him.”
“How old west,” I said, my voice as sarcastic as I could make it. I was just trying to keep my balance and my mind working. “You catch a card cheat and kill him. Sounds like a bad movie.”
“We didn’t mean to kill him.
He ran when I caught him palming.”
“From your ranch?” I asked, surprised. “Where did the guy think he could go?”
R.A.’s ranch was inside the Idaho Primitive area, on the edge of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. There was no road in or out of there, just his private air strip. No road at all for twenty miles, at least. Just a very long and dangerous trail along the river up to where we put the rafts in during the early spring. And there was nothing there most of the year when the water was low.
R.A. shrugged. “He just wanted away from us. I don’t think he gave it much thought. We were all pretty angry, at least those of us who had been losing to him.”
“So, let me guess, you chased him.”
R.A. again nodded. “It was dark and he was starting to get away down the trail toward the river from my cabin, so I picked up a rock and hit him with it.”
“You’re kidding?”
He shook his head. “I wish I was. I used to be a good baseball player in my college days. I hit him square in the back with a perfect strike. Two others who were chasing him with me threw rocks as well. By the time we stopped hitting him, Kevin was dead. We didn’t mean to kill him.”
I had never heard a rich and powerful man sound so pathetic. But I was too stunned to care. They had killed a man for cheating at cards. And then covered it up for twenty-seven years. The president, Carson, Verne, and who knew who else.
“If it makes a difference,” R.A. added, his voice soft. “Your father wasn’t one of the ones chasing the cheater.”
“It doesn’t,” I said.
R.A. nodded and waited for me to ask another question.
I wasn’t sure which one to ask, so I backed up and came at everything from what was causing all the problems now.
“So, the keys are part of a cover-up in some fashion or another. How did that come about?”
“We all discovered that night how ruthless Nyland was,” R.A. said. “Most of us just wanted to go to the police, your father included, to pay the price for what had happened.”
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