God forbid.
I momentarily contemplated letting her in on the torment LeAnna had afforded me during my childhood summers at the casino as an alternate version of her new BFF, but pride squashed those words back in along with all of the repressed memories. Besides, a few childhood taunts weren't the same thing as a cold-blooded murder. Was LeAnna capable of that?
"What makes you think she's innocent?" I grabbed a glossy red apple from the fruit bowl on the table, taking a bite as I waited for an answer.
"Well," she drew out, looking at her brand-new sneakers. "I wasn't supposed to say anything about her little secret. Promise not to tell?"
"That she thinks she's pregnant?" I asked, somewhat coherently through my mouthful of apple.
Britton's wide-eyed gaze popped to mine. "Did she tell you?"
Yeah, because we're close like that.
I swallowed my bite but not the derisive snort. "Gerald told me last night while LeAnna was flirting with a guy at the bar. I'm so glad she's thinking like a mother already." I couldn't help the sarcasm. I took another big bite to keep from expanding on the subject.
She waved a dismissive hand between us. "She was just hanging around the bar while she waited for me."
I raised an eyebrow her way. "So LeAnna was the old friend you had to look fabulous for last night?"
Britton nodded. "I was late 'cause I was trying to figure out which dress to wear. But I'm sure LeAnna wasn't drinking. And I'm sure she wasn't flirting either."
I was pretty sure she was, and I was pretty sure her husband thought she was too. But I kept that opinion to myself, instead asking, "Okay, but how does being pregnant make her innocent?"
Britton scoffed. "Why would anyone kill the father of their baby?"
I shook my head and dumped the apple core into the trash under the kitchen sink. "I think that all depends on her feelings about the father."
"You're wrong. LeAnna is too sweet," Britton objected.
I snorted loudly, crossing my arms over my chest.
Britton threw me the cynical side-eye stare. "I've spent a lot of time with her over the past few years. While she may have a bit of a wild streak, I know she wouldn't kill anyone."
"Wild streak?"
"Sorta." Britton's hand went to twist that poor lock of hair again. "You know how girls are."
"I know how some girls are. I don't have the pleasure of knowing how this girl is." Other than her obnoxious childhood self.
"Okay, fine," Britton said slowly. "It may be possible that LeAnna was flirting just a teeny tiny bit with the guy you saw last night."
I couldn't help a grin. "Go on…"
"Well, she's just really friendly, you know? She's just naturally flirtatious. She never means anything by it. I'm sure. I mean, take last night, for example. She was totally texting with some guy all night, but at the end of the night she shut him down and went up to her suite. Alone. Harmless flirting."
"Hold on. Rewind. She was texting someone all night?"
Britton bit her bottom lip. "That looks kinda bad for her, huh?"
"Kinda."
"Maybe I shouldn't tell the police that part." Britton sucked in a breath, her face scrunching up as much as her excellent plastic surgeon's work would allow. "Ohmigod, do you think the police are going to question me?"
"Who was she texting with?" I asked, glossing over her last question. The truth was, I had no idea what the police were going to do.
She shrugged, blinking at me through her thick, fake lashes. "Wouldn't say. I knew it was a guy though. No one giggles like that at a text unless there's a sexy guy on the other end."
"So, maybe she was cheating on Gerald," I said, more to myself than Britton.
"No way. Like I said, harmless flirting."
"Are you sure? Were you with her all night last night?"
Britton sighed, plopping back onto the sofa. "No," she admitted. "Like I said, she said she was going up to her room."
I narrowed my eyes at Britton, noticing that she was carefully avoiding my gaze, looking everywhere but at me. "But…?"
"But it was early." Britton blew out another sigh. "Usually when she stays here, our girls' nights last until the sun comes up. But last night she wanted to call it quits around eleven. She said she was feeling a little queasy. You know, morning sickness." Britton's forehead tried to do a frown again. "But I guess it kinda wasn't morning, was it?"
"Did you actually watch her go up to her room?"
Britton shrugged. "I saw her get into the elevators."
"But she could have easily gotten out and gone somewhere else. Like to meet the guy she was texting."
"I guess." Britton squeaked out the admission. "That doesn't look very good for her either, does it?"
I shook my head. "If LeAnna was seeing someone else, that's a pretty big motive to want her husband out of the picture."
Britton jutted her chin forward with defiance. "I still don't think she did it."
I opened my mouth to protest that I, for one, was becoming more and more convinced. Only my phone buzzing from my pocket interrupted me.
I grabbed it and looked down at the screen. Security office. I quickly swiped my phone to accept the call.
"Tessie King," I answered.
"Ms. King, this is Maverick in security. We have a detective from the South Lake Tahoe Police Department here. He's asking for our surveillance files from last night."
I pursed my lips together. Right. Of course the police would want to see our surveillance. Mr. Taylor died on the gaming floor, which had cameras mounted nearly every five feet. There was no way someone could have killed him without being caught on camera. I sent a hesitant glance Britton's direction. For her sake, I hoped it wasn't LeAnna's face the police found on those tapes.
"Right. I'll be right down."
"What? What's going on now?" Britton asked.
I gave her a reassuring smile. "The police want to talk to security. Don't worry. I'm sure everything will be fine." For us. For LeAnna, I wasn't so sure.
On the elevator ride down to the second-floor security office, I tried to look past my mental childhood scars, but I still couldn't see Britton's side of LeAnna. An evil twin was the only logical conclusion.
As the door slid open, I nodded to Larry and Moe, the guards who made sure patrons didn't wander onto the security floor. It was a running gag in security that everyone had a nickname. Most people knew about theirs and laughed them off. Except Alfie, that is. I doubted very seriously that Alfie did humor in any form.
"Ms. King," Larry said. "The police are in Mr. Malone's office."
I nodded my thanks and made my way through the security floor, which was a maze of cubicles cordoned off by glass partitions that afforded privacy, but not too much privacy, to their occupants. Each office was furnished in a dark, modern style punctuated by huge screens mounted at eye level, where random shots of the casino floor played on endless loops. Security staff nodded and rushed past me, arms loaded with files and paperwork, as I worked my way down the glass hallway toward Alfie's office in the center of the floor.
By the time I arrived, it looked like Alfie already had the footage cued up. The image on the oversized monitor on his wall was of the same bank of The Price is Right slot machines where I discovered Mr. Taylor. Only in this scene, there was no crime scene tape surrounding them or lab techs collecting fingerprints and hair samples. Alfie stood at the monitors, along with two uniformed officers and the same detective who'd been with the bawling LeAnna. Maverick was seated at Alfie's desk behind a computer, queuing up the footage.
"This is from last night, sir," Maverick said.
Alfie nodded. "Time?"
"Two fifteen a.m."
"Run it through," Alfie ordered.
I took a spot near the door to silently watch the footage myself, hoping no one noticed my presence, as Maverick sent the scene on fast-forward. We watched several people crisscross in front of that particular machine before I recognized Mr. Taylor
in his rumpled blazer from the previous evening stumbling into the frame.
"There!" the detective shouted, pointing at the monitor.
Maverick slowed the tape, and I watched Mr. Taylor sit down at the Price is Right machine, where he promptly passed out. No big surprise there. We waited a few seconds before Alfie motioned for Maverick to speed the tape up again. He did, only pausing when a guy in big puffy ski pants, a plaid flannel shirt, and a baseball cap came into the frame.
I held my breath, watching the ski bum glance over his shoulder, take something out of his pocket, and bend over Mr. Taylor's frame.
"Zoom in on his face," Alfie said, his voice tense.
Maverick complied, pushing in closer on the ski bum. Unfortunately, the cap covered up any hint at hair color, and as the man turned toward the camera, a large bushy beard and oversized black sunglasses obscured most of his face.
"It's a disguise!" I blurted out.
All five men turned around to look at me.
Oops. So much for silence. "Er, I mean, clearly whoever that is has covered up his appearance. Right?"
"Or hers," the detective said pointedly.
I bit my lip. He was right. While the outfit had initially given the impression of a male, the bulkiness of the clothes concealed the shape of the person underneath them. The killer could easily have been male or female.
"We're going to need copies of this as well as any other footage you have of this person in plaid," the detective told Alfie.
He nodded. "Of course, Detective Johnson. Anything we can do to help. Follow me, and I can get that for you now."
I moved out of the way to allow the four men to exit the room. Alfie gave me a stern look as he walked out—thankfully leaving any lectures on proper conduct in the presence of police detectives for later.
As soon as they left, the air in the room lightened. "You think we have more footage of that guy?" I asked Maverick.
He shrugged behind the desk. Maverick was slim, shy, and the complete opposite in every way to the Top Gun version of his nickname sake. But he'd proven helpful to me on more than one occasion in the past and was sweeter than anyone working security had a right to be.
"If he took the time to put on a disguise, he knew we were watching," Maverick reasoned. "I'm sure he was careful about where else he went in the casino as well."
I nodded. He was right. If there was more footage of the mystery man, it was likely only going in and out of the Royal Palace's front doors.
However, there was someone else who might not have been so careful about her movements that night…
"Hey, you think you can pull up some other footage from last night for me?" I asked.
"Sure," he said, turning to his keyboard. "What do you want to see?"
I gave him LeAnna's name and room number. "Start with early last night." With a little luck, maybe I'd catch her sneaking off to meet the cute guy on the other end of her text messages. With a lot of luck, maybe I'd catch her changing into a ski bum disguise.
He punched some data into the computer, and the footage popped up on the screen. A little box outlined LeAnna's face, her name hovering above, as she left her room for the girls' night with Britton.
"Any way you can send this to another monitor?" I asked. "Like, maybe one in a more private office?" While I wasn't technically doing anything wrong watching LeAnna, I wasn't sure that I wanted to throw any more suspicion on her to Alfie or anyone else. Well, any more than she was currently throwing on herself.
Maverick nodded, motioning to an empty office two cubicles down. "That work?"
"Perfect." I beamed at him, causing his cheeks to turned twenty different shades of pink.
"I'll, uh, send the footage over to the monitor."
"Is there any way I can follow her movements through the casino? Like through the different cameras that might've picked her up last night?"
"Sure. I can auto-set to follow her through our facial recognition software chronologically according to the time stamps on the footage that any of our cameras might have picked up that evening."
Gotta love modern technology. "You are the best! Thank you, Maverick."
He blushed again, his cheeks going an impossible shade of red now. "You're welcome. If you need me to service you…" He paused, stammering over his words as he realized what he said. "I, uh, mean if you need my services, you know where to find me." Then he scrambled back to his office across the hall, eyes firmly on his feet as he scampered past me.
I smiled, quickly scampering off myself to the empty office before Alfie could return to his. As promised, LeAnna's face leaving her hotel room was now front and center on the monitor atop the desk. Using the mouse, I slowly scrolled through watching her get into the elevators and exit them down on the casino floor with just the slightest blip between frames as the different cameras handed her off to one another. From there she made her way to the bar, where the stranger I'd seen from last night came up to her and offered to buy her a drink. I had to give her points that at least it looked like she ordered a Diet Coke instead of something alcoholic. I was almost considering the man at the bar as her possible texter, when I saw her look down at her phone and giggle.
Britton was right. Women did not giggle like that at texts from other women.
After several moments of watching LeAnna text back, flirting with the guy at the bar, and accompanying him to the craps table where she served as his "lucky charm," I saw Britton finally arrive. I had to admit she did look fabulous in the gray off-the-shoulder number, which she'd accessorized with lots of bling. The two women did a squealy-huggy thing. Then what ensued was lots more giggling, gambling, drinks, and flirting.
Hours of it.
After what felt like eons of fast-forwarding through footage, I felt myself going cross-eyed and hit pause to take a break. I rubbed my eyes and leaned back in the chair, which groaned and creaked in protest. I moved my neck from side to side, working out the kinks, and glanced across the hall at Alfie's gigantic monitor.
And froze.
Gone was the footage of Mr. Taylor's killer, but it had been replaced with what looked like Alfie's usual rotating live feed of various parts of the casino floor. On this particular part, a familiar face caught my eye. A face that owed me a damned good reason for ditching me on New Year's Eve.
Agent Devin Ryder, FBI.
CHAPTER FOUR
I popped up from my chair and was next door in Maverick's office in two seconds flat. Motioning back toward the room I'd been occupying, I asked, "Hey, would you mind following along with that footage and letting me know if LeAnna met up with anyone last night? Particularly anyone male?"
"Whatever you need. I'm here to service you." He paused, going beet red again, and cursed under his breath. "Serve you."
"Thanks. Text me if you see anything," I called over my shoulder as I wove my way through security and into the elevator. I rode it down to the casino floor and frantically scanned random faces until I found Agent Ryder's blond hair bobbing through the crowd.
My stomach alternated between giddy butterflies and twists of anger. It had been almost three months since he'd left me high and dry on the biggest date night of the year. I thought I'd gotten past it—with a little help from Ben & Jerry and their good friend, Jose Cuervo—but the butterflies in my gut that'd multiplied into a flock begged to differ. As I bore down on my prey, I reminded myself to play it cool. I would go for the persona of an aloof, busy casino owner who really didn't have time for a personal life anyway. Because, well, it was sort of true.
I approached my target, who looked to be grilling one of my cashiers. I stopped, inhaled a few deep breaths that didn't really help me relax much, and tugged my skirt into place. I sashayed calmly through the resounding machines, lacing through the crowded lanes until I was standing next to him.
Damn, he smelled good. Even through the haze of cigarette smoke, the familiar pine and sandalwood scent set my knees wobbling. I attempted to regain my composure aga
in and cleared my throat.
"Ms. King." Ryder nodded, turning toward me.
I beamed at Rosalie inside the cashier's cage. "I'll take care of Agent Ryder's needs." I paused, realizing I'd just done a Maverick moment, and quickly corrected myself. "I'll answer any questions he has."
I slid my reserved face into place as I turned my attention to him. It really helped that he'd addressed me so formally. But he was as hot as ever. Even more so, if that was possible. His sandy blond hair was brushed back from his face haphazardly, and a sexy five o'clock shadow graced his chin. His dark-blue pinstriped suit hugged his waist, and the light-blue silk tie set off the blue in his eyes. Part of me wanted to smile and flirt, twisting my hair like I'd seen Britton do on countless occasions. Though, the move probably needed the whole excess-cleavage thing she had going on, for maximum effectiveness anyway. So, thankfully, the other part of me stuck to the aloof game plan.
"What brings you back to the Royal Palace?" I asked.
"Is there somewhere quieter we can talk?" He glanced around at the crowd of people surrounding us.
"Of course, Agent Ryder," I said, purposely addressing him as formally as I could. I motioned toward the hall by the front desk that led toward our conference rooms.
As we made our way by the desk, Tate mouthed oh-em-gee, licked his finger, and made a scorching sound as he touched his chest.
I smiled and nodded as we passed, sharing a wink with him just out of Agent Ryder's sightline. Then I slapped my I don't give a damn face back into position as I turned to Ryder and gestured toward one of the smaller conference rooms. As we entered, two employees were tidying up. They scrambled around to gather their equipment, leaving within seconds. The long table in the center was dressed in a crisp white tablecloth. A huge chandelier dangled overtop, dozens of crystals catching the light and casting rainbow prisms about the otherwise dimly lit room.
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