Nobody discounted my theory, but I knew we all were wondering the same thing: great info to know, but at what price?
“Brandy?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll need you to handle the fallout. There are going to be some seriously ruffled feathers by the time our guests leave. Can you handle it?”
“She already has Mr. Jackson, his wife, and his mistress eating out of her hand,” Jerry said. “But she still has to do something about the sign out front.”
“Great.” I paused. “Wait. What?”
“The sign has been reprogrammed,” Brandy said, her tone not happy. “We’re working on it.”
Even though I knew I’d regret it, I couldn’t resist asking. “What does it say?”
“Girls Direct to You followed by the number to our main reservation line.”
I burst out laughing—I couldn’t help it. After my day, self-control was at a low ebb. “Next thing you know, we’ll be hailed in the national media as the only honest business in Clark County.”
Pretty soon all of us were chuckling. “Right before an official visit by the Vice Squad,” Jerry added, trying to sober us up.
It didn’t work.
“That’s all I got,” I said. “Somebody might want to check with accounting and see if the Girls Direct to You revenue should be broken out as its own line item.”
“Don’t anyone do what Lucky says,” Jerry’s voice held a distinct lack of humor, which I found a bit party-pooperish.
“There’s one in every group.” I tried for a grouse, but the giggles didn’t help. “Has anyone heard from Miss P?” As I’d said, my right-hand-man was off gallivanting around the world on her honeymoon, which I thought was sort of a waste. If I had someone like the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock, Miss P’s new husband, waiting to fulfill my every wish and meet my every need, no matter the sights outside the hotel, I’d never see a one.
“You’re kidding, right?” Brandy said, obviously sharing my wavelength.
“Stupid question. Anybody else have something helpful to add?”
“I’m going to double up the reservations staffing so we can slow down and think things through,” Sergio said.
“Good call.”
“I have your approval?” Sergio always covered his corporate ass if not his real one—at least that was the scuttlebutt in the employee lounge.
“Of course.”
“Anything else?” I waited a beat, but no one said anything. “Good then. Keep me updated. And do what Jerry says. Despite my inappropriate humor, we have a huge problem, or potential problem on our hands. Jerry, can you stay on the line?”
I heard the others click off. “Okay, Jer, I get the message. This will probably blow up in our faces. Tell me what I need to know.” I could picture him, tall, thin, ebony skin, bald head polished to a shine, a perpetual crease between his eyebrows, yellow stains on his forefinger and middle finger from his chain smoking—stress relief. I’d quit warting him to give them up. Wild Turkey still sang my Siren song so who was I to judge? “What time is it there?”
“Lunchtime. Why?” He’d have on his ubiquitous suit, a pair of loafers, a touch of gold at the wrist.
“Where I’m sitting feels like a parallel universe.”
“In some ways it is.”
“And some ways not so much.” I thought of the games people were playing here, lives and livelihoods hanging in the balance. “Where are you?”
“Security. I’ve got some extra staff watching the feeds.” He’d be standing, legs wide, like a captain guiding a ship as he stood in front of the banks of monitors, each receiving a discrete feed from the eye-in-the-sky cameras in all the public sections of the property. “We’re jumping in the moment we see something going screwy, but we’re playing catch-up. Somehow we need to get out in front.”
“What about getting a couple of the whiz kids from UNLV?”
“Not following.” Jerry’s voice sharpened with interest. “Go on.”
“Put them in with the hacker group. Let them infiltrate and see if they can turn a couple of the kids with the best skills, or at least give us a leg up as to what exactly they are doing before we suffer the fallout.”
“Ah, defeat from within. I like it.”
I could hear the tobacco sizzle as he pulled on one of his cancer sticks. “We also need to look for where they’ve hacked into the system.” My brain was coming on line, thoughts lining up. “The stuff they’re playing with is behind a gazillion levels of security. I’d be willing to bet they have an inside track. Have someone go back to when they arrived and check each video feed. Follow each one of those kids until you can map their movements through the hotel. They have to have a central meeting place. Start with the kids carrying their own suitcases, or using carts because of the weight. They’ll be the ones moving the equipment in.”
Jerry exhaled, a long slow, steadying breath—his way of buying time while he thought. “You’ve done this before,” he finally said.
“Not exactly, but close enough. If you know the game, you can figure out the equipment necessary and look for that. Enough said.” I had no intention of going into detail about the guests who were running a BDSM Dominatrix Palace of Pain in one of our super swank villas in the Kasbah. Being very visual, I think I was still a bit traumatized—I’d seen more than I ever wanted to even imagine.
“Your mother…” Jerry started in.
“Don’t start.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, I let myself fall back. I loved my mother, I really did…just not right now.
Jerry chuckled. “She is amusing.”
“Well, since I’m not there to run interference, you handle her and then see if you still think she’s such a barrel of laughs.”
“Point taken. But you should know one of these hackers has attached himself to your mother, follows her around like a lovesick schoolboy.”
“Interesting.”
“Maybe we could use that?” Jerry asked.
“You think it’s wise to let Mona be a part of the solution to the problem she created? Remember the turkeys?” My mind reeled at the thought.
“Yes, but…”
I cut him off. “Remember the virginity auction? This is much the same. The plethora of potential pitfalls makes me nauseous.”
“Piqued.”
“What?”
“Plethora, potential, pitfalls, piqued, just correcting your alliteration.”
“Do we pay you more for that?”
“No, but you should. Anyway, about the hacker kid and your mother, I’m just letting you know. How and when you use that info is up to you.”
“Great, leave me holding the bag.” I rubbed a hand over my eyes. My feet dangled over the end of the bed, so I kicked off first one shoe, then the other, sailing them into the corner by a beautiful black lacquered credenza inlaid with mother of pearl.
“You are the Vice President.”
“Buoyed by my incompetence, I have risen to my high-water mark. Now, go do your job and leave me alone to figure out how to save the world as we know it.”
With a laugh and an, “I’ll keep you updated,” he rang off.
If only I’d been joking.
I held the phone pressed to my ear like a seashell, still hoping to hear the whispers of home.
Jean-Charles would be knee-deep in prep for his restaurant opening that would coincide with my hotel opening. Panic welled—I needed to be there. But I had to be here. The very definition of a lose-lose proposition.
I checked my watch. I had changed the time, so it was no help in telling me what time it was at home. Then I looked at my phone—the world time app. Bingo. Fifteen hours behind in Vegas. Jean-Charles would be home just preparing for the day.
I punched his speed dial, and amazingly the call went through and started ringing. A modern marvel. I remembered when it took an overseas operator and a bag full of gold to call across the ocean.
Someone answered, then fumbled with the phone. Finally, Jean-Cha
rles’s sleepy voice came on the line. “Oui?” He didn’t sound happy.
Damn. He must’ve had a very late night, not unusual in our business. “Hi.” My throat constricted. Oh, how I wanted to roll over and greet him properly. The distance stretched through the scratchy, hollow connection.
“Hi.” His voice warm and sleepy, he conveyed all I needed in that one syllable.
“I miss you.” I couldn’t think of anything to say. I wanted to tell him everything and nothing at the same time. Life intruding into my happy place—I couldn’t handle it, not now. “Please tell me you are good. Christophe is good.”
“We are devastated without you.”
Now he sounded awake and happy despite his “devastation.” His French penchant for hyperbole as well as butchering American idioms were two of my favorite quirks. Hearing his voice warmed all my parts all the way through. But, despite the warmth, I felt like crying. I squeezed my eyes tight, fighting, resisting.
“I am so happy to hear your voice,” he said. His accent, like everything else about him, was delicious. “I’ve missed you. It is not the same when you are not here.”
All of that made me delirious and despondent at the same time. “It’s not the same wherever I am if you aren’t with me. How are you? How are things going at the restaurant? The hotel?”
“They are fine. I am once again having problems with the seafood purveyor, and I had to fire one of my kitchen staff—I found him walking out with five Kobe tenderloins.” He paused, then cleared his throat. “But this is not why you called, and it is not important. How are you? Have you made any progress?”
“It’s exactly why I called, Jean-Charles, to hear your voice and get a dose of normal.”
“You are okay?” Worried undertones crept in between his simple words.
“I don’t know. Physically, yes.” Tears welled; I couldn’t stop them. They traced hot trails out of the corners of my eyes, dripping into my hair as I lay on the bed. I didn’t care. “Everything is different here. I can’t tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. Something is going down, and I haven’t but a hint of what it might be.”
“You will solve this. I know you.”
“But, will I be in time?” Time to save Romeo? Time to keep Teddie out of jail? Time to give Irv Gittings what he so richly deserved? Time to save my world?
Time to have my dream?
“You will do your best, and that is all you can do. You are amazing, and that you try so hard, give so much, this is everything.”
“Yes, but…”
“No. It is everything.”
“But is it enough?”
“It has to be.”
I let the tears flow and silently cried. Weakness was not a new thing. Embracing it was. Perhaps in my weakness I would find the strength to do what I needed to do. “I want to come home.”
“And you will. So, as you say, right now, you may have a few minutes to whine, to be weak, and then go bash butt.”
There it was, a tortured idiom—and I found my smile. “Kick ass?” Tugging the sleeve of my sweater over one palm, I dabbed at my eyes. The tears still flowed, but at least I’d found a hint of me.
“Yes, this.”
“You’re right.” First things first—find Romeo. I didn’t tell Jean-Charles that I’d temporarily misplaced my sidekick. My problem. I’d fix it. “Now. Give me a few more stories from normal life. How is Christophe?”
“He is a tyrant! He makes me prepare your happy-face pancakes for every meal!”
“With chocolate chips?”
“Yes. And then he scolds me for not doing it like you do. You must come home soon. He will be the death of me, and, worse, he will turn into an American with such horrible eating habits and he will die young and fat.”
I chuckled through my tears. “You make that sound like a fate worse than death.”
“You have traded sarcasm, puns, and clichés for irony?”
“Never! Just adding weapons to my verbal arsenal. Perhaps it’s a sign of maturity.”
“And that would be sad. The child must always live inside each of us.”
“I got that down.” Smiling a bit now, I swiped again at my tears—sun peeking through a rain shower. Time for the storm to pass and kick some ass. I felt better—better than I had since I’d left home.
“What is this? Down?”
“It means you’re an expert at whatever it is you have down.”
“Americans. This makes no sense.”
“Slang isn’t supposed to. All languages use it to identify the true natives. French is no different.”
I heard a squeal from his end, then an oof. “Good morning, Papa! It is afternoon now—you slept late. Chantal must go to school. You must make happy-face pancakes.” Christophe had pounced—their mid-day morning was underway.
Jean-Charles groaned dramatically. “I will, but you talk to Lucky.”
Christophe’s excited chatter rolled through the line. Hot tears flowed again as I let his enthusiasm warm my heart and fill me with determination to hug him again very soon. He finished with a “Je t’aime,” then handed the phone to his father.
My, “I love you, too,” landed somewhere in the fumbled exchange on their end.
“I will tell him,” Jean-Charles said when he’d retrieved the phone. “I love you, Lucky. You be safe and come home to us.”
“I will. I love you more.” I choked on a sob as I ended the call. He didn’t need to hear me cry.
I had no idea how much time passed while I let all my worry and fear flow out of me. Probably not long, but it seemed like an eternity. I so didn’t like wallowing in all that, so not like me. But sometimes you just had to deal and then get over it. There would be no place for fear or worry in the hours and days to come. Fear was always there. Courage was finding a way to persevere despite it.
Closing off thoughts of all I could lose, I summoned my courage.
I had a mile-wide revenge streak, so, once tapped, it powered me back to myself. Fatigue was another thing altogether. I couldn’t move and I doubted my ability to form coherent sentences, much less cohesive plans. Finally, I tossed the phone toward the nightstand—it missed, ricocheting out of sight.
I thought about looking for it. Maybe later.
I thought about a shower. With no one to snuggle up to, I couldn’t work up the energy.
My eyes closed, my thoughts drifted…
I couldn’t sleep, not now.
But I did.
My dreams were jumbled, chases through the dark, monsters…
A voice jarred me back to battle mode.
Teddie’s voice. Muffled. “Lucky? You here?”
CHAPTER TEN
“LUCKY?” More insistent now. Still Teddie’s hiss—I’d recognize it anywhere.
I opened my eyes, reorienting myself. Macau… it all came flooding back in a heart-racing jolt of adrenaline.
“Lucky, answer me!” Yes, definitely Teddie—I’d know that demand anywhere—and for sure not a dream.
“Why are you asking? You know damned well I’m here.” I sounded a bit more irritated than I was. I guess I really hoped it was one of the bad guys.
My head throbbed. The goose egg was now more of a chicken egg, but still as sore as ever. My crying jag had left me with a headache. My stomach growled, telling me what it thought. I’d lost all concept of time.
A muttered curse, a soft knock, then the key worked in the lock.
I’d managed to push myself up on one elbow when Teddie’s face appeared through the door opening, still made-up, the rest of him still sporting the now wrinkled employee uniform.
“Any word from Ming?” At the thought, hope bloomed.
“It’s only been a couple of hours.”
“That long?” Groggy, I swiped at the mental cobwebs. Self-conscious, I ran my fingers through my hair, not that it would do any good. When had I last had a shower? The grime of travel made me feel sticky, so much so I even offended myself. “My ho
ur supply is dwindling.”
“Time is running out for both of us. But the girls all work varying shifts, and there was someone Ming needed to talk with at Tigris. I’m sure we’ll hear something soon.”
Not much to say to that. If he had more specifics, he would’ve given them to me. “You trust her?”
“She’s got more skin in this game than we do.”
I cringed at his choice of words. “Good point. How’d you get a key to my place?” Before he could answer, I changed tacks. “What took you so long?”
Teddie pushed the door open then disappeared. He reappeared behind a white-cloth-covered cart with various silver domes dotting its surface and what looked like a Champagne bucket with the capped neck of a green bottle sticking out. Maneuvering the cart into the room, he kicked the door shut behind him. “You look horrible.”
“Trying to ingratiate yourself, I see.” Pushing myself up, I paused, sitting on the edge of the bed while my world stopped spinning. “If it’s any consolation, I feel worse than I look.”
He stepped in front of me. Reaching out he touched the goose egg on my temple, pain in his eyes. “Who should I kill for that?”
His touch was warm, comforting. Now a dull throb, the headache had moved way down on my radar, pushed into insignificance by the rest of my pain and worry. “Not necessary.”
He pulled back, as if the connection had burned, a look of surprise on his face. “Want to tell me about it?” When we’d talked at his place, we hadn’t touched on my adventures—we hadn’t the time, and I hadn’t the wherewithal.
“I’ll get to it.” Despite my assertion to the contrary, I doubted I looked worse than I felt—that would be impossible. “What time is it?”
“Three o’clock, give or take.”
“In the morning?” If he was right, then my catnap was longer than I’d hoped.
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