Deep Cover--A Love Over Duty Novel

by Scarlett Cole

  “What if we just said fifty bucks?” Mac said, pulling out his wallet and throwing a fifty-dollar bill down on the table.

  Cabe watched Amy closely. If for a moment he thought she was truly uncomfortable, he’d tell his friends to put their money away.

  “I can do chips only,” Six said, but he pulled his wallet from his pocket, placing two twenties and a ten down. “But I’d rather take Mac’s money.”

  Mac shook his head but smiled. “What makes you so sure you’re taking mine? What if it’s the other way around? What if I kick your ass?”

  While the two of them bickered, Cabe took out his own wallet and pulled out a fifty. He held it between the tips of his fingers. “What do you say, Amy?” he asked quietly. “If it’s not cool, I can tell these guys to check their egos and their money. We can just play for chips.”

  Amy met his gaze. The sparkle was back in her eyes, the one that had intrigued him at the bar. She placed her pizza down on her plate and brushed the crumbs from her hands. “Fine,” she said, reaching for her purse. “But I want it in writing that you are not going to be a bunch of sore losers when I walk out of here with all your money in under an hour.”

  “Yes!” Six shouted and walked toward the glass wipe boards that had all their notes from the day on them. He reached for a pen and wrote: We do solemnly declare that we will not be pouty bitches if we get our asses kicked by Amy Murray.

  He signed his name and offered the pen to Mac, who dutifully signed it. Cabe took the fifty out of her hand and placed it on the table with his own, then took the pen from Mac and added his own signature. “Now then,” he said, holding the pack of cards in his hands, “can we play?”

  Amy smiled like a woman with a plan and took the pack from him. She slid the cards out, discarded the unwanted ones, and looked at the three men sitting around the table.

  “Yes,” she said, then proceeded to do two-card spring flourishes, the cards going airborne between her hands, followed by a one-handed shuffle that blew his mind. And just when he’d thought it over, she laid the cards out on the table in a perfect fan, flipped them over so they were faceup, and then flipped them all back before scooping them up and completing another perfect one-handed shuffle.

  Cabe grinned as Amy took in Mac’s and Six’s faces.

  “Ready, boys?” she asked.

  And he so knew they were going to get their asses handed to them.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ruby Woo better come through.

  Amy tried not to laugh at her pun as she carefully applied the famously named, perfectly matte red MAC lipstick. It was rare that she was willing to put her looks front and center to get ahead, but landing the job as a dealer at Lucky Seven was crucial. If it meant the addition of an extra two cup sizes, courtesy of Victoria’s Secret, then so be it. She popped the lid on the lipstick and placed it on the counter in the utilitarian all-white bathroom. It was bright, if just a bit on the small side, although the large mirror above the sink tricked the eye into thinking it was larger than it was.

  When she’d transferred to San Diego, she’d barely had time to research neighborhoods before she’d hit the road with her belongings in her trunk. In a hurry to settle and get ready to start her new job, she’d opted for a simple yet airy apartment rental in Little Italy. The six-month lease was long enough for her to find her feet and decide if she wanted to put down roots. There were apartments and houses closer to work, but growing up in Vegas had given her a love for cities. She loved the smog, the noise, the general bustle—although San Diego seemed way more chill than Sin City.

  Plus, she wanted a while longer to save up for a deposit to buy her first home. Her father was wealthy, but he’d always believed that Amy should learn the value of money. Even when she was a child, he’d never spoiled her. Determined to not leave college with huge loans, she’d earned her own tuition every year by playing cards. Every vacation, she’d hit up different casinos, always with the same goal … enough money to comfortably last the term. Many people thought counting cards in blackjack was illegal. But it wasn’t. Of course, casinos could always deny a player service if he or she was caught, but it couldn’t even be considered cheating as it didn’t require the help of another person or any fancy equipment. And she happened to be fan-freaking-tastic at it. She’d tried all of the strategies. The Hi-Lo, the Omega II, the Zen Count. Personally, she liked the challenge of the Halves method. She loved keeping score in her head, assigning plus scores to the low cards that benefited the house and minus scores to the cards that benefited her. Rarely did she disabuse people of their notion that everything they’d seen Raymond Babbitt do in Rain Man had nothing to do with the way card counting really worked.

  She wandered to her bedroom and checked herself in the mirror. Her hair was curled into bouncy waves. One tease more, and it’d be heading into bouffant territory. The new white shirt pulled tight across her chest had more one button left open than she was usually comfortable with. If she leaned forward, the person sitting opposite her would get a subtle flash of white lace. She turned to the side. Yep, the black pencil skirt that fell to her knees was demure but hugged her ass tighter than Saran Wrap, and the black patent heels with a platform brought her posture into pin-straight alignment.

  That morning, when she’d woken up, she’d felt queasy. It was a word she hated, yet it summed up the state of her stomach perfectly. She couldn’t stumble at the first hurdle.

  She looked into the mirror again for a reminder that Johnnie Ortega, pit boss of the Lucky Seven, wasn’t going to know what hit him.

  A quick glance at her phone told her it was time to leave. She walked into the kitchen to grab her purse, freshly filled with the hundred and fifty dollars she’d taken from Cabe and his friends, and the plastic folder sitting next to it. With the help of her godfather, she had a reference from one of the best pit bosses in Nevada. It would stand her in good stead. And even if Ortega called to confirm the reference was legitimate, there wouldn’t be a problem. Uncle Clive could bullshit with the best of them. She was certain his story about losing his virginity at eighteen at a party held by Sammy Davis Jr. while Dean Martin stood guard by the bedroom door had to be an exaggeration.

  Her suitcases were by the front door. She’d given the casino the address of an apartment to the west of the Gaslamp Quarter. It was a cover, the property, the car, and all her ID having been provided by the FBI in the name Amy Reynard, using her great-grandmother’s maiden name. Should she get the job, the suitcases would be whisked to her new home by Cabe.

  Amy took the elevator to the street and walked to the end of the block before hailing a cab. From now on, she needed to be careful. Nothing traceable. No Uber. No calling cabs to pick her up at her own front door. She needed to start acting like Amy Reynard, not Amy Murray. She needed to become invisible outside of the casino.

  A few minutes from the venue, her new phone rang. “Hey, this is Amy.”

  “Are you on your way?” Cabe asked. His deep voice was unmistakable, as was the effect it had on her. Was it dangerous to feel a little wave of excitement at the sound of him?

  “I am,” she said, looking straight ahead into the rearview mirror to keep an eye on the driver.

  “I’ll keep it brief.” Cabe’s voice was low. “We got a drone over the casino, and Harley is in the parking lot to the west of the entrance. There is next to no chance anybody will pull anything in broad daylight, but it’s good to be prepared just in case. Any signs of trouble, leave. But you should be golden.”

  “Good to know, but this isn’t my first rodeo. I got this.” The casino appeared to the right of the highway, and the cab took the exit, circling back around into the parking lot. She pointed the driver toward the employee entrance where she’d been instructed to arrive.

  “Take care of yourself, Amy.” Cabe’s voice was rough, telling her he meant every word.

  She allowed herself a moment to indulge in the idea that he truly cared. “I will.”

  Once
she’d hung up and paid the driver, she approached the door and knocked on it. She was greeted by a security guard and was taken through to an area that very much reminded her of the rooms behind the guest areas at the Bellagio. A simpler red-and-gold carpet than the customer areas, less-ornate walls painted a pale lemon. Three chairs sat in the corridor against the walls. The guard politely asked her to sit there until she was called.

  Amy waited until he was out of sight before she stood and began to look around. Aware that the security cameras were watching her, she acted like she had a cramp, standing and limping on her leg. She’d periodically stop to shake it out and then would resume walking again. There were two offices on her left with glass panels in the doors. One looked unused and the other was covered in wall planners. She walked to the end of the hall but saw that the door there required some sort of pass to open it. She walked back toward the chairs. The two rooms on the other side of the hall had solid doors. The third one opened just as she reached it.

  “Ms. Reynard?” The man who stepped out was a good foot shorter than she was. She’d give him the benefit of the doubt, for now, that the twelve-inch height difference was the reason he stared at her chest. Score one for Victoria’s Secret. He quickly brought his gaze back to hers.

  “Yes,” she replied. “I’m sorry,” she said, continuing her act. “I just got a most annoying cramp in my leg.” She rolled her ankle for good measure, drawing his attention to her legs.

  “I’m Johnnie Ortega. Let’s take a walk to the pit. I understand from your resume that you have experience in Las Vegas,” he said as they passed through the bland corridor.

  “I do. My former pit boss wrote a reference,” she said, passing him Uncle Clive’s comments.

  He began to scan them. “What brought you back to San Diego?”

  Amy laughed sadly, her rehearsed response. “I felt like I needed a little less sin in my city.”

  Ortega laughed, as Cabe had predicted he would when she’d run the line by him. Once they were in the pit, he gestured her to the dealer’s spot, then sat down on the opposite side of the table. It was set up for play. He reached for a fresh pack of playing cards, emptied them into his hand, and discarded the jokers. He then placed them on the table.

  “Ortega,” said a tall man with a narrow chest, lazy gait, and a face she recognized from their intel approached them, “is this the candidate for Eve Canallis’s replacement?” He ran his eyes up and down her in a way that made Amy’s skin crawl, but she kept a smile plastered to her face.

  “It is, Mr. Woods,” Ortega said, looking back toward her. “Amy Reynard, this is the manager of the casino, Faulkner Woods.”

  She held out her hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Woods. You have a fantastic casino.”

  Woods shook her hand. “Why, thank you. I certainly hope your interview is successful so I’ll have reason to show you around. We take a lot of pride in our croupiers and our dealers, and would argue they are as good as any Vegas venue. If you get through the interview, we’ll make sure you get any additional training you need.” His smile seemed genuine, but she couldn’t trust him. She couldn’t trust anyone. There were women she needed to find, and money laundering that Cabe needed to stop. It hit her suddenly that she wasn’t sure, if it boiled down to it, which case took priority. Would the FBI move on the women if the money-laundering evidence wasn’t in place? Worse, would Cabe and his team move on the money without them knowing where the women were? Could they afford to hold off moving on either case while the other worked itself out?

  Her thoughts shifted to her mom, and she prayed, that if it came down to it, human decency would win out and all sides would put the missing women first.

  “I look forward to it,” she said as she extracted her hand gently.

  “Good luck, Ms. Reynard,” Woods said before heading off to another table.

  Ortega watched him walk away with a slight scowl on his face.

  “Want me to show you why my boss was sad to see me go?” she asked, drawing Ortega’s thoughts back to her and her interview. She couldn’t let whatever was going on between the two men to ruin her chances of being hired. “He’s really hoping I fail here so I go back.”

  Ortega’s gaze returned to hers, and he snapped out of the funk that Woods had just put him in. “Let’s play,” he said with a grin that reminded her of Uncle Clive. No matter what was going on in the casino, Johnnie Ortega belonged there and loved it just as much as her uncle did. “Give them a shuffle.”

  “You have a preference on type here?” she asked. She began to run her fingers over the cards. “We’ve got the adolescent overhand or stripping shuffle,” she said as she made a series of cuts into the cards. “Or I can do every poker bro’s riffle.” She split the pile into two and then, using her thumbs, lifted the corners and let them go into one pile before pushing them together. “Or, if you prefer, I can do the Hindu, the pile, the weave, the Mongean.” One by one she illustrated each, finishing with a Zarrow shuffle, the one used by magicians to give the illusion of a shuffle even though the cards remained in the exact same order. “Ta-da!” she said with a flourish and grin.

  “You know, Ms. Reynard,” Ortega said with a genuine smile, “I think the two of us are going to get along grand out here in the pit.”

  * * *

  “Bailey, can we go through the status of all the key players we know so far?” Cabe glanced at the clock on the wall and mentally kicked himself. It had been ninety minutes since he’d spoken to Amy. How long did a job interview for a dealer actually last? Ninety minutes was too long, wasn’t it? Goddamn, he needed to stop this shit. Amy was a trained professional. And last he checked, the FBI didn’t let unqualified people graduate from Quantico.

  But the missing women had been plaguing him. While he had only one brother, he’d grown up around Six’s and Mac’s sisters. One summer, they’d taken Mac’s little sister, Aoife, down to the beach. They’d been distracted by a group of girls from the year above them in school, and when they’d turned around, Aoife was missing. It had taken thirty minutes to find her, sitting on some rocks, enjoying an apple from their cooler, but Cabe’s heart rate had raced for hours. Fear of all the possibilities that could have happened had haunted him for weeks after. Aoife had been fine, and even though she wasn’t his sister, he’d personally felt responsible for not looking out for her.

  When their best childhood friend, Brock, had died during a failed cliff jump—a jump Cabe had made only moments before—he’d struggled with the same feelings of uselessness, of failing to protect someone he cared about.

  One of his BUD/s instructors had told him that his capacity to actually care for his team would either be his greatest asset or liability, and he’d spent his career ensuring it was always the former.

  And then he’d met Jess. He’d thought she’d cured him of the need to protect. He’d never met anyone more willing to throw themselves into anything that would result in a flood of adrenaline. Nor had he met anyone more prepared for every eventuality.

  “Sure thing, boss. Any particular order?”

  He focused his thoughts back on the operation, rather than the operative. “I want an update on the Popovs. I want to talk to the Assistant District Attorney to see where the case against Vasilii stands. Then I want to see everything we have on Lemtov and his boss, Sokolov, again.”

  Cabe pulled out his phone. The signal was shit in the conference room, so he took a walk out to the front of the building. He drew a line at holding his damn cell phone in the air to see if he could increase the three bars to four.

  Nothing.

  Come on Ames. Where the fuck are you?

  He dialed Harley.

  “Boss?” Harley answered in his brusque way.

  “Any sign?” There was no need to tell Harley what he was talking about. When a mission was in progress, nothing else mattered. Even when it was as simple as a routine interview.

  “Hasn’t come out yet. But traffic into the casino is picking up. I
can see both exits from the front and rear. Buddha’s got the rear by drone.”

  “Keep me posted.” Cabe hung up the phone.

  The door clicked shut behind him. “You okay?” Six asked, coming to stand by him. He was in a soaked T-shirt and shorts. The gym in the back of Eagle was a godsend for them all.

  “Yeah. Just checking in.”

  They stood in silence for a moment. “You know the guys are on it, right?” Six said, as he stretched his quad, holding his foot to his ass.

  “Yeah, I know. But tell me you don’t feel a little bit weird about those missing women. It doesn’t sit right that they are a secondary issue.”

  “Yeah. I don’t like it either. But our mission is the money-laundering side of this. We have to trust Amy and the feebs and SDPD to do their part for those women. It makes sense to have clear lines of demarcation.”

  Six was right, as usual. “I don’t know how I feel about Amy being set up like that, I guess.”

  “We don’t know for sure she’s being set up in this role,” Six said, changing his stretch to the opposite leg.

  The moment Cunningham had put those images on the screen, he remembered that Amy had suddenly sat straighter. This was her thing. It was what she was there for. And it was clear that it was what she was passionate about. “‘Set up’ is the wrong phrase. But it’s crystal clear that there is a profile for these missing women. They’re all young, single, and living alone or new in town. They don’t have anyone obviously looking of for them. Amy fits it perfectly.”

  “You don’t think she’s up to this?” Six asked matter-of-factly.

  “It’s not that,” Cabe said. “From what we’ve seen and know of her, she’s more than capable. It’s just … I don’t … I hate the idea of a woman getting hurt in the line of duty, even if she signed up for it. And yeah, I know there’s probably some place reserved for me in the feminist version of Neanderthal hell for saying that.”