by Beverly Long
“Expecting anybody else?”
Both Royce and Jules shook their heads.
Trey took off his jacket and slung it over the back of the dining room chair. “I brought some cards, JC. You up for a game? I play a mean hand of poker.”
* * *
JC dealt the cards, her mind whirling. She was very worried about Charity. It made her crazy that she didn’t know her own sister’s habits well enough to know if this was usual or very unusual behavior. Charity had not seemed upset when she’d left the suite. There was no reason to think that she hadn’t planned on returning.
But Bobby Boyd was out of jail. Was it even possible that Charity had gotten a call from the man and had jumped at the chance to get back together?
She couldn’t be that dumb. JC just couldn’t accept that.
But was she malicious? Was she deliberately staying away, knowing that it would make JC worry? Did she want to cause trouble for JC?
“I’ll take two,” Trey said, setting aside two cards.
She smiled at the man who was Royce’s partner. He was an inch or two shorter, and maybe a few pounds lighter than Royce, but that still made him a very imposing figure. He wore jeans, a black T-shirt and black boots—definitely had a more casual style than Royce, who’d yet worn anything but carefully tailored dress clothes.
She was generally good at assessing people, and she’d come to a very rapid conclusion that Royce and Trey were not just partners but very good friends. She suspected Trey knew a great deal about Royce.
She gave Trey two cards and took three for herself. “So, you and Royce were in the military together?” She tried for nonchalant and thought she’d succeeded.
He smiled, showing white even teeth. “That’s right.” He slid a dime into the center of the table.
They were bidding with change she’d found in the bottom of her purse. She matched the bid.
He flipped over his cards. “Two pair. Jacks and threes.”
She showed her cards. “Three nines.”
He pushed the twenty cents her direction. “Why does Royce call you Jules when you seem to prefer JC?”
Royce had told her that he hadn’t been forthcoming about their prior relationship. Well, she didn’t intend to give Trey the nitty-gritty details, but she’d say enough to satisfy him. “Royce and I knew each other years ago. When we both lived in New York. I didn’t use JC as much then.”
He dealt the cards. “Sounds as if the two of you might have lost touch since he left New York.”
“I got married,” she said.
He picked up his hand, seemed to study it. Then lifted his eyes. “I always suspected there was someone who had stomped on his heart and broken it.”
His voice was cold. It had been a bold jump in logic but so close to the truth that she could feel the muscles in her hands jerk as she gripped her cards. “I never expected to see him again,” she said.
“Are you still married, JC?” he asked.
“No. I’ve been divorced for more than six years.” She stared at her cards, but it was hard to see them through the tears that were filling her eyes. She pushed a nickel into the middle of the table.
He stared at her. “Tell me that you didn’t set this up. That you didn’t orchestrate an elaborate scheme to get his attention.”
Anger flared in her stomach. “Of course not,” she said. “I would never do something like that.”
Trey put his cards facedown on the table. He leaned forward. “Royce Morgan is one of the most decent men I’ve ever met. I wouldn’t like to see him used by somebody he cares about.”
“He...he doesn’t care about me,” she said, swiping at a tear that spilled over and ran down her cheek.
He picked up his hand again, then carefully discarded three cards. He waited for her to make her discard. She threw four in. He dealt. Picked up his cards. Casually bid a quarter.
“You’ve got a big job at a big company,” he said easily. “I wouldn’t expect that you’d be a fool.”
“I’m not sure if that’s a backhanded compliment or an insult.”
“Just an observation,” he said. “Royce is an onion. Lots of layers. Protective armor, I always thought. I think now I’m starting to understand things a little better.”
“I...care for him,” she admitted.
“Maybe even love him?” he asked.
“You make some bold assumptions, Mr. Riker.”
He showed his cards. Four kings. She had nothing, not even a pair. She pushed the two quarters in the middle of the table toward him.
“Please, just Trey,” he said, smiling. “I have a feeling that we’re going to be friends, JC. That’s assuming, of course, that you don’t screw over Royce.”
* * *
Royce was overdressed at the pool. His suit jacket felt heavy and tight across his shoulders and he had an itch in the middle of his back that he couldn’t reach.
Face it. He was jumpy.
He wanted to think that Charity was pulling a stunt, either because she wanted to worry Jules or because she simply didn’t care. But his gut told him that he might be wrong, and if he was, it might be bad.
The lights were on—both the low-level lighting in the green spaces that surrounded the kidney-shaped pool and overhead. Even though the sun had set forty-five minutes earlier, it was a nice winter evening in Vegas, probably at least fifty degrees.
There was nobody in the pool, but in the Jacuzzi there was an elderly couple, probably in their seventies, hanging on to each other like they were teenagers. The man was cupping water in his hand and tossing it on the woman. She was laughing and he caught the sparkle of a big diamond ring on her finger as she skimmed her hand across the water to splash the man.
He liked thinking that they’d been married for fifty years. That love endured.
At least for some.
There were two other women at a table off to the side, both with cigarettes and cocktails. They gave him a look as he went past. He ignored them.
He walked the length of the pool and then made the return trip on the other side. Deck chairs were three-deep and probably a third of them were still full. It was too cold for swimsuits but there were people in shorts and other casual clothing. Many people were reading or sleeping, some chatting with friends.
No sign of Charity. He crossed over to the tiki bar in the corner of the pool area. A young man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and white shorts put a napkin in front of him.
“What can I get you?” he asked.
“I’ll take a beer,” he said, pointing to one of his old favorites. He rarely drank beer anymore, but right now it sounded really good. And he suspected that he might get more information if he ordered something and left a big tip. He pulled cash out of his pocket and pushed a twenty across the counter. “I’m looking for a friend,” he said. “I think she was at the pool this afternoon. Early twenties. Very dark hair. Has her eyebrow pierced and her nose, too.”
The bartender gave him eleven dollars in change but Royce left it there. “Drinks vodka on the rocks?” the young man said.
Royce had no idea. “Always has,” he said easily.
“She was here for a couple hours. Sat in that cabana right over there,” he said, pointing off to his left, maybe forty feet away. The two lounge chairs were both empty. “She left maybe forty-five minutes ago. Something like that.”
“Alone?” Royce asked.
He could see the sympathy in the man’s eyes. The guy probably thought he’d been dumped. “I’m not sure about that. I was pretty busy here at the bar.”
“I think she was hoping that her brother would meet her here.”
The guy picked up a bar towel. “Now that you mention it, I think a couple guys did join her. They left shortly after that.”
A couple? Had Bobby Boyd brought a friend with him, just to make sure that he could convince Charity to come back? To run interference if Royce or Jules decided to challenge him? “They go back into the hotel?” Royce asked.
The bartender shook his head. “I don’t know. Only two ways to get out of the pool area. Either back through the hotel or out that way.” He pointed toward a wooden gate that was in the middle of a fence that Royce suspected ran across the back of the hotel property.
He took another sip. Pulled his phone and found one of the pictures of Bobby Boyd from the background check he’d done on him. “This is her brother. One of the guys look like that?”
The bartender considered the picture. The sympathetic look was back in his eyes. “Hey, I’m not sure, but you know, I don’t think so.” He dipped his towel into what had to be bleach water given the smell and started earnestly wiping off the counters. “All I know is that she left in a hurry. Had ordered a drink and before one of our pool servers could carry it out, she was gone.”
She’d left in a hurry. But not with Bobby. Who the hell had the two men been? And did it have anything to do with Jules?
He slid off the stool to take a closer look at the cabana where Charity had been sitting. It was then that he realized that there was an off-white beach bag underneath one of the lounge chairs. It almost blended in with the cement.
He squatted down, carefully opened the bag. Inside was a hairbrush, a paperback book and a half-eaten bag of pretzels. He had no way of knowing if it was Charity’s but he wasn’t leaving it. He tucked it under his arm and stood up. Then quickly walked the remaining distance to the gate at the rear of the property.
He pushed it open and walked through. There was foliage, a mixture of large flowering shrubs and palm trees, about four feet deep. Beyond that was a sidewalk, not smooth poured concrete but rather a collection of large flat stones nestled in thick brown mulch, creating what might have been a visually pleasing border for guests to stroll on, but Royce wasn’t there to enjoy the experience.
He wanted a quick look before anybody else trampled the scene. Because he was going to need help. He pulled his phone and dialed the number for Detective Mannis. He needed information from the hotel and it was unlikely he could get it on his own. But if the request came from the Vegas police, his chances were a lot better.
The phone was answered. “This is Mannis.”
“Detective Mannis, it’s Royce Morgan. I need your help. Charity White is missing. I think it’s possible that she was taken against her will.”
“And you think this has something to do with what’s been happening with Ms. Cambridge?”
“I have no idea. But I’m certainly not discounting the connection.”
“Where are you?”
“At the Periwinkle. Meet me in the lobby.”
“I’m fifteen minutes out.”
It would take him that long to finish his walk around the exterior and report back to Jules. “Fine.”
He hung up and continued his inspection. He saw no signs of struggle, no dropped items, nothing to give him any leads as to where Charity and the men she’d left with might have gone. But as he walked, he made a mental note of the cameras he could see and suspected there were some that were not quite so visible.
If she’d been coerced by the men, they’d been bold to do it in the daylight. It did not appear as if she’d yelled or tried to attract attention. Why not? Had the men threatened her, threatened someone that she cared about?
Threatened Jules? His foot slipped on one of the uneven stones but he managed to catch himself before he went down on one knee.
He rounded the edge of the hotel and was immediately swallowed up in the sea of people who constantly walked the strip. It was at night that the crowd increased as people went to dinner and shows and, of course, casinos.
He went into the front door of the hotel and took the elevator up to the third-floor lobby, then a second elevator to the fourteenth floor. He walked down the hallway, and while he was a man who didn’t normally like looking like a fool, he was really hoping that Charity was inside the suite. He’d gladly admit to being wrong. But he knew there was little chance of that. He’d have gotten a text from Trey or from Jules.
He knocked and stepped back, making sure that he was visible through the peephole. Still, when Trey opened the door, Royce saw that the man had his gun pulled. He appreciated the care his friend and partner was taking.
Jules was at the table, a deck of cards in front of her. “Did you find her?” she asked, her voice full of hope.
He shook his head. “I found this. Is it hers?”
Jules reached out her hand, took the bag and looked inside. “That’s the hairbrush she was using yesterday.”
Royce told her and Trey everything that had transpired since he’d left the hotel room. “I’m on my way back to meet Detective Mannis,” he finished. “I’m going to have him request the security tapes. Maybe we can get a better idea of who the men are that she left with.”
“We need to find her friend Lou,” Jules said.
That surprised Royce. He knew about Lou because of the background information that he’d gathered on Charity. How did Jules know about her? And what else did Jules know that she wasn’t telling? “Who is Lou?” he asked, deciding to play dumb.
“She’s a friend of Charity’s. Today, at lunch, Charity was telling me about her, that she had met her last night for a drink. Maybe the two men are friends. Of Lou’s. Of Charity’s. Maybe both. My gut is telling me that Lou is a part of this.”
“So what do we know about Lou?” he asked.
“She and Charity have been friends since they were kids. Lou works as some kind of in-home health-care provider.”
That made some sense. If she was staying in someone’s home, she wouldn’t have made any paper trail renting an apartment or getting utilities hooked up.
“You didn’t happen to get the address where she works?” Trey asked.
Jules shook her head. “I...I didn’t think it would be important.” Her voice broke.
Royce crossed the room in three strides. Knelt down at her side, looked her in the eye. “This is not your fault, Jules. No way, no how. Don’t take it on. Keep your head straight.”
He wanted desperately to take her into his arms, to kiss her, but mindful that his partner was in the room, he kept his hands to himself. Yet, when she looked at him, her pretty violet-blue eyes troubled, he knew that he was probably the one who would need comforting later.
He was going down for the count. And there was no reason for this to end differently than the last time. He stood up fast. “I’ve got to go.”
She pushed her chair back. “I’m going with you.”
“No,” he barked. She was safer in this room.
“Royce,” she said, her tone pleading. “I have to do something. I can’t just stay here. I can’t.”
Damn. “Fine.”
She practically ran to her bedroom. “Give me two minutes,” she said over her shoulder.
When the room was empty, he turned to face his partner.
The man looked relaxed, just leaning against the wall. “I hope you know what the hell you’re doing,” Trey said conversationally.
“I’m going to talk to the manager and—”
“Not that,” his partner snapped, straightening up. “I know you can work a case, Royce. You’re one of the best. But you’ve never been in love with the client before.”
In love? What the hell had Jules said to Trey?
“I have to tell you,” Trey went on. “She’s not a great poker player. Lousy bluffer.”
“But?” Royce prompted, knowing his partner well enough to know this was leading up to more.
Trey smiled. “She is gorgeous and seems very nice and gets a real dreamy look in he
r eyes when she says your name.”
Dreamy was not a word that he’d ever expected to hear Trey utter. “We have history,” Royce said.
“Well, I imagine the question of the hour is whether you can put history aside. If you can, great. If you can’t, don’t fall into the abyss, man. Let this one go. I’ll take the case. You take my place on the Anderson project.”
“Billy-Bob only trusts you.”
“The assignment is almost over. It will be fine.”
If only it were that easy. Trey could step in and he could walk away before Jules hurt him again. His partner was truly excellent at what he did. Jules would be in good hands.
But not his hands. “No,” he said. “She hired me to provide security. That’s what I’m going to do.”
They heard a door close. “Who’s going to protect you?” Trey hissed.
“I’m not a twenty-five-year-old kid anymore. I know what I’m doing.”
“I sure as hell hope so,” Trey said. “Because you know what they say—history has a way of repeating itself.”
Chapter 16
JC’s head was whirling as she, Royce and Trey took the elevator down to the lobby. They were going to meet Detective Mannis and then talk to the manager. Royce believed there was a good likelihood that Charity’s departure had been captured on film.
Once they stepped off the elevator, Royce led them to one side of the lobby. With their backs against the wall, he and Trey, without a word or a look, each took a position on the side of her.
They were her fortress.
She was putting them at risk. Hadn’t thought about that when she’d demanded to come along. Had only been thinking that she needed to do something. “Maybe I...”
Detective Mannis entered the lobby at the far end. Saw them and headed their direction.
Royce extended his hand. “Thank you for coming so quickly. This is my partner Trey Riker.”
Trey and Detective Mannis shook hands. The detective nodded at her. “Ms. Cambridge.”
“JC, please,” she said, doubting it would do any good. The detective was a formal kind of guy.