by Jana DeLeon
"You're telling me a little leg action breaks your concentration on finally busting Silas Hebert?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying."
Mallory laughed and pointed to Silas's chips. "He's got enough for two more antes. Do you think we'll have time for two hands?"
Jake studied Silas's chips for a moment and blew out a breath. "I wish to God I knew. Let's just hope he gets something good enough to bet in the first and I get something better. Having Amy in the mix has really helped. Not that Scooter wasn't doing a fine job, but after all, it is Amy's research. She doesn't miss a trick."
"No, she doesn't," Mallory agreed as a glimmer of an idea began to form in her mind. "I'm going to pay them a quick visit right now, let them know how close we're running. I know they're doing everything they can, but maybe there's something Reginald can do to delay the bust until you can beat Silas."
Jake shook his head. "Like what? Reginald has no control over this - you know that."
"Yes, but the engine on this boat has been known to have problems," she said, letting her idea out. "You know, the kind of problems that might not get us close enough to shore until after you've won."
Jake stared at Mallory a moment, then smiled. "You know, you'd have been a hell of a criminal if you'd gone that route."
"With my luck-no thanks." She smiled at Jake and stepped away from the table. There was only ten minutes left in the break and she had a couple of people to talk to before that ten minutes was up.
She hurried down the hall to Reginald's office, pushed the door open and stepped inside. Then came to a complete halt and stared in shocked silence at the scene in front of her.
Amy and Scooter were sitting in her uncle's office, but they were sharing a chair - and lips.
Mallory sucked in a breath, not believing what she was seeing. That slight noise was all it took for Amy to bolt up off Scooter's lap like she'd been jolted with a million volts of electricity. Then she stood in the middle of the room, staring at Mallory with a terrified expression on her face, as if she'd been caught kissing someone else's husband and not Scooter.
Which brought Mallory right back around to Amy kissing Scooter. Of all the things that had been revealed to her that week, this had to top the list. Hell, even the voodoo curse made more sense than Amy kissing Scooter.
Scooter looked back and forth between Amy and Mallory, the indecision on his face clear as day. Apparently deciding he had no place sitting between two women of questionable mental status, he tore out of the room shouting over his shoulder that he had to go to the men's room. Mallory just watched him hurry down the hall, not even bothering to remind him that Reginald had a fully stocked bathroom not three feet from where Scooter had been sitting.
Amy swallowed visibly and finally blinked. "Uh, Mallory, I can explain."
Mallory raised her eyebrows and stared at her friend. "Really? Well, this I gotta hear."
Amy dropped her gaze to the carpet. "It just sorta happened."
Mallory waited a couple of seconds for her friend to continue, but apparently Amy couldn't explain after all. It was all Mallory could do to hold back a smile. If genius Amy could come up with a logical explanation for this one, Mallory was recommending her for the Brainiac Hall of Fame. "You just sorta fell on top of Scooter and your lips locked together?" she said, unable to keep herself from having a little fun.
Amy looked back up at her and sighed. "Now you sound like my mother."
Mallory just couldn't hold it any longer, and her smile broke through. Amy stared at her for a moment and finally realized that Mallory had been teasing her all along.
"Bitch," Amy said, and giggled.
"Oh, c'mon, Amy. You have to admit it's a pretty shocking sort of thing to see. How was I not going to play with it?"
Amy blushed. "I really don't know how it happened. I mean one minute we're there making poker calls, and Scooter was right almost every time. Then I started throwing in some of the advanced points of my thesis, really minute things that only a small portion of people would even get much less be able to use. He not only got them, he started using them in every hand."
"Uh-huh. So you had to kiss him?"
Amy grinned. "No, I wanted to, and darn if I don't want to do it again. Who would have ever figured?"
"Not me. Hell, no, not ever. But I think it's great. Just think how good Scooter's going to look in D.C. He'll probably park his boat in that fountain in front of the Washington Monument."
Amy giggled. "So he's a work in progress."
"You could always play poker for a living."
"I was hoping for a job with longer skirts."
"And you thought politics was the answer? Amateur."
Mallory scanned the room as she took her seat at the table. Her brief meeting with Reginald had set her uncle into action with the engine idea, maybe buying them another twenty or thirty minutes. That would hopefully be enough.
The room was crowded, and Mallory hoped the noise level dropped when play began. The last thing she needed was to miss a message from Amy and Scooter and since most of the losers had chosen to watch the play rather than hang out in the bar, there wasn't a lot of room left to maneuver the casino floor. Even the kitchen staff had come into the main room to see the final showdown. Since a big lot of the losers and the staff alike were hoping to see a Yankee take down Silas Hebert, the crowd around Jake's table was the biggest.
She gave Jake an encouraging smile as he began to deal and he nodded, his face full of grim determination. Silas lifted the corners of his cards from the table and studied them for a second. His expression never changed, not at all, and Mallory hoped like hell that Scooter and Amy had gotten a peek at his hand. She wanted Silas to lose before the ATF takedown, especially now that all these people were gathered around watching.
Even Father Thomas had stuck around for the finale and stood to the left of the table, clutching a beer and tossing in intermittent prayers. Whether for Jake or Silas or simply that the casino wouldn't run out of liquor before they docked, Mallory wasn't sure, but either way, it probably couldn't hurt anything.
She heard the faint click of the earpiece and grew still, waiting for the instructions that would follow.
"We got a clear look at both hands," Amy said. "There's no way Jake can lose this one, but I doubt Silas will stay in for play. Have Jake raise and Silas will probably fold. That leaves him enough ante for one more hand. Pray that we get a good shot of it, and Jake gets another favorable deal."
Mallory let out the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding, then crossed her right leg over her left-the signal for Jake to up the bet. He never once even glanced in her direction but reached for a stack of chips as soon as her leg began to shift and tossed them onto the stack in the center of the table.
"I'll raise five thousand," Jake said.
Silas didn't even bother to look at his cards again. He simply pushed them across the table to Jake. The mumbling began among the crowd and Mallory knew they were antsy to see how this played out. Even Brad, who'd shut down his table just before lunch, stood off to the side near Father Thomas, studying the game before him and alleviating some of Mallory's worry since she figured the whole takedown wasn't going to start if Brad was watching a poker game.
She caught his eye and he gave her a barely imperceptible nod. That hopefully meant they had at least another hand to go. She looked back to the table and watched Jake deal, silently reciting every prayer she could remember and making up a couple extra along the way.
Jake finished dealing the last card and pushed the shoe slightly to the side. He and Silas lifted the edges of their cards from the table, and Mallory's gaze darted between them like she was watching a tennis match. Except this tennis match was made up of almost no movement and absolutely no expression.
The bet was to Jake and he passed, putting the ball squarely in Silas's court. Mallory figured Jake wasn't positive the hand he held was going to make him a winner, so he was holding back this round in
the hopes he had a good hand and signal from Mallory for the final bet. She turned her gaze to Silas, who looked briefly at Jake, then waved his hand across the table. Pass.
Jake tossed in two cards and Silas one. There was no need for a signal on this one since it wasn't costing either of the men anything to draw. Jake dealt the one card to Silas and two to himself and lifted the corner of his cards off the table. Silas pulled the single card toward him, then stopped midway across the table and lifted the end of the card.
Mallory watched him from the corner of her eye, silently willing him to pull the card farther across the table while he still had the edge lifted, afraid that he hadn't placed the card close enough to the rest for it to be caught by the camera. She waited anxiously for a couple of seconds, then fretted a bit more when he pressed the card back flat and dragged it into the rest of his hand, never lifting the cards again.
Jake studied his hand, and even though his face was the usual blank that he wore so well while playing, Mallory knew he was silently willing her to give him the signal. Was it takedown time, or did they have to hope to stretch the play for another hand?
Crap! Mallory reached up for the earring, willing a message to come from Amy and Scooter, caught herself halfway and lowered her hand back to her lap. There were a few mumblings in the crowd as Silas looked up at Jake, studying him carefully. There were only two options left at this point. He could fold and have half the ante for the next hand-which Jake would play out at half himself, or he could go all-in as he didn't have enough chips left for the bet minimum. All or nothing.
Silas picked up a single chip and tapped it on another, still studying Jake's face, then dropped his hand to the stack of chips and pushed them all to the center of the table. "All-in."
Chapter Nineteen
Mallory sucked in a breath. Where the hell were Amy and Scooter? She glanced over at Jake, knowing he was waiting on the signal from her, and not having any way to tell him there wasn't one.
Just when Mallory had decided that the earpiece had stopped working, she heard Amy's voice. "We've got a problem, Mallory. We couldn't get a look at that final card. Silas was holding two pair, sixes and twos, and there are a ton of them left in the deck at this point. The chance of pulling another is over sixty percent. Jake's holding an inside straight. But if Silas got the full house off the draw then he'll win. I'm sorry, Mallory, but I don't know what to tell you."
Mallory clenched the edge of her stool and took a slow, steady breath. It was her call. She had no way of letting Jake know she couldn't give him an absolute. It was time for a damned good guess and a whole lot of praying. She looked over at Silas. Had he pulled the full house, or was he betting on the strength of the two pair alone since Jake had taken two cards on the draw?
Mallory glanced into the crowd, hoping to catch Brad's eye, but he was no longer standing across from her. Shit. This was all about to go down. She knew it as sure as she sat there. Amy had said there was a 60 percent chance that Silas had drawn the full house. She bit her lip and stared at the cards.
What the hell, she'd been going against the odds her entire life. It wasn't time to get conservative. She leaned back a bit and crossed her right leg over her left, then said a silent prayer.
There wasn't a sound inside the casino. The only noise at all was the steady humming of the boat's engine as it chugged through the Gulf. No one moved a muscle. All eyes were fixed on the table. There wasn't even a murmur when Jake pushed chips onto the table to match Silas's bet. "Call."
Mallory held her breath as Silas flipped his cards over and it was all she could do to hold in a shout when she saw the two pair staring back at her. Jake paused for a moment, staring at Silas's cards almost as if he couldn't believe what was about to happen. Then he reached for his own hand, pulled the cards up from the table and turned them face-up.
Before Mallory could even let out the breath she'd been holding, there was a booming shout at the back of the casino. "This is ATF - no one move!"
Contrary to the order, the entire room of grown men scrambled like a bunch of kids busted at a high school party. Men leapt over chairs and crawled over tables, heading for the nearest exit. The entire lot of them couldn't possibly be guilty of what the ATF was charging, but apparently they were all guilty enough of something to want the hell out of the room.
Mallory watched in amazement as men and women she'd thought were cooks, dishwashers and waiters pulled weapons from their waists and dashed after the fleeing players. No wonder Reginald had said they were safe on the boat. The place was filled with feds.
A familiar voice shouted out at the table across from her, and she looked over just in time to see an ATF agent handcuff Walter Royal to the table railing. Before she could even wonder what was going on, she caught a glimpse out the window and spun around, hoping she hadn't seen what she thought she had. Shit, shit, shit! Perched on the endless waters of the Gulf of Mexico, she saw a cigarette boat, not fifty yards from the casino. There was no doubt in her mind that Silas had never intended to get off the casino at the dock.
She spun back around to the table just in time to see Silas Hebert slink off into the fray. Jake was standing on a chair, probably trying to figure out if he could assist with the mess. He hadn't noticed Silas leave.
"Jake! He's getting away." Mallory cried. "And there's a boat just off the casino."
Jake glanced outside, then anxiously scanned the room, looking for Silas. "He's headed out the rear doors."
Mallory launched into action as soon as Jake pointed out Silas's exit, kicking off the high heels and skirting the edge of the fray in the casino as she ran toward the rear exit. She could hear the pounding of feet behind her and knew that Jake wasn't far behind. When she reached the rear door, she yanked it open and dashed into the lobby, catching sight of a figure just as it slipped around the corner of the hall to her right. He was headed to the storerooms. And the storerooms had a huge outside exit to allow for freight receipt. It would be a perfect way to get off the casino and onto the getaway boat.
Jake burst through the doors and she pointed down the hall. "That way," she shouted, and took off after him as he sprinted down the hall she'd identified.
"Which door?" Jake asked as they ran.
"Left. There's a freight dock in the storerooms. It's an easy way off the boat."
At the end of the hallway, Jake shoved open the storeroom doors and ran inside, scanning the room as he entered. He could hear Mallory hurry into the room a step behind him. He stopped in the middle of the entryway and put one finger to his lips. Mallory nodded and glanced over to the right, pointing at the freight doors.
Jake was relieved to see the freight doors were not yet opened. Silas hadn't been far enough ahead of them to have exited the boat already, and even if he had, there was no one behind him to close the doors. Based on his earlier talk with Reginald, Jake knew there was no other exit from this room. Silas Hebert was somewhere inside.
Jake ceased all movement and worked to control his breathing. There had to be a noise somewhere to indicate where Silas was hiding, but all he could hear was the hum of the boat's engine. He scanned the room, trying to decipher the most likely place to hide-the most likely place for an ambush since Silas would certainly know they had followed him from the casino.
Finally, Jake pointed to a row of shelves over to the left and motioned for Mallory to follow him. He knew it would be faster if they spread out, but Jake wasn't about to risk Silas getting his hands on Mallory. And Mallory, for all her strength and toughness, was still no match for Silas even if there were no guns involved.
Besides, there was a damned good chance that Silas had found a suitable weapon somewhere in the storeroom. Plenty of metal and glass could easily be fashioned into something deadly.
Jake took a single step toward the shelves, and Mallory fell in behind him. Step by step they crept toward the shelves, Jake straining to make out any sound that would indicate where Silas was hiding. They were only a couple of
feet from their goal when Silas Hebert stepped out.
Holding a gun.
"I'm so glad you could join us," he said with a smile. "Did you really think this was about laundering money or winning a stupid poker tournament?"
Jake drew up short and glanced briefly over his shoulder to ensure Mallory was directly behind him. "I know Mark set me up, if that's what you're implying. He's been working for you all along."
There was movement over to their right, and Mark stepped out from a row of shelves, his weapon directed at Mallory. His partner's hands seemed almost shaky, and as Jake studied the other man's bloodshot eyes, he knew Mark was far from normal.
"I'm sorry about this, Jake," Mark said, and the look on his face was genuine. "But I knew you'd keep looking for answers. We couldn't afford to have you dogging us the rest of our lives. We still have business in this country - and family - we couldn't risk you waiting at the airport every time we came back."
Jake stared at the man he thought he'd known. What had pushed him over the edge? "What happened to you, Mark?"
Mark stared past Jake at the wall. "I had to, Jake. I'm sorry it came down like this, but there was no other way."
"Oh yeah," Jake said. "Says who-the man who kept you locked in an empty apartment?"
Mark flinched and glanced from Silas to Jake. "It was just temporary ... until he was certain he could trust me. It was just business."
"Okay," Jake agreed. "So you've got me, but this has nothing to do with her. Let her go."
Silas laughed. "No way. This has turned out beautifully for me ... my final vengeance on the St. Claire family. She's going the same place you are. And neither of you are walking there."
Mark looked over at Silas. "Your plan never included the woman, Silas. Let's just get this over with and get out of here while we still have a chance."
Silas smiled at Mark. "Oh, we're getting out of here. I just have to lighten the load first."