“You counted cards?” The casino probably had cameras everywhere. Knowing my aunt, she had probably done it blatantly.
“Something like that.” Carolyn inched closer to the table where she immediately caught the attention of a heavy-set man. His thick gold bracelet dug into his fleshy wrist as he fanned his cards, a swarthy caricature straight out of a mobster movie. His smug expression was either a bluff or a dead giveaway that his hand would trump Wilt’s. His other hand rested on his thigh, close to his gun holster.
“It’s kind of fun to pull one over on these wise guys. They think they’re smarter than everyone else. You should try it sometime.” Carolyn tossed back her blonde hair with an exaggerated flourish as she strutted around the table.
Counting cards was bad enough, but checking out Wilt’s opponent’s hand was cheating of the worst kind. I grabbed Carolyn’s arm and pulled her back towards where I stood a few feet behind Wilt. “It’s not going to be fun for long. Wilt can’t afford to gamble like this with a minimum-wage job.” I met her gaze as Wilt pushed a stack of fifty-dollar chips towards the table center. I lowered my voice. “He’s in serious trouble.”
I knew very little about poker, but even I saw that he had a terrible hand. He had no face cards, and not even so much as a pair of low-numbered cards. He was a terrible bluffer with no hope in hell of winning. Whether he was spending his own money, or part of Aunt Pearl’s lottery winnings, the money wouldn’t last long.
Carolyn ignored me.
I stepped closer to the table. “Wilt, finish your hand and let’s go.”
He turned for a split second, just long enough to glare at me. “Leave me alone. You’re throwing off my concentration.”
Aunt Pearl—still in her Carolyn Conroe disguise—swore under her breath. “You heard him. Mind your own business, Cendrine.”
I gritted my teeth. “Focus, Aunt Pearl. Remember why we’re here.”
“You two know each other?” Wilt’s brows arched in surprise.
I nodded, annoyed at having to cover for my aunt’s dual identity.
“Small world.” Wilt turned back to the table and his pathetic poker hand.
“Smaller than you might think.” While I was relieved that Wilt had no idea that Carolyn was really Aunt Pearl—and a witch—her deceptive ways bothered me. Wilt was obviously attracted to Aunt Pearl’s alter-ego, and Carolyn led him to think the feeling was mutual.
I turned back to Carolyn. “I’m doing it for his own good, Aunt Pearl.”
“Sssh—don’t call me that.”
“You said he had a gambling problem.”
“Did I? I don’t remember that.”
“You of all people should know better.” I sucked in my breath as the players around the table matched and raised Wilt’s bet. Arguing was pointless. It just prolonged the horrible train wreck unfolding before us.
Carolyn walked up behind Wilt and placed a hand on his shoulder.
Wilt glanced back at her and smiled, clearly enamored. He was even showing off a bit for his new love interest, which made his card playing all the more reckless. It was obvious Wilt had never had much female interest, let alone from a stunner like Carolyn. He basked in the attention from Carolyn and his envious poker opponents.
Carolyn had caught the attention of the other three men at the table, who leered in her general direction.
“I call,” Mobster Guy dropped his cards on the table and grinned.
A Full House, three aces, and a pair of tens.
I grabbed Carolyn by the arm. “Wilt’s getting annihilated. Make him stop, now.” I couldn’t watch any more of the slow-motion train wreck that was unfolding before my eyes.
“You want me to interrupt before he has a chance to win back his money?” She fluttered her fake eyelashes at me in mock innocence.
“You know I do.”
She shrugged and caught the eye of the dealer and winked.
He smiled back, captivated.
Before I could say another word, everyone at the table was entranced.
Literally.
Carolyn Conroe had placed them all under a rewind spell. A split second later, the same scene played out before us. Only this time, Wilt had a pair of aces.
“Aunt Pearl!” I grabbed her arm. “That’s worse than card counting! Change everything back to how it was before.”
“No can do, missy. You weren’t complaining earlier when you begged me to help you with a spell.”
“But my spell was just to get me back home. It wouldn’t financially ruin anyone.”
“Anybody who gambles takes their own chances.”
I crossed my arms. “What you’re doing isn’t right. Change everything back right now or I’ll report you to WICCA. You know the rules.” Cheating was grounds for immediate lifetime expulsion. No self-respecting witch would risk losing her powers.
“You’d betray your own aunt?” Carolyn crossed her arms and snorted. “For what? This is not cheating, Cen. I only moved Wilt back to an earlier point in time. Both of his choices were made of his own free will.”
“But he chose differently this time,” I protested. “He was dealt different cards.”
“That’s just the odds.”
“You can’t just rewind life over and over until you get the results you want,” I said. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“You’re wrong, Cen. That’s exactly how life works.”
Chapter 28
Wilt rose from the table and gathered up his chips. Aunt Pearl and I followed behind as he headed towards the exit and the hotel lobby. I felt a lot of eyes on us. Or rather on Carolyn, as she flashed leg and cleavage with every step. We only made it twenty feet before Wilt stopped, mesmerized by a bank of slot machines. He seemed completely oblivious to us. It was as if he was in a trance.
“Wilt.” I stepped in front of him but his glassy eyes looked beyond me to the machines. He fished casino tokens from his pocket and sat down at the first machine.
One by one he dropped tokens into the machine.
“Stop him, Aunt Pearl! Wilt can’t afford this.” A half dozen drunken men in their mid-twenties had followed us from the casino. They stood ten feet away, whispering as they gawked at us. Judging from their ridiculous Hawaiian shirts and straw hats, they were part of a bachelor party.
“He can’t afford it, but I sure can,” Aunt Pearl said. “He’s playing on my tab.”
I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter who pays. You’re just making his gambling addiction worse.” I couldn’t see how her lottery win justified ruining a man’s life.
Our fan club closed in around us in a semi-circle. From what I gathered from their drunken whispers, they were formulating a plan to introduce themselves. I turned back to Carolyn.
“You haven’t even cashed in your ticket yet,” I protested. “What if you made a mistake writing the numbers down?” It also dawned on me that if she hadn’t cashed her ticket, she had to be getting the money from somewhere else. I was afraid to ask where. She wasn’t anywhere near wealthy enough to finance a gambling junket.
“The ticket’s good. I used that validation machine thing, so I’m sure. What could possibly go wrong?” She waved her hand in a flourish, almost swatting the groom, who seemed oblivious as his hat flew off.
“Plenty,” I said. “Maybe there’s a mistake with the numbers. What if you lose the ticket? I hope you put it somewhere safe.”
Carolyn reached into her cleavage, which attracted a few whistles from her admirers. Her eyes widened and she broke out into a sweat.
“What’s wrong?”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “It was there a few minutes ago. Oh my gawd! I lost the ticket!”
My stomach churned as I thought of the RV, the gambling tab, and who knew what else Aunt Pearl had bought on credit. “At least we have the rest of Wilt’s gambling chips.”
I grabbed Wilt’s arm just as he dumped his last handful of tokens into the slot machine and pulled the handle.
Too lat
e. I swore under my breath.
Carolyn Conroe erupted into peals of laughter as she patted my back. “Calm down, Cen. I was just kidding.”
The bachelor party men gawked as Carolyn adjusted her cleavage and gave her bosom a final tap. She grinned at the stag party men. “Still got it.”
I steered Wilt away from the slot machine.
“That’s my lucky machine! It’s about to pay off.” Wilt yanked his arm from my grasp.
“It’ll never pay off,” I said. “Let’s quit while we’re ahead.”
Wilt shook his head. “The first time in a long time I’m winning, and you want me to quit?”
“You weren’t winning anything,” I said. “You just used all your chips.”
“Temporary setback,” Wilt protested.
I glanced at Carolyn, but she was too busy to notice. The bachelor party men surrounded her, each competing for her attention. She was soaking up every minute of it.
I still had one advantage. Wilt didn’t know that Carolyn was really Aunt Pearl.
I lowered my voice so Carolyn couldn’t hear. “Wilt, I need your help. Aunt Pearl is missing and I need to find her. Aren’t you supposed to be her personal chauffeur and bodyguard?”
Wilt paled. “Uh, yeah. Oh my god. I’d better find her.”
It seemed a bit of an overreaction, but at least Wilt took his job seriously.
“I know you’re just letting off a little steam after a long drive here, but we urgently need to find her. She needs her medication.” If anyone needed meds right now it was me, but Wilt bought my little white lie.
His mouth dropped open. “I screwed up, didn’t I? Sorry, I don’t know what’s got into me.”
“That’s okay, Wilt.” I stepped away from the slot machine and motioned for him to follow. One of the bachelors jostled us, annoyed at losing his position close to Carolyn.
Wilt followed, looking contrite. “I got caught up in the cards instead of watching out for Miss Pearl. I can’t help it, Cendrine. All the flashy lights and noises intoxicate me. It makes me feel like I’m on drugs or something.”
“Don’t worry about it. You go upstairs to the suite and see if you can find anything. I’ll look around here.” I had no intention of doing that, but I needed Wilt out of the casino. I also had to get Carolyn alone and convince her to change back into Aunt Pearl. Carolyn Conroe attracted way too much male attention.
Wilt nodded and turned to leave. He made it only about ten feet when a large burly man blocked his way.
My heart jumped as I recognized the man as Mobster Guy, the burly poker player from moments earlier.
Chapter 29
“Why’d you leave the table? We were just getting to know each other.” Mobster Guy clamped a fleshy hand down on Wilt’s shoulder. “We’ve got a little problem, you and I.”
“I’m done playing.” Wilt shook as he spoke. “I paid all my bets, so I don’t see what the problem is.”
“You don’t see counting cards as a problem?” The man tightened his grip. “You don’t fool me one bit. Your losing hand at the end was just to make it look real.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I protested. “He lost a lot at the end.” I debated whether I should go find Rocco. Then I remembered the lobby shootout and decided against it. These family rivalries tended to turn deadly.
Mobster Guy glared at me so hard I thought his eyes would explode out of his head. “Nobody asked you, honey.”
Wilt winced in pain as Mobster Guy dug deeper.
“I see what you and your friend are up to.” The man nodded towards Carolyn. “She’s your distraction, isn’t she? She sidetracks the rest of us till we’re not paying any attention to the game.”
“Nope. I won fair and square.” Wilt wrenched his shoulder from the man’s grip. “I gotta go.”
“You ain’t going anywhere. You owe me big time.” Mobster guy grabbed Wilt’s collar and yanked it so hard upwards that Wilt almost came out the other end. He was twice the size of Wilt, almost three hundred pounds, with an outsized temper to match.
Wilt shook his head. “I don’t owe nobody nothin’. Not even the time of day.”
Wilt’s flippant response was about to get us into a whole mess of trouble. I tugged on his arm. “Wilt, let’s go.”
Mobster guy pulled Wilt in the other direction, ripping his shirt seam. A button popped off Wilt’s shirt and landed on the plush casino carpet.
Mobster guy’s face flushed an angry red, a sore loser.
“Carolyn,” I yelled. “Get over here.”
To my surprise, Carolyn immediately extricated herself from her admirers. “What’s all the fuss about?”
“We need help,” I whispered. “Now would be a good time to rewind.”
“Oh dear,” Carolyn frowned. “Wilt really is in trouble. That’s Jimmy, Manny La Manna’s right-hand man. He’s got a hair-trigger temper. Wilt sure knows how to pick his enemies.”
“You didn’t recognize him earlier? He’s been playing cards with Wilt the whole time you were counting them. How could you miss him?”
“He looks a lot different since I last saw him. He’s gained a lot of weight. Besides, I was multi-tasking, Cen. Counting cards, counting men...it got a little confusing.”
“Pay attention, Aunt Pearl. We have to undo this.”
“Sssh—don’t call me that. I’m Carolyn, remember?”
“Fine. Just get us out of this mess.”
Carolyn stepped back and crossed her arms. “You talk to me like that and expect favors, missy? Well, you’re not getting my cooperation. You want another rewind spell? Go do it yourself.”
“But I can’t...”
“Just admit you were wrong and apologize.”
A couple of Carolyn’s admirers wandered over to see what the fuss was about. I didn’t want a brawl but didn’t see why I had to apologize. I hadn’t done anything wrong.
Jimmy’s fleshy arms wrapped around Wilt’s neck in a choke hold.
Wilt’s arms flailed at his sides as he tried to escape Jimmy’s clutches.
“Aunt Pearl, please—just forget about me. Do it for Wilt.”
“Stop using my real name!” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you sorry or not?”
“Okay, fine. I’m sorry. Just reverse the spell and take Wilt out of his misery!” I couldn’t bear to watch another second. Wilt’s eyes bulged from Jimmy’s vice grip. He looked like an insect about to be squashed.
“I really wish you’d practice your own magic and not rely on me all the time.” Carolyn muttered under her breath. “If only you would apply yourself.”
I rolled my eyes. It was too late to do anything about that now, but for once I agreed with Aunt Pearl. As soon as I got back to Westwick Corners, I resolved to return to my lessons, if only to counteract Aunt Pearl’s irresponsibility.
Aunt Pearl snapped her fingers. “One, two, three, make it not to be...”
My gasp echoed throughout the entire casino. The cavernous space became eerily silent, with no voices or clanging slot machines. Hundreds of gamblers at slot machines and tables were all frozen in various states of suspended animation.
“Uh-oh.” Carolyn’s mirth from moments ago had been replaced by worry.
“What is it?” I glanced up at the ceiling, wondering if the rewind spell affected anyone elsewhere in the building, such as the security employees watching the casino floor by camera. Aunt Pearl’s witchcraft was recorded for posterity if anyone happened to review the surveillance footage. I was certain that was done in the casino on a very regular basis.
Carolyn grimaced as she tried to pry Jimmy’s fingers from Wilt’s neck. “It’s not working. I stopped the spell at the wrong moment, and now I don’t know what to do.”
“Can’t you just rewind a few seconds earlier?” It seemed so obvious, I wondered why she was even mentioning it.
“Uh-uh. I can’t do unwind and rewind precise enough to stop within a fraction of a second. Even if I’m fast enough, it might jeopardiz
e Wilt’s safety.”
“Well, we can’t let Jimmy strangle Wilt.” I stepped toward the two men to get a closer look. “Give me your shoe.”
“It’s not that bad, is it?” Carolyn tilted her head as she studied the two men. Wilt’s face was frozen in terror and his hands clutched Jimmy’s in a death grip.
“Just give me your shoe, quick!”
Carolyn reluctantly handed over her stiletto. I wedged the spiked heel under Jimmy’s fingers and slowly pulled until they loosened from Wilt’s neck. Then I leaned back and pulled as hard as I could. Jimmy’s knuckles cracked as his fingers unwrapped and he pulled away from Wilt. I immediately lost my balance and fell backward onto the carpeted casino floor.
A split second later, Jimmy fell on top of me and everything went black.
Chapter 30
I rose to a sitting position to find Wilt and Carolyn staring down at me with looks of concern. “Where’s Jimmy?” I gasped for breath as my ribcage slowly expanded. I felt like a flattened pancake after being squashed under Jimmy’s weight.
“Gone,” Carolyn pointed towards the door as she held out her hand. She had already put her shoe back on. “Get up. We’ve got no time to waste.”
I did as I was told, but I was confused. I also had a pounding headache. I stood opposite Carolyn and scanned the casino floor. People milled around machines and tables, placing their bets as if nothing had happened. “What’s the rush?”
Carolyn frowned. “Jimmy’s going to tell Manny, and when Manny comes after Wilt he’ll find out that I had something to do with it. There’s going to be trouble.”
My mouth dropped open. “Manny knows you’re a witch?”
“Of course he knows, Cen.”
“I thought you said he was just a casual fling?” He had to mean more to her than that if he knew about Aunt Pearl’s supernatural talents. “Exactly how serious is your relationship?”
“I don’t kiss and tell, and I’m certainly not going to share the lurid details of my love life with my niece.” She placed her hands on her hips. “It’s none of your business.”
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