by Cj Howard
Claire tried to think of the best way to do that as she waited for someone to make a move on her. It had to come, didn’t it? Weren’t her abductors watching her? Wasn’t that one of their points to her? At this point, two weeks after making the demand, they should be getting restless for an answer, Claire thought, feeding another few bills into the machine and pulling the lever to get it going.
She very, very carefully glanced around, trying to determine if there was anyone coming for her. Her skin crawled from her scalp to her ankles, tingling with anticipation as she tried to keep looking as if she had not a care in the world. Come on, guys, she thought bitterly. After the threats, the way they’d strong-armed her, they were going to just let her calmly play at a slot machine in a casino without making some move?
She was alone, and they were still waiting to hear from her—she hadn’t made any kind of contact or even left the hotel she was living in the entire time. Did they know she was living in Benjamin’s suite with him? Was that why they weren’t making a move? Did they take that as their answer—and if so, did that mean that they knew Benjamin had people watching her now?
Claire decided to get up and move around for a bit, maybe see if she could draw someone out. She took her winnings, meager though they were, from the machine and stood up, looking around more naturally. Where could she go? After a moment of thought, she decided to play a couple of rounds of blackjack. Worst-case scenario we have to do this again in a few days to lure them, Claire reminded herself. She didn’t think that would be necessary, though.
Claire sat down at a blackjack table and exchanged a fifty dollar bill for a small stack of chips. She didn’t intend on playing for very long; she just wanted to make herself visible. She glanced around, trying not to be too conspicuous, and took the first hand: the jack of hearts and a four.
She signaled to hit, not caring whether or not she won; the point was to hang out, not to actually win anything. She barely paid attention as the other players at the table made their own bids and hits—and two folded, leaving her, the dealer, and two other players.
Claire won that hand, along with one of the other players, and claimed her winnings blandly. She glanced around as the dealer put out the second hand, and stayed—she’d gotten a ten and a nine of diamonds, and while she wasn’t there to win, she didn’t feel like going out of her way to lose, either.
Claire barely lost that hand when the dealer got a twenty-one then won the third hand she played. She continued on for three more games then decided that she needed to use the bathroom. She finished out the hand, grabbed up her chips, and tucked them into her purse to cash out later.
She used the restroom and washed her hands, thinking about the setup. Claire decided that if nothing happened in another thirty minutes, she would call it off and get Benjamin to call Alan to come and get her. They’d have to come up with another idea for how to get more information on the people trying to extort her. She dried her hands off and left the restroom, trying to decide where to go next. Did she want to try Texas hold’em?
“Ms. Stevenson.”
Claire looked up and saw the same man from the restaurant, standing off away from the flow of traffic, watching for her to emerge. Her heart started beating faster, but Claire told herself that she was as in control of the situation as she could possibly be. She wasn’t going to let herself be taken away from the MGM Grand if she could help it, and even if she did, she reminded herself that certainly Benjamin would have thought about the danger of her being alone with those people when she told them no.
“I don’t actually know your name, so I guess I’ll call you ‘Mr. Suit,’” Claire replied.
The man smiled slightly. “Will you come with me, please?”
Claire thought she could detect some slight accent to his voice, but she wasn’t sure, and she tried to remember if he’d had one in their first interaction. “I am not leaving here,” she said. “If you want to talk to me, we can find a private area in this casino to do it.”
“There’s nowhere here sufficiently private to have our discussion,” the man told her.
Claire shook her head. “You’re going to have to figure something out, then,” she said. “Because I’m not leaving here with you.”
“You’ve had two weeks to consider our offer,” the man said, glancing around quickly.
Claire wondered if he felt nervous at her sudden lack of cooperation. “Yes, I have,” she agreed.
“There can only be two answers to the offer,” the man pointed out.
Claire nodded. “That’s true,” she said. “I mean, I guess technically there could be some variations—but I get the feeling you’re not willing to negotiate.”
The man smiled again. “That would be correct.”
Claire took a quick, deep breath. Had he come alone? That didn’t seem likely. But where were the other guys who had been with him last time? She didn’t see them in the area.
“So find us somewhere to talk,” Claire told him firmly.
The man looked as if he was about to refuse, but Claire continued to hold his gaze with her own. “Fine,” he said. “Stay right here—you know I don’t need much to enforce that.”
Claire rolled her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said.
The man stepped away and disappeared in the crowd milling through the casino, and Claire wondered if he was going to bail on the confrontation altogether. It wouldn’t be ideal, but she was more than happy—on a certain level—to accept that outcome if it was what would happen.
A few minutes later, he appeared as if from nowhere, and Claire barely managed to keep from jumping in surprise. “There’s an office space we can use,” he said quickly. “Follow me.”
“Don’t try and turn this into an attempt to get me out of the building,” Claire warned him.
“I’m not. Follow me,” the man insisted.
Claire nodded and followed him as he cut through the crowd, headed toward a hallway. For a brief moment, she worried that the MGM Grand might have been infiltrated too. She told herself, however, that if the security detail there was compromised, at least there were people set to follow her if she left the casino. There were safeguards.
The man turned at a door and opened it, gesturing for Claire to precede him. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck standing up, but went in. Seated at a conference table, she saw three of the men who had accompanied her to the first meeting, along with the man she had spoken to at the secretive location they’d taken her to.
“Ms. Stevenson,” the man said.
“Nice of you to come all this way,” Claire said irreverently. She sat down at the end of the table, and Mr. Suit closed the door, taking up a position near the apparent mastermind of the scheme.
“I wanted your response in person,” the man said, “and I thought you might be against going anywhere with Trevor.” Somehow, knowing that Mr. Suit’s name was Trevor removed some of his impressiveness.
“Very perceptive of you,” Claire said.
“Let’s get this out of the way, then,” the man said. “Are you going to play ball?”
“No,” Claire told the man.
“You know what this means, correct?”
She shrugged. “I know that you’re going to go after my father, and that you’ll probably try and kill me, too, yes.”
“Are you sure you want to go down this road, Ms. Stevenson? Obviously we can’t do anything to you here at the Grand, but you can’t be accompanied everywhere you go—and you can’t count on being in places too public for us to snatch you every moment of your life.”
Claire met the man’s gaze levelly. “I know,” she said. “I just also happen to know that what you’re asking me to do is highly illegal, and that there are probably people who would be very interested in hearing about it—people who are outside of your circle of influence.”
“But how will you get to them, Ms. Stevenson?”
Claire smiled slowly, in spite of the pounding of her heart in
her chest. “That is for me to know and you to spend the next several nights staying up guessing about,” she said. She rose to her feet. “I don’t think we have anything else to discuss, do you?”
“Not at this time, no,” the man agreed, his face expressionless. Claire thought that his neutral, utter lack of expression was almost scarier than if he had looked outright furious. “Let her leave, Trevor,” he added when the suited man would have intercepted her.
Claire left the room and moved quickly down the hallway, trying to hold her composure as much as possible. She didn’t want anyone to know she could feel her pulse hammering in her chest, her ears, even her hands—she was certain that the man in charge of the group would change his mind at any moment and somehow manage to have her killed right there and then, in the MGM Grand. It was a ridiculous thought, but it was impossible not to think it.
She took her phone out of her purse and dialed Alan’s number. “Hey,” she said, fishing the collection of chips out of her purse as well and heading for the cash-out. “I’m done here. Pick me up from the front in five.”
“Can do,” Alan said.
Claire closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Whatever else happened, she was proud of herself for not giving into the intimidation. She could only hope that Benjamin’s detail would follow the men, find out where they went, and come up with some new leads; she was certain that the threats the one in charge had made were not at all idle.
Chapter13
Benjamin managed to wait until Claire stepped through the door into the conference room, before he grabbed her by the waist and kissed her lightly on the lips. He pulled her body close to his, pressing against her. “I know I told you I would never touch or make a move on you without you asking for it,” he murmured, brushing his lips against hers again, “but I couldn’t stop myself.” Claire laughed, breathless and—Benjamin thought—still shaken.
“I am definitely okay with it right now,” she said.
He felt her take a deep breath and relax against him. He hadn’t entirely liked the idea of putting Claire out there the way they had—but then, he hadn’t had any other real ideas for how to accomplish what they needed. The private investigator had hit a dead end, and they hadn’t managed to sort out who among his employees had worked with the group that was threatening Claire for her father’s debts; they needed a fresh lead. With any luck, the people he’d hired to tail the men who’d grabbed Claire would get at least a few answers.
“I wish I could have been there,” Benjamin murmured, kissing her quickly again on the lips before releasing her slightly.
“If you’d been there, it wouldn’t have worked,” Claire pointed out.
He nodded, accepting that point. “I’m glad you opted not to let them take you anywhere—we didn’t even think about that,” Benjamin said.
Claire chuckled. “We were a bit preoccupied with other aspects of it,” she countered.
It was true; Benjamin had based all his plans on Claire being taken to another location: he had briefed the people who would be following the men she’d met with on how quickly to enter whatever building they went to, how to go about retrieving her.
Of course, that had come with a risk—there was no getting around the fact that rescuing Claire would result in tipping their hand, and likely making whoever was engaged in threatening her to abandon the site. Still, it would make it possible, at least, for them to get access to records to begin the difficult work of tracing out who owned it, who was using it, and so on.
“We’re going to have to play things as safe as possible from this point forward, though,” Benjamin said.
Claire chuckled. “I’m living in your suite and pretty much never leave your side,” she said dryly. “You’ve stopped having meetings outside of the casino altogether. I think we’re as safe as we can be.”
He smiled. “If we really wanted to make things safe, you should stay in my room with me—not just in my suite,” he pointed out.
Claire rolled her eyes and slipped out of his arms. “I am not a fragile flower,” she said. “Besides which, staying in your room…” she paused. “I think we both need at least a little space, don’t you?”
Benjamin watched her carefully for a moment. “If you want more time to yourself, I can manage that,” he said. “If you want to leave the casino, though—I am going to insist that you have a bodyguard with you, and on top of that, someone following just to make sure. Bodyguards can be taken out.” Claire met his gaze, and he saw her go pale underneath the deep tawny brown of her skin.
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “That they can.”
He wanted to reach out and pull her to him again, but he also knew Claire was independent enough that she wouldn’t want to be touched that way—not right at that moment. “We’ve already talked about this,” he reminded her. “I like you. I want to keep you around.”
Claire smiled wryly and turned to face him, one eyebrow raised. “This whole situation is bizarre,” she said. “I just...I need time to figure out how much of what’s going on in my head is due to the fact that there are people who would be happy to kill me, and how much of it is that I actually like being around you.”
Benjamin chuckled. “That’s fair,” he said. “Why don’t we go back to the suite, and you can take off your shoes and relax. I’ll come back here and wait for updates.” At that, Claire looked at him for a long moment, uncertain, and Benjamin stepped back slightly, giving her space. That was what she needed, he thought: space.
“You’re really going to leave me alone?”
Benjamin smiled. “I think you’re safe enough at that level—only a few of the staff can even gain access to the floor,” he pointed out. “There are only about three people—other than you—who can get into the suite. And one of those people is me. I’m okay with letting you stay there alone, as long as you promise me you’re not going to do anything crazy, like go on some kind of outing.”
Claire held his gaze for a moment, stepping toward him and leaning in close. Benjamin let her kiss him lightly on the lips then reached for her hand, taking it in his. “If nothing else,” he said, “I want you to be able to repay your Dad’s debt to me.”
Claire laughed. “That makes me much more comfortable at this point than you telling me how much you like and respect me.”
He led her out of the conference room and toward the elevator that would take them up to his level, still holding her hand. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—admit to her how much it had worried him when he realized she would be in a defenseless position with her captors, at least while they were moving her to wherever they’d originally intended to take her.
He hadn’t told her that he’d placed a transmitter in her purse so he could hear what was going on around her, what conversations she had while she was on her mission. It was a backup, a contingency—and it was also because he wanted to know all the details as close to firsthand as possible.
Claire kicked off her shoes as soon as they entered his suite, and Benjamin watched her pad across the room, flexing her feet a bit to relieve the tension in them. “You’re really going to leave me alone?”
“I wouldn’t say I was going to if I didn’t intend to,” Benjamin replied. “You’re safe up here, as long as you don’t decide to go out.”
Claire strode back toward him, and before Benjamin could figure out what she had in mind, she rose up onto the balls of her feet and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Then I am going to take a bath, have a glass of wine, and watch some TV,” she told him with a smile.
Benjamin returned her grin and kissed her impulsively on the forehead before stepping back. He would—he promised himself—see how she was feeling later, once he’d heard back from his investigators. For the moment though, he needed to focus entirely on the next step in making sure she remained safe.
“I’ll be back in a while,” Benjamin promised. He resisted the temptation to kiss Claire again and turned to leave, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand. At any
moment, at least a few of the people he’d hired should arrive back at the casino to report on what they’d managed to find out.
Ben took the elevator back down to the conference room where he’d been waiting for Claire’s arrival and sat down, thinking about what had passed. He wished that he had access to the security camera footage just then—but, of course, he reminded himself, the room where they’d taken Claire in the MGM Grand hadn’t had cameras; it was designed for such private meetings, though of course there wasn’t any evidence that anyone at the Grand had been involved in helping the people who were coming for Claire.
Joe arrived ten minutes later, and Ben rose to his feet to greet the private investigator who’d been working for him almost as long as he’d owned the casino. Joe Lamarc was maybe ten years older than he was, already starting to go gray but with a full head of hair in the most nondescript cut that Benjamin had ever seen. He was lean and still tight-bodied, deceptive under his khakis and polo shirt—he could, Benjamin knew, take out men twice his weight.
“We’ve got a lead,” Joe said as soon as they sat down. “I’ve got a couple of the guys off chasing down affiliates, trying to see if we can turn them.”
“Do we know who it is specifically behind this?” That was the big question—there were just too many possibilities, and in order to know how to solve the problem, they would need to know who was behind it.
“Not yet, but I’m tracking down the ownership records for the building they went to,” Joe replied. “The car I followed didn’t go to the building that Claire was taken to—at least, not as far as I can say. They might have doubled back with her in the SUV, but this one was much closer to the strip and, from the outside, didn’t seem to be the same kind of place.”
“So whoever they are, they have access to more than one location,” Benjamin pointed out.