Death On the Flop Read online

  That meant Frank was right.

  “Are you Detective Conner?” Maybe he wasn’t the cop after all. But he nodded.

  “Daniel Conner, Clark County Sheriff’s Department.” He turned to the man next to him who was still bent over the papers on the table, more than happy to leave any police business to the police. “This is Wayne Cedillo, head of security here at the Lanai. What seems to be the problem?”

  “I, uh . . .”

  “Yes?” Conner cocked his head, drew his eyebrows together and looked at my earrings, my jacket, my boots. Gulp.

  “. . . had my wallet stolen.” I finished weakly. I bet Nancy would’ve thought of something better than that.

  “Really? Where did this happen? Perhaps in a room on the tenth floor?”

  Conner remembered me. I had to get out of there as quickly as possible. “Well, you see I opened my purse . . .” I acted out what I was saying, unzipping the Coach on my arm and reaching in. Conner took a step toward me. I pulled out a tampon. He stopped with a grimace. I put it back and then sucked in a loud breath. Both men startled as I yanked out my wallet. “Will you look at that! It was here all the time. I can’t believe that! What a ninny I am. I swear, I have to clean out my purse more often so I can find things in here. I am so embarrassed. I am so, so sorry to have bothered you gentlemen.”

  Cedillo shook his head in disgust and went back to the plans. Conner frowned, suspicion obvious. I had to find a way to confuse him so he wouldn’t think I was the one who’d heard him in the stairwell. Suddenly I remembered what my mother told me when I asked her where she hid our Christmas presents—always hide something in plain sight, because no one will look for it there.

  “Are you sure there isn’t anything else you’d like to talk to me about?”

  I cocked my head. “Yes, there is.”

  Conner looked like a panther ready to pounce as I continued, “Your voice certainly sounds familiar. Have we met before?”

  He blinked. I’d surprised him. Good. “Maybe,” he said. “I might have seen you and an older man going into your room earlier this morning.”

  I forced a hearty laugh. “Oh yes, Uncle Felix is such a character. By the way, what was going on in the stairwell that you were so concerned about? Now that I know you are a policeman, the whole incident is much more exciting.”

  That got him. He opened and shut his mouth soundlessly. Cedillo looked up, curious. Finally, Conner found his voice, “Police business. None of your concern.”

  “Oh, I get it.” I winked and giggled like an airhead. “I’ll let you get back to work now.”

  I wiggled my fingers and scooted out the door. Conner was looking more bemused than suspicious now. I’d hid my guilt in plain sight. I crossed my fingers behind my back as the desk clerk lead me back down the hallway. I hoped that would be enough to keep Conner off my trail.

  Three cups of coffee hadn’t helped. Neither had the supersized cinnamon roll with a gallon of glaze. I still couldn’t come up with anything better than “I’m sorry,” so I paid my tab and took the elevator to the twenty-fifth floor.

  I paused in front of 2521. What if apologizing wasn’t enough? I would be alone with a missing brother, a bad cop, no plan and—the worst—no cell phone.

  Holding my breath, I knocked. I waited. I knocked again. Finally I heard the lock tumble. The door opened and Frank stood there, holding a steaming mug and dressed in faded Levi’s and a white T-shirt. His feet were still bare. He wore the quintessential poker face as he opened the door wider and stepped back in an invitation to enter. “Look what buzzed in.”

  I shuffled my way in as he closed the door behind me. “But what you didn’t tell me is what kind of ‘Bee’ you are. There are killer bees and bumble bees and honey bees. But I guess they all sting now and then, don’t they?”

  I knew I deserved it. “I’m sorry.”

  His dark eyes warmed. “Honey Bee, it is then.”

  I flopped onto the loveseat. “You were right.”

  “You were right too.” Frank said, walking across the room to look out the window. “I am an ex-cop and I am a drunk.”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry I said that.”

  Frank’s gaze met mine. His eyes were shadowed with sadness. “I’m not. I needed to hear it and I haven’t had anyone have the guts to tell me. And I promise you, I’m trying to stop.” He walked to sit opposite me. “Okay, why don’t you tell me what happened.”

  I went through it all. Frank’s intensity built during the story. He leaned forward, with his forearms on his knees. I could see muscles bunching when he clasped his hands together as he listened. When I came to the end, he remained tense, but the corners of his mouth turned up. “That was pretty smart. I imagine he wouldn’t expect anyone to be quite that brave. I’m sure it didn’t eliminate you as his witness but it certainly threw enough uncertainty in to bump you off the top of the list.”

  His smile faded and he pinned me with a hard look. “Look, I don’t like that you left out the part about the old man earlier. You’ve got to trust me. And it isn’t a good idea to go into a stranger’s hotel room, over the hill or not. There are a lot of freaks in Vegas.”

  “That’s why I left that out earlier,” I said. “It wasn’t so much I didn’t trust you, I just didn’t think you’d approve.”

  “Ah, I see, you operate on the approval motivation. I’ll remember that Honey Bee.”

  “Very funny,” I muttered, squirming in the loveseat and looking again at those feet. Damn.

  “Okay,” he said, giving me a strange look. “We need to make a plan. First, let’s go back to your room and take a look at things. Maybe you will notice something different. Maybe I’ll see something you didn’t. We need to hang a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign out so the maids don’t go in there. Then, we need to come back here and go to bed.”

  “What?” I looked up from those sexy toes. His eyes were dancing.

  “You need some sleep. A family of five could pack for a month long trip in the bags under your eyes.”

  Oh well, so much for thinking he wanted me.

  I suddenly did feel like I was eight hundred years old. Frank went into his bedroom and came out with some black lizard skin Luccheses on. Ooolala, almost better than naked feet.

  “You’re going to have to change clothes. What you have on right now is, um, rather distinctive.”

  I started to explain that I didn’t usually dress like this, that I wasn’t color-blind, fashion challenged or looking for a new career, but I was just too tired to go into it. Instead, I mumbled, “All my clothes are in my room.”

  “You’ll have to wear something of mine.” Frank paused to appraise me as neutrally as a tailor would. Still, his roving gaze had an effect; I felt parts warming and concluded I was decidedly hard up, being boyfriendless only three days. Pretty scary. Frank disappeared into his room and came out with an outfit that would make the critics on TLC’s How Do I Look? cringe—red and orange plaid pajama pants, a purple Lakers T-shirt, a blue Dodgers baseball cap and some forest green house shoes.

  “This work for you?”

  I shook my head. “No, sorry, I’m not a Lakers’ fan.”

  Frank glared. And I put up two fingers that said scout’s honor. “Really, it’s sacrilegious to be a Houstonian and wear anything that says ‘Lakers’.”

  “Perfect, then Conner will never guess it was you.”

  Oops, I stepped right into that one. Sighing, I took the hideous outfit out of his arms and shuffled into the opposite bedroom. I tried not to look in the mirror as I changed clothes. The cap I wouldn’t do. I didn’t wear caps.

  I walked out of the bedroom and Frank nodded brusquely in approval and motioned me over to him. He snatched the cap out of my hands, roughly wound my hair in a wad and stuffed it under the cap as he jammed it on my head, ignoring my protests. “This Conner cop might be having your room watched. Or he may be watching on the security cameras. I am being hypervigilant about this but we can’t take any c
hances until we know a little more about what’s going on.”

  We took the elevator down to the twentieth floor where Frank made me stand in a corner of the elevator lobby while he slapped duct tape on the security cameras. How he knew where the lenses were, I didn’t know. We raced to my room and I let us in. Everything seemed the same, trashed, ugly and somehow even more scary. Frank put a finger to his lips when I tried to talk, then went through methodically and silently, taking a digital camera out of his pocket and recording the scene, extracting an evil looking knife out of his boot to scrape some of the dried blood off the wall and into a plastic evidence bag. He was the cop at work. I certainly didn’t want to mess with him.

  He ordered me to collect my clothes and he headed for the front door. I saw my reflection in the mirror above the Jacuzzi, which was all it took to properly motivate me. I threw all my scattered things in my Burberry and ran to keep up with him as we raced back down the hallway and into the elevator that just happened to be waiting. Frank was a guy like that, even the elevators worked for him. For me, they went on vacation.

  I opened my mouth in the elevator, but he shook his head. I clammed back up. It wasn’t until we were safely back in his room that Frank spoke. “Do you know how much money they spent on building this hotel and casino?”

  I shook my head. “I see the opulence—the crystal sculptures, the precious stone floors—and I wonder but I can’t even begin to imagine. It’s mind boggling.”

  “Okay, if they spent that much on decoration, don’t you think they went all out on the security? There is a lot of money at stake at the tables here every night. Don’t you think they want to protect that?”

  I nodded. Frank continued, “Then it would be feasible to assume that the elevators and all the rooms are bugged.”

  My eyes widened as I looked around. “Then why are we talking in here?” I whispered.

  “I’ve swept the room already, and disconnected all the bugs.”

  “You found some?”

  “Yes, but I expected to. This is a room they give to visiting dignitaries, to the highest of high rollers, to the owner.”

  “You’d think that it would be a penthouse.”

  “Everyone else thinks that too, that’s why it’s in the middle of the hotel instead of the top. Much more difficult to guess and to infiltrate. The doors around it are dummies.”

  “Which are you, the high roller or the dignitary?”

  “Neither.”

  “Okay, then why are you in their suite?”

  “Because the Lanai’s owner owed me a favor.”

  “Who is the Lanai’s owner?”

  “He is a silent partner who is also invisible.”

  “So, why are you here?”

  “Because I owed the owner a favor.”

  I sighed. His face was closed. “You aren’t going to tell me any more than that, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Frank, what is a security expert?”

  “It can be a lot of things, but I would say it is someone whose goal is safety of people, of things, even of time.”

  I shook my head. Frank was speaking in riddles. I wasn’t good at those in the best of times, and being awake for thirty-six hours definitely wasn’t one of them. As I watched the sun rise over The Strip, I felt the last bit of energy drain out of me.

  “I need to go check into another room,” I said, walking to the front door where I’d left my suitcase.

  “No you don’t. It’s too big a risk. You stay here tonight.” Frank looked at my hesitant face in exasperation as he sat down at the desk in front of a laptop computer. “Look, this place is bigger than most houses. The bedrooms are on opposite sides of the floor. There’s even a lock on the door. The best part is, you don’t even have to change to go to bed.”

  I couldn’t help giving that a weary smile. Nodding, I dragged my suitcase into the bedroom. I paused at the door. “Frank?”

  He looked up from his typing.

  “Thank you.”

  “I haven’t done anything you should thank me for yet, Honey Bee.” His crow’s feet crinkled. “But I will before this is all said and done. I will.”

  Eight

  I heard Frank talking before I opened my eyes. I tried to roll over and winced, my muscles sore and loose like I’d been beaten by a giant meat tenderizer. Man, I had to get in better shape if this was what riding the elevator too many times did to me. Or maybe this was what forty felt like.

  I buried my face under a pillow for a few minutes and tried not to think about that.

  Frank’s voice was all I heard from the living room so I presumed he was either talking to himself or on the phone. I sucked in a breath and got brave, sitting up and swinging my legs over the bed in one smooth motion. I was a scary sight in the mirror, hair a matted mass, mascara smeared under one eye, crease marks on the opposite cheek. I considered showering, putting a decent face on and dressing before I went out but since Frank wasn’t interested in me that way, I didn’t bother. I mean, the bags under the eyes comment hurt at the time, but I had to say it completely dispelled the sexual tension, which was a relief (and a lot less work, frankly). The weird thing he’d said about giving me something to thank him for might have been read as a double entendre for someone who didn’t remember that comment. That someone wouldn’t be me.

  I wrapped my robe around me and padded out on bare feet to the living area. The sun was at about noon. Frank was in front of the laptop with his cell phone at his ear. I missed my cell phone. I smelled coffee and saw a steaming mug, and my mouth started to water.

  “Hold on, let me get that information for you,” Frank said into the phone. He handed it to me. “Tell them what Ben looks like, including any unique identifying marks.”

  What was this? Was he finally giving in and reporting Ben missing to the police? “My brother is, uh, forty years old, about six feet tall, weighs about a hundred and seventy pounds, has black hair and green eyes. He, uh, has a mole behind his left ear and a tattoo of a giraffe below his belly button.” Don’t ask, I issued in silent warning to Frank whose eyebrows had risen.

  “Race?”

  “No, I think he just works out at the gym and plays rugby.”

  Frank hid a smile behind his mug as he took a sip.

  “No, ma’am. I mean: what is his ethnicity?” The woman asked on the other end of the line.

  “Oh, sorry.” My cheeks burned. “Caucasian.”

  I heard some papers rustling across the phone line. Finally, she spoke, “We have two John Does matching that general description that have come in in the last twenty-four hours. Of course, neither had a tattoo.”

  My heart clutched. I stared at Frank. He looked sorry and snatched the phone out of my hand. “What was that?” He nodded brusquely. “Okay. We may come down anyway. Thank you.”

  I stared at him. This was too much for me to process B.C.—before coffee. “Was I just talking to the county morgue?”

  “Yes.” Frank was in full cop mode, no gentleness, no “I’m sorry for waking you to talk about your brother’s corpse.” “I’ve called all the hospitals in the area too and so far the morgue is the only possibility.”

  “Why? Neither Doe had a tattoo.”

  “She said that neither has been autopsied, and the check-in dude is some minimum wager who misses a lot. They just got him to get hair color right. I think we need to take a look.”

  I fell into the couch, rolled into a fetal position and buried my head in my hands. I felt his hand touch my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Bee, but investigation is a process of elimination.”

  I groaned.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I NEED COFFEE,” I said through my fingers.

  “Ah, a woman after my own heart,” Frank said, his hand leaving. I could hear him over in the bar area. “Black, cream or sugar?”

  “All of the above. Any way it comes.”

  He chuckled, returning to waft the cup under my nose. Peeking through my fingers to m
ake sure it wasn’t a ruse, I sat up, took the proffered cup and had a sip. I already felt better. Of course, now I was hungry. “I just realized I haven’t eaten in . . .” I paused, remembering the quesadilla we’d shared while we waited for our flight, “. . . eighteen hours. Wow. That’s got to be some kind of record.” I saw his indulgent grin. “I like my food.”

  I jumped when a knock sounded. I looked at Frank in alarm. He grinned wider as he walked to answer the door. “I like my food too.”

  “Room service,” announced the young man in the café uniform of surfer shorts and a lei. The smell of bacon wafted in and I was afraid I would cry with joy.

  As the waiter rolled the table in, Frank signed the ticket. He tipped him and dragged two chairs over. “You know, most women I know would be suffering from a case of the vapors, unable to eat for worry over their brother,” Frank teased.

  “Then you hang out with the wrong kind of women,” I said as I shoved my napkin in my lap. “Besides, Ben’s seen me hungry enough times to know I shouldn’t be out in public when I’m in this state, much less trying to find him. You know, food is a number one priority for him too, which makes me wonder why he wasn’t wanting to take me to one of Vegas’ famous restaurants last night. He must have been really distracted.”

  Frank nodded as he uncovered eggs Florentine, croissants, a heaping platter of bacon, sliced mango and chunked pineapple. “The more little things like that you remember, you need to tell me. The better I know Ben, I can piece this thing together better.”

  We ate in famished silence for a while. Then, after I’d had seconds of everything, I pushed back my chair. “I’ll shower and then we can go.”

  Frank nodded. I noticed for the first time he was still wearing what he’d had on at dawn when I collapsed. “You didn’t go to sleep, did you?”

  He shook his head but waited to answer until he pushed the table out into the hall. Once the door was closed, he spoke. “I wanted to do some research on Stan. On this tournament. On some other things.”

  From his cryptic tone I knew Frank wouldn’t tell me more. I was beginning to read him pretty well. Still, I tried, “What things?”