OLIVER was sharp the next night and went up almost a half million dollars. When he checked the leaderboard at the end of play, he was pleased to see that Collin was still in the tournament and had actually pulled back to nearly even at a million in chips. Another dozen or so players went out, their chips distributed among the other players as chip totals for the leaders started to climb.
The women were more aggressive in the restaurant tonight, but then the players were more aggressive too. They’d figured out that there was no charge for the services of the ladies and were availing themselves freely of the fringe benefits of this junket.
He didn’t see Collin in the buffet line. Was the guy avoiding him after that kiss last night? Dammit. He’d pushed too hard. Although why he was worried about moving too fast when he should be worrying about moving at all on him, he didn’t know. Not only was something weird about this event, but something was definitely weird about Collin too. The guy had no business being here.
Oliver had poked around on the Internet and found no record of a Collin Callahan working for either the British or US government, so that part of his story seemed to hold up, assuming the guy wasn’t some sort of deep undercover operative, of course. However, a spy probably would have come to this event a lot better prepared to pass as a real poker player. So who was Collin, and why was he here?
Oliver crashed in bed without coming up with any answers. But he dreamed of Collin wearing a tuxedo and acting like James Bond. Instead of a hot actress, though, Collin/Bond took him to bed. A slow strip tease, an escalation of seduction, and Oliver woke up sweating bullets and so turned on he could hardly breathe. Collin cast in the role of secret agent was a good fit for the guy. He had that air of sexy mystery about him.
Oliver looked at his alarm clock. Nearly two in the afternoon. He didn’t have to get up for another hour. But no way was he getting back to sleep after that smoking-hot dream. Might as well go down to the beach and take a swim.
He donned his wet suit and swam past the marina, past the gigantic yacht moored there, and paralleled the sandy flats that were a newly built, man-made beach on the east coast of Gibraltar. The developer who’d built El Rocca must have backfilled the rocky shore with entire shiploads of sand to create the beach. Contemplating the cost of such an endeavor was staggering. But then, land had to be incredibly valuable in this tiny country.
As he stroked onward, Oliver calculated the depth and volume of the concrete pilings that would be necessary to render the foundation of any building on this reclaimed land stable, taking into account erosion and the scouring action of water and sand. The numbers he came up with were daunting. But it wasn’t like money was any object in a place like Gibraltar. The country was both a banking haven and a playground of the rich and famous. It was a prosperous little city-state, clinging to the base of its famous rock. Space was the real commodity here, hence the extension of this stretch of coast into usable beachfront.
Curious, he looked back over his shoulder at roughly where he’d been swimming when that Jet Ski had nearly made chum of him. The driver should have been able to see him. The prevailing direction of the swells and the lighting conditions out there were perfectly straightforward. Weird.
Ahead, he was surprised to see a cluster of men in business suits down by the water’s edge. He recognized several of them as security men from the poker tournament. They waved him away as he swam a little closer. Then they surprised him by physically closing ranks, apparently trying to block the object behind them on the beach from his view. But he had excellent eyesight, and they didn’t wave him off soon enough. He’d gotten a brief, but decent, look at what they were clustered around.
A human corpse.
Holy shit! His smooth crawl stroke hitched, and he thought fast. He raised an arm to wave back casually, like he thought the men were just waving a friendly hello to him. Then he put his head down in the water and swam with deliberately slow, relaxed strokes, casually pulling away from the group of men and the corpse and being sure to breathe on the side of his body facing away from shore. Meanwhile, his thoughts churned like mad. Surely he was wrong….
No. He’d seen a dead body before. A surfer drowned a year or so back at Mavericks and had washed ashore the next day. That pale, bloated shape of seawater-soaked human flesh was unmistakable.
In that instant before he’d obeyed the men and turned away from the beach, he’d registered a plethora of details. He reviewed them as he swam, fixing them firmly in his memory for later retrieval.
First, he didn’t see any police, which was strange as hell. Why wouldn’t the tournament’s staff call the police if they found a dead man? Second, it had looked like the security men were preparing to roll the corpse into a blue tarp stretched out on the sand. Surely they should leave the body alone and not move it until the authorities arrived. Third, and most importantly, the security men’s body language shouted that something fishy was going on behind them. No shit, Sherlock.
He swam back toward the El Rocca, his shoulder blades itching like he was being watched. It was a struggle to resist the impulse to lift his face out of the water and look back over his shoulder, but he managed not to. He was careful to keep his stroke turnover down to a rhythmic, unconcerned pace as he returned to the resort.
He strode up the beach, unzipping the top of his wet suit. What was he supposed to do now? If he called the police, even anonymously, those men down the beach would know exactly who’d made the call. His wet suit was neon yellow, lime green, and bright blue, and to his knowledge, he was the only poker player going out for ocean swims.
But he had to tell someone….
Collin. The guy had to be some sort of agent of some official agency. No real poker player was that uptight or inexperienced.
Intent on reaching Collin, he hurried inside but spied a surveillance camera sticking down from the ceiling in its black bubble. Dammit. He forced himself to slow down and stroll casually through the lobby, toweling off his hair as he went.
He really ought to call the police, risk to himself be damned. But by the time the police got out to the beach, that body would be gone, wrapped up and hauled away by the security men. He would look like a crank caller and potentially get in trouble with the law, assuming those thugs on the beach didn’t make him disappear too.
One thing he knew for sure, now—this was not a friendly game of poker. This was a test. Survival of the fittest. Literally.
He went straight to Collin’s room still wearing his wet suit. He knocked and Collin opened the door, fully dressed, shaved, and showered, if his damp hair and smooth cheeks were any indication. Talk about feeling underdressed all of a sudden.
“What are you doing here?” Collin asked in surprise. “I’m not really in the market for a hookup—”
“Good. Neither am I.”
“Then what—”
“Inside,” he muttered, pushing past Collin.
“What’s going on?” Collin asked tersely.
Oliver grabbed a piece of hotel stationery off the desk and scribbled on it, “These hotel rooms may be bugged.” While he showed it to Collin, he asked, “Do you have plans for your time off tomorrow? I thought I might do some sightseeing and wondered if you’d like to come along.”
Collin looked shocked for an instant but recovered his composure fast enough that Oliver grew even more convinced his hunch about the man’s real line of work had been correct. “I don’t know,” Collin answer evenly.
“Is there a way to find out?”
Collin laughed as he moved over toward his suitcase. “I wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to look at. Why would anyone bother sightseeing? It’s just a dinky little peninsula with a giant rock in the middle.” As he spoke, he pulled out a black gadget that he plugged into his cell phone. He commenced passing it over the wall painting and lamp. Sonofagun. The guy was a secret agent or something spy-like after all!
Watching Collin sweep the room for bugs, and realizing the conversation was patter for any possible surveillance devices, Oliver flopped down on the bed hard enough to make the springs squeak and said, “I suppose you’re right. I’m just tired and wired after the last couple of days. Thought it might do me some good to get out and see the town.” He asked casually, “How’d your cards drop last night?”
“Not bad. Yours?” Collin moved on to checking the television and furniture with his little gadget.
Oliver replied, “No complaints. We’ve got a sleeper at our table. Acts like a rich, dumb mark ripe for the picking, but he’s actually a hell of a player. He’s wiping out everyone else at the table, and I’m mostly staying out of his way while he takes them down.”
Collin turned to face him grimly. “The room’s clean. Wanna tell me why you thought it might be bugged?”
“Doesn’t this whole tournament strike you as sneaky and nefarious?” he asked. “I figure the crookedness of this event might not stop at its setup.”
Collin looked skeptical, like he thought that was a thin excuse. Which it was. Oliver had a sick feeling in the pit of the stomach that he might know who was behind this tournament, and if he was right, the man wouldn’t hesitate to bug the players.
Collin interrupted his speculation, asking, “What do you want to talk about so bad that can’t be overheard?”
Oliver spoke quietly, still nervous about the ears and eyes all over the resort. “I was out for a swim just now. Went north toward the marina and was passing the beach when I saw a dead body that looked like it had washed up on shore.”
“Have you called the authorities?” Collin asked quickly.
“Here’s the thing. The tournament’s security team was there, and they waved me away before they thought I saw it. I played dumb and swam away casually like I hadn’t seen anything. There were no police present, and it looked like they were getting ready to wrap up the corpse and move it.”
Collin caught the implications of that immediately. “Why would they hide a fatality?”
“I have no idea. Gibraltar isn’t the kind of place that’s going to have frequent drownings, though.”
“Drowning?”
“The body was bloated and waterlogged.”
“Describe it,” Collin ordered tersely.
“Umm, like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man? You know. White and puffy.”
An exasperated huff. “Thanks for that mental image. What I meant was, did you see any details like hair color and length? How tall did the person look? Male or female?”
“Oh. Male. Bald. Maybe six feet tall. Probably paunchy even before the bloating.”
“See? Now that’s useful information.” Collin thought for a moment. “Have the tables each player is assigned to this evening been posted yet?”
“Totally. Play resumes in about an hour. You should be able to pull it up on your laptop,” Oliver answered.
Collin sat down at his desk and signed in to the encrypted website for the tournament. Oliver leaned over his shoulder as the table assignments popped up. Mistake. Collin smelled better than a new car and hotter than an Italian underwear model.
Oliver forced his attention back to the computer screen, a cursory glance revealing a discrepancy to him. “We’re down one extra player from yesterday,” he announced.
“Which one?”
Oliver scanned the player list quickly. “Jesus. Antonio Mastrianak. The guy I pointed out to you in the restaurant who’s the chip leader in the tournament. Correction: was the chip leader. And now that I think about it, he was a balding guy about six feet tall with a big beer belly.”
“Oliver, I’m starting to agree with your gut that something is definitely off about this whole tournament. Above and beyond the fact that no one knows what prize they’re playing for.”
Collin looked sidelong at him, and Oliver’s pulse leaped. He was still leaning down over Collin’s shoulder, ostensibly looking at tonight’s roster, and their faces were less than a foot apart. He ought to straighten up, ought to step back, ought to break the circuit of sizzling electricity flowing between them.
But damned if the memory of that smoking-hot dream of Collin as James Bond didn’t roar back into his mind in all its vivid detail just then—the sexy slither of a bow tie from around Collin’s neck, taut muscles revealed as starched cotton peeled away from Collin’s physique, the slow dance of skin on skin. He’d practically been humping the bedpost by the time he woke up.
Collin’s gaze dropped to his mouth, and Oliver’s pulse notched up even more.
“Where would they take Mastrianak’s body?” Collin murmured.
Oliver reluctantly forced his mind to the puzzle, intrigued with solving it in spite of all the snap, crackle, and pop arcing back and forth between them. “If not to a hospital or the police, they would have to bring the body into the hotel. Where in El Rocca would they stash a—I’ve got it! Surely the kitchen has some sort of walk-in refrigerator or freezer.”
“It probably has both, and you’re probably right.”
Collin’s voice was a sexy wash of whiskey and suede against his skin and sent shivers coursing down the back of his neck. Oliver swore mentally. Too much more of this and he could forget standing upright for a while. A raging hard-on was building in his blessedly tight wet suit, which would prevent the whole pokey-tent-pole problem, if not the horny bulge. However, there didn’t seem to be a damned thing he could do to stop his attraction to this man when what he really ought to be worrying about were the implications of a dead poker player and whether or not his own life was in danger.
Collin spoke slowly, his stare never leaving Oliver’s throat. “Why would somebody hide a drowning from local authorities?”
“To keep from drawing attention to the tournament?”
Collin shook his head thoughtfully in the negative. “It’s known that there’s a party going on here. No reason to hide an accidental drowning.”
Accidental being the operative word. “But if it wasn’t accidental—” Oliver broke off, appalled at where this line of reasoning led. He might have his guesses as to who was behind this tournament, but surely his main suspect would never stoop to outright murder.
Collin’s grim gaze lifted to meet his. “If it wasn’t accidental, we’re left with murder.”
Fuck. Collin had gone to the same place he had. If the directors of this tournament were willing to hide bodies, odds were excellent that they knew something about the cause of death, and had a reason to hide it. And it was likely criminal in nature. Oliver’s blood ran cold at the possibility. If he was right about who it was….
He didn’t want to think about the ramifications. Surely he was wrong. His father couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this mess.
“Who would kill Antonio Mastrianak?” Oliver asked, desperation to be wrong coursing through him.
“Who had a motive?” Collin responded, his voice low and sexy.
Ay chihuahua, that man was edible. “Someone from Mastrianak’s personal life who followed him here? An enemy or business deal gone bad, or an ex-wife, maybe,” he suggested, desperate to be wrong about his hunch. “How do you suppose he died?”
Collin frowned. “We’d have to look at the body to tell. He might have been killed and then dumped in the water. Or somebody could have held him under until he, in fact, drowned. He could’ve fallen overboard from a boat. Or he could’ve gone for a simple swim and had a heart attack. I’m not ready to definitively call it murder.”
“A heart attack wouldn’t prompt a cover-up, would it?” Oliver responded.
“Probably not.”
Grimly, Oliver took the next leap of logic. “The tournament’s security team has to suspect foul play or be directly involved in foul play, or else they wouldn’t hide the guy’s death.”
Collin nodded. “Given that Mastrianak has been here at the resort for at least the past four days and no outsiders are being let in, if there was foul play, we can logically deduce that someone in some way associated with the poker tournament did him in.”
“Well, that certainly puts things in a different light,” Oliver declared.
They stared at one another, him in dismay, and Collin in unhappy confirmation.
Oliver blurted, “Why aren’t you more surprised?”
That elicited a short, humorless laugh out of Collin. “Not a lot about human beings surprises me anymore. I’ve seen the worst people can do.”
“Where?” he asked quietly.
“My job.”
Thank God. For a second, there, he’d worried that Collin might have had a horribly violent or tragic past. But if it was his work, then he hadn’t been the actual victim of the twistedness he’d seen. Which, of course, begged the question of what sort of work Collin did, exactly. Aloud, Oliver asked, “What do you know about this tournament that you’re not telling me?”
“I don’t know anything. Other than how suspicious the whole setup is. Why include hustlers and banned players in a legitimate event? It makes no sense.”
“Is that why you’re here? To solve the riddle of why it’s an open invite?” Even though he was no expert in being a super spy, that sounded like a flimsy cover story.
Collin, revealingly, said nothing. He merely smiled pleasantly, as if indulging Oliver’s bizarre fantasies.
Collin was lying. The guy did know something about this tournament that he wasn’t sharing. And furthermore, he was obviously here to investigate it. Oliver tried again. “So, are you some kind of James Bond? Can I help?”
Collin’s smile froze in place for just an instant. A person would have had to be staring right at him, and from nearly this close, to see it. But he’d nailed it on the head. The guy was a super spy. Coolest gig ever!
“What are we going to do first?” Oliver asked eagerly.
“We’re going to go downstairs and play poker like nothing happened. If you in any way reveal that you saw a body on the beach, or that you’re upset, or that you know Mastrianak died, his hypothetical killer could come after you.”
Collin had come to the same conclusion he had—a killer might have targeted a poker player. Oh shit. This stuff had just gotten real. They could be trapped in a closed resort with a murderer, and one of them might be the next victim. Surely not. Except the dismay and fear clenching deep down in his gut announced in no uncertain terms that Collin was exactly right.
COLLIN waited until Oliver had returned to his room to shower and get dressed for the tournament before he made a phone call to his boss. “Hey, Pere. It’s Collin. Looks like there may have been a murder here. Player named Antonio Mastrianak. Another player thought he saw Mastrianak’s body wash up on the beach. But resort security waved him away before he could make a positive ID.”
Pere swore. “This wasn’t supposed to be a dangerous assignment. You’re a desk jockey, for Christ’s sake!”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, boss,” he retorted.
“Oh. Shit, I’m sorry. I have complete faith in you. But this was supposed to be a straight fraud investigation. No danger, no threats.”
“Never fear,” Collin responded. “I’ve got this.”
“Don’t do anything stupid or heroic, you hear? Promise me.”
“I hear you,” he replied.
“Promise.”
“Fine.” A huff. “I promise. No stupid heroics.”
“What else have you got for us?”
“I need you to find out who owns a yacht called Erebus. She’s huge. Upwards of six hundred feet long and looks tricked out like mad. There can’t be many ships like her in the world. And while you’re at it, I need a work-up on a guy named Oliver Elliot. Tell the analysts to pay attention to what’s up between him and his father.”
“Got it. Anything else?”
“No, sir. I’ll be in touch when I can. It’s time for me to head downstairs for the next round of play.”
“How’s the poker going?”
“I haven’t bankrupted the Crown yet.”
“Good luck, Collin.”
Yeah. Right. Luck. If only that had anything to do with what was going on around here.
Shockingly, he did get lucky during the round of play that night, hitting one great hand after another, which was probably the only reason he didn’t bust out of the tournament. He was so distracted thinking about the dead man and who could have killed him that he barely paid any attention to the card play and bet much more recklessly than he should have. He actually came out nearly a million dollars ahead by the end of the night, putting him close to the two-million-chips mark.
Of course, the other distraction was Oliver himself. The guy was turning into a strange fixation for him. They couldn’t be more unlike one another, and yet he found himself drawn to Oliver whether he wanted to be or not.
Why had Oliver come to him after seeing the dead man? Did he trust Collin, or was there a much deeper game afoot? Did Oliver suspect Collin of being a plant? Or was this a test of some kind? Was Oliver actually working for the shadowy, anonymous, tournament director?
Time was called on play, and his table had just finished a hand, so they sat back and relaxed while the other tables finished up their current hands. The Canadian across the table from Collin asked no one in particular, “So, what’s the word on the prize for this shindig?”
While Collin listened alertly, the other players speculated, a few guessing that they were actually playing for a hefty chunk of the pool of entry fees, while others guessed that a mansion, yacht, or some other exotic prize was at stake. Collin’s personal opinion was that something other than a monetary item was on the table. But what that could be, he still had no idea. He’d hoped the players themselves would know, but this job wasn’t going to be that easy, apparently.
The man beside Collin, probably one of the Albanian mobsters, commented in a heavy Slavic accent, “You play good tonight, no?”
He shrugged. “I was lucky.”
“You will be biggest mover of day, I think.”
Collin was startled. His intent was merely to stay in the tournament, not try to be competitive in it. He’d already noticed that the leading players tended to go after those whom they saw as serious competition with an extra measure of aggressiveness. The last thing he needed to do was draw the big dogs’ attention.
The other tables wound up play, and the remaining hundred and fifty or so players adjourned. Using the general chaos for cover, he slipped away from the crowd heading toward the buffet and made his way down the hall toward the kitchen.
The space was bustling with activity as food was served up and carried out and carts of dirty plates were bussed back into the kitchen. Heart racing, he did his best to walk through the area as if he belonged there and headed straight to the big commercial freezer in the back. Pulling on the heavy door, he ducked inside, pulling it closed behind him.
He paused, breathing hard. In spite of his big claims to his boss, a steel-nerved field operative he was not. Crap, it was cold in here. It went straight to his bones and made him shiver in a matter of seconds. Or maybe that was the adrenaline screaming through his veins, giving him his own personal earthquake. Jesus, this was hard. How did the regular Wild Cards operatives do it? They always sounded cool, calm, and collected when they called in from the field looking for information or assistance from HQ. If one of them were calling now, he would tell the agent to search the freezer fast and get out before hypothermia made him too stupid to complete the assignment safely.
Take your own advice, Einstein.
He pushed away from the wall and walked forward. Two rows of metal shelving stretched from floor to ceiling, loaded with boxes of frozen food. If he were hiding a body in here, where would he put it? Toward the back, maybe. The shelving stopped as he moved deeper into the frosty compartment, and a larger space opened out before him. A side of beef loomed in the ice fog, hanging from a meat hook. This was more like it.
A sound behind him made him dive for cover behind the beef, plastering himself against the frigid stainless steel wall. Crap, crap, crap. His entire body was cramping up from the piercing cold. Peering between the shelves and through the icy condensation hanging in the air, he spied a male figure gliding into the freezer stealthily. That was no kitchen worker fetching food!
No way could he slip out behind the guy and make an escape without being spotted. What to do? Panic ripped through him. In a second, the man would turn around to leave the freezer and spot him. The words of his field instructor belatedly roared through his brain. The best defense was a good offense. Better to take charge of the situation than passively let someone else seize the upper hand. Right. Do something, then.
He waited until the man drew slightly ahead of him, and then he pounced, wrapping his arm around the intruder’s throat, squeezing until the guy clawed ineffectually at his forearm.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Collin demanded. He released his arm just enough to let the man form sounds.
“Collin?” the figure croaked.
Shocked, he registered a hard, muscular back pressed against his torso, firm buttocks nestled against his groin, the scratch of beard stubble against his arm, and the saltwater smell of his prisoner’s sun-bleached hair. He let go, and Oliver whirled around to face him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Collin asked in disgust.
“Checking to see if Mastrianak’s body is in here. What are you doing?”
“Same. I wanted to check for an obvious cause of death.”
“Want me to stand guard while you look for the corpse?”
“Actually, that would be helpful,” Collin answered.
“That’s me. Mr. Helpful.”
“Keep your voice down. The food in a freezer doesn’t make noise, and we wouldn’t want to draw the wrong sort of attention.”
“Oh. Right. Got it,” Oliver whispered loudly.
Collin rolled his eyes and moved deeper into the rear space of the freezer. He spotted what had to be Mastrianak’s remains. A rolled-up canvas tarp stood in the corner like a lumpy, rolled rug. Nylon cord tied around the whole bundle held the tarp in place. After taking a mental snapshot of the rope’s pattern, he reached for the top edge of the tarp and wrestled it down, revealing the dead man’s face.
“Oh, man. That’s gross!” Oliver exclaimed.
Collin about leaped out of his skin. “I thought you were standing watch.”
“I figured you would want me to identify this body as the one I saw on the beach.”
“Why?” he asked dryly. “Did you think there would be more than one dead man stored in here?”
Oliver flashed a grin. “Good point. Still. I’m here, and that does look like the corpse I glimpsed. What’s that purple stuff around his throat?”
Collin glanced back at the corpse and pulled the tarp down a little more to fully reveal the livid line about an inch wide circling the dead man’s neck. “Those are called ligature marks. It means this man was strangled to death, or strangled close to death, before he went into the water.”
“Awesome,” Oliver breathed.
“Why on earth would you say that?”
“We have our proof that he was murdered. Obviously, the tournament directors are up to no good if they’re fishing murdered guys out of the drink and stashing the bodies.” Oliver reached in his pocket and pulled out a cell phone.
“You’re not going to tell someone about this, are you?” Collin blurted in alarm.
“Duh. Of course not. I’m taking pictures. Gotta collect evidence, right?”
Cripes. He should have thought of that. Oliver’s unexpected appearance in the freezer had him more rattled than he’d realized. Collin pulled out his own cell phone and snapped a series of pictures as well, including several close-ups of the ligature marks on the corpse’s neck.
“Got some great pics,” Oliver announced. “Do we need to take a few selfies with him to prove we found him and they’re not just random pictures of some dead guy?”
Again, an excellent idea.
Oliver snapped a few pictures of him standing beside Mastrianak, and then he passed his cell phone over to Collin. “Take a few of me with the old boy too, will ya?”
“That’s bloody morbid!”
“I thought you said we should keep our voices down,” Oliver chided.
Glaring, Collin just shook his head and pointed the camera at Oliver and the dead man. Oliver held up a peace sign behind the corpse’s head at the last second before Collin clicked the picture. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Have a little respect for the dead.”
“Why? Antonio’s gone. This is just his meat. Besides, Mastrianak had a great sense of humor. He would think it was funny.”
Not deigning to reply, Collin replaced the tarp and restored the ropes to their original position as best he could.
“Now what?” Oliver murmured.
“Now we have to sneak out of here undiscovered.”
“What if we pull the fire alarm and slip out while everyone’s evacuating?” the surfer suggested.
“Who would put a fire alarm inside a freezer?”
“Whoever built this one. I saw it on the way in.”
Son of a bitch. “Well, okay, then.”
Oliver murmured conspiratorially, “Should we go in separate directions? You know, to draw less attention to each other? And then we can rendezvous later in one of our rooms, all spooky-like.”
The guy might act half-stoned most of the time, but that was a decent idea.
Collin muttered, “You go left and I’ll go right. My room, in an hour.”
“Be there or be square, man.”
And Oliver was back to being Gun, the beach bum.