Micah Shine was eating an appetizer of tuna tartare in the B Prime Steakhouse at the Borgata casino when two women in the middle of the restaurant began arguing over a breakup.
Both were absolutely beautiful and wearing expensive designer gowns just a few years out of fashion, but the white-girl brunette who insisted just a little too hard that she was merely an innocent ingenue caught Micah’s attention.
At that point, everyone in the restaurant was watching them, either surreptitiously or flat-out staring, so Micah felt free to observe.
The brunette’s technique was good. Not flawless, but good. She sent off subtle body language clues of being in distress and did seem to be realistically crying with tears. She had a sweet face, Micah thought, plump, youthful cheeks and warm brown eyes as she sobbed in heartbreak.
The other woman whom she’d called Teresa, which was doubtlessly not her name any more than Gloria was the brunette’s, was playing the fiery Latina for all it was worth, practically spraying some words and rolling her R’s. The woman appeared Hispanic, but she was hamming up the part a tad too much. Her over-the-top performance might have diminished the effect, almost, but she pulled back her gesticulations at the very last moment. She was good, too.
No, the brunette was definitely the one Micah was interested in. He’d been watching for her when she’d walked through the casino, so Micah had bribed the maître d’ for a table near the wall.
At the end of their performance, one of the stockbrokers at the next table chased after the Latina, while another man was thoroughly in the brunette’s clutches. If she took him for less than five thousand dollars that night, Micah would be disappointed in her. Her mark paid the bill, and after a bit more conversation, the man and the brunette left the restaurant together.
Micah turned back to the table and sliced another piece of tuna tartare topped with crispy shallots.
Across the table from him, an old friend from school was doing the same to a shallot tartlet. He glanced up at Micah, watching him with striking silvery-blue eyes. “You’re right. She’s quite good. Are you certain that’s Kylie Miller?”
The man’s British accent was as crisp and perfect as an English lord, which was precisely what he was.
Micah said, “I’m sure. I’ve been trailing her for a week.”
He nodded. “And she hasn’t connected the dots yet?”
“Connected means something different in Atlantic City and New York than it does in London.” Micah’s native New York accent sneaked through as it sometimes did during certain topics of conversation, and he calmed himself down.
Slower.
More precise.
Be no one because then no one will betray you.
The other man lifted one dark eyebrow but continued slicing his own appetizer. “A week is a short time for adequate surveillance.”
“You taught me better tradecraft than that, Arthur.”
Arthur Finch-Hatton didn’t flinch at the word tradecraft or the use of his given name in public. “If you’re going to use vocabulary like that, perhaps we should have this conversation in the deer park at my estate.”
They’d had many conversations in the fields of Arthur’s manor house, the seat of his earldom, watching the English red deer prance and leap through the grass. “No, it’s fine.”
Arthur touched his lips with his napkin and laid his silverware at an angle on his appetizer plate. “But do you think she’ll suffice?”
“She’s conned three different guys this week and passed an envelope to Salvatore Grande at church last Sunday. I’ll see if she does it again tomorrow morning. She has to be connected to Don Grande’s operation somehow. I’m telling you, Kylie Miller is our girl.”
Arthur touched his napkin to his lips and signaled to the waiter that they were ready for their entrées. “Then you must cultivate this woman and see what comes of it.”