Derrick stepped out of the shower in his Las Vegas hotel room Tuesday morning and dripped on the fancy tile while he dried off. This had been an utterly useless trip. He’d been so sure he’d be able to locate Harper. Where else would she go except back to the crappy life she’d left?
All day Friday and then all weekend, he’d looked for her. But nobody at the nursing home where she’d been working had seen her since she’d moved away. He’d even offered money for information on her whereabouts. Zip, zero, nada.
Derrick had visited her old apartment building and canvassed the residents, but they all claimed not to remember her. Those people were probably lucky to remember their names half the time. Bunch of bums. Even those fools at the grocery store where Harper had worked for chump change had come up with squat. Trying to grease their palms had gotten him nothing.
Unfortunately, it was Vegas, and without Harper to distract him, the poker tables had beckoned.
When he’d first met Harper, he’d believed she would be his angel. Once he’d turned his focus to her, his desire to gamble had waned. It had gone from a pounding need to a dull ache easily ignored. But when she’d blown him off over the summer because Gramps was sick, that ache had grown, and, with nothing else to do, he’d gone to Atlantic City.
The money he’d lost—her fault. All her fault.
And he was back here in Vegas because of her. He’d lost more money because of her.
So now he was tapped out, and not just financially. He’d been winning all night. At one point, he’d had thousands of dollars’ worth of chips stacked in front of him. He’d been so sure this would be the moment of his big score. The solution to all his problems. But by the time the sun rose over the distant mountains, he’d lost every penny.
Derrick scoffed at his reflection in the foggy mirror. His angel. Right. Thanks to Harper, he was pretty sure he’d soon get a visit from the angel of death.
Why couldn’t she have just been on his side?
Didn’t she understand what he’d done for her? Rescuing her from the low-class life she’d lived here, when she’d had to work two jobs just to get by. Derrick had given her a place to live and a job—a job nobody else would hire an ex-con to do. He’d showered her with gifts, given her everything she needed. He’d loved her.
And she’d betrayed him.
He dressed in a fresh suit and tie and checked his image in the mirror, smiling at his reflection despite the fury filling his gut. He still looked like the kind of guy you could trust with your money. And people could trust him. At least he’d kept that part of his life unsullied.
He slipped on his glasses, packed his small roller bag, and headed for the elevator.
He’d never be back. Never. Not to Las Vegas, not to Atlantic City, not to any of the other casinos that had popped up all over the country like zits on a teenager. After last night, he was done with gambling forever.
He meant it this time.
Thank God he’d put most of the cash he’d gotten from Tank into his savings account, an account not accessible by ATM and not attached to his checking account. No matter how much he’d wanted to dig into it the night before, he hadn’t been able to. So he’d only lost the money he’d had on him.
Only. Like a thousand dollars was chump change.
Except it was, compared to what he owed. And now he had less cash to use for finding Harper and Gramps.
As he pushed the button to summon the elevator, he cursed the cards that had turned against him, his own stupidity, and Harper.
Someone approached from behind.
A man stood to his right, another behind him. Too close. He turned to nod, felt his automatic smile freeze.
He didn’t recognize them, but he didn’t need to. Their sneers told Derrick all he needed to know. He faced them head-on. The shorter one snatched Derrick’s suitcase. The one shaped like Rambo gripped Derrick’s arm as if he were in the mood for juice and Derrick was the orange.
“Let’s take a walk,” Rambo said.
Fighting would only get him hurt. Yelling for help would probably get him knocked out cold. He walked with the men to the room next door to the one he’d occupied. How long had they been watching?
They knocked, and a man on the inside opened the door.
This one, Derrick recognized. Quentin Gray. Medium height, medium build, medium red hair, medium brown eyes. Freckles all over his face. Didn’t look a day over twenty-five, but Derrick guessed he was at least in his thirties. He passed himself off as a tech millionaire, and maybe he was. He’d developed some obscure program for some obscure industry. But that program didn’t account for the bulk of his income. That came from other, more lucrative, sources.
One of which was the reason Derrick was face-to-face with him now.
The goons pushed Derrick into the room and followed. The door closed with a thud.
Quentin crossed to a small desk and sat in the chair behind it. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
Derrick shrugged off Rambo and forced himself not to rub his aching arm. He straightened his suit coat, pushed up his glasses, and stepped closer to Quentin, mostly to distance himself from the guys behind him. “I didn’t know you were in Las Vegas.”
“When I heard you were in town, I thought I’d fly in, say hello.”
Derrick was smart enough not to ask how he’d heard. “I’m trying to get your money.”
Quentin took his phone, pressed the screen, then lifted it so Derrick could see the image there.
Photos of him at the poker table the night before. The first photo showed a stack of chips in front of him. He wore a stupid smile. Quentin swiped so Derrick could look at the next photo. Fewer chips, smaller smile. Then he saw the next, and the next, until finally, no chips remained in front of him. Derrick stared at the image of his own face, the shock he saw there, as if any idiot couldn’t have seen that coming. As if the same thing hadn’t happened every single time.
Derrick looked past the phone to the man. “I’m back on the wagon today.”
“Figured you’d turn your paltry cash into the two hundred grand you owe me?”
Derrick tried his most charming smile. “Worth a try.”
Quentin pocketed his phone and shook his head slowly. “I don’t know what we’re going to do with you. We tried talking sense into you—”
“I’ve got a—”
“I was sure,” Quentin said, “after we had that little chat with your girlfriend, you’d come to your senses.”
Derrick tried to blink away the images that reminder brought. Harper, black-and-blue and terrified after the attack. She’d known it was his fault. What she hadn’t grasped was that it was her fault, too. If she’d worked with him instead of against him, he’d have gotten the money from Gramps months ago.
“I’m doing everything I can,” Derrick said. “And that little stunt of yours just made it harder.”
“Stunt, huh?” Quentin looked beyond Derrick to the goons behind him. “Can you believe this guy?”
Rambo and his sidekick remained silent.
Derrick pushed his glasses up. “Look, I’ve got a plan. I’ll get your money, every penny.”
Quentin’s gaze was hard. “Money isn’t the only issue.”
“What does that mean?”
“My guys in Baltimore, they’re missing. You know anything about that?”
Derrick’s mind raced. Guys in Baltimore? Who could he…? “You mean Keith and his goon friend?”
Behind him, Rambo grunted. Maybe goon hadn’t been the best word choice.
“I had two men on the payroll, and you were one of their jobs. They reported their chit-chat with your girlfriend, and I haven’t heard from them since.”
Rambo approached from behind. Derrick didn’t turn, but he could feel the man’s heat on his back, his breath on his neck.
“My employees get nervous when fellow employees go missing.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Derrick said.
Rambo dropped a huge hand on Derrick’s shoulder, squeezed the trapezius muscle hard.
Derrick was on his knees almost before the pain registered. “I swear, I know nothing.” His voice was high-pitched, but he couldn’t lower it. “Harper and my grandfather disappeared that weekend. Maybe she did something to them.”
Behind him, the goon removed his hand, and Derrick had to fight to keep from collapsing in a heap. He rubbed the sore spot, swallowed hard, and stood.
“If we learn you came against my men”—Quentin’s words were slow and measured and deadly serious—“you’ll want to do yourself in before one of us gets to you.”
He lifted his hands, palms out. “I have no idea what happened. I never saw them that weekend.”
Quentin nodded and tapped the table in front of him with a pen. “If you can’t come up with the cash, I can think of some other ways to get what’s owed me. I have an associate who might be interested in a trade, and that girlfriend of yours… I’ve done a little digging. Seems she might be able to earn back—”
“I’ll get you the money.” At this point, Harper didn’t deserve better than what Quentin was suggesting, but Derrick couldn’t stomach any other man’s hands on her. She was his. Until he was done with her, she belonged to him.
Quentin dropped the pen on the desk and stood. “I’ve given you extension after extension, listened to your promises over and over. No more lies, no more promises. And there’ll be no payment plans. I expect the entire balance in one week.”
A week? Even if he found Gramps and did him in, he wouldn’t get his inheritance in a week. “That’s not enough time.” He’d tried to keep his voice measured but failed, and the words had come out squeaky and scared.
A smile spread across Quentin’s features. “Between your wealthy grandfather and your, shall we say, talented girlfriend, I’m sort of hoping you don’t make your deadline. Seems I might be able to find a way to get back my investment with interest. And I won’t need you at all. Of course, once I no longer need you…” He shrugged. “Nobody gets away with not paying me back.”
Derrick swallowed a huge lump in his throat.
Quentin laughed, looked past Derrick. “You should see his face. White as a corpse.”
That elicited a chuckle from one of the goons.
Derrick tried to act nonchalant, act as if he received death threats all the time. He glanced at his watch. “I have a flight.”
Quentin stood, gestured toward the door. “Don’t let us keep you.”
Derrick started to turn, but Quentin held him in place with a lifted palm. He looked past Derrick again. “Doesn’t seem fair that his girlfriend got beat up and he walked away without a scrape.”
Behind him, one of them gripped his upper arms.
“We don’t want to do anything that’ll keep him from paying me back.” He gave Derrick a quick assessment. “He seems a bit delicate.”
Derrick’s arms ached from the man’s meaty grip, but he tried to look tough and unconcerned.
Quentin said, “Just pop one of his eyes out and send him on his way.”
Before he could react, the goon flipped him off his feet. Derrick landed on his back, lost his breath.
Rambo straddled him and pressed his arms into the floor.
The smaller goon leaned over Derrick’s head. He used one hand to hold his eye open. In the other, Derrick saw the glint of a knife.
It closed in.
He had no breath to scream. No energy to fight. All he could do was lie there and watch as the knife neared his face. The little goon smiled.
An eternity passed before Quentin laughed. “All right, all right. Let him keep the eye for now.”
The goons let him go and stood, relaxed, as if this were the most normal situation in the world.
The whole thing had happened so fast, Derrick still didn’t have his breath back.
Then, Rambo kicked him in the side.
Derrick rolled in to the fetal position and waited for more blows.
“Look at me,” Quentin said.
Derrick forced himself to shift, though his ribs protested the movement. He sat up and did as he was told.
Quentin’s lips pressed together as he shook his head. ”I don't know why I keep giving you chances to betray me. But hey, I guess I'm just a good guy. Trusting, you know? So here you are. One. Last. Chance. You blow it, you’re dead, and I’ll get what I need from your grandfather and that girlfriend of yours.”
Derrick struggled to stand, tried to get air into his lungs.
The sidekick opened the door and looked up and down the hall. Then Rambo pushed Derrick out of the room. He stumbled and crashed against the opposite door and fell in a heap.
One of them tossed his suitcase on top of him. The door slammed, leaving Derrick alone.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t think.
Finally he got a deep breath, touched his eyes to reassure himself they were both there. His ribs throbbed. Broken, bruised? Should he go to the emergency room?
He didn’t know. Couldn’t think.
His shoulder ached.
He pressed a hand to his head where it had hit the door. A knot was already forming.
Slowly, muscles protesting and lungs tight, he used the door knob to pull himself up and hobbled to the elevator, dragging his suitcase behind him.
Every minute waiting for the elevator was torture. He needed to be around people, somewhere Quentin and his goons couldn’t hurt him again. He’d take the stairs but feared he might pass out.
Finally, the elevator came, and he stepped in beside a mother with two kids. She took one look at him and pulled her kids behind her.
In the lobby, Derrick made his way toward the front door to get a taxi to the airport. Those few minutes in Quentin’s hotel room had been terrifying, but they could have ended so much worse.
Derrick was walking away.
He would get Quentin’s money. He just had to get his hands on Gramps and Harper and figure out a way to get Gramps to hand over two hundred grand. If Derrick had to hurt them… Well, the old man shouldn’t have been so stingy.
And Harper shouldn’t have betrayed him.
They both had it coming.