“You should call and ask a few questions,” Brinley’s mom, Wilma, said after congratulating Brinley on her new job. “This sounds like a great opportunity and you want to show you’re eager.”
“Disrupting someone’s weekend might be too eager, Mom.” After the interview and job offer, the rush to finish unpacking had been Brinley’s main focus.
All the scattered boxes in her apartment were a visual analogue of her life. There had been a restlessness since Finn’s birth that made her anxious for the first time in her life. Sure, she had worries like a normal person, but anxiety and its multitude of wonderful side effects, like lack of sleep, weren’t her favorite things in life. Maybe once all this was put away where it belonged, the shit in her head would do the same thing.
“But don’t worry. I’ll get there extra early on Monday to show my eager-beaverness.” She wiped down the inside of the cabinets before putting her dishes in. The sight of Finn’s Spider-Man plate made her sigh in relief since he’d pointed at his paper plate during dinner and refused to eat.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come and take care of Finn for a couple of months while you two adjust to the new place and job?”
Her mom was the true definition of persistent—especially now that she was semiretired. “Mom, he has to get used to day care. We talked about this, remember?”
Wilma—a name her mother hated with a passion usually reserved for terrorists and people who were mean to cats—had run her own small accounting firm in Metairie, Louisiana, for over twenty-five years. The job paid well enough and afforded her the flexibility to work from home as needed. After Brinley’s father abandoned them both when she was four, her mom raised her as a single parent, and the job flexibility had allowed them to spend plenty of time together.
But for years, Wilma had poured all her time and attention into her and her job, which had left no room for dating. And she and her mom were the best of friends, which meant her move to Vegas hadn’t been met with any sort of enthusiasm, but her mother understood the necessity.
“I’m going to keep trying, so grin and don’t try to stop me,” Wilma said.
“Isn’t that grin and bear it?” Finding the wineglasses was surely a sign the moving gods wanted her to take a break.
“My version is much more accurate. I miss you and my little guy.”
“Believe me, we miss you too, and once we’re settled, we’ll have you out for as long as I can talk you into staying.” She poured herself a glass of the white wine a courier had delivered with flowers and a note welcoming her to the Moroccan family. The gift surprised her, but it made her positive she’d made the right decision in accepting. “Is Crystal bothering you anymore?”
Finn’s loser father, Jarrell, was locked away in Angola, but Jarrell’s drughead mother, Crystal, kept threatening to take Brinley to court to prove Finn was her grandson. Brinley was sure they didn’t actually want anything to do with Finn—the threat was a ploy to somehow extort money from either her or her mom. They both promised to stay away if she could help with their quote-unquote bills, code for I want you to work hard to keep me in drugs.
If she could have paid for them to stay away, she would’ve, but Jarrell’s best talent was upping the ante, and a little money was never going to be enough. There was no way she wanted her son around Jarrell or any of his family. It was a miracle her little man was born healthy, considering the drugs Jarrell had consumed. She’d die before she allowed Finn around any of that.
“She came by last week, and one of my guys finally threatened to call the police, and she left quietly.” Wilma stopped and laughed. “Well, as quiet as Crystal ever gets. According to my new associate, she smelled like she’d bathed in whiskey before she got there.”
“Believe me, Mom, I love Finn more than life, but I’ve said it before and will say it again, we can both admit I really fucked up on this one. I’ll regret that night until Finn can make his own decisions about knowing his father. Even then, I’ll really have to think about telling him who the guy is.”
“I don’t regret anything, my darling. You and I had the same kind of luck—life didn’t exactly deliver Prince Charming, but we both ended up with great kids. Concentrate on all the good stuff that’s happening in your life, and forget about Jarrell and his family and all their scheming.”
“Thanks, Mom,” she said, missing her late night chats with her best friend. “And you can come whenever you want.”
“I’ll give you a couple of months to settle in. That should be enough time for me to feel comfortable leaving the office.” Her mom was dedicated to her family, but her clients also got a lot of her attention. “Do you need anything before you get started? Are you set for money?”
“Mama, please.” She raised her wineglass. “Your paying for our move out here was generous enough.”
“You’re my child,” Wilma scoffed. “If I don’t spend my money on you and Finn, who the hell am I going to spend it on?”
“We’re fine, so make sure everyone’s trained so you don’t have to hurry home when you come for a visit.” She finished her wine and went to put her glass in the sink. “I love you.”
“Finish up, but don’t stay up too long.” Her mom’s voice softened, and it made Brinley crave a hug. “I love you, my sweet girl, and I’ll call you later.”
She put the phone down and finished wiping the inside of the cabinets so she could unpack the last of her boxes. The memories she fought hard to forget always appeared when she talked about Jarrell and his mother. Her pregnancy had been horrific, and then Finn had sucked up all her free time. She wouldn’t change the outcome or give Finn up, but she sometimes missed the fun of a night out with friends.
“Get used to a boring life for a while yet,” she said as she started placing dishes away. “With any luck you’ll remember what to do if you actually get hit with some excitement.”
* * *
Reed headed down to the casino floor and played slots while Victor sat at the bar at the highest stakes poker table and talked to one of his floor managers. It was after six and she had another stop to make, but the guy in Victor’s office was still a mystery and she wanted a name from Oscar before she left. Victor and mystery guy had been talking about Robert Wallace, top dog at the Moroccan, and everyone in Vegas knew of Victor’s hate for the putz in the big chair next door.
“Victor’s visitor was Benito Lucassi.” Oscar could see her but she could only hear him, and his disembodied voice answered one question but spawned others. She had to keep her expression from showing her surprise. Benito Lucassi wasn’t someone she’d have put anywhere near Victor.
Benito ran one of the largest bookie operations in the city and was successful because he never tried to play favorites, no matter how much money was involved. Vegas was a place where any kind of bet could be placed, but there was still plenty of action that the gaming commission didn’t control. Benito was the go-to guy for the Mob on the East Coast as well as the West Coast. Interesting that he was with Victor talking about the Moroccan CEO.
“Oscar,” she said softly, since there was an elderly woman on each side of her.
“Yes, Master?”
“I’m glad you’re learning,” she said, tapping her chin with her middle finger.
“I’d tell you to bite me, but you’d probably enjoy it. What’s up?”
“Keep an eye on our friend and I’ll be back.” She tapped the play button and hit a three-hundred-dollar score, so she printed the ticket and pocketed it.
“Are you sure you don’t need me to come with you?”
“Don’t lose Victor, and I’ll be back. Throwing Benito into the mix has me curious, and I’d like to know if anyone else interesting shows up.”
“Any insight on that?”
She shook her head as she headed for the entrance. “Benito has to be a middleman for someone, but I doubt he’d go out of his way for anyone in Vegas. That means there’s someone in New York yanking on his leash, and we need to find out who that is. And why they’re connected to Victor.”
She had the valet bring her car around and she parked two blocks from the building where Victor’s attorney had an office. The place looked to have about twenty floors, and the place she was after was on the eighteenth. There was a parking lot next door, and she walked through it to get to the back of the building. She left her jacket behind and carried a tool bag with a cable company logo printed on the side.
The utility box was right inside the service entrance, and it didn’t take long for her to completely shut down the security system for the entire building by running a diagnostic and resetting it. Every job seemed to be a race against the clock, and this particular one could only last forty-five minutes. She pulled her ball cap lower and headed for the service elevator. The eighteenth floor was dark, but she walked the entire length of the hall to make sure she was alone. This time she wanted to leave absolutely no sign she’d been here.
At the end of the hall was a kitchen and a set of bathrooms, but it was the unmarked door to their left that got her attention. Since the law office took up the entire floor, it made sense that the building management would’ve made it easy for employees to access this area. The lock was simple and she took a few moments to acclimate to the darkness when she made it inside the offices.
The area she was in was open-plan and full of desks—assistants and paralegals. That meant the files wouldn’t be far, and she quietly opened doors until she found a room with row after row of filing cabinets. It took her twenty minutes to find Victor’s and Sofia’s names. Holding a penlight in her mouth, she removed only the information that pertained to their divorce, and nothing more.
All she needed now was access to a computer. “Let’s see who doesn’t follow company protocol,” she said, searching for a computer that hadn’t been shut down for the night. All the ones in the open area were off, so she headed down the hall and stopped when she thought she heard voices. She crouched beside a wall and listened. It definitely wasn’t a radio.
“You worry too much,” a woman said.
“I love sex as much as anyone, but I don’t want to die because of it,” a man replied.
Reed smiled and moved closer to where the voices were coming from. The size of the office suggested this somewhat reluctant participant was one of the attorneys, but not a partner. The sound of a zipper gave her the opportunity to look in, but she was careful. No point in getting caught looking like a voyeur.
“Fuck,” the guy said.
“That’s exactly what I had in mind.” The woman was the aggressor, and from the way the guy was moaning, she was getting her way. “You want me, baby?”
“Fuck yeah.”
They weren’t visible from the hallway, but whoever this guy was, his secretary’s computer was on. She sat down and typed quietly but quickly. Her search yielded quite a few results, which she sent to a private folder on a public computer at one of the branches of the public library, which Oscar had rigged for her use. The place didn’t have any security except a nighttime alarm with no cameras, so it was easy to break in if she needed immediate access to information gathered during an op.
“Baby, you’re so hard,” the woman said, and Reed hoped the guy had some stamina.
“Fuck yeah,” he said, and Reed smiled. Hopefully the guy was more articulate in court and didn’t just repeat inane things over and over. She finished sending what she needed and got up to leave.
“You want me?” The guy grunted at the question but didn’t answer her. “You want me more than Lucan?”
That question stopped Reed. The likelihood he was talking about Lucan Terzo was like winning the thirty million dollar progressive at the slots, but hey, someone had to hit it every so often. The opportunity was worth the risk, and she dropped to her stomach and slid to the door. Her phone recorded action on the sofa, and she made sure to focus on the faces. If this was Lucan Terzo’s wife, it was a chip Reed would save for the future.
“Harder, baby,” the woman said, and the man grunted in response.
Reed shot a bit more footage, then calmly walked out. There was only one thing left to do for the night.
“What’s happening, Oscar?” she asked when she got back in the car.
“He’s still drinking at the bar. The older son came by to see him and left with a girl and a lot of cash. I think Victor’s hoping for father of the year.”
“He should be so lucky. Although that wouldn’t pay very well.” She drove back to the valet at Bellagio and headed to her room. It amazed her that people had children for all the wrong reasons, and the kids were always the ones who were thrown away and forgotten when they no longer served a purpose.
She knew from experience that from the moment you were tossed aside, only the strong survived. She flopped onto her bed and let herself remember…
Juvenile Court 1994, Las Vegas, Nevada. The room was packed with people who in no way appeared happy. Rebel Jones sat and swung her legs, since her feet didn’t touch the floor, and took a bite of the peanut-butter sandwich the woman who drove her away from her mom had given her. All the crying, screaming, and kicking hadn’t done any good, so she sat and waited. Her mom had probably figured out she was gone by now and would come looking for her.
“Do you want some milk?” the African American woman who’d told her she had to go with her asked, as she opened her big purse and took out a thermos. “I have another sandwich if you’re still hungry.”
“When’s my mama coming?” The lady said she needed to tell the truth, so she might as well try since they’d driven around so much there was no way Rebel could find her way back now. The only place she really ever went was the small store close to their apartment to buy cereal and milk when her mama had money. Sometimes, though, her mama forgot because she slept a lot.
“Sweetie, your mom’s at the hospital. She’s really sick but she’d be proud of you for calling 9-1-1. You saved her life.”
“I couldn’t wake her up, but when she’s up, she’ll come for me. She needs me to take care of her.” The sandwich made her thirsty so she accepted a cup of milk. She didn’t know what peanut butter was, but it was good. All they ate was cereal, and burgers sometimes, but her mama had told her not to complain. She didn’t know what hell was, but that’s what Mama said she had to pay when she forgot and did complain. She didn’t like hell.
“Rebel Jones,” an old man dressed in black said loudly.
The woman raised her hand and screwed the cup back on the thermos. They went through the fence at the front and the woman with her started talking. “I recommend foster care placement until Ms. Jones is finished with mandated rehab. The minor child was living in squalor, and there was no food in the house. My office rushed all the welfare inquiries and the minor hasn’t been enrolled in school, which puts her a year behind. This is a real case of neglect, Your Honor.”
Rebel figured they were talking about her, but none of the words made sense. All she could do was try and remember for later.
“Rebel, do you go to school?” the old man asked.
She wasn’t sure what that was so she shook her head. “When’s my mama coming to get me?”
“Not for a while, but we’re going to take care of you until she’s better.” The old man spoke softly and smiled. “Go ahead and place her with an available family and we’ll review in six months.”
He called some other kid’s name before she could ask about her mama again, and the woman took her hand and walked out. They went to a big office next door where everything was beige, and that night she was in a place with lots of kids, beds, and bad food. Rebel waited until it was dark until she cried, but she did it quietly. The big woman who’d given her a big T-shirt to sleep in had told her she’d be punished if she was too loud or kept asking about her mama.
“Please, Mama, come find me,” she whispered and didn’t repeat it when someone close by yelled for her to shut up. She clamped her jaws together and tried not to think about how alone she was. Please, she thought, too afraid to open her mouth.
Six months had turned into thirteen years, and the foster families until she’d turned nine were too many to remember, and then it was a state-run facility for kids no one wanted. Once she turned eighteen the state didn’t want her either, and they’d put her out with a high school diploma and a trash bag of whatever she owned. It took exactly three months for Rebel Jones to get arrested for armed robbery, and she again became a ward of the state.
Those four years of prison weren’t a total waste. They were a better education than all the years of school, and when she was paroled, she killed Rebel Jones and buried her right alongside the life she could’ve had with her mother. She became Reed Gable, as well as the dozens of other identities she cultivated, and getting caught wasn’t something she’d ever let happen again.