Wednesday afternoon Luke strode into a viewing room in back of the offices at the Bonaparte, asked the two young men who were working on the equipment to leave, locked the door and sat down. Pulling a beer out of the six-pack concealed by a brown paper bag, he unscrewed the top, took a long swig, then unzipped the compact disk case in his hand. After a second gulp from his bottle he slid the first recording into a machine. Another drink, another disk in another machine, a third drink and yet a third machine. Finally, he’d activated a total of eight DVD players.
This particular room—the backup equipment room—had enough portable disk players to play every single DVD he had with him. They were all digital recordings of every suspect win that had taken place on the Strip in the past four months.
An hour later, four empty bottles around him, he was still sitting there, his tie slightly askew, his jacket hanging open, but still sitting there. Staring at screens. From one to the next to the next and then back again. He watched and watched some more.
He had nowhere else to be. Nothing else pressing on his time. Francesca was at his house having dinner with his mother before her nightly sojourn at Guido’s. He’d been planning to join them but had called at the last minute, claiming work that needed his attention.
What needed his attention was the disappointment burning through him. The woman from Colter had called just as he was leaving the hotel that afternoon.
He wasn’t going to get his son. The thought required another sip from the fifth bottle, which was no longer cold at all.
She hadn’t said he wouldn’t eventually get a son. But something had happened with the one he’d been promised, and all of their other babies were currently spoken for.
Images flickered across the monitors. Dealers, patrons, bets laid, cards pulled from shoes, cheques passed across the table. Again and again. Once or twice he caught some possible card-counting, but it always amounted to nothing more than amateur attempts. No wins resulted.
He’d asked the woman from Colter what had happened to his son. She wouldn’t say. Said she couldn’t.
Had the child died? Or the birth mother changed her mind? Had someone objected to the boy going to a single father?
Luke cued the DVD players for another run, starting this time just before the start of the winning deal.
Amadeo was due to call again by the weekend. Luke had to have something to tell him. Maybe he’d tell him about his mother and Francesca. Luke talking about his mother at all would throw him.
But not for long.
One of the dealers smiled at a player, glanced up briefly with his left hand hovering just above the shoe, prepared to deal. He scratched his shoulder with his free hand, pushed down on the top card in the shoe with the middle finger of his left hand, slid it toward the table, grasped it between index finger and thumb. He flicked his wrist so the card was faceup then grasped it with his right index finger and thumb and laid it on the table in front of the first player. Absolutely nothing.
On the next screen, the dealer was smiling. And the next.
So many smiles when he couldn’t feel less like smiling. How was it that all around him were images of happy people while that particular state of mind remained forever elusive to him?
He’d point-blank asked the woman at Colter if he was the problem. If someone had objected to him. Had there been some red flag in his file?
He’d received the same evasive response. She’d told him all she could and she wasn’t saying he wouldn’t eventually get his son.
Another smile on the screen. To taunt him?
He finished off the last of the beer in his bottle just to show them he wouldn’t be taunted. And pushed the replay button on a screen he’d missed this go-round.
The dealer smiled. Rubbed his chin. Pressed down on the top card in the shoe with the middle finger of his left hand. Slid it down toward the table…
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
He’d lost his son. The dealer smiled. He pulled out the last beer. He wasn’t going to get his baby. The dealer smiled.
Everywhere he looked the dealer smiled.
And touched himself with his right hand.
And slid the card down with his middle finger.
The beer was really warm. But who cared? It didn’t taste bad.
The dealer slid the card down with his middle finger.
His middle finger.
Wait.
Setting the beer down on a little table to his right, he leaned forward. Punched every single machine until they were cued in exactly the same spot. And one by one, hit Play.
He wasn’t looking at the winning deals now. He’d gone back before that point, to view nonwinning deals. Many of them. From each dealer.
Heart pounding he watched, certain he’d found something. It made no sense. It seemed ridiculous—even in his own more than half-drunk mind. But he knew he’d found something.
Three of the eight dealers in front of him regularly slid the card out of the shoe with the index fingers of their left hands. Perfectly acceptable choreography. And on the big wins, every single one of the dealers used the middle finger of his left hand to slide out the card.
He’d noticed because Jackson used his index finger, too. Waiting for a meal or drinks, Luke had watched him often enough to know that. The middle-finger draw, while not wrong, was not what he was used to.
And something else was different, too. It took him a while to find it. Sitting back, knowing he was going to have to sober up and think hard about all of this, Luke watched the tapes again. What was missing? If he’d had a few less beers he’d probably know.
He nursed the sixth bottle. Enjoying the liquid as it slid down his throat. He probably wasn’t getting his son. At least not soon.
Yeah, go ahead, grin at that, he challenged the dealer on the screen. The man didn’t crack a smile. Not once. Not in all the deals Luke watched. He turned to the next screen and the next, until he’d viewed all eight of them. Four of the dealers never cracked a smile.
Until just before the winning deal.
He had no idea how he was going to prove anything. Or how the wins were even happening. But of one thing he was certain.
This was an inside job.
“Can I walk you home?”
Looking into Carl’s kind, dark eyes, Francesca couldn’t do anything but nod. Guido’s was closing at midnight on Wednesday to have the wood floors treated, and she’d already told him that she’d walked over after dinner with Carol Everson. It was only a fifteen-minute trip from the motel and she’d wanted to be outside, among the people, living with them.
She’d wanted to feel a part of the life around her. Instead of shut away in her own world, her room, her roles by day and night, her car.
“We met three weeks ago tonight,” Carl announced. They were walking slowly, close but not touching, approaching the Strip.
“We did?” Had it only been that long? Sometimes it felt as though she’d been living this vagabond life forever. Thoughts of Italy, of another life, weren’t as consuming.
But every bit as agonizing when they crept up on her.
“You planning on staying awhile longer?”
Why did she weigh everything he said to her now?
“You trying to get rid of me?”
“No.” Hands in the pockets of his jeans, Carl wasn’t as open as usual. “The opposite, in fact.”
“Oh.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” I don’t want to hurt you. “You tell me.” I don’t want to lose your friendship.
A light-skinned black man wearing beige shorts and a red short-sleeved polo shirt was walking down the street, in a lane of traffic, as though he were a car. When he passed and caught Francesca’s gaze, the lost look in his eyes took her breath.
“It looks as though you aren’t going to meet up with your friend, but you don’t appear in any hurry to go anywhere,” Carl was saying.
“I haven’t given up hope of running into her.”
“She must be something special.”
“I just owe her, that’s all,” Francesca told him. There was no reason not to tell Carl about Autumn. He wasn’t going to expose her. Still, she didn’t come clean. Possibly because the truth—that she’d been lying—would hurt him. And to what end?
The fewer complications, the fewer people who knew her well enough to really share her life, the better.
Francesca stumbled as Carol Everson came to mind. She’d told the other woman at dinner that she had no interest in her son. But she wasn’t sure Carol had believed her. She couldn’t see her again, spend any more time at Carol’s home, until Carol accepted that fact. She wasn’t going to be responsible for adding to the emotional difficulties that already consumed the older woman.
But she hadn’t been able to refuse when Luke’s mom had begged her to come to dinner again on Friday. She could only hope that Luke would be working late so Carol didn’t see the two of them together and build up hope where there was none.
They passed a brand-new drugstore whose architecture was stunning. And right next to it, a billboard for beer. And then another wedding chapel. All she could see of the half-lit sign was Heavens.
God, I hope heaven doesn’t look like that.
Heaven. Did it really exist? And was her little Gian safe and happy there?
“I’d like to take you out for dinner. Someplace nice—just the two of us.”
Oh, Carl. Don’t.
“You work every night.”
“My brother agreed to come in and tend bar any night this next week.”
“I—”
“It’s dinner, Francesca, not a marriage proposal.”
He was right. And he’d been so good to her. “Okay,” she said. And hated herself for agreeing.
Carl kissed her good-night at her door. Nothing deep or passionate. A closed-mouth kiss. And yet, one that had lingered. Inside her room, Francesca leaned back against the door, wishing she hadn’t agreed to go out with him Monday night. She resented the time away from Guido’s.
She was frightened by how much she wanted his friendship. And Luke’s. And Carol’s. Francesca Witting didn’t need people. Other than Antonio once upon a time.
And maybe Autumn.
“I don’t know, Luke,” Arnold Jackson said the next morning. He sat forward, placing his cup of coffee on the second shelf of a rolling television rack. “Play that back one more time,” he said, studying the monitors in front of him.
Luke pushed the buttons that would reset all eight machines. He was showing the dealer exactly what he’d seen himself the night before. Sober, he still saw the smiles. The middle-finger choreography. The right-hand touches of various places on the dealers’ bodies.
He knew he was on to something. But before he moved ahead, he’d wanted Arnold to see the tapes. There wouldn’t be a more expert opinion.
“A lot of schools teach middle-finger dealing,” Jackson said, and Luke stopped the machines, rewinding a couple.
“Yes, but in every other instance on these tapes—” he pushed Play “—the dealer uses his index finger to pull the cards.”
Frowning, Jackson watched the scenes before them, saying nothing.
“What do you think?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Luke, but I don’t see it. The rhythm and movement is exactly the same. If they were switching cards, there’d be a change in wrist posture at least.”
Biting back the colorful words that came to mind, Luke slowly nodded.
“But how do you explain the finger switch?”
Arnold shrugged, the broadness of his shoulders more prominent in the cotton polo shirt he had on that morning than in the tux jacket Luke was used to seeing him wear. “Cramp. Fatigue.” He picked up his coffee. “You pull thousands of cards a night. It happens. You’re only looking at the dealers who had big losses here, but if you viewed other tapes, even mine, you’d probably see the same thing occasionally.”
“Well, look here.” Luke rewound a couple of machines.
“See those smiles?” he said. “They happen immediately before every win.”
“So you think someone in the casino is tipping him off and he smiles to acknowledge the mark?”
Elbows on his knees, suit jacket hanging open over his thighs, Luke looked over at his friend. “Don’t you?” While the evidence was still there before him, Luke was becoming a little less confident this morning that he’d stumbled on something valid.
Jackson shook his head again. “Too obvious.”
“Then why didn’t anyone pick up on it before?”
Jackson raised his cup. Sipped. Took one of the doughnuts Luke had brought up with him from the kitchen. “No one noticed that they’re all wearing tuxes and ties, either.” Arnold’s teeth cut into the glazed pastry. “It’s nothing.”
Luke sat back. He wasn’t even going to mention the right-hand touching. It had been the least convincing of his observations, anyway. Making a mental note to remind himself why he didn’t drink on the job, Luke turned off the machines.
“We still on to jump this Saturday?”
“Oh, shoot, Luke, I completely forgot. I took an extra shift, filling in for Phil Gordon. His wife’s scheduled for a C-section.”
Phil Gordon. Luke had only met the guy once. And felt envious as hell.
He told his friend that he wasn’t going to be getting a son after all.
Arnold frowned, jeans-clad leg across the opposite knee. “Tough break.”
“Yeah.” Luke ejected all the tapes, put them back in their cases very deliberately. “I know better than to count on things happening as planned.”
“Sure makes living each day for itself seem like the best option.”
Luke glanced over. “That something you learned before or after you lost your daughter?”
“After.” Jackson didn’t hesitate.
Luke stood. Making the most of the moment was great advice. Unless you had a mother who couldn’t handle disappointment—and relied on unchanging routine to provide what little stability she had.
Francesca’s cell phone rang before she was even awake Friday morning.
God, don’t let it be Mom, she groaned silently as she rolled over. Talking to each other with nothing new to report was hard on both of them.
“I’m five minutes from your place. Can I come over?”
It was Luke. She scrambled to a sitting position. “Of course. What’s up?”
“I just got some news. I’ll be there in five minutes.” He clicked off before she could ask any more.
Brushing her teeth and running her fingers through the cropped dark strands of her hair at the same time, Francesca listened for Luke’s step on the stairs. She put on jeans and a T-shirt, and still he wasn’t there. His idea of five minutes wasn’t hers. Picking up a tube of mascara, she pulled out the wand, blinked at it a couple of times.
And heard his knock.
“It’s about time, buster. If you’re going to get a girl out of bed—” Francesca’s voice broke when the odd look on his face registered.
“What? What’s happened?”
It wasn’t horrible. His eyes weren’t filled with dread. Or sympathy. Or grief. But she read concern there. Along with something else.
“Tell me.”
“I’ve found Autumn.”
Her stomach jumped, heart pumping rapidly. And then everything slowed. Her breath. Her thoughts. The world. Just spinning in slow motion.
“Alive?”
“Yes.” He grinned then, but that look of concern was still there. “She’s alive and only a few miles from here.”
“Oh, God.” Mouth hanging open, she stared at him. Oh, God. “I can’t think. Is she okay? What’s she doing? Have you seen her?” She was crying and smiling and needing to do everything at once. Get to her sister. Talk to Luke. Find her shoes. And her keys.
Luke’s hand against the hot skin of her face was a relief.
“I don’t know much,” he told her, standing in the open door. “A few of the tenants who were living in the apartments Biamonte recently bought were apparently placed in other Biamonte properties instead of evicted. I don’t know why some were given the opportunity and others weren’t. I’m not even sure this particular property is a rental. It appears to be owned by the company and used for company business, but I haven’t even verified that. Since the pictures didn’t turn up anything positive, I had some people discreetly checking around Biamonte’s interests for information on the tenants who were evicted. When I got to work twenty minutes ago, there was a message saying that a maintenance man had identified Autumn as a sixth-floor tenant in his building.”
Francesca loved that maintenance man. Hoped she’d get to meet him some day.
Oh, my God. She’d been waiting. Hoping. Praying. Determined. Doubting. She wiped her eyes. They filled right back up again.
“Do you think she’ll be there now?” she asked, sniffling. She needed a tissue. And her shoes.
“It’s early enough. Most people are still home at seven in the morning.”
Right. Okay.
“Your sandals are at the end of your bed.” Luke’s voice had never been so kind or understanding. On some level she recognized that she must be in a worse state than she’d thought to warrant that tone.
“Yeah, and I need my keys,” she said, remembering exactly where they were.
She was going to see Autumn now. She could deal with the ramifications, whatever they were, later.
“I can’t believe I’m really going to see her.”
Francesca stared out the window of the Jag, seeing the older couple on the street corner, both plump, wearing tennis shoes and fanny packs and shorts that had obviously been purchased before their most recent weight gains. And seeing nothing. “I can’t believe she’s really alive.”
Glancing over at her, Luke said nothing.
He’d warned her twice already. He knew nothing about Autumn’s condition. If she was working. If she was healthy. He only knew that she was alive.
And where she was living.
Her baby sister. After more than two years, she was going to be in the same room with Autumn again. Able to hug her.
To hear how she’d been. What she’d been doing.
“She’s really alive,” Luke said. He turned a corner.
Maybe someday she’d tell Autumn about Gian.
And she had to tell her about her father’s death. And to call her mom. The girl would probably need some things. Maybe new clothes. A good meal. A visit to a doctor. And perhaps a counselor.
Would Autumn be happy to see her? Should she hug her? Or play it cool? Be firm? Or just loving?
What if the girl slammed the door in her face?
“Hey.” Luke reached for her hand, squeezed it gently. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I know.”
But she didn’t. She didn’t know that at all.
They had to climb six flights of stairs. And knock twice.
“Maybe she’s not here, after all.” Francesca tried to detach. To shut down the panic that was so close to the surface. She wanted to take Luke’s hand again.
She squeezed her own instead.
He knocked a third time.
She should’ve taken time to shower. “I think I hear something.” Or was she just imagining movement on the other side of the door?
“Sorry, I was puk—”
The girl who pulled open the door stopped when she saw her visitors. Her jaw dropped.
“I thought you were Ant—”
She looked so old. All grown up. She’d dyed her hair. There was a tattoo of a butterfly on her right collarbone and three earrings running up each ear. But no lip piercing, thank God. Her T-shirt had the neck cut out but didn’t seem all that worn, and her shorts were clean and not too short.
Her eyes were all Autumn. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry.
“Cesca?”
As soon as she heard that voice, saying the name that only her sister called her, Francesca pulled the girl into her arms and held on. And on. Her cheeks were wet, and still she held on, breathing in the sweet scent of her sister, feeling Autumn’s warm body, her heart beating so close to her own.
“Oh, God, Autumn, I can’t believe it’s really you.” She heard herself saying the words over and over. Told herself to stop. But she didn’t.
Her sister had gone rigid in her arms, and it was only then that Francesca realized her own feelings were irrelevant at the moment. She was the strong and responsible one. The comforter.
The one who had to take charge and make everything okay for both of them.
When things obviously weren’t okay at all.
“Come on,” she said, releasing her hold, “let’s pack your things and get you back to my place and then we can talk.”
Autumn turned away. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t? Of course you can. You’re seventeen years old. A minor. And a runaway. I’m your sister. Here to take you home. Of course you can come with me.”
Autumn wouldn’t look at her.
When she thought back on this, relived the memory, it was going to hurt. For now, the moment was frozen. No relief. No shock. No pain.
“You can’t make me go,” the girl finally said. Her voice had a hardness Francesca didn’t recognize.
Why did everything have to be so much of a struggle?
“Of course I can!” she shouted, like some square old parent trying to lord it over a recalcitrant child.
“No. You can’t.”
Luke came into the little apartment from the doorway. “Maybe we should all sit down for a minute.” He settled on the arm of the sofa—the only furniture in the room.
Francesca had forgotten he was there. His presence made everything real. Horribly real. As quickly as it had descended, the numbness encasing her was gone.
Autumn sat.
Fighting off a conflicting array of reactions, Francesca did, too. Beside her sister. She had no idea what to say. There were a million things she wanted to know. And just as many decisions to make. But nowhere to begin.