Luke was in his office Monday afternoon when his cell phone rang.
“Luke, you probably want to get down here.”
Recognizing Brown’s number on his caller ID he was already on his feet. “What’s up?”
“I think we’re about to witness the next big win at the Bonaparte.”
He’d known, ever since his night of drunken video-watching, that he was after a dealer in his own casino. The moves were too intricate for anyone but a dealer to devise. And most of the wins were at Esposito’s newest resort. But he’d never suspected—even once—who that dealer was.
All the way down in the elevator he’d run through a mental list, checking off each one of the many talented men and women in their employ. Arnold Jackson hadn’t even been on the list.
Yet, when he found Brown lounging at the bar across from Jackson’s table, he knew there was no mistake. The morning he and Jackson had viewed the tapes, the older man had been a little too certain as he’d explained away Luke’s suspicions. If he’d shown even a small measure of doubt, given Luke’s ideas any credibility at all…
His determined attempt to convince Luke that not a single one of the clues he’d noticed were significant had been his one mistake—a tip-off that he was purposely leading Luke astray.
He hadn’t actually suspected Jackson—thinking, if anything, that Jackson was protecting someone else—but Luke’s unease had been enough to keep quiet about hiring his plainclothes crew.
Still, as he slid onto a stool behind a support beam where he couldn’t be seen and leaned over just enough to follow the detective’s head gesture, he hoped that for once in his life Don Brown was wrong. He and Arnold had spent some pretty long nights together, talking about things guys didn’t talk about—especially with each other. If he couldn’t trust him, who could he trust?
Luke ordered a beer. Sipped. Watched and waited. And, when half an hour had passed, started to relax.
Jackson never missed a cue. He cut, shuffled, loaded the shoe, burned and dealt. Took cheques from the tray, over the tube with thumb and middle finger; he cut them, proved and handed off. Again and again. In perfect rhythm every time. The man made blackjack dealing into an art. And as with any great artist, what made his work stand out from all the rest was the integrity he brought to it.
Luke sipped. Arnold glanced up. Smiled. Luke smiled back. And then sat up straight. Jackson couldn’t see him. Hadn’t been smiling at him as he’d naturally assumed. There’d been no one to smile at. The older man had just grinned at the post behind which Luke sat.
A smile. Then a right-hand touch.
Jackson scratched his nose with the knuckles of his right hand—keeping his palm in clear view.
He wasn’t palming cards.
And the player in spot one put out a maximum bet.
Left hand on the shoe, Jackson reached with his middle finger. Pulled. Transferred the card to his right hand. Placed the cards on the table in their appropriate places. And again.
Jackson called out totals, not that Luke could hear him from where he sat. Players gestured for hits. And it was time for taking and paying. He paid spot one. For the next half hour, he paid spot one again and again. Not always, but enough so that the player was racking up a sizable fortune.
“I’ll be damned.”
“You say something?” the bartender, a new kid Luke hadn’t seen before, asked.
Luke shook his head, nodded at Brown to proceed and went up to his office. He’d wanted something to report to Amadeo upon his return later in the week. And now he had it.
He’d rather be out of a job.
Autumn, Luke and Francesca went together on Tuesday afternoon to get the roll of film developed. They dropped it off at a one-hour photo place, then had lunch at one of Luke’s favorite sneak-away places on the Strip, a little-known brewery that he claimed had the best chicken wings in the city.
While he and Autumn filled up on chicken and fries, Francesca munched on the celery and carrot sticks that came with their orders. She could hardly manage to do even that. The closer the minutes ticked to the hour, the tighter her stomach grew—and the more it filled with the uncomfortable flutters of panic she’d been trying to avoid. In just a few short moments, she was going to be seeing Baby Gian.
Autumn asked about the expensive-looking apparatus built around them, pipes and tubes for making beer. Luke told them about his first visit to the place. They were trying their best to help her pass the time. She barely registered a word they said.
“So how come these are the only pictures you have of Gian?” Autumn’s voice was soft, tentative. She’d stopped looking everywhere but at Francesca and met her older sister’s gaze.
“I was pretty crazy with grief.” She tried to smile. Took a sip of Diet Coke, hoping to dispel the lump in her throat. “I already had that duffel packed with all his stuff so I put the photo albums in with them and left the whole thing at the cemetery, telling the undertaker to bury it with him.”
It was the truth. And the end of lunch.
Francesca noticed Autumn holding her stomach again as they waited in line to pay for the photos. The envelope in her hand was hot. Burning her. And obviously upsetting her little sister.
“Where should we look at them?” Autumn asked, climbing into the back seat of Luke’s Jag. “Here?”
“Let’s wait until we get back to my place.” That way if she fell apart, her bed would be right there. For as long as it took.
Autumn had both arms wrapped around her stomach. Her lower stomach.
“Is something wrong?” Francesca asked, a little concerned by the paleness of her sister’s skin.
“Nah.” Autumn shook her head, but looked uneasy. “Just…cramps.” She glanced at the back of Luke’s head.
“I’ve got some ibuprofen back at the room.”
Autumn nodded and Francesca turned around, the packet lying in her lap. Waiting for her.
Baby Gian, are you there? Waiting for Mama to see your sweet smile?
“Cesca?”
Francesca swung around at the panic in her sister’s voice. “Take us to the nearest hospital,” she cried immediately. There was a strange color staining her sister’s shorts. This was no ordinary period.
Francesca sat there, frozen, staring at the doctor who’d come into the Emergency cubicle to tell them that Autumn was fine and could go home.
“Everything checks out fine, young lady, but you need to take better care of yourself if you want that little one to get here strong and healthy.”
Little one? Little one!
Her gaze flew to Autumn’s solemn face, expecting her sister to assure this woman that she’d made a mistake. Autumn couldn’t possibly be pregnant. She was only seventeen. A child. And a virgin.
One glance at the twisted sorrow on the girl’s face was all it took for Francesca’s world to fall apart for the second time in as many months.
Not only was Autumn’s young life being thrown prematurely into adulthood, but she’d lied to her. It all made a horrifying kind of sense. The nausea. The fear Autumn exhibited around her sometimes.
Probably afraid Francesca would find out.
Her need to keep Francesca away from her apartment. Were there baby things? And perhaps a father for the child?
And clothes-shopping. It would’ve been a little difficult to hide that thickening waistline in a dressing room.
It was so devastatingly clear now.
Autumn had been lying to her all along.
For the first time since she’d met him that day last spring when she’d hurried into his garage to get out of the rain, Autumn missed a date with Matteo. She had no idea what he’d make of that. He’d been a little distant ever since that Sunday a couple of weeks back when she’d told him she couldn’t see him anymore. He’d talked her out of her craziness—as he’d called it—and had been just as attentive. But he didn’t seem to be smiling as much when she was around.
Standing at her living-room window, waiting for the car to stop out front, she hardly noticed the palm trees or the reddish rocks that she’d found so pretty and unusual the first time she’d seen this place. She’d thought the desert landscaping gave the area class, considered herself lucky to be there. Now she just thought about the future. What it might bring.
Maybe Matteo would take this missed date as a chance to get rid of her. She couldn’t have him calling her, since she wasn’t allowed to have a boyfriend, so the only way they could make dates was to arrange them when they were together. And now they weren’t together to set up the next meeting. Maybe he’d been waiting for a chance like this.
The thought caused a huge ache inside her. But it didn’t bring her to her knees. The look of betrayal on Cesca’s face had done that. She’d missed her big sister so much these past two years. And since Cesca had been here in town, Autumn wasn’t so scared anymore. Being with Cesca had always given her a feeling that everything would be okay.
Even when she knew it wouldn’t be.
A blue sedan slowed as it approached the building. Autumn’s heart sped up. The car passed. It hadn’t been his anyway. It was too small.
No matter how horrible this might be, she had to do it. She couldn’t take any more. And she couldn’t do it to Cesca, either. She’d wanted to die right on the spot that afternoon when Cesca had looked at her, so sure the doctor was wrong, and then, when Autumn hadn’t been able to refute the doctor’s words, as if Autumn had just ripped out her heart.
She hated that she’d done that. Especially since knowing about little Gian. Cesca had been hurt so much.
Thinking of the baby who’d died, Autumn started to cry again. She’d been an aunt. And hadn’t even known it. She’d never been able to hold him.
Of course, she’d been a mother, too, and never held her babies, either.
Turning from the window, Autumn wiped away her tears with an impatient hand, wandering through the apartment. If only she could fix it up the way she’d like it to be. Some plants. And posters. Color on the walls. But they weren’t allowed to do that. As soon as she’d had the baby, they’d move another girl in and they couldn’t be repainting and fixing holes in the walls every seven months or so.
Even though she’d waited more than an hour, the knock on her door came before she was ready. This might mean her death. Everyone had heard about that girl out in the desert a few years before. These guys, whoever they were, didn’t mess around.
Death would be preferable to living like this. There were only two people in the world who’d ever really loved her. And she was hurting both of them.
“Hey, I got your call. And then one from the hospital right afterward. I came over as soon as I could. I’m really proud of you getting yourself there like you did.”
When the nurse at the hospital had insisted she had to call the contact name on Autumn’s chart, Autumn had begged the woman not to tell Antonio she hadn’t been alone there.
“Whatever,” she said now. “It’s not far.”
Antonio walked into her living room, running a hand down her arm as he passed. She used to like it when he touched her. But not anymore. After being with Matteo, she had a feeling that Antonio’s touch wasn’t as big-brotherly as she’d once thought. If she wasn’t such a dolt, she’d have figured it out long before. Like about the first time his fingers had accidentally—or not—brushed her breast as he touched her arm.
She wanted to tell him he’d had a son. And that the baby had died. It would serve him right. But she was too much of a coward.
He sat on the couch, patting the spot next to him. More than once they’d sat there together, with him holding her, comforting her—or so she’d thought—as she cried out her heartache and fears, her worries about impending childbirth. More than once he’d rubbed her bulging stomach, talking to her about the happy family awaiting the baby she was giving them.
She used to think she was so lucky. She was the only girl Antonio actually looked after. As far as she could tell, his job was primarily one of making the initial contact. He found potential girls. And turned them over to the women who supervised them. With his real job—second-in-command at his father-in-law’s retail company—he was too busy traveling all over the world to baby-sit them all himself.
These days she didn’t feel lucky at all. And had begun to wonder if there were happy families. Or if maybe they—whoever the women worked for—did something else with all the babies.
He smiled, the smile that used to melt her heart, back when he’d been Francesca’s boyfriend. He needed to shave. And comb his hair. As black as Matteo’s, Antonio’s hair wasn’t nearly as thick.
She liked Matteo’s.
“Come sit.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
Unable to meet the warmth and kindness shining from those dark eyes of his—emotions she’d long ago begun to suspect were the practiced art of an actor—she turned her back.
“This isn’t like you, cara. Something’s wrong. Come tell me what it is.”
She couldn’t make herself move. Not back there. With him. She was never going back. And not forward, either. She didn’t know the steps to take.
Seeing him, sitting on her sofa where Cesca had sat, remembering how helpless and panicky she’d felt on Sunday when her sister had been huddled on her bed in so much pain she couldn’t get up, Autumn really hated him. Funny, when she’d first seen Cesca again, she’d had a crazy thought about her and Antonio getting together and somehow fixing her whole screwed-up world.
She’d known, even then, that the thought was foolish. She’d just been desperate enough, and stupid enough, to make-believe for a second.
Now she didn’t even want the jerk to know her sister was in town. It would kill Cesca to see him again.
Besides, she had hopes for Cesca and Luke. He was a nice guy. And Cesca had melted right into him the other day when she’d been so upset and he’d come to rescue her. Like Autumn melted into Matteo…
“I want out.”
“Of course you do. You always do about this time.”
“No.” She stood her ground, looking at the floor. And then, somehow, found herself turning to face him, a resolve inside her that she could only remember feeling once before. The night she’d first started her period. “I mean it. I’m not scared like I was before, Antonio. I’m leaving.”
He stood, smiling in that way of his, meant to make her feel like an idiot kid. “Come on, cara, you know better than this.”
“Because of that Mary girl, you mean? Too late, Antonio, I’d rather be her, dead in the desert with cow blood smeared all over my body than me here and now.”
His expression changed so suddenly it shocked her. “No way, Autumn. You can’t do this.”
He’d never called her that here. “My name’s Joy.”
“Look, we had a deal, you and I. I got you out of Sacramento, didn’t I? I’ve given you everything I promised. A chance to be on your own. To live in your own place. And never have to have sex for money.”
“No, but I sure spread my legs for it, don’t I?” She didn’t know where the words came from. But they gave her the impetus to confront him, in spite of the six inches he had on her.
“You were coming to Vegas, anyway, kid. I never would’ve let you in on this deal if I hadn’t already known that.”
He was right about that. After Francesca had left to go back to San Francisco the night of Autumn’s fifteenth birthday, her father had come into her bedroom. If her mother hadn’t shown up a few minutes later…
She couldn’t even think about that. She had no way of knowing what would’ve happened. None.
But she’d known she had to leave. She’d run into Antonio one night while she was in Old Town, hanging out with her friends. He’d seen her crying. Asked what was wrong. Francesca had confided that she loved Antonio, said how honorable he was. So Autumn had trusted him. Told him she was leaving, that there was nothing he could do to stop her, that if he went to Francesca, she’d just run faster, and farther. She’d even told him how much money she’d saved.
He’d shown such concern. Telling her about the kinds of things that happened to pretty young runaways in Las Vegas. And showing her how very short a time her nest egg would last there.
And he’d made leaving so easy. Made settling into her new life easy, too. Although he never went to Guido’s himself because he didn’t have contact with the girls after he handed them over, he’d told her about the place. Giving her ready-made friends.
“I saved you from a life of prostitution.”
At the time, at fifteen and with a father who might have been planning to molest her, that had sounded like heaven to Autumn.
She knew better now.
“I can’t do it anymore,” she said. “Do whatever you have to. Threaten me, sic your wolves on me, I just don’t care anymore.”
“You’re talking crazy, cara. This afternoon scared you.” He brushed her arm. And her breast.
“No!” She jerked away and stepped back, looking for her purse. She’d leave right now. Let him have his damned apartment. Or whoever’s apartment it was. Damn sure Antonio wouldn’t have put his name on any lease.
His rich wife might find out and cut him off. That was what his “honor,” his loyalty to his wife was all about. She’d realized that a long time ago.
“You don’t know what you’re messing with, Autumn.” She’d never heard that hard edge before and turned to look at him. His face was as hard as his voice, and his eyes scared her.
“If this was up to me, I’d let you go. You’ve just about served your time, anyway. Once you turn eighteen, everything gets a whole lot messier. But this one isn’t up to me. Seems the boss has a godson who wants a boy. He’d been told he was getting one. And then Chancey miscarried. Heads were rolling. Some people just have so much money it deafens them to logic, you know? Like we were responsible for fate taking that kid.”
This was a side of Antonio she’d never seen. And didn’t want to see now.
“Luckily it was only a week or so later that we found out you were having a boy….”
That had been the day she’d opened her door, expecting Antonio, who was driving her to her ultra-sound appointment, and found Cesca and Luke there instead.
Life was screwed up.
Her baby was promised to the boss’s godson.
“The boss gets what he wants, if you know what I mean,” Antonio said.
“He’ll come find me, haul me back until I have the kid?”
“And then make you disappear.”
Antonio might just be trying to scare her. Autumn knew that. But could she take the chance? This was Las Vegas. She’d lived here long enough to know that a lot of the stuff she’d seen in movies really did happen. People really did disappear. And other people, people trying to hide, were usually found….
If she ran, she’d have to leave Cesca. Or put her sister in danger when Cesca came after her.
If she stayed…
“Luke Everson is one lucky son of a bitch to have such a powerful godfather….”
Autumn gaped at him. Luke Everson? Cesca’s Luke? Was getting her son?
“What did you say?”
“Luke Everson, he’s the boss’s godson. And this baby is his.”
Autumn’s cheeks felt numb. And cold. She had to get rid of Antonio. To think. To save Cesca from a horrible mistake.
Or find a way to disappear, leave her sister and Matteo, have this baby, and know that Luke—and Cesca?—would be loving him.
“Okay,” she heard herself say through the buzzing in her ears. Anything to get rid of him. “You win.”
“I knew you’d see it my way.”
With one last brush down her arm, one that Autumn allowed to meet its target, he left.
She didn’t want to die.
She just wanted out.