Deadly Gamble

He looked anxiously around, then met my gaze again. “What happened?”

I don’t think Brian was concerned about my personal safety. He just wanted me to spit out whatever I was going to say and get away from his table.

I told him about the cart ramming, and the death threat.

He paled.

I wondered what I ever saw in the guy.

“You have four kids, Brian,” I said, bringing it on home. “They’re living with a crazy woman. You might want to revisit the custody agreement.”

The pallor gave way to a flush. “I can’t take care of four kids,” he shot back in a hissing whisper. “Hell, two of them aren’t even mine.”

Double what-did-I-see-in-this-guy. “Okay. Then maybe some concerned citizen—like me, for instance—ought to call CPS and get a social worker to look into the situation.” I got out my cell phone.

“Wait,” Brian rasped, as a pit boss glanced our way. I could have played a hand or two, for cover, but blackjack isn’t my game.

I raised an eyebrow. Didn’t put the cell phone away.

“I’ll talk to Heather, okay?” Brian blurted. “I’ll tell her to leave you alone.”

I must not have looked satisfied.

“And I’ll make sure the kids are all right.”

“You’re a shoo-in for Father of the Year,” I said dryly, but I dropped my weapon. I was by no means reassured that the innocent offspring were out of the parental woods, but I wasn’t Lillian, and I couldn’t snatch the mini-Dillards and take to the road. I had a life.

Well, a semblance of one, anyway. I hadn’t completely given up.

I left Brian to his dealing and headed for the “car bank,” a group of slot machines just inside the main entrance. There’s always a gleaming new vehicle parked on a high platform in the middle; you have to hit three of something, on the pay-line, to win it.

I’ve seen it happen, so it’s legit. Sometimes, the same rig sits there for weeks on end, and sometimes they give away two of them in a day. I’d have worked my mojo and snagged one for myself, but I liked my Volvo well enough and, besides, I didn’t want to pay the taxes and license fees.

I sat down at my favorite, a certain twenty-five-cent Ten Times Pay machine, shoved in my comps card—hey, I could eat free for months on the points I’ve racked up, and you never know when you’re going to get poor all of a sudden—fed a fifty dollar bill in to buy two hundred credits.

I drew a deep breath, let it out slowly, and tried to align myself with the Cosmic Flow. Even the best casinos are energetic garbage dumps, with all that greed and desperation floating around, and it’s important to get Zen. Lillian taught me the trick, and when I play, I usually win.

If I get the mindset right, that is. I had to shake off the Brian influence.

That night, I’d burned through seventy-five credits before I got a hit. Ten Times Triple Bar, nine hundred virtual quarters. I rubbed my hands together.

“Come to mama,” I said.

I didn’t focus on the guy who dropped into the seat at the machine next to mine right away, though I got a glimpse of him in my peripheral vision as soon as he sat down.

He was good-looking, probably in his late thirties, with a head of sleek, light brown hair and the kind of body you have to sweat for, often and hard. I wanted to ignore him, but I could tell by the way he kept shifting around and glancing my way that he wanted to talk.

Shit, I thought.

“I’m just waiting for a spot to open at one of the poker tables,” he said.

“Mmm-hmm,” I replied, hoping he’d take the hint and leave me alone. Watching the reels spin is a form of meditation for me, and I like to focus. It unscrambles my brain in a way nothing else does, except maybe really good sex, and even on a generous gambling budget, it’s a lot cheaper than therapy.

Come to think of it, it’s cheaper than really good sex, too, from an emotional standpoint.

“I think I’ve seen you somewhere before.” Mr. Smooth.

I suppressed an eye-roll and pushed the spin button with a little more force than necessary. He wasn’t even pretending to play his slot machine anymore; just leaning against the supporting woodwork, with his arms folded.

“I get that all the time,” I said tersely. “I must be a type.”

He chuckled. It was a rich, confident sound, low in timbre, and it struck some previously unknown chord deep inside me. It could have been fear, it could have been annoyance. All I knew was, it wasn’t anything sexual; I’m a one-man woman, even when the man in question is thoroughly unavailable. “And not a very friendly one, either,” he observed.

I gave him a brief look. Ever since the first Nick episode, I hadn’t trusted my own eyeballs. “You’re not dead, are you?”

He shrank back, but with a grin, and extended one hand. “What a question,” he said. “Do you run into a lot of dead people?”

I ignored the hand, took in his boyish face, his wide-set, earnest gray eyes, his strong jaw. In the next moment, I leaped out of my chair and backed up a couple of steps. I know my eyes were wide, and my voice came out as a squeak.

“Geoff!”

My parent-murdering, cat-killing half brother contrived to look affably mystified, and threw my own line back in my face. “I must be a type,” he said. “My name isn’t Geoff. It’s Steve. Steve Roberts.” He actually fished for his wallet then, as though prepared to show me his driver’s license or something, and prove his identity.

“Maybe now it is,” I retorted, snatching up my purse so I could get out of there. I didn’t even push the “cash out” button to get a ticket for my credits, that’s how rattled I was. Still, I couldn’t resist asking, “When did you get out of prison, Geoff?”

He sighed. He had one of those give-your-heart-to-Jesus faces, good skin, good teeth, neat hair. And there was a cold knowing in his eyes that bit into my entrails like a bear trap.

“You must be mistaking me for somebody else,” Geoff said sadly.

I turned on my heel and bolted.

Midway through the casino, I turned to see if he was following me, but the place was crowded, and even though I didn’t catch a glimpse of him, I couldn’t be sure. I found a security guard, told him I’d won a major cash jackpot, and asked him to walk me to my car.

Even then I didn’t feel safe.

I locked the doors as soon as I was in the Volvo, and my hand shook so hard as I tried to put the keys in the ignition that it took three tries before I got it right. I screeched out of the parking lot, checking my rearview for a tail every couple of seconds, and laid rubber for the 101, hauling north.

My heart felt as though it had swelled to fill my whole torso, and my blood thundered in my ears like a steady thump on some huge drum.

Geoff.

Parent killer.

Cat murderer.

He hadn’t turned up at the casino by accident, that was too great a coincidence, so he must have deliberately followed me there. How long had he been watching me, keeping track of my movements? Did he know where I lived?

Was I on his hit list? And if so, why? He’d already done his time. What did he have to fear from me?