Death On the Flop (23 page)

“Certainly when you grabbed a disembodied arm, you realized this is no soap opera.”

One of the men I recognized from the elevator walked by, curious and concerned at the tension between us. He put his hand on my shoulder. “You okay, Bee Cool?”

Frank looked at him like the guy’d grown horns, then at me like I’d put them there. “Who?”

I reassured my gallant fan with a thankful smile and he wandered away. I turned back to Frank, shrugging. “I guess some people I met at the tournament knew I made it through the first round and came up with a nickname for me.”

Frank ducked his head, shaking it and saying in a low tone, as he put his hand on the small of my back and moved me toward the elevators, “Then we really need to get out of here. You’re suddenly famous and I don’t want to be recognized with you. I won’t be able to get any investigation done as Bee Cool’s dude. We’ll be in worse trouble if Conner IDs me and finds out what room you’re staying in.”

“I thought you were buying me lunch?”

“I’ll get you room service.”

I made a face.

Frank pulled me into a private alcove out of the foot traffic, struggling to keep his patience. “Look, you need to lie low, especially if people know who you are. You don’t go playing Hold ’Em at the casino where you’re doing a tournament. That just gives the opportunity for someone who might play against you tonight to learn your game. You don’t see any of the pros here. If anyone wants to play outside the tournament they’ll go to another casino, and not the one next door.”

“Oh.” I felt stupid, then brightened. “But I almost got some good information.” I told him about the dealer’s almost revelation.

Frank’s eyes darkened. “Bee, you don’t know who this guy is, or if he was calling Stan right after you got up and he’d have Conner there to grab you. Maybe I’m being hypervigilant, but I don’t think so. Two people have been killed. One of them could have been you.”

Poor Felix. Wrong place, wrong time. Poor me. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong brother. Poor Ben. I didn’t know how to explain his dilemma. Usually he created his own drama, but I honestly couldn’t see any connection other than maybe wrong hobby, wrong obsession with Stan. Maybe there was more, but I almost didn’t want to know what it was.

“Why don’t you trust me, Bee?” Frank asked, watching me closely.

“I just don’t know why someone who doesn’t know me would risk his life to help me.”

“It’s a fair question. Suffice it to say I had my own motivation to begin with, but it’s changed now that I know you better than you think I do. It’s more about you and less about the other thing. That’s all I can say right now.”

Great, more mystery. I believed him, though. It was hard to resist those eyes when they bared his soul, however briefly and however succinctly. “Okay, let’s go back to the room.”

“Separate elevators. I’ll meet you there. No funny business. If I have to hunt you down again, it’s going to involve tying you up so you can’t go anywhere.”

“You do have those handcuffs,” I teased as I got into an elevator.

Crow’s feet crinkled and chocolate brown eyes warmed. He looked damn cute—it was probably a good thing we were putting some distance between us for a few minutes or I might be tempted. The elevator doors shut, and I sighed.

 
Ten minutes later, Frank still wasn’t back to the suite
and I was worried. My fertile imagination came up with a thousand scenarios, each one worse than the next. I was embarrassed to realize in the middle of it that I felt sorry we hadn’t consummated the simmering sexual attraction between us.

How base, how petty of me.

If he showed up in one piece I was going to jump his bones.

A knock sounded at the door and I started, knocking a lamp to the floor with a thump. Then I froze. I couldn’t breathe, but my pounding heart was demanding some oxygen. What should I do? Maybe it was police coming to tell me that Frank’s dismembered remains had been found stuffed in the laundry shaft.

Two knocks. Ack. Conner probably wouldn’t knock, just use the master key he certainly had possession of. Maybe it was Stan, who’d found out where I was and had come to strangle me.

I heard rustling now outside the door. I was done for. I looked for a place to hide. The closets and the shower were the first places bad guys in the movies looked. I scuttled under the desk and pulled the chair up to hide me.

The door opened and I heard something being rolled into the room. They were bringing Frank’s body back in to make it look like a suicide!

I heard two pair of footfalls, one going into each bedroom. They were looking for me now, maybe planning how they were going to set Frank out. One went to the bar and opened the cabinet, opened the refrigerator. Maybe they were going to pour liquor down his throat and make it look like he drank himself to death.

It seemed like ages, but was probably only a minute before I heard a third pair of footsteps, these faster, walking in from out in the hall. “
Lo siento, senor,
” I heard a woman’s voice say.

“We can go if you need your room sir,” another women’s voice said.

“Have you seen a woman here?” Frank asked.

I was so relieved, I couldn’t move or speak for a moment as I heard Frank jogging to my bedroom. “No,” the maids said.

He ran to the desk, and riffled through papers looking for a note. I was trying to untangle my legs and my tongue, when he pulled out the chair and sat down. His feet went into my crotch. He looked down in surprise.

“Shall we go, sir?”

Frank smiled down at me. “Yes, I think you’d better go. Thank you.”

I put my hands on his knees to brace myself and pulled myself up between his thighs. He wasn’t moving out of my way too fast. His eyes were simmering. “Why were you hiding from the maids?”

“I didn’t know it was the maids and you weren’t here and I was worried you were dead and—”

He cupped my jaw with his hand and leaned down and kissed me. Another one of those long, excruciatingly toe tingling kisses. He smelled like hot Dove, really hot Dove. I braced my hands on his thighs; he dragged me up in his lap. Suddenly my hands were everywhere, molding his chest, running through his hair, scraping across his razor stubble. He moved much slower and more torturously, shaking my hair loose and running his fingers through it. His hands barely skirted my sides. I shivered in the wake of spider webs of sensation and shifted on top of him. He groaned.

I tried to pull his shirt tail out of his jeans and his hands went to still mine. I opened my eyes and looked at him in question.

“I just thought you were dead and I was sorry we hadn’t done this yet.”

“Right idea. Wrong time.”

“Oh.”

“Honey Bee, I don’t want you to want me because you are driven by the specter of death. I want you to want me just for me.”

“What about you wanting me?”

“I already proved that the other night.”

“Oh, well, that doesn’t count because you were under the influence.”

He grinned and helped me rise to me feet as he pushed his chair back. “Yeah, under the influence of
you
: The way your hair smells, the way your skin feels, the way you look at me . . . But correct me if I’m wrong, you’re the one who put the brakes on it that night—you basically told me ‘wrong time’.”

I smiled back. “Touché.”

“There’ll be a right time. One day.”

“Sure, as long as we both stay alive,” I added.

“
Ben isn’t at Conner’s house,” Frank reported after
hanging up with “his man” Joe NLN (my new acronym for no last name, which was common with Frank’s associates and crooked poker champions).

“How does Joe know?” I asked as I slipped a Cynthia Rowley charcoal satin cropped jacket over a silver lace camisole.

“We have ways of knowing.”

I gave him a hard look. “Are you some kind of commando?”

“Am I going commando?” Frank pretended to be affronted. “I thought we agreed to put all that suggestive talk on hold.”

He wasn’t going to answer anyway, so I played along. “Nobody said anything about not
talking
about it.”

“You are a tease, Honey Bee.”

“I’ve never been known to be. I guess you bring it out in me.”

I would be first off the elevator. Frank arranged it by edging people out of the way, then dropping back to the rear of the car himself, so he could shadow me without looking like we were together. I exited and turned the corner of the hallway leading to the ballroom and saw a bigger crowd than the night before waiting for players.

A smattering of applause began and rose as I approached. I suppose it could have to do with the fact that, since only five percent of women play poker, it was a small miracle that I had made it this far. Maybe they had me confused with Jennifer Tilley, who Ben had told me was a poker whiz. I hadn’t seen her playing in this tournament but I guess our hair looked somewhat similar.

I smiled at the crowd and that’s when I saw Ringo holding a “Bee Cool Cooley” sign. At the same moment, I saw Daniel Conner step out of the shadows. He openly glared at me. Ringo reached over—I thought to shake my hand—but instead slipped me a pair of Gargoyles. I looked down at the sunglasses. “You gotta have some, Bee. Stakes are higher tonight. Every blink counts.” I gave him a quick hug, which he returned with a thumbs up.

Amy handed me her lucky cloth cocktail napkin. A trio of women held a “Poker Babes for Bee Cool Cooley” banner. A half dozen other people hollered a bit of advice here and there. I thanked them all and waved again. They cheered louder. Conner growled at them to quiet down.

While he was otherwise occupied, I hurried to the check-in table, selected my seat assignment and strode quickly into the ballroom. It seemed strangely empty and quiet compared to the previous night. What had been nearly two thousand people then, tonight had been reduced to 197 people, twenty-three tables of nine players. The winner of each table would advance to the next semi-final round to be played the same night, in which Stan would actually join a table and play, making it four tables of six players each. The last four players would face off in the final round to be played the next night, televised live on ESPN.

I felt a hand on my elbow and jumped. A petite young blond woman smiled shyly. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to distract you. I guess you were getting into your game already.”

I’d actually been thinking of ways to keep away from Conner until play began. But I nodded vaguely.

“My name is Beth Watson. I write for
All In Magazine
and wondered if I could interview you for a story?”

Oh my gosh, what did I have to say? If she were a gambling reporter, I bet she knew a few things about Steely Stan. “I tell you what—if I make it to the finals, I will give you an exclusive interview if you give me some information about Steely Stan in exchange.”

Her eyes lit up as she handed me her card. “That’s a deal. See you later.”

“If my luck holds,” I muttered.

I felt eyes on me and half-turned to see Conner enter the ballroom. I suppressed a shiver. Players had started taking their seats, so I made my way to table six. Conner moved toward me. I saw Frank come through a side door of the ballroom. His gaze found me at once. He saw Conner, frowned and walked quickly toward him, not reaching him before Conner made it through the boundary tape. I paused at my waitress from the night before and she gave me a thumbs up before I could say anything. Sliding on my Gargoyles to get the feel of them, I was just easing into my seat when I felt a presence next to me.

Conner leaned down to whisper in my left ear. “Miss Cooley, it seems you’ve garnered quite a fan club. The casino has been getting requests for interviews and the like. We wondered where we should direct these messages?”

“To my room on the twentieth floor, please.” I nodded at the man who sat down at my right and, glad my eyes were hidden, tried not to show how grateful I was for the company.

“But you aren’t staying in your room, are you?” Conner dropped his voice.

“Now how would you know if I was or wasn’t staying in my room, Detective?” I turned to my fellow player, asking him loudly, “Do you think the casino has us under surveillance?”

Conner drew back. “Of course not, Miz Cooley. You misunderstood. We will make sure you get your messages.”

He spun on his heel and marched away. Frank’s shoulders visibly sagged in relief. My seatmate leaned toward me. He was in his fifties but trying to look like he was in his thirties, with gelled hair and a hoop earring. Time to start playing, I thought as he said, “He didn’t even wish you luck.”

I pushed back from the table just slightly and crossed my legs slowly, letting my leather mini skirt inch up a little too far. I peeked at him over the tops of my lenses and decided I liked the sunglasses. They were a new tool. “I guess he didn’t want to play favorites,” I purred. I usually didn’t like to play these sexual games. I had never been good at it. But somehow knowing this flirting would play into my poker hand later properly motivated me. He dropped his eyes, tried not to drool, then put out his hand.