Death On the Flop (30 page)

“Huh, he won’t get along so well in the pokey, then.” Carey flashed a sadistic grin.

The media were descending, red lights blinking, microphones at the ready. The uniformed officers were trying to hold them back, but they couldn’t stop the onslaught of questions.

“Does this have to do with your mammoth win over the King of Hold ’Em?”

“How do you feel about being held hostage at gunpoint just seconds after winning the biggest pot in poker history?”

Really! What had I won? Frank never told me what the total pot was. I was thinking I’d won a chance at Frank and Ben’s freedom, but maybe I’d won an extra week or two on my rent as well.

“Does this have anything to do with the disappearance of your boyfriend and brother?” my broadcast buddy Josey asked.

“Your boyfriend?” A voice asked behind me. I turned around. “Do I know him?” Frank smiled and wrapped me in a hug.

I pulled back and looked at him, gingerly touching the bruises and abrasions on his forehead and jaw. His nose was twice its normal size and looked like it was broken. “It was a spur of the moment thing,” I started to explain, my tongue tripping over the rush of words. “She had a microphone there and I only had time for a sentence or two. I couldn’t exactly say my brother and a guy-I-met-in-the-bar-who’s-put-his-life-on-hold-to-help-me-learn-how- to-play-Hold-’Em-so-I-could-get-in-thick-with-the-bad-guys -who-probably-took-my-brother-so-we-can-find-him have disappeared.”

“Don’t forget I fed you too.” Frank pointed out, then leaned in and whispered in my ear, “And maybe kissed you once or twice.”

I felt a blush creeping up my neck at a most inappropriate time, on live TV to boot. Thankfully, the plainclothes cop who’d done the negotiating with Conner chose that moment to interrupt, holding out his hand between us for me to shake. “Miss Cooley? I’m chief of detectives Lou Patterson. Are you okay?”

Frank cleared his throat and stepped back.

I didn’t know if this was a good cop or a bad cop, but since I wasn’t dead and he might be the one to thank (besides the Wall Street Women of course), I was going to go with good. “I’m fine.”

“First I want to apologize that one of our men is responsible for the trauma you’ve withstood over the last couple of days. I wish you’d come to us right away, but I can understand why you didn’t. Mr. Gilbert has had dealings with us in the past and perhaps was justified in his portrayal of the force. I just took over the department six months ago and we are trying to clear out the bad element. It seems I hadn’t rooted out Conner yet.” He clicked his tongue in dismay, then looked at me again. “Now, we have a lot of questions to ask, if you can follow us—”

“Forgive me, but can we do questions
after
we find my brother?”

A uniformed officer tapped Patterson on the shoulder and whispered in his ear. “We just got a tip on your brother. A maid at the Galaxy called, she thinks he may be in a room on the twelfth floor. She accidentally went in despite the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign yesterday. She thought the occupant was just hungover, or maybe sick, but now that she’s seen you on TV news, she thinks that it’s your brother, possibly drugged.”

“Dead end. My brother and I don’t look anything alike.”

“Miz Cooley, you are probably right, most tips we get don’t pan out. But the rare times they do makes this one worth checking out. Conner isn’t talking, he’s undoubtedly going to lawyer up. Stan is not an option, obviously. We want to find your brother before it’s too late.”

“He’s right, Bee,” Frank said, putting his hand on my shoulder.

Part of me was afraid of what I’d find. We’d put a lot of pressure on Stan and Conner in the last thirty-six hours. It doesn’t take long to kill someone and stuff their body parts in a dumpster. Or hold a pillow on their face and walk away. Or worse . . .

“Are you okay?” Frank whispered.

I nodded and tried to smile. “I’m just trying not to get my hopes up.”

 
Patterson, a trio of uniformed officers and two of his
detectives accompanied us to the Galaxy. Frank and I rode in a squad car, Frank filling me in on what I missed while I was winning the tournament.

“Conner blocked the Lincoln in when he stopped, then got out, waving his Glock around, and trying to force me into his car. I got lucky, because another car drove past and Conner had to hide his gun. I took the opportunity to knock him to the ground. His gun went flying. I lost my phone somehow. We both got some good licks in.”

“I think you got more than you gave,” I teased, looking at his fat nose.

“Very funny. Anyhow I managed to knock him out. I should have tied him up too, apparently. It never occurred to me he was desperate enough to come after you here.” Frank paused and looked out the window at The Strip, frowning. I knew he was seeing what could have happened if Conner had gotten me out of the ballroom. I had no doubt he planned to kill me. Apparently Frank didn’t either.

I put my hand on his knee. Frank looked at me with eyes so dark they drew me in. Neither one of us spoke for a few seconds, but we were saying volumes. I guess he really cared.

“Look at it this way, Frank,” I said, finally breaking the silence and trying to lighten the mood. “If you hadn’t helped me, I might have been dead a long time ago.”

“If you hadn’t come to Vegas in the first place you wouldn’t have been in danger.” Frank added with some added dimension of anger I couldn’t really figure.

“And if I had never been born, I couldn’t die.” I continued, trying to point out the futility of what-ifs.

Shaking his head, perhaps shaking off the thoughts that filled it, Frank continued with his story. “With Conner out of commission, I took his car. I wanted to search it, plus I wanted to find the Fresh Foods warehouse. I figured if anyone saw me, they’d recognize this as Conner’s car.”

“So you didn’t worry about me at all,” I teased.

“As a matter of fact, I drove first to the Lanai and made sure you got there. You were in the process of reraising that man next to you at the first table right out of the game. I can’t believe you did that with an ace kicker.”

I grinned. “You shouldn’t have come looking for me. You should have been looking for Ben.”

“But you just said . . .” Frank shook his head, bemused.

“Women.” The officer put in.

“Speaking of women.” Frank pulled his phone out of his pocket. “You
have
to call your mother.”

“She can wait.” I waved off the suggestion.

“No, she can’t,” Frank said. “She started calling me while I was breaking into the warehouse and has called a half dozen more times since. She saw you on ESPN. She’s mad at you for not telling her about your ‘secret’ hobby and that you were going to be famous. She wanted to be here . . . there’s more. I think you forgot to tell me you might be trying to get pregnant?”

“Huh?”

“Well, your mom asked if you were pregnant yet.”

I groaned and held my head to stave off the mom headache. Frank looked amused. “The good news is I think she missed the end with all the shooting because she didn’t sound frantic, just peeved.”

I tried not to smile. “I
told
you not to give her your phone number.”

“Women,” the officer repeated.

Frank did deep breathing exercises while I talked quickly to Mom, leaving out the part about Ben being missing and me almost getting killed. I ignored the pregnancy question.

“Go on with your story,” I urged as I handed him back his phone.

“In Conner’s unmarked were a set of keys and a briefcase containing, among other things, a computer chip vacuum sealed in plastic, a logistic chart and a map showing those two rest stops. I turned them over to Patterson and the cop computer geek has already picked up the chip to ID, but the briefcase itself appears to be Stan’s. Since Stan is dead, I guess it will be easy for Conner to plead ignorance as to what’s inside.”

“Conner tied himself to both Ben’s kidnapping and Pete’s murder when he had me by the throat,” I said.

Frank shrugged. “Hearsay. We need hard evidence, Bee.”

I hadn’t told him about what Beth found out about Stan’s missing women. He listened intently and I noticed the officer in the front seat did too. “I wonder where those girls are,” Frank said quietly. “That’s evidence. Especially if we find the paperwork.”

“Or the bodies.” The officer pointed out.

Frank nodded grimly. “Bee, we’ve opened up one ugly can of worms.”

Frank was just beginning to describe what he’d
found at the Fresh Foods warehouse when we pulled up in front of the Galaxy. After he’d determined Ben wasn’t being held there, he’d opened box after box of produce until he finally found one that had the middles cut out of the apples as Rudy had described. Nothing was inside, but we’d already decided that the rest stops were where the actual items were placed inside or removed.

Patterson’s detectives were in the process of securing a search warrant for the warehouse, hoping to get there before it was too late and that evidence was gone.

A sign outside the door welcomed members of the “Space: 2006” convention and dozens in “I Love Aliens /Welcome to Earth” T-shirts filled the lobby as we weaved our way through the simulated planets, space shuttles and aliens to get to the elevator. I jumped when my arm brushed a fake E.T. I was never going to feel the same way about wax figures again.

The hotel security officer joined us. There were three “Do Not Disturb” signs on doors on the twelfth floor. The maid had said she couldn’t precisely remember which one contained the man in question so the cops had to knock on doors. The first couple were on their honeymoon. Still, on Patterson’s orders, the uniforms searched the suite and returned a little red faced. The second door didn’t answer the knock or the “Security, open up!” Patterson slid the master key in, made me and Frank step back against the hall wall, and he and the uniforms entered, with guns ready.

Nothing happened. Seconds ticked by. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I started to feel lightheaded.

A grim looking Patterson peeked his head around the door frame and motioned us in. “Come tell me if this is your brother, Miss Cooley.”

Uh-oh. I looked at Frank, wide-eyed. Frank was in cop mode, his face unreadable. He cocked his head at the open door and put his arm across my shoulders to lead me there.

The uniforms were standing in the doorway on the other side of the living area, staring in the bedroom. I couldn’t see their faces.

What was I going to tell Mom?

I walked on legs I couldn’t feel to the doorway. The uniforms parted and I looked at the bed. Ben lay there, fish-belly pale under a new beard, thinner than I’d ever seen him, eyes closed. Patterson was holding his wrist and looking at his watch, which I might have thought was a good sign, if I’d been thinking instead of feeling.

“Oh!” I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep from wailing.

Ben’s eyes fluttered open, his pupils dilated. “Bee?”

I ran to the bed and pulled him upright. He was weak and, boy, did he smell. I coughed as I hugged him.

“Is that a new perfume, BeeBee?” he asked in a froggy voice. “It’s nasty.”

I pulled back to look at him. “You’re the nasty one, stupid. I gather you haven’t been showering, or,” I paused to sniff, “using the facilities. And you’ve been drinking.”

Ben’s eyebrows came together. He squinted at the room. “Where the hell are we anyway? And who are these guys?”

I looked over my shoulder at the group. Patterson was on his radio calling in the crime scene techs. Frank was coming out of the bathroom with a prescription bottle half full of blue pills and an almost empty bottle of gin on a plastic tray. “Rohypnol. Roofies with a gin chaser. Bet he’s been out of it since he got here. Conner was probably late to feed him his next dose.”

“Frank, what are you doing here?” Ben demanded, his voice wavering but stronger. “Wherever
here
is.”

I looked at Frank who looked at Ben. They held a silent conversation. Hmm.

“What’s going on? How do you two know each other?” I demanded.

“Ooo, I feel faint.” Ben flopped back of to his pillow, closing his eyes tight.

“Benjamin!” I warned. The wimp was ignoring me. Grr. I turned to Frank, who’d handed the tray to one of the uniforms. “Frank, you’d better start talking.”

“It’s complicated,” Frank said.

“Uh-huh.”

Patterson looked at Frank. “Go ahead and get this straightened out while I get my detectives dispatched and crime scene organized. We’ll need to interview all of you. And paramedics need to check Ben out. They’re on the way. You have until they get here.”

Nodding, Frank sat down next to me on the bed. “A couple pharmaceutical companies have noticed some inexplicable decrease in their stocks of drugs. One of them is the maker of roofies, TruPharm.”