Hold ’Em Hostage (11 page)

“Where is Shana?” he demanded, bursting from the room.

“Last I heard she was playing in a small tournament at the Egyptian. Don't worry, although I don't know why you should. Ingrid is with her. If Ingrid could say no to sleeping with you, I feel confident she could effectively repel the worst kind of terrorist and keep Shana safe.”

Ben responded with a glare as he punched a number into his phone.

“Who are you calling?”

“None of your business.”

I'm sure that wasn't true, but I was tired of that game. I helped myself to a Perrier as Ben snuck into the bathroom to make the call. It gave me the opportunity to watch Frank and wonder why I wasn't wary about the man I thought I loved. Yes, I admitted as I watched him grind his jaw at something the caller said, watched his biceps flex and his mouth harden into a thin line, the fact that Frank Gilbert could kill wouldn't surprise me. The way it had been described did. That Frank Gilbert could leave a wife didn't surprise me. That it was because she was a cripple did. I had to remind myself I'd been stupid before about men, most especially about silly, shallow Toby whom I'd come dangerously close to marrying, so perhaps trusting my instincts wasn't the best option.

Frank turned to me, his face softening, as he slid the cell phone into the back pocket of his snug-in-the-right-places Levi's.

It would have been comfortable to share my evening with him. It would have been fair (and probably smart) to give him a chance to share his evening with me and ease into my meeting with his old nemesis.

“Frank, do you know a man named Rudy Serrano?”

He didn't have to answer. The look on his face said it all.

“T
his was here when I got back,” Frank said, motioning
to a paper on the coffee table as he turned his back on me. I studied him for a moment, great stone man (was he breathing?), then looked at what he'd pointed to.

“Don't touch it,” Frank said. “I'm sending it to one of my techs after you see it.”

“Aren't you going to answer my question?” I demanded as I looked down and gasped.

The note had been written on regular copy paper in alternating red and yellow ink. The “o” in love was shaped like a heart.

“Isn't that kind of immature for a teenager—to write in colors like that?”

“It would be for Affie,” I answered, thinking.

“It's probably a fake then.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I snapped.

“You have to be realistic, Honey Bee.” Frank's voice softened. “Affie may be gone. We have to accept that possibility and not put you in danger for nothing. Part of any effective investigation is realizing all options. That is the only way to find the truth.”

“But, that
is
her handwriting. The colors, because they are out of character, have to mean something. She is sending me a clue, I just need to figure out what it is.” I paused, then added, “Don't kill my goddaughter yet, Frank.”

Frank paled, glared and said: “Bee, that's not fair.”

“None of this is fair, Frank,” I said, suddenly tired. “Especially the fact that you won't answer my question.”

Frank turned, met my gaze, and I felt the pain in his face burn through me like a blowtorch. I steeled myself against it as he said quietly, “I know Serrano. I don't know what you know about him or why.”

“I know the story of you and Monica.”

Frank's jaw tightened. He broke eye contact and I felt suddenly bereft, as he stated flatly, “You know his side of the story. In time, you'll know mine.”

“If I still have time to hear it by the time it gets told,” I answered, willing myself to stay strong, turn around and not find those hypnotic coffee-colored eyes again.

The knock at the door surprised both of us. Frank looked through the peephole, threw the deadbolt and let Joe in. He looked at me and Frank and back again. “Is everything okay?”

I waited to let Frank answer and wondered how much history Joe and Frank shared. Did Joe know Serrano? Did Joe know Monica and the kids? Not that Joe would tell me. He was, as far as I could tell, dead loyal to Frank. He'd do anything for me but rat out the boss, I'd guess. Still, I'd try, later. I'm hardheaded that way.

“Bee just saw the note,” Frank explained, although, of course, that only accounted for half the discord in the room. Joe accepted that with a nod, although I think he would have treated a nonsensical response like “Billy goats eat rainbows” equally if Frank had said it.

The two of them donned some surgical gloves that Joe plucked from his back pocket and loaded the note into a plastic lab bag. Frank filled out some paperwork as some synapse in my brain made sense of Affie's color scheme. “Red and yellow—catch a fellow,” I murmured, remembering all the times we'd chanted it from first grade to last week.

Joe and Frank shared a quizzical glance then looked at me. “And that means?”

“That's what Affie and I used to say that when she would like a boy. I would tease her to catch a guy you have to wear red and yellow.”

“It may just be a coincidence,” Frank cautioned.

“But what kind of guy would she be catching while she's kidnapped? Or is it who I should be catching?”

“I'd think you already have your guy,” Frank put in, sticking out his lower lip.

I wasn't going to justify his pout. “She must mean it a different way. Police catch criminals. Maybe it's the criminal I'm looking to catch.”

“Big clue since eighty percent of criminals are men.”

“There's got to be more to it. I'll figure it out.”

“Or maybe it's coincidence, she's bored and that's all she had to write with.”

“Maybe,” I allowed, just to keep Frank quiet.

Ben emerged from the bathroom, brooding again. Joe used his reappearance as an opening to retreat and take the note to the lab. He and Frank huddled at the door for a moment before Joe waved and departed.

“Has anyone heard from Jack?” I asked.

“Jack is undercover, under something,” Frank said, shooting me a non sequitur questioning glance I wasn't about to answer. “We'll hear from him when he can communicate.”

I knew he was right, but I still worried. I could be the poster child for Guilt-R-Me. The door opened again and in walked Shana and Ingrid. Frank leaned in to me, sliding a loose tendril of my hair behind my right ear. “The revolving-door atmosphere of this suite is wearing on my nerves.”

“Go stay in your own suite then,” I advised.

He raised his eyebrows, then jogged them up and down.

I shook my head.

Frank sighed and turned to the women. “How did your tournament go?”

Ingrid yawned. She didn't play poker. She shopped and shot people and created websites and looked unrealistically gorgeous.

Shana shrugged. “I won about twenty-seven hundred. I used it to hire a medium to find Affie.”

“What?” Ben and Frank and I blurted simultaneously.

Shana looked at all of us. “You all are wearing out the evidence angle. I can't add any expertise there. You send me off—out of sight—so I can't get in your way with all my tears and emotion. So, I thought I would cover an angle none of you would think of, so I took my winnings and hired Moon to feel what she can of Affie.”

We all turned to Ingrid. She was on the couch, perfect knee (an oxymoron for every woman in the world but Ingrid, trust me) crossed over perfect knee, flipping through the latest
Time
. Finally, she realized all eyes were on her. She looked up, blinked, cocked her head and shrugged. “She seems to know her stuff.”

“What?” Ben yelled. “What? The medium knows her
what
? Alignment of the stars, ghost talk and crystals? How is that going to help Aphrodite?”

Shana stuck out her lower lip. Bad sign of a Filipino meltdown. I cringed.

“I am helping
my
daughter the only way I can, right now,” she raged, flipping her sheet of dark hair around a petite doll-like face twisted in frustration, talking with her neon pink fingernails, stomping with her size five and a half stacked heels. “And anyone who doesn't like it can just give up, because I'm willing to do whatever it takes to find Aph. I'll sell my soul to the devil to do it, if I could find his cell number. I'd sell my body to the highest bidder if it got my baby back.”

“Shana! You can't mean that,” Ben cautioned sharply. His handsome face was twisted and red. What? That was more shocking than the psychic hiring.

When did he become such a prude?!

Shana stuck a fist on her hip. “You wanna bet?” They began a staring contest.

“You know,” Frank cut in when the silence became uncomfortable. “Cops use psychics. I've heard claims that they have actually aided an investigation. But I have to warn you, Shana, it can be a big waste of time, money, energy and hope as well.”

“When is hope ever wasted?” I argued.

“When it is placed on a lost cause,” Frank answered.

“This is a lost cause?”

“No, on the contrary. I just want everyone to stay realistic. Use the psychic's information to support the evidence. Follow what she suggests only if it makes sense.”

“Sense to whom? Who's playing God in all of this?” I demanded.

“I guess we'll all just have to walk hand in hand with our hearts and minds,” Frank finally said, piercing me with a hot look. “And make our decisions with influence from both.”

I knew that cost him. He was a total mind man. He was compromising—willing to use his heart on Affie if I'd use mine on him? Or maybe he was just hoping I would use more mind on him than I normally would since heart usually wasn't in question with me. Hmm. Affie was worth the bargain.

“I guess we will, then,” I said softly, wrapping my arms around Shana and leading her to the bedroom. “Hearts and minds and the supernatural. Maybe it will combine to find a scared little teenager.”

You know, if it weren't made up of letters cut out of a newspaper and slipped under our door, I'd have thought the note was written by she who dubbed herself my fashionista/ imagista—Ingrid—trying to give me some PR pointers. Instead I realized it was Aph's captors, giving me my orders.

I'd put on some coffee before the paper on the floor caught my gaze. Now the smell of java brewing made my knees weak. Pouring a cup, I studied the note, remembering belatedly only to handle it at the corners so Frank's lab could get any possible fingerprints. It sounded like a pep talk not a kidnapper's demand. I just didn't get it. Why would they be forcing me to do something I had intended to do all along—except maybe talk to reporters?

I turned on CNN, kept the volume low since I seemed to be the only one awake and sipped my coffee. I needed to think about Affie and ways to find her, but heaven help me, all I could think about was Frank, and his ex-wife, and the men he killed. I couldn't wait to get back to the WSOP to quiz Serrano with all the things I'd been too brain-frozen to ask the night before. As I paced behind the wet bar, I glanced at the TV. The news anchor had a WSOP emblem graphic by her head as she introduced the next news story. I hurried over to the set.

“…a bit of controversy was stirred up at the largest poker tournament in history—the World Series of Poker 2008, being held in Las Vegas this week.” The camera switched to video of the protestors outside the Fortune. “A band of religious followers of the Church of the Believers picketed in front of the hotel hosting the event that has attracted more than eleven thousand entrants to the most popular card game in the world—Texas Hold 'Em.” Up popped Phineas Paul. “Sins and devils who promote them will steal our children away to darkness!”

Ack. That scared even me, and I was the evildoer he was talking about! Then, as if conjured, up I popped on the screen. “I certainly respect Mr. Paul's right to free speech.”

Hmm. Not a bad sound bite but my voice sounded a bit twangy and the fuschia shorts had to go.

The landline on the coffee table rang. I jumped, then plucked it up quickly. “Keep it up,” the androgynous voice said through the receiver, followed by a dial tone.

I swallowed hard and slowly replaced the receiver. I changed the channel and saw Fox was showing the same story. I switched again to local news and they were just finishing playing the same sound bite.

I suddenly felt so alone and vulnerable, I considered waking Frank.

The anchorwoman had moved on to the next story and I only half listened as I stood, walking toward the opposite bedroom door. “…a middle-aged man found dead in an alley behind the Fortune.”

I knocked on the door and waited and the anchorwoman chattered on, “…thought to have died of a knife wound or wounds…”

Ben yanked the door open, glaring. “What?”

“Wake Frank,” I glared back, savoring a sip of coffee just to irritate him.

“Frank's not here,” Ben snapped back. He slammed the door and added behind it, “He never went to bed.”

Annie Anchor sounded way too chipper as she explained, “…not yet releasing his name, they say that he is a resident of Los Angeles, California, and a former police detective.”

My heart seized. I gasped.

A click sounded outside the front door. A second later, in walked Frank. I ran to him and gathered him in a hug. He kissed the top of my head. “Wow, I should go out all night more often.”

Then I got mad. “Where have you been?”