Deadly Odds (2 page)

None of which mattered right now. For six months she’d been trailing her boss around, trying to build her own reputation as a security specialist in Vegas. Now he was giving her a chance to fly solo.

“Does Samuels think they have a cheat at Fortuna?”

“No. But with this problem on the strip, he’s not taking any chances. He called my boss yesterday. My boss then called me.”

“Still working Sundays, I see. What’s up with John?”

With no husband and kids, working Sundays wasn’t a problem for Kate. At twenty-nine, she’d been in an on-again-off-again-finally-off relationship with a great guy—a Vegas PD homicide detective—who’d make a wonderful father and husband and yet…what?

She didn’t know.

Well, maybe that was a lie. Maybe, deep down, she knew.
Maybe
, deep down she simply wasn’t sure what she wanted and she wasn’t about to ruin both their lives by allowing a marriage to happen.

Still, they hungered for the same things—a quiet life, a ranch where their kids could run around, no city distractions. That was the childhood Kate had experienced and wanted for her children.

When she had children.

Which didn’t seem on the horizon any time soon.

Think about your career.

“That’s over. We finally had to admit it.”

“Sorry. He’s a good man.”

“He is indeed.”

She took one last sip of her water, let the chill chase away the distraction of life as a single woman who spent her evenings cuddled up to client files. She set the glass down, whipped out a twenty for the waitress. “My treat,” she said. “Call it a business expense.”

Still playing her flirty role, she stood then bent low to whisper in his ear. “Good luck, my friend. I’m glad we ran into each other.”

He nodded, his hair brushing against her nose. “Me too. Take care, Kate.”

* * *

Monday morning and Ross Cooper couldn’t think of a better way to start the week than reviewing Casino Fortuna’s extremely healthy profit and loss statement. He propped his feet on the desk and studied the smudge on the toe of his right shoe.

“What the hell?”

He’d just polished the damned things last night. And spending the day walking around with a smudge on his favorite tasseled shoes would drive him batshit. Hell, a smudge on anything would drive him batshit. He liked a sense of order in his life and had long ago given up trying to change his OCD tendencies. At thirty-four, he was old enough to know certain things were part of his DNA.

Drawing his foot up, he used his thumb to wipe the spot. Better, but not perfect. His assistant gave him grief about the shoeshine supplies he kept in his office closet, but these were the times when all that stuff came in handy. Plus, he enjoyed shining his shoes. Something about the repetition, the attention to detail, the focus, relaxed him.

His office door swung open and in walked Don, Fortuna’s V.P. of security. At the sight of Ross rubbing his shoe, the side of Don’s mouth quirked.
This should be good
.

“Whatsa’ matter, kid? You got a scratch on your Versaces?”

Temporarily dismissing the shoeshine idea, Ross sat back again, adjusted his shirtsleeves and gave Don a bored look. “A smudge. And they’re Ferragamos. Did you see the numbers from last week?”

Don, dressed in his usual dark suit with the pocket square he swore made his short, round body appear taller, was one of those old school Vegas guys who’d been around no less than forty years and he, too, liked things done a certain way. A certain way that might get a cheater a few broken bones. Even with their healthy revenue numbers, Don had been extra diligent in getting the word out about Fortuna’s top-notch security. Thus, discouraging those who thought they’d come into the newly opened Fortuna and try to rip them off.

“I saw them.” He hitched his pants up and dropped into one of Ross’s leather guest chairs. The overhead light glinted off his bald head and Ross considered a wisecrack, but opted against it. No sense getting him going first thing Monday morning. Tempting as it was.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Wonder Boy,” Don said. “That asshole of a crossroader working the strip could still make his way out here.”

Out here was Lowville, Nevada, population 1,800, sixty miles outside of Vegas. Don and Ross’s boss, Robert Samuels, the ever-present owner and taskmaster of Dominion Casino Corp., had built Fortuna as a sister casino to Dominion, located on the Vegas strip. Fortuna had opened just weeks ago and Samuels had high hopes for the venture. In short, he was depending on Don and Ross to make it a success.

Ross glanced out the floor-to-ceiling window to the stunning view of the foothills surrounding Lowville. He craved the view of the strip he’d had in his old Vegas office, but something could be said about the tranquil setting beyond his window. “You worry too much.”

“I’m old. And in my line of work there’s plenty to worry about.”

Ross wouldn’t argue either point. When it came to Don and his never-ending opinions, battles needed to be chosen. With Don’s age came knowledge, and the ornery old bastard had taught him plenty about the casino business.

As good as Fortuna’s opening had been, Ross hated being out in the boonies, away from the glitz and action of the strip. But here he was, helping his boss create a three-billion-dollar premier hotel-casino catering exclusively to the highest of the high rollers. Fortuna covered over two hundred acres and had been built with the finest marble, wood and crystal Samuels’ money could buy. If a gambler didn’t have a
minimum
twenty-grand to drop at each sitting, Fortuna wasn’t interested. Not if they planned on hitting their $3 million dollar per day revenue goals.

And, way out here in a resort surrounded by mesas and foothills and state parks, distractions other than the ones Fortuna provided were limited.

Abandoning the landscape outside his window, Ross got to his feet and took in his other favorite view—the casino floor. Right below him was where it all happened. Even on a Monday morning the high rollers threw their dice, placed their chips and smacked buttons on the slots. Slowly, Ross scanned the tables, not really focused on one thing, but making sure anyone who looked up would see him watching. Always watching.

“Is Dominion’s revenue still down?” Ross asked.

“Only mini-bac. Samuels is shitting elephants.”

“He should be. My buddy at the PD said whoever this cheat is, he’s good. Three casinos are down a total of fifteen million. And they can’t catch him.”

Don waved that off. “They don’t have me, Wonder Boy. With the cash coming through this place he—or she because it could be a broad screwing these casinos—won’t be able to resist coming out here. And when they do, I’ll be waiting. I’ll take their goddamn fingers off.”

And therein lay the difference between Ross and Don.
Casino
magazine may have featured Ross’s face on their cover, but it wasn’t because he’d dealt with a cheat the old fashioned way. They loved his ability to give the gaming industry respectability. That was him, Ross Cooper, the young genius who managed a casino like a Fortune 500 company. He could run numbers, figure profits and losses to the penny, manage cash drops, and develop marketing strategies.

But he needed a whacked-out geezer like Don Sickler to scare the hell out of the cheats.

Together, he and Don were unbeatable.

The crow’s feet around Don’s eyes deepened as he squinted. “What is it, bubbie? You miss Vegas? Nobody here to admire your Ferragamos? Has it been three hours since you got laid?”

Total ball breaker, this guy. But speaking of women…

Ross stopped his scan of the casino when he got to the stunning redhead sitting at blackjack. Table eight.

Bam.
She had his attention.

And it wasn’t just her long, wavy hair or her creamy fair skin. Something in her body language, the tilt of her head…something.

Something not good.

He spun back to his computer, tapped a few keys and brought the video feed up on the bank of monitors lining his wall.

“Redhead,” he said. “Table eight.”

He zoomed in on the table. And the woman. Don rose and walked to the wall, studying the live feed as the dealer shuffled and the redhead’s luscious hair draped over her shoulder. Damn, she was gorgeous.

“She’s watching the dealer,” Don said.

“Yeah.”

As the dealer shuffled, Ross tightened the zoom. The woman turned her head, took in the pit area, the other tables, her eyes shifting, moving, studying, all of it happening but not obvious. If he hadn’t had the zoom so tight, he’d never have seen it.

She’s good.

Then she looked straight ahead at something beyond the pit and she straightened up.

“Whoa,” Ross said. “She saw something she didn’t like.”

Seconds before the dealer started the hand, she cashed out. That fast.

Ross tapped a few more keys. “Let’s see who she is.”

Nothing. No player information for position three, table eight. She must have declined a players’ card.

“We got zip,” Ross said. He spun back to the glass wall overlooking the casino floor, watched the lovely redhead slide from her seat, her trim figure drawing his gaze down to where the fitted dress hugged her lean hips and perfect ass
.
And the legs? Jesus. Even under the dress, he saw they went for a mile.

Trouble.

“Let’s keep an eye on her,” Ross said.

But Don was already on it, texting—yeah, the old man knew how to text—and most likely giving orders for a full report on the redhead.

She disappeared into the lounge, out of Ross’s sight, which was too damned bad, but Don would take it from here. His area anyway.

He spun away from the glass. “Is there something you wanted when you came in here? Or are you just generally breaking balls?”

Don shrugged. “Just generally breaking balls.”

“Perfect.” Ross took his seat again. “Since you’re here, let’s review the security plan for that kid—the reality star—coming in on Friday. Apparently, he has a monkey.”

“I heard about that. No fucking monkeys on the floor. I’ll set up a cage somewhere.”

“That’s what I told his manager. If nothing else, he’ll bring his loaded friends with him. Give me all the grief you want about being a Wharton guy, but I know how to get the twenty-five-year-olds from behind their computers and into a casino.”

“Yeah, even if you are stuck in Bumfuck, Nevada.”

“You had to remind me?”

Chapter Two

Forty minutes.

That’s how long Kate had until her meeting with the Fortuna folks. Being a decent blackjack player, she could get a lot done in forty minutes. Might as well attempt a little something. See how good Cooper and Sickler really were.

Considering their boss knew she planned to test his security by cheating. If she were any good at her job, she wouldn’t get caught. Too bad for Cooper and Sickler, but for her? Pulling that off would solidify her reason to be here.

She snagged the lone open seat one table over from the last table she’d visited. Next to her a middle-aged man with a beer belly looked her up and down.

Great.

“Ma’am.” The dealer nodded a greeting and Kate set her stack of chips on the table.

Ten thousand dollars of her boss’s money. She pulled her hand away, allowing the surveillance cameras full access to the exchange, and the dealer called out to the pit boss. All money and chips needed to be set on the table before the dealers could touch them. No direct exchanges. The cameras had to see everything.

“Barneys please,” she said.

The dealer counted her chips, restacking as he went, then counted out the five hundred dollar chips Kate had requested for betting.

She glanced up and—
oh, my
—approaching from the opposite aisle was a tall man with black hair and a face so perfectly chiseled she doubted the world’s best plastic surgeons, even the ones visited by the folks in this place, could recreate it. Dressed in a tailored suit, he was fit and broad shouldered, his stride confident in that commanding way only a lucky few possessed.

That’s him.

Prior to coming to Fortuna, Kate had done a quick internet search on Ross Cooper and had found a wealth of photos. When it came to the social aspects of a bachelor in Vegas, the man was no homebody.

From a quick glance, Mr. Cooper’s expensive clothes and flawless grooming spoke volumes about his life. One that included flashy women, fast cars and a jet-set lifestyle. So not her style, but she could see it on him. A man like him stripped a woman naked with barely a smile.

At least that’s what the internet had said.

Kate pulled her gaze from Cooper and his extremely compelling presence. How could it be humanly possible for the man to be better looking than the images in all those photos?

He strode by the two roulette tables at the end of the row, scanning the area as he walked.

The dealer slapped a card in front of her and the red jack nearly spat at her—busted.
Damn it
. She didn’t exactly have unlimited funds for this assignment, and those funds would go fast. Call it research, but each time she entered a potential client’s casino, the first thing she did was sit at the tables and play. She liked to quietly observe the normal day-to-day activity, watch the dealers, the pit bosses and, of course, the other players. All of it gave her valuable background info before her arrival was announced and everything got buttoned-up.