Dixie Diva Blues (32 page)

“Yes. You’re going to put a bag over your head and walk on your knees so no one will notice you. I’m going to be quiet when I hit the jackpot.”

“Right. I love it when you pay attention. Come on. Let’s go.”

When we entered the casino I did my best to appear casual, like any gambler there to try her luck on the machines or at the blackjack table. Now, I’ve never been any good at gambling. For one thing, it takes luck and the only luck I usually have is pretty bad. For another thing, it takes skill and a good memory. I’m out of it on both those counts.

It had been a while since I’d been to a casino, and I stood there staring at a slot machine for a couple minutes trying to figure out where to put in my coins. Bitty had gone straight to the blackjack table. She’d probably win a few thousand in the five or so minutes I figured it would take me to find my prey. I would still be standing there looking at the machine while she raked in her money.

It took me longer than the normal person to figure out that these slot machines no longer took coins, but wanted paper currency. Pay-out is done with a ticket tallying up how much you’ve won. The machine makes all the right noises like a jackpot, but the cups for coins and actual coins appear to be a thing of the past. How modern.

While I calculated my odds of winning a dollar or two in tickets, I surreptitiously glanced around the crowded casino floor. I saw Bitty at a table not too far away from where I stood by the slot machine. As I predicted, she seemed to have won a round. She’s the only person I know who could walk through a forty-acre field crowded with explosive devices and get to the other side without a scratch. The military could certainly use her to chart a course through enemy minefields.

At any rate, after a moment of pretense at playing the slots, I wandered toward the table where Bitty stood. Pit bosses often stand near blackjack tables, and roulette tables, and I’m sure near the serious poker tables. The noise inside the casino was matched only by the amount of cigarette smoke in the air. Both were overpowering.

I wasn’t sure what I would do if I saw my assailant. Part of me quailed at the very thought of confronting him again, and part of me was righteously indignant that he had invaded my personal spaces. The practical part of my brain certainly took precedent over the more indignant part, however, and all I wanted to do was identify him. Jake would take over then, and hopefully, soon bring Pedro Garcia in to face justice. I wasn’t sure how he was mixed up in everything, but from the brief look I’d gotten at the mug shots, I was pretty darn sure he was the man who had broken into my house. I just had to be sure I was right before pointing the finger.

“Do you see him yet?” asked Bitty in a break between winning streaks, and I shook my head.

“Not a sign of him. I’ll wander around some more and see if I can spot him.”

“If you want me to come with you, I can cash out any time,” Bitty said, and I shook my head again.

“No, stay here and win us enough money to pay off the town of Holly Springs for our last debacle.”

“You really are OCD about some things, aren’t you,” said Bitty, who had caused the financial and investigative boondoggle yet seemed to have no memory of her part in it.

“Yes,” I agreed. “I prefer, however, to think of it as being persistent.”

“How quaint,” said Bitty; she tapped her cards and won another round of blackjack as the house went bust. I walked away while I could.

After a half hour and not seeing anyone who looked like Garcia, I went back to the blackjack table for Bitty. No point in hanging around if he wasn’t there, I thought, and we could always come back another time. Maybe Rayna would be back and I could take another look at the mug shots they had of Raymond Walsh and Pedro Garcia. Bitty had moved from where I’d left her, and I looked for her at the next blackjack table. No Bitty.

Drat! We should have stayed together. I moved toward the cashier’s cage to see if she’d gone to cash out her winning tickets, but there was no sign of her there, either. Now where on earth could she have gone in such a short time? I checked the food buffet and the little café, and still no sign of her. I headed for the restrooms near the back.

When I entered, I saw that it was empty. No one appeared to be in the separate stalls. Just to be sure, I called, “Bitty? Are you in here?”

Since there was no answer, I turned to leave, but something caught my eye. Just below one of the stalls, I saw a flicker of movement, like a shadow. I paused. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks. After all, it wasn’t like I hadn’t been through a lot in the past twenty-four hours. I blinked, and when I didn’t see anything move, I shook my head.

“I’m going nuts,” I muttered to myself.

That’s when I heard a muffled sound, then a louder smack, like something had hit the stall wall. My heart rate picked up, and I clutched my purse to me while I fumbled in it for my cell phone. Maybe I didn’t have a gun, but I knew how to dial 911 pretty well by now.

“Is someone in here?” I asked in a shaky voice that sounded like it came from a cartoon character. “Hello?”

Again came the thump, and this time I was certain I saw movement underneath the stall door. I crept toward it, my cell phone primed and ready, my mouth dry and my legs shaky.

“I’m going to open the door,” I said, “so if you’re not having trouble, you should say something before the count of three. One . . . two . . . three!”

I pushed on the stall door and it swung in more easily than I expected, so that my momentum carried me right on into the stall. It’s not a big stall. It holds little more than a toilet and tissue rack. This time, it was already occupied and had even less room than usual. I barely escaped landing on Bitty where she sat on the toilet.

Well, she wasn’t exactly sitting
on
the toilet. She was tied up and gagged with duct tape, and had been stuffed cross-ways so that her feet were against one stall wall and her head against the other. Just her torso touched the actual toilet seat.

While I tried to regain my balance so I wouldn’t cram her into the toilet bowl, she kept trying to talk to me. She thrashed about, kicked her feet as far as she could with her stiletto heels wedged firmly against the wall, and kept saying something that sounded a lot like, “Mine-oo! Mine-oo!”

About the time I figured out that she was trying to say
Behind you
, a man’s voice in my ear made my blood run cold and my eyes nearly bug out of my head.

“Don’t turn around, lady.” He poked something small and hard in the middle of my back as a positive reinforcement. “Lissen up—you got something I want, so I’m gonna give you a chance to get it without anybody gettin’ hurt. You got me?”

I managed to nod and croak some kind of response that he took as assent.

“Don’t get cute and call the cops, neither. I know where you live.”

My gaze fastened on Bitty’s face. Her eyes were a hot, brilliant blue above the silvery colored duct tape, and she looked madder than I’d ever seen her before. She also looked terrified, as I was sure I did.

“I won’t call the cops,” I said when it seemed as if the man behind me wanted a response. He jabbed me again with the point of what I assumed to be a pistol. I had no intention of testing that assumption. “Promise,” I added.

“You better keep that promise, cookie. Now, you know what it is I want, I’ll bet.”

I took a wild guess. “The flash drive from the storage unit?”

“Yeah, along with the password. Now, here’s the deal. Me and little sister here are gonna get better acquainted while you go get me what I want. Then we’ll make a trade. You get her back, and I get the flash drive and password. Got it?”

My mind raced. Leave Bitty with him? I had no intention of doing that if I could figure a way out of it.

“We don’t have it anymore,” I said at last. “I turned it over to the police.”

He grabbed me from behind, one hand squeezing my throat so hard black spots swam in front of my eyes. This wasn’t the same guy who had come to my house. This man was taller than me, and he was strong. Blood rushed in my head and a roaring sound filled my ears before he let go of my throat. He kept me turned so that I couldn’t get a good look at his face, but I was pretty sure he had to be Ray Walsh.

“Then you better get it back from the cops, lady, or your friend here ain’t gonna look so good by the time you find her body.”

“Okay, okay. I was just trying to stall you—I have it. I’ll bring it to you. It’s going to take me a little time to get it and get back here, though. Let Bitty go and we’ll bring it right back to you.”

“Oh no, it ain’t gonna go that way. You’re gonna go get it right now, and you ain’t taking her. You just better answer your phone when I call.”

“But my phone lines are cut,” I started to say, and he jabbed me again.

“I see the cell phone, cupcake. You get me what I want and I’ll turn her loose. And if I see any cops, you won’t ever see your friend here again. Alive, anyway. Got it?”

“Yes. I got it.”

“Good. And for a little insurance, I’m gonna be generous and give you an escort. Just so you aren’t tempted to forget your promise.”

When he stepped back and pulled me out of the stall with him, I wasn’t that surprised to see a shorter man standing back against the wall. He glared at me balefully. Unless it was the new style for Latino men to wear their hair burned to the scalp, he must have been the man who had attacked me the night before.

“I don’t want him to go with me,” I said. “He’s too noticeable. People will see us together and know something is wrong. I don’t have any Latino friends.” I looked over at Garcia and said politely, “Sorry. Nothing personal.”

He shrugged, and the man whom I assumed to be Raymond Walsh said something under his breath. Then he said sharply, “Fine. He can follow you. But don’t try anything cute, because if he doesn’t call me every half hour, Miss High Heels here is going to get a lot shorter—and I don’t mean just her shoes.”

That kind of threat made me queasy, and a glance at Bitty said it didn’t do too much for her, either. Of course, she looked less than comfortable twisted up like a pretzel with her hands tied behind her and her hot pink heels still jammed against the stall wall.

“Will you . . .” I hesitated, then said, “will you at least stand her up? All the blood is going to rush to her head and she’ll pass out if you don’t.”

“She’s coming with me, don’t you worry about her. Just as soon as you two are out of sight, I’m gonna escort her to my private office.” He laughed.

I hoped Bitty had the sense to yell her head off before that happened. I didn’t want to leave her, but I wasn’t being given much of a choice. When I weighed the options of walking up to the first policeman I saw to ask for help, I took into consideration the fact that both men worked for the casino. Would I be believed, or would any rent-a-cop on duty figure that I was just a disgruntled gambler, or even someone caught trying to cheat? My powers of believability had suffered greatly in the past months. By the time I found someone willing to believe me, Walsh could have drowned Bitty in the Mississippi River only a few hundred yards away from the casino parking lots.

So I ended up going out to my car, with Garcia trailing behind me by a few yards. I had so many possibilities racing through my mind that if even one of them had been useful, I doubt I could have implemented it. My hands shook, I felt nauseous, my head hurt, and at any moment I was going to panic and do something stupid. It was a good thing I hadn’t taken time to eat earlier. It would be all over my feet by now.

My cell phone rang before I got out of the parking lot. It was Walsh.

“Just in case you get any bright ideas, lady, I thought I’d let you know that your friend is where no one else can find her. Quickly enough to keep her from drowning, anyway. Get my drift?”

“You’ve drifted too far,” I said sharply. “She better be dry and safe, and you better be ready to release her unharmed. I’ll get you the blasted flash drive, but I don’t know anything about a password. Just keep Bitty comfy until I get back.”

“Who the hell do you think is making the rules here? You’re playing
my
game, and you don’t tell me what to do! You’ve got two hours to get me the password before your friend starts sucking in water instead of air. Be on time.”

There was a loud
click!
in my ear and my cell phone registered that the call had ended. Fear and frustration brought tears to my eyes, and I could hardly see the road as I headed for I-69 East and back toward 78 Highway and Holly Springs.

I had no idea what I was going to do, or who I could confide in that wouldn’t ruin the entire thing and get Bitty drowned. That villainous Walsh would probably tie her to a stake on some isolated sandbar and wait for a non-existent tide to come in. If only there was a handsome hero who’d show up just in time to rescue her, like in every romance novel I’d ever read.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be a temporary shortage of handsome heroes at the moment. Too bad Kit was so far away. He’d fit the role nicely. Then it hit me:

Jackson Lee!
Of course! He’d never do anything to compromise Bitty’s safety, even if he had to skirt the law. Or break the law. Bitty meant everything to him. He’d know what to do next, I just knew he would. Being an attorney, he could always claim client privilege, too.