Lucky Break (19 page)

Miss P shouldered her way into the conversation, tucking a protective arm around my waist.
 
“Let her go.
 
I was here.
 
I can tell you all you need to know.”

“Between you and Kimberly, you guys saw it all.”

“Kimberly?”
 
Romeo asked, pulling his notepad out of his pocket, poising his pencil over a clean page.

“Yeah.
 
She’s right here.
 
She’s the one who told us about the shooter.”
 
I scanned the room.

Kimberly Cho was gone.

Raising my phone to my mouth, I pushed to talk.
 
“Jerry.
 
A young woman.”
 
I described her, Miss P weighing in on her clothing.
 
I never noticed that kind of thing.
 
“She alerted us to the shooter, led us here.
 
And now she’s gone.
 
Find her.”
 
I felt Romeo’s eyes boring holes.
 
As I talked, I looked around the room.
 
Everyone looked a bit confused, shell-shocked as they cooperated with my staff.
 
Everyone except one, the man my father had been talking with.
 
Arms crossed, head down, he glowered.
 

I shrugged away from Romeo.
 
As I talked, I worked my way across the room, my eyes on the last man to speak with my father.
 
Images, panic washed over me.
 
My father turning, falling.
 
I pushed the horror aside and tried to focus.

A man stepped into my path with his hand outstretched, stopping me.
 
His size and the murderous look on his face would’ve been enough.
 
“You can’t talk with him.”

Romeo, lurking behind me, flashed his badge.
 
“Maybe she can’t, but I damn well can.”

“No, sir.”
 
The man-mountain shook his leonine head.
 
“He doesn’t have to talk to anybody—not until you’re cleared through diplomatic channels.”

Romeo glanced at me.
 
I shrugged at his silent question.
 
“Diplomatic channels?” he asked.

“Mr. Cho is a diplomatic attaché for the Chinese government.”

“And he’s in Vegas, why?”
 
I said, preempting Romeo.

“To protect China’s gaming interests.”
 
The man glanced over his shoulder.
 
“But that’s all I can say.
 
It’s common knowledge.”

I could quibble—nobody had told me about a diplomat in the house, and that normally would be my responsibility.
 
I’d love to know exactly why he was here and an answer to the larger question: why was he flying under the radar?
 
If I hadn’t been alerted, then nobody had been.

Curious.
 
Cho was a common name in China, but the coincidence was too obvious to ignore.
 
Mr. Cho.
 
Kimberly Cho.

I needed to find that girl.
 
So many questions.

Kimberly had recognized the shooter at the party and then again today.
 
Was the shooter somehow connected to Mr. Chinese Big Shot?
 
Were the three of them connected?
 
If the diplomat, Mr. Cho, was the shooter’s puppeteer, then there wasn’t a law in the Universe that would stop me.

Maybe I couldn’t save my father, but I sure as hell could kill whoever shot him.

I hated hospitals.
 
The smell alone unsettled my stomach, already tightened by fear.
 
No matter how much Pine Sol, the stench of death and fear permeated the air.
 
A protective disinterest dulled the staff’s smiles.
 
Hope and magic were my daily companions; death and despair, punctured by a few moments of joy, were theirs.
 
Working here would shave my soul to nothing.
 

UMC, University Medical Center, was the best in Vegas at dealing with medical emergencies.
 
That didn’t make me happy to be here.

In fact, right now, I wanted to be anywhere else, worrying about anything else.
 
A murder, even.
 
That I could fix.
 
This?
 
Not so much.
 
And if there’s anything I hate, it’s feeling helpless and powerless.
 

My only companion in the surgical waiting area was a young man with one tennis shoe, a misbuttoned shirt, and no belt to hold up pants that were at least three sizes too big.
 
Lounging in a molded chair, his legs outstretched, he’d fallen asleep or passed out, his fist pressed to his face the only thing keeping him semi-upright.
 

Thankfully, the television hanging high in the corner was silent, its screen dark.
 
To me, good television was an oxymoron, excepting the first four seasons of
West Wing
, of course.
 

Five cups of bad coffee had my nerves jangling and my teeth on edge when Mona rushed into the room.
 
Her hair a mess, her face swollen with worry, her eyes brimming with unspent tears.
 
In a pair of yoga pants and a tunic top, with ballet slippers, she lost her momentum when she stepped through the doors.
 
When she caught sight of me, she wavered.
 
I rushed to her.
 
As her knees buckled, I caught her, easing her into a chair.

She held onto me tightly for a bit, until her composure resettled.
 
Easing away, she curled back into the chair.
 
“My God, Lucky!
 
What happened?”
 
She rooted in her bag for a tissue.

I handed her one of mine.
 
“He was shot.”
 
Images raced through my head—my father falling, blood, everywhere blood, his pale face, no response.
 
I squeezed my eyes shut, but I couldn’t make them go away.
 
I held up my hands, the blood long ago washed away, the stain remaining, a bad Shakespearean joke.
 
A desperate need for revenge kept me from falling apart.
 
“He’s in surgery.
 
They said he’d lost a lot of blood.”

“His heart,” Mona whispered.
 
The Big Boss had almost died of a heart condition a few months ago.
 
Teddie had been there to hold me, to help both Mona and me through it.
 
Now we were all fighting for our lives, literally, metaphorically, and figuratively.
 
While the outcome might be different for each, the pain was the same.
 

The world could turn on a dime.
 
One of the Big Boss’s favorite sayings.
 
Funny how it was his life that took that turn, holding the future hostage.
 

“They know about his heart.
 
Dr. Knapp is here.
 
He’s monitoring everything.
 
Says the surgeon is the best.”

Mona dabbed at her eyes.
 
“The babies. They can’t grow up without a father.”

“The babies?
 
Hell, I can’t grow up without my father either.”
 
I lowered myself into the chair next to hers and took her hand in mine.
 
Her skin, pale and blue, cold to the touch. I lightly brushed at a dusting of Baby Powder on her cheek then, tucked a wayward tendril behind her ear.
 
“He has a lot to live for.
 
You know what a scrapper he is.”

Jean-Charles pushed through the door, his face tense.
 
A quick scan of the waiting room, then his eyes settled on me.
 
His tension easing, he strode toward me. I rose, stepping into his hug.
 
As he held me, I breathed him in.
 
My world righted.
 
Oh, I still wanted to be left in the desert someplace remote with the killer, a weapon, no witnesses, and a shovel, but it didn’t have to be now.
 
Tomorrow would do.

“And you are okay?”
 
Jean-Charles spoke softly as he stroked my hair and held me close.
 
Our bodies pressed together, his heat warming the cold snaking through my gut.
 

I could feel him shaking.
 
“Better now.”

“Your father?”
 
His voice broke.
 
He cleared his throat.
 

“No word yet.”

“Hospitals, they are not good,
non?
”

“No, not good.
 
But sometimes necessary.”
 
I raised my head off his shoulder and pressed my cheek to his.
 
“Where is Christophe?”

“I am late to see you because I had to take him home.
 
I could not bear to see him in a place like this.
 
So much loss, it breaks the heart.”
 
His pain, though diminished by time, still vibrated under the surface.
 
“You never forget.
 
You find a way to live again, but it is there always.”

“Of course.”

He hugged me tight again.
 
And yes, he was shivering.
 
This was hard.
 
Harder than he let on.
 
“I could not lose like that again.”

“Life, we don’t call the shots.”

“I do.
 
As best I can.”

I didn’t want to tell him that was a recipe for heartbreak.
 
The illusion of control could set you up for an even bigger fall.
 
I should know.
 
I’m the poster child for major crashes.

“What have the doctors said?” he asked, his face pale, his eyes haunted as if reliving his past.
 
His wife.
 
Death.

“They rushed my father into surgery.
 
A nurse stepped out a bit ago and told me it would be awhile.
 
And even after the surgeons are done, Father will be in recovery for a good bit.
 
While they bring him back, she didn’t think we’d be allowed to see him, but I’m not sure.”

He included Mona in his look.
 
“You both should let me take you home.”

Mona shook her head.
 
“No, I will be here when he wakes up.”

Home.
 
I so wanted to go home, to go back in time and start this day all over again.
 
No, yesterday.
 
If I could do it over.
 
Maybe, just maybe, it would be different.
 
“If I’d just listened to him.”

“To whom?
 
Theodore?”

“My father.
 
He told me Irv Gittings would come after me … that I could’ve handled.”

“But you don’t know.”

“Oh, this has Ol’ Irv’s fingerprints all over it,” Mona joined the conversation, her voice lethal.
 

I’d forgotten about her.
 
Something that, before now, I’d thought impossible.
 
She was like a rabid dog, able to kill with a small bite.
 
That got me thinking.

She wilted under my stare.
 
“What?”

“You and me.
 
We got a murderer to put back in jail.”

“Really?”
 
She brightened a touch, the flush of revenge pinking her pale cheeks.
 

“You’re going to be my secret weapon.” She looked like the governor had commuted her sentence one second before midnight, which made me feel bad.
 
We used to be the Two Musketeers.
 
Adulthood … mine … had gotten in the way.
 
Not a proud moment.