Amy looked at the report on the Sokolov family finances one last time and then slammed the lid down on her laptop. “There’s got to be a way in to the financial paper trail,” she said to Six, who was still staring at the copy on his own computer.
“Working on it,” he said, rolling his neck from left to right.
They’d been at it for most of the day. Mac was in the corner with Lite working on a plan to set up better tracking of Sokolov. Cabe was poring over schematics of the casino.
When her phone rang, she reached for it, but then realized it wasn’t her work phone ringing. It was her burner. “Quiet!” she shouted, and the room fell silent.
Six stood and walked to the door, she assumed to keep anyone from running in.
She grabbed the phone on the fourth ring. “Hello,” she answered calmly, if not a little flightily. That was the persona she’d created. A voice a couple of notes higher than normal, a tone that sounded just a fraction away from laughter.
“Amy, it’s Johnnie Ortega. Do you have a couple of minutes?”
Amy grinned. This time it wasn’t part of the act. She was certain from the tone of his voice that she knew what he was going to say, but she played along. “Sure thing, Mr. Ortega. What can I help you with?” She could feel Cabe’s eyes on her and she gave in to the urge to turn and look at him. The anticipation in the room was palpable.
“The job is yours, if you want it. Forty hours over five shifts. Salary at the rate we discussed. I brought in cover for this weekend, but I’d love for you to start on Monday if you can. The casino is a little quieter Monday through Wednesday, so it’ll be easier for you to get the lay of the land before the crowds rush in at the weekend.”
For a moment, she thought about offering to come in sooner and making a counter-argument against delaying, but deep down she knew the best thing to do was accept the conditions he’d laid down and use the rest of the time preparing. “Thank you, Mr. Ortega. You’ve made my day.”
She spent a couple of more moments on the phone clarifying the details of her shift, how and when she’d get paid, and when she should swing by to collect her uniform. And of course, she spent a few minutes gushing to Johnnie Ortega about how pleased she was, and how excited she was, and yes, how grateful she was.
When she finally hung up the phone, there was a momentary silence, and then a whoop came from behind her as Six patted her on the back. “Nice work, Murray.”
Cabe held her gaze and grinned. “You did good. Really good. We should celebrate with something better than this tepid coffee,” he said, lifting his cup up in the air.
“I have Scotch in my drawer,” Six said. “Just one shot though, given we’re all driving later.” He walked past them to, she assumed, go get it … and hopefully some cups too, because there was no way she was doing that swig-from-the-bottle-and-then-wipe-it-on-your-sleeve thing.
Her stomach flip-flopped as excitement and nervous adrenaline began to build.
She was in.
It was a big deal. A huge freaking deal.
“When do you start?” Cabe asked. “We should refine our plans based on that. Figure out which G-men will be joining us.”
Amy snapped out of her excitement and focused. “Monday. I’ll call Cunningham.” His use of the slang term for an FBI agent—Government Man—told her Cabe wasn’t happy with the additional FBI support in the casino. Only this morning, she’d overheard Cabe point out to her boss that the men who had sat in the room with them on the first day had an abject lack of poker face. Cabe had pushed to have his own team there, but in the silence that followed, she was certain that Cunningham had reminded Cabe it was a joint op and had refused to budge.
The sound of a cell phone ringing cut through the conference room. This time Cabe reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, grinning when he looked at the screen before answering it. “What’s up, Noah?”
Noah. Wasn’t that his brother? The one with SDPD?
It had been two days since Cabe had asked his brother for help in finding Eve Canallis. She had begun to regret the decision to rely on the police and not go straight to the FBI. Hopefully he had news.
Six walked back into the room with a bottle of whiskey, some red plastic cups, and a large white cake box. Her stomach grumbled at the sight of it, but she was distracted by Cabe flipping his laptop open.
“Mmm-hmm.” Cabe said. “How long ago was that?”
There was another pause, long enough for Six to open the cake box and pull out a platter with different types of cake on it. He waved a fork in her direction. She looked over at Cabe one last time as he continued to study whatever was on the screen. He ran his fingers along his jaw. “Did you check it out yet?”
“What is this?” she asked Six quietly, knowing that Cabe would fill her in once he was done.
“Wedding cake. Me and Lou are getting married in two months, and we need to pick a cake. Now you’re part of the team, you can give me your opinion.”
Amy took a piece of a vanilla sponge cake. It burst with lemon icing when she popped it in her mouth. “That’s so good,” she mumbled, pointing her fork in the direction of the cake she’d tried. “But shouldn’t Lou be part of this process?”
“Long story. I have the least-weddingy wife-to-be. If there is an opposite of bridezilla, that’s Lou.” Six actually looked proud of that. “She’s a genius in a medical laboratory but needs … well … she has an issue being around people.”
“Except you?”
Six laughed. “Yeah. Except me. She’s taking care of her dress. I’m taking care of everything else. And as long as I get to be married to her for the rest of our lives, it feels like a fair fucking deal to me.”
Cabe stood and walked toward them. “Yeah, okay. No, this is great. Thanks.… Definitely. Bye.” He hung up the phone and then faced her. “Is eating cake part of the job description now?” Cabe teased.
She couldn’t help smiling at his playfulness. “If it’s not, we should make it a part of it,” she replied.
He grabbed a fork and dove straight into the red velvet cake. “This one for sure,” he said to Six.
Six grinned. “Always the red velvet.”
“Don’t mess with perfection,” Cabe said.
“You know, Amy,” Six said, “Cabe was the only kid who had a tiered red velvet cake for his birthday every year.”
Amy tried a bit of the red velvet, and it was divine, melting perfectly against her tongue. “That seems a bit overkill, but this is good. How did you know you were going to like this cake best?”
Cabe reached over and turned the box around so she could see the name of the side—Moss Patisserie. She looked straight at him. “A family member, I’m guessing.”
“His mom,” Six said. “She cried when I picked up the samples earlier, by the way.”
Cabe grinned. “Of course she did. You and Mac are as much her sons as I am.”
Amy helped herself to a forkful of chocolate cake. “How long have you guys known each other?” she asked before popping the cake in her mouth. She had to stop herself from groaning. It was perfectly chocolate, but not sickly sweet.
“Since kindergarten. Earlier really, as we all grew up close to each other,” Cabe answered. “Our moms were and still are friends.”
Her heart warmed at the idea of these lifelong friends still being so close. It must have been such big deal for Cabe’s mom to be asked by Six to make his wedding cake. “I think they all taste good, but I like the chocolate best.”
“Even if I order a six-tier chocolate cake, his mom will still send a little red velvet cake on the side for her boy,” Six said, his voice turning babyish toward the end.
“Fuck off,” Cabe said good-naturedly. “Although he’s right. She will.”
“Did I miss the cake?” Mac said, crashing into the room. “Did she send my favorite?”
Cabe caught Amy’s eye and grinned. “The chocolate, like you,” he said, pointing to the side of her mouth. “You have some there.” Before either of them realized, he’d reached across and rubbed the pad of his thumb along the side of her lips.
It was such a cliché to feel like time had stopped, but she could have sworn it had.
She was going to combust.
And Mac was staring.
Cabe moved his hand quickly and busied himself getting more red velvet cake. “Turns out you have the best instincts. Eve Canallis disappeared. The SDPD went over to her apartment. To get her neighbors to talk, the detectives made up a story that Eve’s identity had been stolen online.”
“I like it,” Amy said. It was a short and simple lie. Stolen identity was something everyone needed to worry about.
“They told everyone on the block where she lived that they needed to talk to her urgently or she might lose everything. At first, nothing bubbled to the surface, not a whisper. But they got the landlord to let them into her rental, which had been pseudo-emptied. The majority of her clothes were gone, some books, her car and keys.”
“Damn. So, she’s a ghost, just like the others?” Disappointment rushed through her.
Cabe shook his head. “No. She left behind her laptop. She’d given it to a friend who lived two floors away. Told him she was having some problems with it, and the guy is a tech geek. She was supposed to pick it up from him on Tuesday but never showed.
“She didn’t just run.” The disappointment evaporated as quickly as it had come.
“No, she didn’t,” Cabe said. “And Noah has her laptop.”
* * *
“When you said you had all this covered, I guess I should have believed you,” Cabe said as the gold limousine whisked them from McCarran Airport the following day. Crystal decanters sat in custom-built cabinetry, and if this had been a vacation, he’d have been tempted to pour himself a couple of fingers of whiskey and sit back and enjoy the ride. Instead, he was focused on the woman who sat opposite him.
She wore red a lot, he’d noticed. This time a fitted dress the color of ripe cherries with a low V-neck that revealed a tantalizing glimpse of her cleavage. He should know. They’d sat next to each other on the plane. On her feet were nude heels that made her legs look as though they went on for days and revealed toenails that matched her dress. On the plane, she’d worn a fitted denim jacket with the cuffs turned up, but it was now slung over her large cream purse on the seat next to her.
Amy looked as if she belonged in the limo, in this lifestyle to which she was obviously accustomed. She grinned at him. “You haven’t seen anything yet. When I told Uncle Clive we were coming, he got so excited. Normally when I go home, I stay with my dad. He was beside himself when I said we were coming into town and needed hotel rooms.”
The sun had long since dropped below the horizon, and the bright lights of the Strip began to come into view.
“You never mention your mom. Is there a reason for that and can I ask why?” Cabe asked.
Amy sighed and smiled sadly. “My mom went missing when I was ten years old.” She ran a fingertip along the edge of the window. “She decided we needed more eggnog, which we didn’t, because a week after she’d gone, when my Dad emptied the fridge, we had four liters, and who needs four liters of eggnog?”
Suddenly, so much about Amy made sense. Her commitment to their op, the unique skills Aitken had mentioned when he’d first brought up that they’d work along a federal agent. “I’m sorry, Amy. I take it she was never found.”
Amy shook her head then looked at him. “No, she wasn’t. I haven’t stopped looking, but the leads dried up long ago.”
A part of him was glad he knew, the other part was mad he’d upset her. That hadn’t been his intention. “Tell me about Uncle Clive,” he said in a bid to bring the conversation back to someone alive and well.
Amy uncrossed and crossed her legs. He didn’t see anything untoward, just the long lines of tan legs and a hint of thigh, but it was enough to bring the inappropriate thoughts he’d had of her legs wrapped around his waist bubbling to the surface.
“I suppose the easiest way to describe him is a bit of a legend and a bit of a relic.” She laughed at her own description. “He’d love the former and detest the latter. But both are true. He’s worked on the Strip since before child labor laws were actually a thing. And he’s the last remaining employee who worked at Caesars Palace since the day it opened. At one time, he was a runner for the first Caesars Palace pit boss—paid under the table to quite literally run information to wherever it needed to go. To a guest room, to the telegram operators. Whatever was needed. He’s full of stories. One year on my birthday, I get a call from Uncle Clive. He tells me he has someone there to sing happy birthday to me, and sure enough Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin jump on the call and start singing in two-part harmony. Last year it was Celine Dion. And he’s a relic because he hates how nobody dresses up to play in the casino anymore. And he hates the noise of the slot machines.”
It was clear just how much Amy loved Clive. He wondered if she realized how between details, she’d sometimes smiled to herself as if remembering more stories in her head that she considered sharing but didn’t.
“Well, I thought to bring a jacket. Remind me to put it on before we go meet him.” Uncertain of what they were actually going to get up to in Vegas beyond practicing for the roles they were going to play, he’d packed for both ends of the dress-code spectrum.
The limo pulled up in front of the hotel, and staff suddenly swarmed them. Someone opened his door while another man opened the trunk and retrieved the suitcases. Cabe waited and offered Amy his hand to assist her getting out of the car. Her grip was firm as she accepted his help. For a moment, he realized it would have given him great pride to be walking into the hotel with his arm around her. There was a quiet confidence in the way she carried herself, and a whole lot to watch as her hips swayed when she walked in those shoes. He noticed a group of four men standing in the lobby watch her as she walked by, and he had to stop himself from marching up to her to throw an arm over her shoulder.
“There’s my darling goddaughter.”
At first glance, Cabe thought Al Pacino was headed toward them. The man had a lightly gnarled face, dark black hair with gray at the temples, eyebrows darker than Cabe thought natural, and a sharp pinstripe suit with those two-tone shoes that gangsters had worn in the twenties.
Amy’s face lit up when she turned and saw him. “Uncle Clive,” she squealed and hugged him.
“It’s been too long since you were last in town,” Clive grumbled.
She stepped back and playfully slapped Clive on the arm. “It’s only been five weeks, you old bat.”
“Yeah, well when you get to my age, you don’t know how many blocks of five weeks you’ve got left. Now. Where is this young man of yours?”
Amy looked over toward Cabe and grinned. “He’s not mine, but Cabe Moss is standing right behind you.”
Clive turned and looked at his chest, then up at Cabe. “You might be tall, but I know all the best places to bury a body in this town. If you keep your hands where I can see them, which means at least a foot and a half from my goddaughter at all times, you and I are going to get along great.”
Cabe looked over at Amy, who had her hand pressed across her mouth. The shaking through her shoulders told him she was laughing. “It’s a deal,” he said, offering Clive his hand.
An hour later, he found himself waiting for Amy in the bar. She’d gone off with Clive to catch up with a couple of friends. Their training wasn’t due to begin until the next day, so as the sun went down over the Strip, he’d caved and ordered a beer. It was long and cold. Utterly perfect. Just like the woman who was walking toward him.
She’d changed her shoes, the tall heels replaced with white Converse that gave the dress a much more casual feel.
“I have a great idea. Have you ever seen the Neon Boneyard?” she asked.
Cabe shook his head. “Can’t say that I have.”
She held out her hand, and he took it, allowing her the pretense of pulling him to his feet. “Oh, my god, it’s one of my most favorite places on earth. Let’s go.”
Twenty minutes later, after a brief cab ride and a phone call during which Amy had made arrangements to join a tour of some sort, he stood in the midst of huge illuminated neon signs from some of the old, torn-down casinos along the strip. Some of them were lit up, the heat from them almost as strong as the sun had been earlier in the day. Others sat unlit on the ground.
He turned to Amy. “This is incredible.” It sucked that they had to join a tour instead of wandering their own way through the boneyard, but they lingered near the back, Amy providing him with his very own tour.
“It is, isn’t it?” she said as they studied the giant Stardust casino sign. “This is from 1958, and it was salvaged before they blew up the Stardust in 2006. It was the Bellagio of its day. A favorite of Sinatra’s. The epicenter of organized crime.”
There was something a little eerie and wonderfully nostalgic about all the signs. “I guess it was such a different time back then.” He moved to stand next to Amy, and she linked her arm through his. It was platonic, or maybe not. But he wasn’t going to remove it. It felt good to be here with her. To pretend they had normal jobs and were two normal people on a normal date.
“Yes. It was. You need to come see this sign to understand just how different.”
They walked arm in arm until she stopped them in front of the sign from the front of the old Moulin Rouge Hotel casino.
“This,” she said, slipping her arm from his and gesturing with both hands toward the sign, “is probably the most important sign here and the most important casino in Vegas history.”
Cabe tried to come up with the reason but couldn’t. “Want to give me a clue as to why?”
She turned to face him. “Until the nineteen fifties, segregation ruled in Vegas. People of color couldn’t stay here, not even stars like Sammy Davis Jr. or Nat King Cole, who were allowed to perform here but never allowed to sleep here. The Moulin Rouge was the first-ever desegregated hotel.”
That he would never have guessed. “That is cool.”
“The sign was also designed by Betty Willis, who not only drew the whole thing by hand because she couldn’t find a font she loved, but also designed the iconic ‘Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas’ sign. There weren’t many female sign makers.”
He’d visited Las Vegas over the years. Bachelor parties and the like. But he’d never given much thought to the people lived here. Who worked here. People who were entrenched in its history. He turned to face Amy and, unable to resist, tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
“You’re welcome,” she said quietly.
They’d lost the rest of their group, and the residual chatter faded farther and farther into the distance. Amy’s eyes held his, and for a moment he saw a flash of a future.
While on a mission, there were often times when he could see his team’s destination in the distance but had no fucking clue how he was going to get them there. Enemy snipers would hold them in their position. Aerial assaults would threaten them where they stood. Their own minds would play tricks on them, attempting to convince them they were on a suicide mission. But through it all, Cabe never, not once, lost sight of the end goal.
Was a relationship between the two of them the end goal? Would they be able to overcome all the obstacles? Amy’s attempt to outrun an asshole in a senior position? His memory of Jess? Their immediate op? Their career choices? And as much as he wanted to slip his hands to those cheeks of hers and kiss her senseless for realizing an evening spent gambling or trapped inside a theater would so not have been his thing, he stepped away and broke the contact.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry … for food,” he clarified.
Even if his body was hungry for something completely different.