CSI 4: SUSPICIOUS MINDS
By DixieHellcat
(ya need to read the first 3—Dead Air, Security Check, and Survivor Guilt…)
The big man dropped heavily into the overstuffed chair behind his desk, took off his huge chrome sunglasses, and laid them on his Bible. “That should do it,” he said with a satisfied sigh. “Looks like everything’s set. I was starting to wonder if Catherine would ever make up her mind.”
“Yeah, I know,” grinned the other man in the office, as he took another chair and ran his hands through his spiky red-gold hair. “She kept talking about a traditional wedding. Bridesmaids’ dresses, flower arrangements, and what place to rent for a reception, and where to get the little baggies of rice—“ He mimed a shudder, and the big man burst into laughter.
“Now, Chad, I’d never have taken you for the kind of guy to break out in hives at the sound of a pipe organ playing Here Comes the Bride.”
“And I’m not! You know me better than that, Dan. As long as she ends up Mrs. Chad Ackerman, I couldn’t care less if we got hitched while riding elephants down the middle lane of the Strip.”
“That’s an image,” Dan snorted and loosened the massive belt around his sequined white jumpsuit.
Chad stifled a giggle himself as he undid his bow tie and the neck of his working tux; he’d come straight to the chapel after finishing his nightly show at the Garces Hotel. “But one day last week, she was rattling on, and then she stopped and said ‘listen to me’. And I said ‘well honey, I am’ and I really was; she could’ve asked me to quote back half of what she said and I think I could’ve. And she said ‘no, listen to me!’ and I realized she wasn’t talking to me, actually, but to herself. ‘Listen to this shit coming out of my mouth!’ she said. ‘Why am I bitching about not wanting a ‘Vegas wedding’? This IS Vegas. It’s where my friends are, where my work is, where I plan to raise my daughter. It’s where I met the man I love, and where I hope to regularly and vigorously consummate our marriage vows for a very long time. What the hell am I saying? Of course we should have a Vegas wedding!’”
Dan was roaring by the time Chad finished. “And what did you say to that?”
“’Sure honey, whatever you want’,” Chad replied with a sly grin that only made his old friend laugh harder.
“Damn, son, you’ve already learned the single most important lesson in a lasting marriage. Took me four of ‘em to figure that out. If the King had said that a few more times, I’d wager he’d still be with us, and still have Priscilla to boot.” Dan scratched at his jet-black sideburns and chuckled. “So here you are, at the Elvis Memories Wedding Chapel. Too bad you couldn’t talk her into the Pressed Between the Pages of My Mind Honeymoon Suite too.”
“There are limits,” Chad snickered, then sobered. “Seriously, I have to admit I’m kinda glad she decided this was okay. You’ve been a good friend to me, Dan. You gave me some of my first cases when nobody else in Vegas would take a chance on a green private eye.”
“You came through for me too,” Dan retorted. “You saved me thousands when you caught that accountant cooking my books. And you’ve always been straight with me, which is more than some people will do, even in this town, for an Elvis impersonator with a seminary degree. I’m honored you asked me to do the deed for you and Catherine. Let’s be sure we get the marriage certificate right, though. Is she marrying Chad Ayers, Vegas’ favorite crooner, or Chad Ackerman, Vegas’ sneakiest PI?”
“Both,” Chad laughed, “although I guess my legal name better go on the paperwork.” He stood and stretched his long legs, smothering a yawn.
“Go get some rest,” Dan ordered. “I’m heading upstairs to turn in myself, but I’ll have this joint ready to rock and roll tomorrow. Just get here plenty early. I’ve sung for a lot of weddings, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a groom sing at his own. It’ll be a heckuva surprise for Catherine, and I want to run one more sound check with your voice rested.”
“Right. Night.” Chad took leave of his friend and headed for the parking lot where his car sat alone, fishing for his keys. It was almost midnight, the last night of his bachelorhood—his last night of freedom, many other guys would have said, including some of his best friends—and he could not wait for it to be over. This time tomorrow, Catherine would be his wife at last, and that time couldn’t arrive fast enough to suit him. He wanted to hear her voice so much it hurt, but she was working a half shift tonight. How supremely ironic, that after she had pestered him for months about being driven by his investigative work, she was the one burning the midnight oil on the eve of her wedding. He understood, though; she was wrapping up some evidence against a cocky john who had beaten a call girl half to death, and she wanted no distractions and no loose ends before they left on their honeymoon. Her caring for the citizens of Vegas’ less glittery side, the side she herself had lived on for a good while, was one of the many things Chad loved about her. Besides, she had quit nagging him when he had finally confessed he was a workaholic partly because his work was all he had had to keep him out of his lonely condo and lonelier mind, before he had met her.
He grinned to himself, luxuriating in the knowledge that tonight was the last night he would walk into his silent living quarters. Lately, on the nights when Catherine was working and he wasn’t performing, he kept her daughter Lindsey…soon to be his daughter, as she kept reminding him. He had been tentative about appearing to try to replace her late dad, Catherine’s ex, but she had no such hesitation. She loved him with all her little girl heart, and while taking charge of a child was a challenge, his trial runs at fatherhood had brought him more joy than almost anything he could have imagined. Even Lindsey wasn’t available tonight, though. Chad’s friend Marissa, daughter of his boss and Catherine’s old friend Houston Tatum, had become very fond of the little girl (while admitting she and her husband Jake were getting in some practice for parenthood themselves, with their baby due almost any time now). Lindsey was staying with them tonight, so Marissa could help her get ready for her star turn as flower girl tomorrow.
Chad’s grin melted into a wistful sigh. He had survived years alone, since his parents’ deaths in his teens, so he would not have expected one last night to be so suddenly unbearable; but it was rapidly becoming so. His fingers found the key to Catherine’s place on his chain, and he toyed with it, and with the idea of driving over there. He could let himself in, fix himself a sandwich, and wait to surprise her, get in one more round of old-fashioned fornication before they made everything legal. Unfortunately, she would be more likely to kick him out on his big ear, since in the best old-fashioned manner, she insisted they not see each other until the wedding. Crap…okay, guess I’ll have to settle for a peanut butter sandwich and a nice cool shower, and dreams that’re pleasant but not pleasant enough to require another cool shower, heh…
He had the ‘Stang door unlocked when—something—caught his notice. Maybe it was the faint tinkle of breaking glass, barely audible over the hum of traffic down the Strip; or maybe it was a flicker of motion where none should have been outside the closed and deserted chapel. Chad honestly couldn’t have said, if he had been asked, what exactly it was that made the hairs on his neck sit up. Catherine jokingly called it his Spidey sense. He didn’t joke about it, or particularly like it, but there was no denying he had a nose for trouble. Right now, trouble looked to be hanging around the wedding chapel, and its timing could not have been worse. Get in the car and go, Ackerman. Call the cops if you have to, but don’t go getting into some mess, not tonight of all nights…
Common sense rarely fared well when pitted against Chad’s deep-seated need to help others, and especially not when a friend might be at risk. He lifted his pistol from the back seat and crept to the corner of the little cinder-block building, its neon darkened now and its canned music quieted. As silently as his big feet would allow, he stepped around the side. The noise he had heard was indeed glass, a beer bottle crushed by an ostrich cowboy boot lying on the graveled ground. Its mate hung onto the foot of a skinny man attempting to squirm in a small window in the chapel’s wall. Chad groaned to himself, and raised his gun, more as an indicator he meant business than from any intent to use it. “That’s no way to treat nice boots.” A strangled yelp escaped the window. “Gotta talk to Dan about leaving the place unlocked.” With his free hand he reached for his cell phone clipped to his belt. “You stay right where you are and—“
“Naw, you stay right where you are, mister.” Chad gulped and froze at the voice behind him. He knew before he looked over his shoulder that he’d be looking into another gun. This one was held in the shaky hands of a plump youth in an expensive but sweat-stained silk shirt.
The would-be burglar tumbled out the window to the ground and scrambled to his feet. He was nearly Chad’s height, and his slick dark hair and mustache gave him the look of kin to the man with the gun. “Some lookout you are!” he snarled at Chad’s captor while he swiped at the dust now covering his rumpled chinos.
“Hey, I got him, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, and now what’re we gonna do with him? Nobody else was supposed to get mixed up in this. We get in, get it and get out, that’s what you said.”
“That’s what would’ve happened, Max, if you hadn’t pissed around up there and gotten stuck. For that matter, if you hadn’t lost the damn thing to begin with—“
“Right, blame it on me, Davey. You’re the one that got all hot ‘cause your buds could get us into the bitch’s crib, and—“
As the bickering escalated, it quickly became clear to Chad that these were hardly seasoned crooks. “Uh, fellas, could you suspend hostilities long enough to tell me why you were trying to break into my friend’s place of business?”
“Shut up,” moaned the one called Davey, sounding as though he might cry. “Unc’s gonna kill us. We’re gonna end up at the bottom of Lake Mead wearing cement tennis shoes.”
“Hey, hey wait a minute!” Max countered and confronted Chad. “The Elvis preacher here, he’s a pal of yours?” It was too late to lie, so Chad just nodded. “Hah! You did okay after all, little bro. We’ll just make this guy go get it!” He almost broke into a dance.
“Get what?” Chad asked cautiously. Amateurs could be far more dangerous than pros, simply because of their ineptitude, and he did not intend to get himself shot on the night before his wedding. Paper crinkled behind him, and he dared turn. The Auto-Mag pistol in Davey’s hand hung at a useless angle as he fumbled in the pockets of his massive jeans, and finally fished out a folded page torn from a recent issue of Las Vegas Life. It was an article on Dan featuring a big photo of him in full Kingly regalia. A circle of orange magic marker surrounded the photo’s right hand like a halo, with an arrow pointing to a ring of Dan’s finger, his replica TCB lightning bolt. ‘Uh, fellas, that’s not real. It’s just part of his costume.”
“We know that,” Max said scornfully. “But the report says it was made from a mold of an original, so it looks just like the real thing, see? That’s why we need it.”
Chad looked from one anxious face to the other. “You’re obviously not professional criminals.”
“Hey, we come from a long line of professional criminals!” Davey sounded almost offended.
“I might come from a long line of chicken farmers, but that doesn’t mean I can lay an egg. You,” Chad cocked his head toward Davey, “are making me real nervous with that gun, since I’m not altogether sure you know how to use it, and I am sure you don’t want to use it. Now, anything to make you two so desperate to get hold of a fake Elvis ring, anything to make you think you might get killed over it, sounds like a serious problem to me. I’m a private investigator. Solving problems is my job. So, if you’ll put the hardware away and tell me what’s wrong, maybe I can help.”
Max let out a despairing little sigh and suddenly looked much younger than the tough air he had been trying to affect let on; younger and more afraid. “Before you call the cops, you mean. So we end up in deep shit twice over. First in jail and then…I don’t think Unc would kill us for real, but he might as well. He’ll never trust us again.”
Chad couldn’t help but feel sorry for these two. “Dan leaves that window open a lot at night, so it’s not as if you were technically breaking in. nothing was taken, nothing was damaged. If I felt pissy, yeah, I could call the cops on you; but I’m getting married. I don’t feel pissy. So give. Who are you, who’s your uncle, and what’s up?”
Davey shoved the gun in his pants, making Chad wince reflexively with concern, then wiped his sweaty palms on his pants legs. “Our uncle’s Tony deCordova,” he began. Chad nodded; the name was known to him, a local food wholesaler with reputed mob ties. “He had to go back East for a meeting last week, and he left Max and me to watch stuff. Things went pretty smooth, and we were thinking we were home free by last night. He’s coming back tomorrow, and we’d proven ourselves to him, and maybe he’d let us in the business more.”
“Then,” Max added, “some buddies of Davey’s—well, of ours—called and said they’d swung us all invites to a private party. A real private party, a regular thing, with this gal named Anne Bonney.”
“Mmm,” Chad grunted. “That’s not her name, but it doesn’t matter. Go on.”
“We’d heard about her parties, about—stuff, you know, that went on there. We figured we could get some fun, maybe even get laid. So we went. It was a hot time for a while all right.”
“She started up a card game.” Max’s words sent a premonitory shiver down Chad’s back. “People dropped out as the stakes got higher, but I couldn’t let a girl beat me. I’m pretty good. So it came down to her and me. And I was down to nothing left, and…well, I’d had a few more than I should’ve, and…”
“It wasn’t all your fault, Max,” Davey interrupted. “I could’ve stopped you. I was messed up too.”
Max shook his head. “I had a ring,” he told Chad. “Unc’s ring, he’d left at the jeweler’s to get cleaned. We’d picked it up right before these guys called about the party. It’s—it was his prized possession.”
“An Elvis ring.” Now it began to make sense to Chad. “Taking Care of Business, with the lightning bolt.”
“Given to Unc by Elvis himself. Unc started out as a caterer’s assistant, and his boss did Elvis and Priscilla’s wedding back in May of ’67, at the old Aladdin Hotel. Elvis’ cufflink broke, Unc always said, right before the wedding, and Unc fixed it with a safety pin. Years later when Unc had his own business, he catered a gig for Elvis at the MGM Grand, and Elvis remembered him and gave him the ring.”
“And you bet it. And she took you to the cleaners,” Chad guessed. Max hung his head. “Didn’t your buddies tell you she cheats? She eats rubes like you three meals a day.”
“Guess they never thought it’d go that far,” Davey mumbled, looking as shamefaced as his brother. “We couldn’t even try to make her give it back, course. There were too many people there who saw. Then I remembered reading this.” He brandished the wrinkled magazine clipping. “We figured we could put the fake back till we got the real one, somehow. And if Unc found out we’d just say, hey, maybe the jeweler switched it. Play dumb, y’know.”
“Not much playing,” Chad snapped. “Not if you accused some innocent jeweler of theft.”
“We weren’t gonna do that!” Max burst out. “And we weren’t gonna let anything happen to the fake either. We would’ve brought it back. We even had a note to leave, see?” Now it was his turn to hunt through his dusty pants’ pockets till he found a computer-typed note telling Dan his ring had been borrowed to salve a dire need and would be returned safely as soon as possible. Chad shook his head and fought back a dumbfounded grin. These two were babes in the woods, the ideal prey for a scamster notorious for using her wide-eyed charm to rob unsuspecting men blind. “So will you help us? Your pal would loan ya the ring, wouldn’t he, if you asked him?”
He really needed to give them a stern lecture and send them on their way, to meet their uncle’s wrath for their irresponsibility. Even waking Dan to ask for the loan of his ring till they came up with a better way to clean up their mess was farther than he should go, although Chad could probably scare it out of them if need be. In short, he did not need to get involved with this hapless duo at all. He really didn’t…but a little spark thrilled in his belly, and a long-sleeping part of him stretched and opened one eye to peek out at the world. Chad felt for the guys, as he did for anyone who had been taken for a ride; and he had the skills to do something about their plight—not the skills of a PI, but something just a hint shadier. “I think I can do better. I think I can help you get your uncle’s ring back.”
“How d’ya figure?” Max lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “She’s not just gonna hand it back.”
“Not unless she loses it at the card table.” Chad could hardly keep the grin from consuming his face. “The dad of one of my best friends in high school was a dealer at the old Desert Inn. He taught us kids everything he knew. I made pocket money in college that way.” He had told Houston Tatum when he started singing at the Garces, out of a sense of fairness and to explain why he never went to the casino. It seemed unfair when he knew all the tricks. No one else in his life knew, though, not even Catherine—or maybe especially not Catherine. Chad was a little embarrassed at the thought of her finding out that on top of the rest of his checkered past, he had once been a teenage card shark.
The deCordova brothers were suitably impressed. “You think so? Really?” Davey looked hopeful for the first time.
“With the right setup, and your help, yeah, I think so.” It would be a lot more fun than some lame bachelor party would have been, too. “Where’s your ride? Follow me.”
+++
“You’re not getting cold feet, Catherine!” Sara Sidle tried to reassure her anxious friend and coworker. “It’s just pre-nup jitters.”
“I know, I know.” Catherine pulled her report off the printer, scanned it and signed it, then laid it aside to gratefully accept the Sprite her maid of honor handed her. “Having had less than stellar results with my first marriage, I guess some nerves are to be expected, aren’t they? It’s not even that though. It’s not so much thinking about me getting cold feet as…well, worrying that Chad might. And cold feet isn’t even the right term. When he commits to something, he sees it through. But what if he realizes he wants more out of life? He’s young, smart, multi-talented, financially stable—“
“And has a really cute butt,” Sara finished with an arch look. “To say nothing of the good hands, great thighs, beautiful eyes, and lips that look like they should taste absolutely—“
“Sara!!!” Catherine gasped, trying to decide whether to pretend to be appalled or actually be appalled, just a little. “I had no idea. But that’s my point. He can do better than an old stripper.”
“And that’s my point. He loves you. That means he can’t do better. No one else would do. I know. He told me so.” Sara smirked, then patted Catherine’s hand. “Listen, since Grissom’s letting me off early too, let’s go out and have a couple of drinks. You can relax and unwind, go home and get some beauty sleep, so you’re ready for your groom.”
Catherine thought for a second. “Okay. Sounds good. Have I mentioned lately how glad I am you’re my friend?”
“Not lately, but I’ll take a good compliment anytime I can get it.” Sara’s grin became a wry grimace as their boss rushed past. “Wish the best man would take his own advice and take off a few hours early. Nick and Warrick said they’d tried to talk him into it, so maybe he’ll listen. He looks as frazzled as if he were the one getting married.”
“He didn’t expect Chad to ask him to stand up with him,” Catherine smiled, fond of her quirky supervisor. “I think Gil was touched, in his own way.”
At that moment, however, he looked anything but touched. “Stokes, Brown, my office,” he barked. Mystified, Nick and Warrick followed him, exchanging glances and trying to remember what they might have done to earn themselves a dressing down. When he closed his office door and faced them, though, his expression was one of distress rather than anger. “Gentlemen, I need your help in a rather delicate situation. I, uh, can’t find the ring.”
The two investigators stared at each other in disbelief, then at Gil. “The ring?” Warrick gulped. “As in, the bride’s wedding ring, that little bit of bling the best man is supposed to guard with his life?”
Nick managed to stay calmer. “Any ideas as to where it might be?”
“A few; more than I can cover alone. And, um, I don’t think I need to tell you this needs to be conducted with the utmost discretion. The, ah, the ladies…shouldn’t know.”
Both younger men nearly cackled, but stifled their mirth. It wasn’t funny really—they were both friends of Chad’s as well as Catherine’s, and both wanted their friends’ big day to be perfect. There was just something so incongruous about their unflappable leader flustered and almost waving his hands in the air helplessly. “Okay, where do you want us to start?” Warrick inquired.
“One of you could start here in the offices; the lab and so forth. And I could use somebody to come with me to the morgue. I, um, went down there right after Chad gave me the ring to hold, and, well, that fascinating case had just come in, and Doc and I got busy dissecting, and then I ran back up here to pull up some information from my hard drive, and cross check the wounds against the new serial killer database, and…I just don’t recall what I did with the ring case. I don’t think it could’ve fallen into the body cavity, but…” Warrick and Nick, seasoned investigators and long-time friends to corpses that they were, groaned in unison just the same. “It won’t take exhuming anything! The body’s still down there, in the cooler. If we can get a quick scan done, we can find out if it’s there and get it right out. I just…don’t want anybody to know, if at all possible.”
He looked so shamefaced the two had to relent. Torn between disgust and amusement, Nick volunteered to accompany Gil to the morgue; trace evidence was one of his specialties, after all. Besides, he figured if need be, in order to get a scan run, he could cook up a yarn about what exactly they were looking for in a five-day-old dead body, something plausible and suitably vague as to hint at hideous things better left unmentioned even by hardened forensic experts. He’d be far better at it than Gil, who had a hard time making even a white lie plausible. Getting this done quickly and quietly was vital; God only knew what fate Gil, and possibly Chad, and anybody else in her line of fire would suffer if Catherine found out about this. It probably would be too hideous to contemplate. Nick cast a quick grin in Catherine’s general direction as he left with Gil.
“Whew,” Sara sighed, “that’s better. Gris looked so grim I expected him to bite both their heads off for something. They look relatively unscathed, though.”
“Good thing,” Catherine began when her cell phone rang. She glanced at the number on the readout, and feigned annoyance. “Didn’t I tell that man not to bother me at work?”
“He can’t help himself,” Sara grinned and returned to her desk to finish up her own work, as Catherine answered.
“Am I that irresistible?” she said into the phone.
For all her efforts to remain serious, Chad’s giggle on the other end melted her just the way it always did. “You know you are, baby. I’m sorry to bug you there, but I wanted to let you know I ran into a little—situation.”
“A ‘little situation’? Those are dangerous words coming from you. The last time you ran into a ‘little situation’ you were in Nova Scotia for the next two weeks, trying to track down a cloning lab!”
“I know, but really, it’s okay. It’s a couple of geeks in a situation way over their heads. They remind me a little bit of me, back in the day.”
“You? You were never in over your head.”
“Sure I was. I just didn’t have the good sense to know it at the time. Anyway, I think I can straighten these guys’ problem out in a few hours, and meet you at the chapel in plenty of time.”
‘See that you do,” she said with mock sternness and then chuckled. “And be careful. I love you.”
“I love you too, darlin’. See ya later.”
Catherine hung up, and pondered, not for the first time, the turns her life had taken. From a stripper and a druggie, one step from turning tricks or ending up on a slab, she was a mother, a respected professional, a woman ready to take a chance on love again with a man who seemed as crazy about her as she was about him. Sometimes she could not fathom how it all had happened, but she was quietly and profoundly thankful it had.
“You’ve got that goofy smile on your face again,” Sara teased as she returned with her purse, but her own smile told Catherine how happy her friend was for her. “Ready?”
“Ready. Bye, Warrick.” Across the office space, he barely lifted his head from a box of evidence he was rooting through, to grunt in acknowledgement. “Whatever,” Catherine snorted as they walked to the elevator. “Just as long as he and Nick get Gil to the chapel on time, fully dressed, and possessing all the accouterments of a best man.”
“That I’d pay to see. I can’t believe I get in for free.” Both women chuckled, then stood quietly waiting for the lift. “Catherine?” Sara went on after a moment. “Why an Elvis impersonator? It seems so cheesy.”
“He’s an old friend of Chad’s, and an actual ordained minister. In other words, his creds didn’t come from a classified ad in the Weekly World News.” Sara looked steadily at her. “That’s not enough of an answer, huh? Well, I thought about it, and I realized: I’m not exactly, what’s the best word, conventional. My relationship with Chad hasn’t been either. So a Saturday afternoon wedding at Glitter Gulch Baptist or Our Lady of the Lucky Sevens just wouldn’t be right, somehow.”
Sara laughed, her eyes light with understanding. “Makes sense,” she agreed. “It’s after midnight. Let’s go get your unconventional wedding day started.”
+++
“Make yourselves comfortable, fellas,” Chad told the deCordova brothers as the three entered his penthouse condo. “Have a snack. Watch TV or something. I’ll need a few minutes to get suited up.”
“You really think you can pull this off tonight?” Max looked skeptical.
“It’s not even one o’clock yet,” Chad returned while he shrugged out of his jacket. “The night’s still young for a hunter like Anne Bonney. With the right garb, and your help, I can set her up, take her down and get your uncle’s property back in a few hands of poker fair and square—definitely more fairly than the way she took it from you, anyhow.”
Davey grabbed an apple from the bag on the kitchen counter, flopped onto Chad’s sofa and grabbed the TV remote. “He’s got a thing about weather,” Max explained as the Weather Channel lit up on the big flat screen. “We got a little business, choppering tourists over town, out over Boulder Dam and what have you. I do the business end and Davey does the flying. You might not think so to look at him, but my lil’ bro’s got the touch. I bet he could set a bird down on the deck of that fake pirate ship out in front of the Treasure Island Hotel.”
“Good flying conditions all next week, if we live that long,” Davey reported, then picked up a framed picture of Catherine from the end table. “This the gal you’re marrying?” Chad nodded. “Shit, she’s hot.”
“Watch it, pal. We just got acquainted, you and me. I’d hate to have to kill you,” Chad jibed before he disappeared into his bedroom. Several moments spent hunting through the disguises stowed in the drawers under his bed yielded all the tools he would need to make this case a simple matter. He had hoped Catherine wouldn’t mind keeping the bed for the house they were buying. It was custom built for his height, and the mattress was a very exclusive brand, since he did like his comfort when sleeping…or engaging in any other bed-related activities, though he’d really done precious little of that before meeting Catherine. Fortunately, she was equally fond of it; they had had some great times in that bed.
Quickly Chad scrubbed, changed and checked his look in the mirror. The suave singer who charmed ladies into downtown Vegas was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a freckled face peered back at him through heavy-rimmed glasses, sporting a mop of curly blond hair and a big dopey grin. The plaid shirt was hideous, and the khaki pants stopped several inches prematurely, exposing pale hairy ankles, black socks and sandals. When the Uber-Geek walked in, the poker shark wouldn’t know what hit her. Chad tucked his pistol into the back waistband of the high-waters and pulled his shirttail over it; he always hoped not to have to use it, but you couldn’t be too careful in this town.
He returned to the living room to suitably stunned stares. “Christ, you look like you just fell off the turnip truck,” Max marveled.
“That’s the idea,” Chad grinned. “We go back to her place and you introduce me as your cousin from North Carolina. We party a while—or rather we appear to—till she gets a game going. You plead with her to give you a chance to win your uncle’s ring back. She’ll enjoy watching you beg. From there we’ll wing it, as long as it ends up with me at the table with her. While she’s mentally fleecing another sheep, I’ll be setting her up. I will need some money to work with though. I don’t do this for free, and I’m not putting my own cash on the line. My daily rate ought to cover it. $600 plus expenses, but we’ll waive that part, since gambling money is sort of an expense for this case.” He didn’t mention his lower hourly rate. He wanted to see just how serious these two were. “Oh, and since it’s after midnight, that’s two days.”
Both brothers gulped, but then Davey’s plump face took on a determined air. “We can pony that up between the two of us, I think,” he said.
“You think?” Chad snorted. “How do you two run a business with no more liquidity than that?”
“It’s tied up in hardware,” Max croaked. “That, and the little plot of real estate we fly out of, off the Strip.”
Chad pretended to consider. In all honesty, he probably would have helped them for nothing; but too much free work for people who can afford to pay lessened the respect a man and his work received. And besides, he really wasn’t going to risk his own money. Cards could be as uncertain as the weather, no matter how good you were. “Okay,” he said finally. “We’ll hit an ATM on the way. Let’s go.”
They piled into the brothers’ big green SUV and took off. Chad felt half guilty about his excitement—Catherine would clobber him if this interfered with their plans. He wouldn’t be very happy about it either, but he could not bring himself to leave these two poor dopes in the lurch…and, he had to admit, it was a matter of pride too. Anne Bonney was reputed to be among the best with a deck of cards, and he had never had a chance to test his skills against her. Mentally he ran through strategies, hoping he wasn’t too rusty, and sank so deep he had to be shaken to bring him back to himself. “We’re here, dude! You asleep or what?” Max said.
Chad shook his head to clear it, though he felt remarkably focused. “No, I’m good. C’mon.” Slowly he climbed out of the SUV, barely aware of Max passing him an envelope of bills. The paper was sweaty. He thrust it into his pants pocket, making sure the bulge showed; it would be another indication of the naivete of the rube he was portraying.
The house was expensive but not flashily so, set back from the road in a quietly moneyed neighborhood. Oh, Anne was discreet, as discreet as the half-dozen men who circulated silently among the partygoers inside, the men who carried their guns carefully and cast observant eyes over the crowd. Their eyes, on occasion, turned toward a closed door off the great room where the visitors mingled and drank and danced and groped. “Bodyguards,” he said softly to Max and Davey, after one chunk of muscle had scrutinized them and let them inside. “Your uncle probably would’ve spotted them in a minute.” The looks on their faces told him that maybe they had reached the point of realizing how far in over their heads they were. “It didn’t take much talking to get us in.”
“We were on the list,” Davey replied. “She told us to come back anytime. Bet she figured we’d come begging for another chance to get our stuff back, huh?”
“Probably so…Stuff?” Chad inquired with a suddenly sinking feeling. ‘You didn’t say anything about stuff.”
Max looked daggers at his younger brother. “She got my car,” he admitted after a moment, “and Davey’s gold chains.”
Chad sighed. “I’m not your repo man,” he informed them. “You hired me to get your uncle’s ring back, and that’s what I’m here to do.” They nodded, suitably chastened. He gestured toward the closed door. “I take it that’s the game room.”
Max nodded. “When she gets through with this batch, she’ll come out for a drink and some fresh air. Not like it’s smoky in there, she doesn’t let anybody smoke.”
“Very considerate of her,” Chad responded dryly. “So let’s blend in with the party crowd.” Chad grabbed a beer from a cooler in a corner and popped the top. “Look like you’re getting a little bit lit, only don’t. Get lit, that is.”
A bevy of giggly, stoned-looking girls in tight short dresses minced over on high heels and started to flirt. Chad’s exaggerated Southern accent only made them giggle louder, which wasn’t exactly what he wanted; he needed to fly under the radar. So he went into true nerd mode, snorting and scratching his ear with his keys, and was ready to pick his nose or tug at his underwear if he had to. Such drastic measures weren’t needed, however; the party girls grimaced and drifted off, leaving him mildly amused at how hard he would have tried once not to do those things, just to keep even one girl talking to him.
Davey and Max had inherited a pair of slightly drunk damsels and were enjoying their company entirely too much. Chad was ready to take them aside and remind them they were here for business and not pleasure, when the card room door opened. Four glassy-eyed guys staggered out, followed by a platinum-haired woman. She was classily dressed in a caramel silk jumpsuit, and could have been any age between twenty and fifty. Despite himself, Chad caught his breath. He had forgotten one thing he had always heard about Anne Bonney. She was sly, yes, and brilliant, but she was also stunningly beautiful, and he stared for a moment like the geek he still was.
Thankfully, Davey managed to stay with the program. “Annie!” he yelled, disengaged himself from the bimbo clinging to his arm and waddled over. “Annie, baby, me and Max, we need you to help us out. Our cousin Al, that’s him over there, he’s come into town, and we gotta get Unk’s ring back, bad, and like now. Can we buy it back, or what?”
“Davey, Davey!” Chad pulled himself together at the thinly veiled mockery in her voice. It jarred with her cool beauty, and made a weird sort of focal point for him to regain his focus. “This is a party! Let’s not talk business. Buying, selling, that’s such poor taste.” Her eyes, a striking shade of violet, glittered in anticipation. “Tonight is for play. Your cousin, you say? You’ll have to introduce me, of course. Now, as for that ring, if you’d like to try and win it back—“
“Lord have mercy, Max!” Chad bellowed and stomped so close his big feet nearly crushed hers. “Surely this ain’t who you been goin’ on ‘bout! You must be shot, cuz. This lil’ gal couldn’t beat Cousin Taylor’s three-year-old at cards. Hoo-eee. Lookit this pretty lil’ filly.” Her eyes narrowed, and Chad could almost hear her hackles go up. He stuck out a paw. “Al Clayton, from Cary, North Carolina, missy. Pleased to meet ya. Ah was expectin’ some rough ol’ hag, not a flower like you! Gals got no head for poker. Can’t imagine what these two lunkheads were thinkin’, lettin’ you—“
“No one lets me do anything at the table,” she snapped. “I do what I please. I take it, however, you think your cousin should have been able to walk all over me, for no other reason than that I’m female.”
“Well, yeah, that’s about the size of it, darlin’.” Chad flashed his biggest dorkiest grin, pleased to see her seething. “Hell, Ah ain’t no great shakes with poker, but Ah’m sure Ah could spank ya. Bet you’d like that too. Gettin’ spanked, Ah mean. Oh, well, maybe you wouldn’t like it so much at cards, but—“
“This way,” she cut him off, spun on her heel and stalked back into the game room. He followed, his focus narrowing to the challenge ahead, but not so narrow that he failed to notice what a nice rear end she had.
+++
“Feeling better?” Sara asked.
Catherine grinned at her over the rim of her glass. “Yeah, I am, actually. You were right. It was nerves, nothing more. I’m going home and get some much-needed sleep, and I hope whatever it is Chad’s fiddling around with is something he can wrap up quickly and do the same. I plan to keep the man up all night tomorrow.”
“In the idiomatic sense or the literal?” Sara giggled and took another sip of her second (or was it third?) drink.
“Both!” Catherine laughed and tossed off the last of her beverage. “I suppose I shouldn’t have another,” she remarked and glanced around the Garces Hotel’s lounge, “but I am tempted.”
“These are really good.” Sara sipped at hers again. “What’s in it? All I can tell is that it’s orange. Very orange.”
“It’s got rum in it, I think. Beyond that—“ Catherine shrugged. “It’s one of the bartender’s secret concoctions.” Tired of waiting for a waitress, she went to the bar and ordered a refill and a basket of chipotle cheese straws. She picked up the snacks and her drink, and turned to return to the table when a man stumbled into her. “Watch where yer goin’, bi—“ He peered at her and squinted drunkenly. “Hey…I know you!”
“I doubt it,” she snapped and moved toward the table. But the man grabbed her arm, spilling the cheese sticks and sloshing her drink on the carpet. “Yeah, yeah, you used’ta hoochie at the Queen a’Diamonds. I remember you. My buddies called ya ‘Bodacious Ta-tas’. Mmmm. Yer still hot too. C’mon, gimme a lil’ lap dance—“
“Sorry, I’ve been out of that business for a long time. Now if you’ll excuse me, my friend is waiting for me.”
Again Catherine moved to walk away, but the man blocked her path. His bleary gaze traveled to the table where Sara was half out of her chair, looking concerned. “Aw, so is’s like tha’, huh? Damn dykes’re ever’where—“
“No, it’s not like that.” Catherine jerked her arm from his clammy grasp, her anger only partly fueled by the liquor. “I’m getting married tomorrow, jackass. I have no time or inclination to put up with this kind of shit. So take your drunken lechery elsewhere, before I call security.”
“Married?” He hiccupped and laughed scornfully. “Poor guy doesn’t know a thing about you, I bet.”
“Oh yeah, he does, except to him I’m more than a set of bodacious ta-tas!”
Sara was headed their way now, and Catherine reached to take her purse from her friend and leave. The drunk made one last grab for her; this time he missed her arm—and ripped her shirt half open down the front. Catherine gaped, then exploded. “All right!” she yelled and pulled it open the rest of the way. “Here ya go, pal. Get an eyeful, ‘cause it’s the last one you’ll ever get!”
He reached toward her and she shoved him hard. Losing his balance, he grabbed for her. Sara was trying to step between the two to defuse the confrontation, and all three ended up in a heap on the lounge floor.
The fall dizzied Catherine, and she didn’t remember much for a while after that, until she opened her eyes to the familiar sight of the lockup at the downtown police station. The only problem was that she was seeing it from a less familiar and highly unwelcome angle…the inside. “Ohh, shit,” she groaned as reality sank in.
“That’s a good way to put it,” mumbled Sara from across the cell, sitting with her head in her hands on the other bunk. “Just not so loudly, please.”
The blank plaster walls tilted and spun, then steadied as Catherine sat up. “What are we doing in here? We didn’t do anything…except drink a little more than we intended, apparently.”
“I tried to explain that, but the intake officers weren’t too fond of your, uh, exposure.” Sara handed her a safety pin for her wrecked blouse. “They said the judge will hear us and make a determination in the morning.”
“In the MORNING??” Catherine wailed, and Sara winced again. “They can’t keep us here all night. I’m—they—they can’t, they just can’t!!”
“Well, yeah, they can, unless you can call somebody to come get us out of here.”
“Me? What about you?” Catherine felt for her cell phone, then realized it would have been taken with the rest of her personal items before she was locked up.
Sara shrugged. “If I ever ended up in the drunk tank, I figured I could call you.”
“Great.”
“We can call upstairs, I guess, if we don’t mind being mercilessly harassed about it for months to come…” Sara began, and then rolled her eyes. “No, we can’t. The guys’ll be long gone by now.”
+++
As it happened, the rest of the team was not, in fact, long gone. Upstairs, Warrick had disassembled most of the office suite and lab in a vain search for the missing ring box. He looked around him at the shambles, sighed, and started to put everything back together.
Down in the basement, Nick was doing his best to explain to a baffled morgue tech why they needed a full-body scan run immediately on a body that had been languishing in cold storage for close to a week. “We, uh, got some new information. It’s not the sort of thing we’d usually share outside the CSI team…pretty gross stuff, even for us.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “The truth is, we may have missed some evidence in the body, simply because we didn’t know to look for it at the time.” He gestured across the office at Gil, who stood fidgeting by the door. Nick had never seen Gil fidget. It was fascinating to watch. “If we don’t follow this up in one honkin’ big hell of a hurry, my boss over there is gonna fry. I’ve been in the dog house lately, and getting this done for him could get me out.”
“Good for you,” the girl replied dryly. “What’s in it for me? This is a seriously irregular request.”
“Well, if we do find something, you get a share of the glory for going with your gut. Even if we don’t, at least we can document your helpfulness. I might even feel obliged to take you out for dinner to thank you.”
She perked up, although to her credit she did try hard to keep up her blasé front. “Really? A thank you? That’s very nice, Stokes. But y’know, it might take more from you than just dinner to thank me properly for putting out this kind of effort.”
Nick grinned. Good to know he still had it. “We’ll negotiate on that,” he promised as she came out from behind her desk with the keys to the icebox.
+++
Anne Bonney’s poker room was softly lit and understated in furnishing, with expensive wood and leather everywhere. “So, Ah reckon you play Texas hold ‘em?” Chad asked with a broad hayseed grin and a nod toward five other men filing in. “Everybody does.”
Her lip curled almost up to her pert upturned nose. “Which is precisely why I don’t. Texas hold ‘em is for posers, or beginners. Seven card stud’s the only game here. If you’re not familiar with it, you’d probably better leave right now.”
“Lord, no. Ah can handle that!” Mentally, Chad rubbed his hands together in anticipation. Five card stud was his game of choice, but the sevens ran a close second. He hated to admit it, but deep down he actually agreed with her about the trendy Texas variations.
“Fine. Ante is $25. The bring-in is 50 and low end is 100.”
“What’s the high end?”
She smirked. “There isn’t one,” she said, and strolled away to take her place at the dealer’s post.
Chad whistled to himself. No upper limit on betting meant this truly was a game for the serious—or would be, if it were run honestly. And no wonder the deCordova brothers had gotten in over their heads so quickly. Even now, Max was sweating profusely, and Davey looked vaguely nauseous. The hair on the back of Chad’s neck sat up as he seated himself at the table. It was going to take all his skill to determine exactly how this woman cheated, and beat her at her own crooked game, but he felt up for the challenge. The belief rushed through him like adrenalin. Chad anted up.
He suspected Anne would play several hands straight, to set up the game. While she dealt, he watched her hands closely; he had long heard she was a mechanic, skilled at sleight of hand, but early on he saw no indication of manipulation of the cards. Three cards were dealt, two down and one up, to each player; then the ‘fourth street’, face up and action began, as each player checked and raised around the table at $100 each. After the next card, ‘fifth street’, also face up, the sky was the limit in betting, though no one went too high, including Chad, who played conservatively. ‘Sixth street’, the last face up card, was dealt, and then the river card face down, making seven. Two players folded; the others eyed each other warily. Anne calmly studied her hand. At showdown, another player took the modest pot.
Anne won the next hand, and Chad took the third with a nice straight, letting out a happy redneck giggle as he raked the chips toward him. Inwardly, though, he tensed. If he were her chosen mark, his win might spur her to start her scam.
He was not wrong. She won the next hand, and the next, handily, and with a haughty confidence that reeked of foreknowledge; she played now as though she knew every player’s hand as well as he himself did. Chad casually scanned the backs of the cards, but no markings were apparent. He knew well, however, that that didn’t mean nothing was there. The next time around, he shifted his hand, changing the position he held his cards in and half covering their backs with his fingers. Anne squinted, poked at the corner of her eye, and lost that round. A kernel of an idea sprouted in his head. While she gathered and shuffled the cards, he leaned back in his chair and mimed a big stretch, the better to view her face from the side, and at the edge of the violet of her eye he saw it: a thin sliver of bright red. He knew now how she was cheating. The strangely colored contact lenses she wore let her see marks on the cards’ backs invisible to the naked eye.
Chad knew. Now he had to figure out what to do about it.
+++
Catherine tried to make her brain function—it felt bruised. She could call Houston, but she cringed at the thought of informing her old friend, the man who was to walk her down the aisle in just hours, that she had gotten embroiled in an inebriated row in his hotel on the night before her wedding. As humiliating as that would be, she couldn’t decide which was worse, that, or having to face Chad. He was so fond of her maturity, she wasn’t sure how he might react to such a collapse on her part. Truth was the only way, though, and reluctantly she called for a staff member, to get her one phone call.
Chad didn’t answer. Whatever small problem he was attempting to solve for somebody else, it had apparently grown. At least it postponed her embarrassment for a while. Catherine persuaded the jail monitor to let her hang onto the phone for a few more minutes and try one more time.
+++
Chad was frantically weighing options when his cell phone unexpectedly butted in. Set to silence, it did a vibrating dance in his pocket that went on and on, and he remembered too late he hadn’t activated the voice mail. Hopefully it was only Catherine, calling to say she was home from work, or (he thought with a pang of regret) to say she had reconsidered spending her last night of single bliss alone. He swore to himself he’d make it up to her. At least she did enjoy a good adventure yarn, and this certainly would qualify as that, assuming he could get out of it with his employers, their property, and his skin all intact. His fidgeting had drawn the notice of the two big men lounging against the wall. When they began to eye him with measured intent, he turned his natural uneasiness into a display of squirms and twitches pronounced enough to make them wonder if he had a mild case of Tourette’s.
Anne had kicked into high gear. One player fell in the next hand, and the other two cut and run in the next. Chad slapped down chips, racked his brain for every scheme he had ever used or even heard of, and managed to hang on and stay in the game, alone. He knew it was only a matter of time though; she was reading the cards like a newspaper, and he couldn’t keep her from picking him off for much longer.
A tray of drinks appeared at his elbow, and he was wound so tight he actually grabbed one without even looking at it or the waitress. Upon examination, the drink was a Lynchburg Lemonade, and the ‘waitress’ a husky young Latino in club attire, who Anne eyed the way some women admire a fancy restaurant’s dessert cart. Chad rarely drank, and never while playing, but he feigned a swig or two, making sure one goon saw his hand shake a bit as he put the glass down on the cork coaster built into the table top. It was one more bit of gamesmanship, another false signal that the country bumpkin was starting to recognize he was running in the fast lane with traffic whizzing past and a big truck about to squash him like a bug.
+++
Catherine tried again to phone Chad. The rings went on for what felt to her tired head like a week at least, and even his voice mail didn’t kick in. Grumbling, she handed the phone back to the jailer and slumped onto the other bunk, stuck behind bars till morning.
+++
Two disconsolate crime scene investigators dragged themselves up from the basement as dawn’s light began to steal over Vegas. A bleary-eyes Warrick lifted his head from his desk as Nick and Gil entered the CSI suite. “Any luck?”
“None,” Nick said flatly. Gil didn’t say a word; his face told the story.
Warrick sighed and got to his feet. “Okay,” he said. “A gold ring doesn’t just vanish. Let’s reconstruct the scene.” He handed Gil a small empty paper-clip box. “Here’s the ring. Chad just gave it to you. What’d you do with it?”
Gil rubbed his free hand over his bearded chin, the only outward gesture of his inner anxiety. “I put it in the pocket of my lab coat,” he replied, frowning in thought. Suiting action to word, he grabbed the white coat from its hook beside the door that led from the main office area into his office, put it on and dropped the box in a pocket. “After that, I went down to the morgue—which I am not doing again, right now.” He grimaced. “Then…” Scowling, he paced through the lab. “I came back up here and went into my office to use my computer.”
“What else?” Nick urged.
“Hm…I had a vial in my pocket, with a tissue sample I had Doc take for chemical analysis. It needed to be refrigerated, so I put it…” Gil went to the communal refrigerator, as Warrick and Nick both winced; he was notorious for leaving noxious little science experiments next to somebody’s lunch. He opened the door, and all three peered inside. “Right there.” Gil pointed to a little glass bottle with a green rubber stopper, containing some spongy-looking pink tissue…and then reached past it, for the black leather ring case that sat sedately beside it.
“Well, it should be well preserved, at least,” Warrick grinned in relief as Gil popped the lid open to reveal the shining band of gold.
“Does it smell?” Nick inquired, worried about bearing something that smelled of formaldehyde into Catherine’s wedding.
Gil sniffed the case like a vintner checking a newly opened bottle of wine. “A little like pastrami,” he offered.
“That’ll air out,” Warrick chuckled, then gulped when he glanced at his watch. “Oh damn, it’s after eight! The wedding’s at three.”
“Then let’s get out of here and get some rest.” Gil’s usual dry wit reasserted itself as he tossed his lab coat aside. “Don’t want to disappoint the bride and groom, do we?”
The three exchanged grins and raced (even Gil) to the door.
+++
All the gamesmanship in the world wouldn’t help Chad if he couldn’t take the cheater’s advantage from her. The game continued; he won a hand or two, or she let him win, to keep him hooked, and enjoy his mounting nervousness. Max and Davey had been banished to a corner behind him (to prevent cheating, Anne had stated with a faux-innocent look of sincerity) and he could hear them shifting restlessly. It was one more distraction Chad didn’t need. He had just abandoned his policy of not praying for a win, when his cell decided to start wriggling again.
This time, with the room morgue-silent, the faint buzzing didn’t go unnoticed. “Sounds as if somebody’s looking for you, Mr. Clayton,” Anne purred.
“Yup. Know who it is, too. They can wait.” Chad picked up his glass and toasted her with all the hick bravado he could muster. “Nothin’ more important or entertainin’ right this minute than breakin’ a pretty lil filly.”
He made as if to toss back a good slug of the drink, heartened slightly by the darkening of her eyes. “The only things that’ll be broken when you leave here are your bank account and your balls,” she hissed.
It caught him off guard; he gasped on a laugh and ended up with a mouthful of Black Jack and Triple Sec. He choked, and a plan leaped full-blown into light, at the same instant he spit the alcohol in her face.
Anne screeched, dropped the cards all over the table, and fell back in her chair. Chad yelped in mock horror and lunged toward her with hanky in hand, praying her goons weren’t trigger-happy. “Oh Lordy girl, what have Ah done?” He dabbed madly at her face, smearing as much liquor and liquefied makeup in her eyes as out. It’d sting like the devil for a while, but he figured one devil deserved another. When he spied one red contact sliding free from its perch on her eyeball, he yelled again. “Baby Jesus, don’t tell me you’re bleedin’!!“ One good flick with the corner of the hanky sent the tiny circle of plastic skittering across the table. “Whew, just a contact lens. But what a freaky—“ She glared daggers (well, while simultaneously squinting with discomfort), one eye still violet, the other now bright blue. “Aw, that’s how you got them Liz Taylor lookin’ eyes,” he guffawed. “Vanity, thy name is woman.” Furiously, she shoved her bodyguards’ fumbling hands aside and popped the other lens out. The men watched Chad closely, but he was careful to give no sign he suspected her of any more deception than simple pride. With a little luck, they’d decide he was too dumb to know. “Shall we call this a draw, darlin’? Ah surely didn’t mean to mess you up, but you’re not in no condition to be goin’ on with this foolishness. It’s mah own dang fault, but you know you weren’t gonna beat me. So let’s divvy up what we started with an’ part friends, huh?”
If looks could kill, Chad would have been going to his wedding in a hearse instead of a limo. “You just don’t quit, do you?” Anne snapped.
“Well, it was right obvious. You knew. You weren’t bettin’ anythin’ of value to you, so Ah knew you knew you couldn’t win. A woman won’t bet the farm on her skills. That’s why a man always wins. He’ll bet what’s dear to him an’ let it all ride on the turn of the card.” Fleetingly, Chad wondered what brand of soap Catherine would suggest washing his mouth out with if she could hear him spouting this nonsense. Suppressing a grin, he gestured to Max and Davey, and hoped this big gamble of his would work out. “Like mah cousins yonder. They bet somethin’ that meant the world an’ all to them.” That was more true than she knew; the snap decision to wager their uncle’s ring had carried not just a piece of gold, however priceless and fraught with memories, but their faith in themselves and their hope for their uncle’s trust to help them get ahead in the world. It sounded hopelessly romanticized, but the violins were drowned out by the beat of Chad’s renewed anger at the cheater who had bilked them out of all that. “You don’t have the nerve to do that, do you? To bet somethin’ you prize?”
The by now familiar lip curl replied; she wasn’t beaten. “What were you hoping for, my virtue?”
She was so clearly disgusted at the mere thought of this rube pawing her that Chad couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Ah doubt you got any of that left. Sorry, that was uncalled for, wasn’t it? No, Ah wouldn’t expect nobody to wager their body. Ah was thinkin’ more like…you’re right proud of yourself, what you done to mah cousins, takin’ their family heirloom an’ all what. So, if you really thought you could beat me, you’d put up somethin’ like that.”
“And what about you?” she fired back. “What would you put up?”
For a sick instant Chad almost wished he hadn’t given Catherine’s wedding band to Gil for safekeeping; then he realized he’d better be glad he did. If this act would get his mouth washed out, a stunt like that, even done totally for show, might cost him dearly for real. “You’ve done gone all of value Ah got with me, short of mah drawers. That $1200 is all Ah got to get home on.”
He let a flicker of nervousness show, not altogether fake, and she sat up, scrutinizing him. Slowly she stood, moving the ineffectual bodyguards aside with a look; Chad almost felt sorry for them, and suspected they’d be unemployed by tomorrow. From a small, well-concealed safe in the wall, she took a chunk of gold: the Elvis ring. Max tried not to wail. “One hand,” she said to Chad.
“Deal,” he said.
+++
By the time Catherine and Sara made their way out of court the next morning, it was past breakfast time, but a growling stomach made little impact on the anxious bride-to-be. “I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or throw up,” she wailed.
“None of the above,” Sara reassured her. “Thank goodness Judge Jackson is an early bird, and knows us. I can even forgive him for eating on the bench, after what he just did. He could have made us cool our heels until regular session opened at ten, you know.”
“True,” Catherine sighed and squared her shoulders. “So, shall we pretend this never happened?”
“What never happened?” Sara shot back, attempting a straight face and failing.
“Exactly.” Catherine hunted up her cell phone, thankfully restored to her, to get them a cab downtown to collect their cars, then nearly dropped it with a hastily smothered gasp when the elevator doors opened. “Guys? What are you doing back here?”
“Uh—ah—“ Nick and Warrick stammered in unison, until Gil cut in.
“Just tying up a few loose ends,” he replied smoothly. “What about you two?”
“Um, the same,” Catherine managed.
“Yeah,” Sara added stoutly with a nod. “The same.”
Neither group mentioned the fact that the other was wearing the same clothes they had last seen them in the evening before. The elevator stuffed full of secrets rode silently to the ground floor. “See you this afternoon, Catherine,” Gil said and strode out into the morning.
“Whew,” Sara said. “That was too close for my comfort, without some coffee.”
“Coffee,” Catherine sighed. “I’d love some…but I don’t need coffee. I need sleep”
“Decaf?” Sara hiked an eyebrow. “And a sweet roll, maybe? Hard to get any rest on an empty stomach.”
“You got a deal.” They emerged into the warm Nevada sun. “I hope Chad’s night went better than mine.”
+++
As Anne broke out an unopened deck of cards, Chad tried to keep adrenalin from frying his logical thought capabilities. He had stripped her of her means of cheating, but she was still a good player; he had seen that earlier in the evening. That meant he had to cover all bases. He cast his mind back, and recalled the twitches he had used to throw her off and make her think he was more antsy than he was. If she hadn’t caught on—if she really thought they were a ‘tell’, a true indicator of his cards—he could use that against her, one last time.
The first two hole cards, face down, hit the table. Chad peeked. Six and seven of clubs. Good start. His up card was the five of clubs. Looking even better. Anne dealt herself a ten, and then another. Chad’s fourth street was the eight of clubs. One more club was too much to hope for, and more than he deserved. Both checked, then raised. The next card was the kicker, fifth street, where the bids went wild. Chad’s fifth was the nine of diamonds. That gave him a straight, but he still dared dream of more.
Anne got a queen, and shoved half her chips into the center of the table. Chad called, and then went into his tell. He shivered, then twitched, and fiddled with his watch band. Max and Davey alternated between staring at him, and staring at the chunk of gold glittering on the table top beside Anne’s right hand.
Sixth. Anne got another queen, and her rouged lips curled into a ruthless little smirk. Chad’s card fell, and he could not believe his eyes. Ten of clubs. He had his straight flush. Anne’s eyes narrowed, but the smile barely wavered. She could well have a full house, and the ordinary straight he looked to have could readily be beat by that. So, Chad jiggled his foot and bit his lip and generally gave the impression of a man going down for the third time, as he shoved the rest of his chips in. She didn’t budge, and for a sickening instant he thought: she’s welshing. She’s going to hold that ring, and then get up and walk off with it, and I can’t stop her, and these poor guys who counted on me are gonna be sunk, because I was too damn cocky…
Then with one perfectly manicured finger she pushed the TCB into the pot. “Just pro forma, you understand.” She flipped all her cards over, the sure sign of a smug winner, even before she dealt the seventh card. It didn’t matter. Even the full house Chad saw, queens and tens, wasn’t enough to save her. She tossed out two more cards face down, and reached for the pot.
“Not so fast, missy.” Chad turned his hole cards over, and neatly arranged them in order, from five through ten, all black puppy-feet.
She froze, not moving as he raked in the chips, stacked them too in order, and turned to hand the ring to the deCordovas, who cradled it with little noises of glee like new parents. “You were bluffing.”
“Me? Naw. I got this thing, I’m s’posed to take pills for it, but I left ‘em in mah mama’s medicine cab’net back in Carolina.” Finally he glanced at his watch and really almost did have a seizure of shock—it was nearly five AM. “Dang, it’s purt’near mornin’! We best be on our way boys, we’re keepin’ this lady from her beauty sleep. And she shore is one beauty.” He waggled his eyebrows in his best white trash leer, while Max and Davey scrambled to their feet, eager to get out with their skin and their property.
Anne still hadn’t moved, her bodyguards hovering but held at bay by her immobility. “You bluffed.”
“Suit yourself, darlin’. Could I get my sawbucks here? I need ‘em to get home, and from the looks of this place, it won’t be hurtin’ you an awful lot.” Chad was still bluffing, hoping she didn’t decide to sic her goons on them, to take by force what she had lost to skill. Thankfully, she did not. The chips added up to a little less than six thousand dollars. She handed the money over in silence, and Chad grinned, “See ya in the papers.” His last sight of her was standing at the card table, the chips piled uselessly in front of her.
To their credit, Max and Davey kept their cool, despite the grins splitting their faces, till they got safely out of her house, into the pre-dawn gloaming, and into the SUV. Then they whooped and hollered and pounded Chad on his shoulders till they were sore! (Well, more sore; he hadn’t realized he was so tense until the ordeal was over.) With a tired smile, he returned their $1200, and they gladly gave over the balance of his winnings as his just reward for one of the toughest night’s work of his career. As they drove he examined the ring; it did look exactly like Dan’s, but with a heft only true gold possessed, and a warm tingle that could almost be felt, as if it had held onto a bit of the power of its maker. Chad handed it back, and settled back into the back seat to close his eyes for a few moments.
When he opened them again, he was alone, still in the back of the vehicle. Startled, he sat up. It was no longer on the road, but parked in a comfortably air-conditioned garage, beside a stately vintage Mercedes. For God’s sake, where—Chad stumbled out of the SUV, and through a door into the entry hallway of a lavish Italianate villa. Max and Davey, cleaned up, were crashed around a small table with the remnants of a sumptuous breakfast. “Yo, Sleeping Beauty!” Max greeted him.
“Where are we?” Chad’s voice was low and unnaturally calm. He hadn’t dared look at his watch yet, but outside the windows the desert shimmered in full daylight.
“Unc’s place.” Davey frowned. “In Overton. We had to bring the ring straight back here, to put it back before he got in, see? Beat him by nearly three hours, too. You are the fuckin’ man, Chad! He got on our cases about leavin’ ya out in the ride, but we told him we’d been partyin’ some, like a bachelor thing for ya, and you needed your rest.”
Finally Chad dared look at his watch, and thought he would burst into tears on the spot. “It’s 10:45.”
“Yeah, so?” Now Max looked mystified too.
“Overton’s over fifty miles from Vegas…and I’m supposed to get married at three.”
“Today? Shit.” Davey snapped his fingers as though he’d just been told the ball game was rained out, but his demeanor changed when he looked back at Chad, who felt as though he might pass out. Bouncing his head off the marble floor would not be fun. It wouldn’t matter, though, if he had lost the only thing in the world that mattered to him. “Damn, calm down, dude. Never seen a guy look so upset about not gettin’ married. But then again, she is hot.”
“No…no…” Chad mumbled. “She’s…so much more than hot…oh God, Catherine, I’m sorry…”
Max jumped up and put Chad down in his chair. Chad put his head on the table, unable to hold it up under the weight of guilt and remorse. “Don’t razz him, shit for brains. Can’t you see the man’s serious? Would you want to leave that woman at the altar? Or risk her dumpin’ you? Not that you’d know, no risk of a gal that hot ever showin’ interest in you—“
“Knock it off, Max!” Davey jumped up too, paced a few steps and then laughed. “Hey, you gettin’ hitched by the Elvis guy, right? Where we met you? Hell, our helipad’s right next door! That’s how we knew about the place to begin with. We’ll just drop you off. An entrance like that’ll get ya forgiven damn near anything.”
Chad plucked feebly at his sweat-soaked and ill-fitting clothing. “Not in this…and there’s no time to get to my place and get my tux, or…”
The
brothers looked chagrined, until Max broke into another grin. “A
tux? To get married by Elvis? Man, what were you thinkin’
anyway?” He took Chad’s arm. “Davey, get Chita to
rustle him up some breakfast, willya?”
“What…”
Chad couldn’t make rational thoughts come out his mouth.
“Be cool, Chad. You didn’t have to bust your ass the night before your wedding for us, but you did. Hookin’ ya up is the least we can do in return. Come with me, my man. Elvis himself would be proud of you by the way I get through.”
+++
At 2:50, Catherine was pacing as vigorously as the tiny back room of the wedding chapel would allow. “He should have been here an hour ago at least.”
“He’ll be here,” Sara assured her, while secretly wondering if she would have to go find Houston, or worse yet Gil, to calm her friend. “Sure he had a case to finish, but if there had been a problem, I know you would have heard something by now. Worst case, he overslept. Then you can scold him, and then, well, you know how much fun making up can be.”
“I’ve called, I’ve left messages. Nothing, Sara.” Catherine took a drink of water, trying not to spill it on her cream silk pantsuit. “You know what the worst of it is, really? I’m not all that worried that the case went wrong, or that something happened to him. Chad has more lives than a shelter full of cats. But what if he went to the Garces this morning, and somebody happened to mention what happened last night? What if he doesn’t like the idea of marrying a woman who just got out of jail from a drunken brawl? What if—“
“Catherine!” Sara grabbed her by the shoulders to force her to stop pacing and waving her arms. “Look at me. Listen to me. Chad loves you. Chad is not going to leave you at the altar.” She had to raise her voice over the sound of a tourist chopper landing on the pad next door, but that would only be a momentary distraction…at least she thought not. The clatter of the rotors drowned out all attempts at conversation, and went on and on until it aroused both women’s curiosity. They peered out the tiny curtained window, just in time to catch a half-blocked glimpse of a tall lean figure alighting from the copter and slipping in the chapel’s side door. “What the hell…”
Catherine was smiling now, almost laughing in fact. “You were the one who called it my unconventional wedding day.”
+++
A small commotion broke out at the chapel door nearest to the helipad as the chopper descended, not onto the pad itself, but slightly off, right in the side parking lot. “Thanks, you guys,” Chad called as he unhooked his safety harness. “I owe you big time.”
“Bullshit!” Davey hollered.
Behind him Max grinned and yelled, “Go make that woman forget you’re late, dude!”
“Almost late!” Chad retorted, then paused as he slapped their hands. “You guys wanna come? There’s room for two more, I bet.”
“Nah, weddings make me sweat!” Max waved his hand. “Get outta here. I’ll get my duds back later…after the honeymoon.” To the accompaniment of their leers Chad snickered, clambered out of the bird and ran for the door, glad his hairstyle of the day could not be touched by the violent backwash of air from the rotor blades.
Dan met him just inside. The preacher was decked out in full rhinestones, but his were the eyes the widened at the sight approaching. “Sorry I missed rehearsal,” Chad panted. “Do you think the music’ll be okay?”
“Ye-es, I’d say so…” Dan looked him up and down, then broke into a broad grin. “So you decided to go with the theme at the last minute?”
“Not really. Long story. Hopefully you’ll never hear it.”
“Oh, no. Don’t think you’re gonna hold out on me, young man.” Dan handed him a headset mike and waddled off toward the door that led into the chapel proper.
“I feel overdressed,” Gil said from behind Chad. Turning, Chad had to grin at the sight of Catherine’s boss in a tux.
“Don’t. This wasn’t planned, but I hope the bride will forgive me. Especially once I give her that little gift you’ve been hanging onto for me.” Thank heavens you’ve been hanging onto it, Chad added silently. Gil’s face went blank for an instant, and he patted his pockets frantically until he came up with the ring box. Both men sighed with relief, and Chad hooked the headset on and adjusted it. “Okay,” he said, “let’s do it.”
There was a rustle in the chapel as Chad took his place in front of Dan, Gil by his side, and turned toward the back of the room. Several in the seats began to grin; obviously they thought his appearance was planned, part of the ‘theme’ as Dan had put it, and they need never know otherwise. Chad scanned the room, seeing all the faces dearest to him: Marissa and Jake; Mrs Ng, sniffling into her embroidered hanky; Rayford and the rest of the guys in the Garces’ band. In the very rear sat a petite redhead, the only blood kin present, a distant cousin of Chad’s father. With her sat a tall man in glasses, his dark hair graying Chad knew her only as Starbuck, a shadowy warrior against ills seen and unseen, but he was glad she had emerged from the shadows long enough to keep her promise to attend his and Catherine’s wedding. He caught her eye and winked, and she smiled back. Nick and Warrick were right down front, grinning and giving thumbs-up to the groom and best man; Catherine’s friends, they had become Chad’s friends too, and he returned their gestures of support with a brief grin.
Behind the closed back doors, Sara handed Catherine her bouquet. Lindsey danced from foot to foot, so full of nervous excitement she almost dropped her basket of rose petals. Catherine smiled down at her daughter. “You ready?” she asked.
“Yeah! Let’s go get married!”
Sara cackled, and drew Catherine out of sight as the doors opened. Lindsey began her run down the tiny center aisle—and giggled out loud. Houston had just joined the women, and peered around the door frame. “Well, I will be damned,” he chuckled quietly. “Looks like this place got into the boy’s blood.”
“What?” Catherine tried to peek but was restrained by Sara, who took a look and smothered a laugh of her own.
“It certainly does,” she said. “Don’t worry, Cath, you won’t be disappointed.” She squeezed her friend’s arm and slipped around the door to walk down the aisle, still giggling audibly.
Catherine shook her head. How unconventional could one day be? Then, Houston took her arm gently. “May I have the honor of givin’ away the prettiest bride I’ve seen in a while?” he rumbled. “Your fella’s waitin’ for you.”
She swallowed the last butterflies, and smiled up at her old friend. “Absolutely,” she said.
When they walked through the open doors, she took the scene in with one sweep: Sara and Lindsey still tittering like two schoolgirls; Grissom—damn, how did I never realize he looked that good??; and the presiding minister resplendent in his white jumpsuit and cape. Then her gaze, and seemingly her heart, both stopped at the center of the tableau.
The jeans Chad wore hugged his muscular thighs as though custom fitted. A crisp white dress shirt peeked out from beneath the black leather jacket that topped them, and his hair was slicked into a perfect fifties do. His eyes met hers as she processed down the aisle on Houston’s arm, and he looked frankly terrified, though of what she couldn’t imagine. She’d never seen him have stage fright. But then, this was a different stage. Catherine felt a smile process across her face, and Chad let out a long breath, grinned, and began to sing. “Love me tender, love me long, take me to your heart; for it’s there that I belong, and we’ll never part. Love me tender, love me true, all my dreams fulfill; for my darling, I love you, and I always will…”
The ceremony itself passed in a blur for them both, and before they knew it Dan was introducing them to the assemblage as Mr and Mrs Chad Ackerman. Chad’s kiss was passionate, his fingertips on Catherine’s cheeks, before he pulled her into a tight embrace to the applause and cheers of their friends. After a round of congratulations, the newlyweds hurried out to Houston’s limo in a rain of confetti. “Here,” Catherine said as the limo pulled away, “let me take a look at you, Mr Presley.”
Chad laughed, seeming nervous again. “I hope you didn’t mind this,” he said. “It wasn’t exactly planned.” Catherine lifted a questioning eyebrow. “It’s a long story, which I probably…” He stopped, as though to make a mid-course correction. “Which I will be happy to entertain you with sometime.”
“Dare I guess it has something to do with your being late, and possibly with the case you were working on last night?” He flushed and nodded. “Good. It should be nice honeymoon entertainment…when we need to catch our breath from entertaining each other in other ways. I brought my cell, but only if Marissa has some emergency with Lindsey, which I doubt. Since nobody knows we’re going to Houston’s ranch, we should be able to…entertain…each other at our leisure.” She grinned and snuggled up to him, enjoying the smell of the jacket and making a mental note to suggest he wear leather more often. “You didn’t really think the clothes would bother me, did you? You know I wouldn’t have cared if you’d showed up in that geek outfit you wear undercover.” Chad had a coughing fit. Catherine pounded on his shoulders, and then surveyed him with mock-narrowed eyes. “Maybe this story shouldn’t wait.”
“Maybe it shouldn’t,” he agreed bravely, and told all. It took half the driving time to the ranch, and by the time he finished she was collapsed across the limo seat, too weak from laughing to move.
“Ohh, damn,” she gasped. ‘I’m picturing you a teenage geek, taking the frat boys for all of Daddy’s loose change.” Chad let out a deep sigh and grinned. “How long were you going to hold out on me, mister?”
“I—You know, I don’t know. It seems so dumb of me now. Anyway, last night was one more grand blast from my misspent past. Good thing one of us had an uneventful evening.”
Catherine blushed. “Actually…”
Her tale took up the rest of the ride, and both of them were exhausted from laughter by then. “You flashed him,” Chad shook his head as they crawled out of the limo. “You…Glad I wasn’t there though. We both would’ve ended up in jail.”
“That could’ve been fun.” Catherine held her sides and strove to regain her composure, until she looked at him and they both dissolved into giggles again. “My sides hurt. I think I need to lie down.”
“Wise idea, Mrs. Ackerman. Race you to the bedroom.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Much thanks to my poker consultants, Laynie R of WMS and her hubby Mr. Tug, without whom Chad would have no doubt gotten his cute butt stomped at cards. :-)
The usual round of hugs to the Broads, especially Shari for early reading.
Dedicated as ever, with all my love, to CA...and to the JBT pants.
- You can contact the author at theleewit@mindspring.com.