* * *
With the tags burning a hole in my pocket and Teddie’s presence scratching the scab off the hole in my heart, I drove more sedately on the way back to the hotel. Even though the temps were a bit chilly, I put the top down on the Ferrari, discouraging conversation. Fragments of thoughts flew across my synapses with dizzying speed facilitated by fatigue and fueled by worry. The liquid diet wasn’t making matters any better.
Solid food was next on my list. Right after getting rid of Teddie.
Teddie stared straight ahead, one hand holding tight to the armrest, his face pinched in thought. I’d ask him what he was thinking, but men hated that question . . . or so I’d been told, more than once. Besides, I’d lost faith in his veracity of late, so even if I asked, I wouldn’t learn anything I didn’t already know. Asking would just make me seem interested, which was a weakness Teddie would exploit.
Games. How I hated games. Heck, even in the game of Life, people felt compelled to cheat. Seemed to me to be not only self-defeating, but also a quick slide toward self-loathing.
While we had been away, the Strip had started to stir. Couples wandered the sidewalks hand-in-hand. Most of them older—the day was still way too new for the kids who generally partied until night thinned toward dawn, they’d still be sleeping. Vegas was a bit like school that way, the older kids started earlier, the youngsters finished out the day.
The queue of cars lined up for the valets warmed my heart. Business was good—I’d be employed for at least one more day.
But another day was another opportunity for a killer to kill again.
With the specter of death at my shoulder, I couldn’t hurry fast enough.
The valet jumped to take the car. I let him, levering myself out, then heading toward the lobby with Teddie behind. His blue-blood manners in place, he stepped around, pulling open the heavy glass door, and held it for me, then followed me inside. The energy level in the lobby hummed but had yet to reach full bore, which allowed me to throttle back and take my time to get up to speed.
Ignoring Teddie, I turned for the elevator as a man stepped into my path. “Ms. O’Toole?”
Tall, broad, fit, and fair, he had “cop” written all over him. I stopped and looked up into his impossibly green eyes, and out of nowhere a memory daggered my heart.
Dane had impossibly green eyes.
Dane, a friend gone missing. Well, not missing, exactly.
He’d sent me a note recently. It read simply GTT—gone to Texas. Home to heal his heart.
Another disappointment. Curiously, the fact that I was the only common denominator in these unsatisfying relationships wasn’t lost on me.
The man standing in front of me adopted a serious expression as he reached for his inside pocket, extracted a leather bifold, and flipped it open. I glanced at the badge. I’d been partially right—a cop, but not local, federal.
“I’m Special Agent Joe Stokes, Homeland Security. May I have a word with you?”
“Don’t tell me you guys are running another preparedness drill. Now would not be a good time.”
“No, ma’am.” His eyes flicked to Teddie, who had stopped within earshot. “I just need a moment of your time . . . in private.”
Teddie took the cue. “I’ll see you later.”
I didn’t watch him as he walked away.
“Friend of yours?” Special Agent Stokes asked.
“Nope.”
“More than friend?”
I raised one eyebrow. “Is my personal life under federal investigation?” When men and women met, the initial sizing up always had a frisson of sexual sizzle. Usually, I found that jolt a great jump start, but not today. Although I was flattered.
“No, ma’am.” Embarrassment reddened the agent’s cheeks, and he actually looked a bit chagrined, which was quite endearing. I felt the tug of attraction. Fighting it, I clamped down on my libido. I had more trouble than I could handle as it was. Why was the grass always greener?
Men—each one a royal pain in the ass in his own unique way.
I had no doubt the calm, cool Special Agent Stokes would be no different. Oh, many had some redeeming qualities, but lately, I’d committed to developing a blind eye—life just seemed to be less painful that way. Gesturing toward the casino, I adopted a conciliatory tone—the best way to get the feds out of my hotel was to play nice. I’d learned that one the hard way. “Let’s go sit, and you can tell me what it is you want from me.”
Once seated in Delilah’s, I leaned back in the club chair and took a deep breath as I steadied myself—the day had already knocked me off-center. I felt like one of those blow-up clowns we played with as kids—the ones with sand in the base that would rock when punched, then snap back for the next blow. The analogy was a little too perfect for my liking. I asked my tablemate, “Want something to wet your whistle? Even this time of year, the desert sucks the water right out of you.”
His attention, captured by a couple of sweet young things in barely-there dresses at the bar, swiveled back to me. “Pellegrino with lime, please.”
I liked it that he didn’t defer, that he accepted my offer. I wondered where that was listed in the Federal Guidelines for Disarming Women. And why was I still climbing on that mental jungle gym? The seeds of my own destruction were of my own making—a cruel quirk of life.
The minute I glanced in her direction, a waitress stepped to the table. I gave her the agent’s order then said, “A Diet Coke and an order of sliders for the table, please.”
She made a couple of notes with a fleeting grin at me and a longing look at Agent Stokes.
He seemed oblivious to the attention he attracted as we engaged in idle chitchat while waiting for our orders—apparently, he didn’t want to be interrupted again by the waitress returning. Settled in, the weather fully discussed, I lapsed into silence and waited. The silence hadn’t even stretched to awkward before the waitress returned. After arranging our food and beverages on the table, she drifted back to the bar, out of earshot.
I turned my attention to the sliders, each one a drippy mess of perfection. After quickly consuming one, I powered into the second. “Want one?”
Special Agent Stokes had yet to tell me why he’d called this meeting. Instead, he watched me as he took a long drink of his fizzy water, then set the glass back down, squaring the napkin, and shook his head.
Recognizing the stalling tactic, I took the opportunity to admire the line of his jaw, the crinkles around his eyes. Although all business, he looked like he could be nice—not that I was a good judge of character or anything.
And I realized something else: it had been far too long since I had seriously ogled any men. Far too fun a game, I’d have to rectify that, starting now. Although, since this wasn’t fun and games, I’d have to be discreet.
The special agent cleared his throat as his eyes found mine. “I wasn’t completely honest with you earlier. I’m with the department of Homeland Security—specifically, I’m the federal liaison with the Southern Nevada Joint Terrorism Task Force. I need to speak with Jean-Charles Bouclet—I understand you have intimate knowledge of his possible whereabouts.”
Intimate. I wondered why he chose that word. “Really?” I feigned surprise. “What makes you think that?” I set the last third of my second slider down, wiping my fingers on the linen napkin. As I sipped my Diet Coke, I gave him a calm, steady stare. Amazingly, my voice followed suit . . . it didn’t even hitch, not once.
His discomfort showed in the pinkening of his cheeks and his inability to keep steady eye contact. Fiddling with his lime slices, he squeezed enough juice into his Pellegrino to dissolve enamel.
“Surely, our chef can’t have an impact on national security. Are you sure this isn’t one of your training things?”
Special Agent Stokes’s voice hardened into serious. “You have two murders so far, I hardly think that indicates a drill.”
He had a point. “What can I do for you, then?” I picked up the remainder of my slider, eyeing it, turning it for just the perfect bite.
“My job involves analyzing all the possible means of terrorist attack on our soil, including adulterating our food supply.” He let those words make the obvious impact.
My hand froze, the slider suspended in mid-air. “Food? You mean poison?” My voice squeaked—it’d been doing that a lot lately. Leaning forward, I replaced the slider on my plate, shoving it away with a forefinger. “My appetite just disappeared.” I glanced around to see if anyone was paying attention to our conversation. No one looked alarmed or interested, for that matter. I lowered my voice when I recovered my composure. “You think all this is about poisoning a whole bunch of folks?” Crowds were gathering for the chef competition as well as all the attendant events, not to mention Thanksgiving. If some wacko wanted to cause a big stir, this would be a good opportunity. Christ! Thankfully, I kept the panic out of my voice, and its volume modulated.
He shrugged, and his confidence sagged a little. “That’s where I’m not sure. We picked up a scent of something odd going on, some shipments routed through an odd location . . .”
“Kansas.”
He stopped and shot me a quizzical look. “No, we’re not exactly sure where they get derailed. We think they arrive in Vegas . . . somewhere.”
“Really?” So my instincts weren’t completely on the fritz. Livermore, the little weasel. And I was pretty sure I had part of the answer in my pocket. The RFID chips would give us routing information. But if I gave them to Stokes, he’d bury the info and I’d have one heck of a time catching a killer. Okay, maybe that was a bit harsh, but the feds were notoriously bad about sharing their information with local agencies—Romeo and I would be out in the dark. And while Homeland Security rode off chasing some imagined terrorists, a killer would still be roaming the halls of my hotel.
There I was, justifying again, and championship level stuff at that. And I had little doubt that, if I wasn’t careful, I was justifying myself right into an invitation for an extended stay at the behest of the federal government.
“Why did you think Kansas?”
His question startled me, lost as I was sowing the seeds of my own incarceration. “What?” I waved his question away. “Just being flip, sorry,” I lied, stalling for time. There were just too many folks in this game playing their own angles. Before I trusted anyone, I needed to get some facts, something concrete. And I sure wasn’t going to sic the feds on Livermore—not before I got my hands around his neck, anyway. Nothing like the feds to scare the rats back into the sewers.
“I assure you, Ms. O’Toole, this is very serious.” The look he gave me could strip paint. “Withholding information is a federal offense.”
I wanted to correct him—there was more than a bit of bluff in his statement—that so far we had no federal crime, at least, not one I was aware of. But I decided to play along. . . . As Mona used to tell me, “Be nice until you squeeze the trigger.”
“Understood, Special Agent. My humor is a way to off-load some panic.” I gave him a self-deprecating shrug as I took my scolding like a man. “Most of your guys call me Lucky. As you probably know, I work closely with Metro and Homeland Security, although Jerry, our head of Security is the point man.”
“I was told you were the one to entrust this to.” He extended his hand. “Since we’re practically partners and all, you can call me Joe.”
We shook hands in a silly, now-we’ve-met-for-real way that did little to lighten the mood.
“You are working with Metro and rolling in our kitchen and banquet staffs?” I asked, clicking into corporate mode. “I assure you this hotel will help you in any way, all I ask is that you be discreet until you have all your ducks in a row.” I waited for his nod, then continued. “Okay, Joe. Give me what you got, and I’ll try to help you put together the puzzle pieces. Trust me, I want widespread panic even less than you do.” I’d walked the Strip after 9/11. The tourists gone, the cars absent, Vegas had turned into a ghost town overnight. The only thing that had moved, other than me, was trash swirling on silent breezes. The only noise had been the pounding silence. I’d never fully overcome the fear, the incredible creepiness, the anger, the horror. I fingered the RIFD tags in my pocket and wondered how they played into this whole thing. And when I figured it out, and I faced the responsible person, I’d have no problem squeezing the trigger, and smiling as I did so.
“Chef Bouclet started tagging a bunch of shipments—I won’t burden you with the tech aspects and all.”
My eyes narrowed, but my smile didn’t dim—he was dangerously close to patronizing. I’d shot men for less.
Apparently unaware of the dangerous waters he’d waded into, Special Agent Stokes . . . Joe . . . continued: “Curious as to what he was doing, we intercepted a couple of shipments and scanned the tags, then sent them on. Some of the data was gibberish. Besides, we really didn’t know what we were looking for.”
“And here I thought you guys had all the answers.” I chewed on my lip. “Is Chef Bouclet working with you?”
“You know I’m not at liberty to say.” He paused, perusing my face—looking for a hint of guilt about something, I suspected. “We need to find Chef Bouclet. He’s the key to all of this.”
Special Agent Joe Stokes had that part wrong. Jean-Charles wasn’t the key.
But I knew who was.