Page 19 of Trick's Trap

“Thank you,” he said in his terrible Mandarin accent. “I’m very grateful. I’ll forward the details later tonight.”

He released a pent-up breath before hanging up with exaggerated casualness. His act didn’t fool them. The agents hadn’t missed the exchange. They were both staring at him.

“What is it?” he asked, sitting back down, shuffling the pile of papers on his desk as if searching for something.

Jason tsked. “Nice try. Spill.”

He scratched his head.Damn. “How did you know something was up?”

“We’re detectives,” Ethan said flatly.

“Not good enough. Seriously, what gave me away? I wasn’t even speaking English or Russian or any of the other languages you know,” he said, gesturing at Ethan, the resident linguistics expert.

Ethan’s fine dark eyebrows rose. “It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it.”

Damn. They were good.Or I’m terrible. Clearly, his poker face didn’t extend to phone conversations. Either way, Trick couldn’t keep the truth from them now. He just hoped they wouldn’t arrest him for what he had planned.

“Fine. You remember when we were brainstorming that night I ran into Tahlia? How I decided to check in with all my underground gaming contacts in New York?”

“I do,” Ethan said, leaning back on the love seat and crossing his arms. “I also remember you promising to share whatever you heard from them.”

“If any of that info had panned out, I would have. But then I had another idea…”

Jason narrowed his eyes. “I know that look. What are you up to?”

Trick leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. “I decided to set up my own underground casino.”

“Patrick…” Jason rolled his eyes. “You know that’s illegal. If I let you do something like that, your brotherandyour sister would have my guts for garters.”

“Not if I didn’t plan on keeping the money,” he said, holding up a finger. “For official purposes, it’s listed as a charity event.”

“You already set it up?” Ethan was shaking his head.

Trick loved these two, but he couldn’t let these two by-the-book law officers derail his plans.

“It goes down next week. I found a little place in Chinatown, and I’ve been blasting it on all the poker forums I belong to and then some. I’m spinning it as a ladies’ night special. Any woman who comes in the door gets a hundred in complimentary chips.”

“Only a hundred?” Ethan scoffed.

“I thought a thousand would be too suspicious.”

“A hundred may not be enough. Go with a grand. So what was the call in Chinese about?” Jason said, shuffling some papers.

“I asked Chao for a favor.”

“Oh, I do not like the sound of that,” Ethan said.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Jason agreed.

“No matter what you do, don’t tell Liam,” Trick said.

“You didn’t sign away your shares of the Caislean, did you?” Jason asked.

“Of course not,” he tsked. “But Chao’s daughter is getting married, and she loves the Caislean ballroom. The waiting list is booked up for the next five years.”

“Oh, is that all?” Jason appeared relieved, but Trick wasn’t finished yet.

“Well, technically, the date she wanted wasn’t available, but as it happened, the people who booked it are over a month late with the final payment. I’m going to bump them to the medium blue ballroom and refund them the difference.”

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