Page 7 of Blind Luck

CHAPTER 3

ERIN

Or maybe not.

Day Two in Vegas, and I borrowed Ari’s shower, a necessity because early this morning, I’d stepped outside for a few minutes to get some air and nearly melted. I’d lived in California for most of my life, with a brief foray to Florida and a two-month mistake in Texas, but this heat was unreal.

Sweat City, baby.

First thing this morning, I’d eaten breakfast from the buffet and then shown up early in the Library to get the table with the best view. What was the PI equivalent of dumping a towel on a lounge chair? I couldn’t leave a phone or a laptop or anything expensive in the bar, so I draped a sweater I definitely didn’t need to wear over the back of the chair and placed a paperback on the table beside a notepad and a pen. Would I need to make notes? I sure hoped not, because my handwriting was barely legible. Education wasn’t exactly a priority among the women in the Promised Land. The Prophet didn’t want us getting too smart. Perhaps that was why I hadn’t understood that antifreeze would kill my dad instead ofjust making him sick? Anyhow, all I’d done so far today was doodle a bit and tally up the hours as they ticked past.

This evening’s bartender was a slender guy with spiky hair and a nose ring, and he grinned at me as he pointed to a glass. Did I want another drink? I gave him a thumbs-up. Ari had confirmed with Jerry that our budget was generous, and that included the tips, so I’d been adding fifty percent and then pouring the lemonade into the potted plant beside me to avoid visiting the bathroom every thirty minutes.

Did lemonade kill plants? Probably I should have checked that first.

Anyhow, I’d been here all day and half the evening, and nobody had gotten upset that I was hogging a table for four. Ari had promised to come back for the evening shift, but she was running late. Something about a crisis in a Zen garden? I didn’t really understand. Ari had talked with a couple of contacts about loan sharks, and now she’d headed over to see Digby Rennick, the guy she worked for in Vegas who’d become a friend as well as a client. According to Ari and also Wikipedia, he was a math genius, and he’d offered to take a look at the Galaxy’s accounts. Alexa had uploaded a backup of the system to a secure portal, and when Ari pressed her as to how it came into her possession, she said she used the old pizza trick with one of the Galaxy’s accounting staff.

“Pizza trick?”

“You’ve won a million dollars? Obvious scam. You’ve won a personal pizza from Gino’s? They’ll give you their social security number and the name of their first pet.”

“Don’t they get suspicious when the pizza doesn’t show up?”

“Oh, I send them the pizza. I figure it’s the least I can do.”

So anyhow, Digby Rennick knew a bunch aboutnumbers, and he also knew a bunch about money. He and Ari planned to look over the accounting entries to see if they could find any evidence of the loan Jimmy claimed he was owed.

While I watered a palm with soft drinks.

I didn’t much mind sitting here in the Library on my own. People-watching was fun, and I’d spent the afternoon guessing which jobs people did. The uptight douchebag who’d berated Janine for serving him a martini in a glass with smears earlier this afternoon was clearly in management, and the guy with the weirdly white teeth was either a dentist or a game show host or he’d taken a recent vacation in Turkey. The guy with the tight jeans, pink T-shirt, and high pain threshold? Either a Silicon Valley refugee, a barista, or a tattoo artist. Boy, did he have a lot of ink. Who would voluntarily sit there and be stabbed by a needle for hours? Not me. Two years ago, I’d had a roommate with the tiniest tattoo ever. It was a dot. A blue dot. My other roommate told me it was supposed to be a mermaid, but the coward had run screaming from the chair.

Anyhow, Tattoo Guy ordered a fancy cocktail and sat at the bar, and I watched as a blonde in a minuscule pink dress approached. A blind date? They spoke for several moments, he shook his head, and she took a seat at the table in the farthest corner with a glass of water. At least, it looked like water. It could have been vodka.

I pretended to read as she approached three more men through the afternoon. The third nodded rather than shaking his head, and the two of them disappeared. Did this hotel rent rooms by the hour? I was almost sure she was looking for payment, especially when she returned exactly sixty minutes later, alone, and ordered a shot of amber liquor plus another glass of water.

Every so often, a member of staff would come or go through the door to the executive suite, but they weremostly old or female or both, and I didn’t see anyone resembling Jimmy. Ari had said it was a long shot, but we didn’t exactly have many short shots at the moment, and who was I to complain about eating all day? This hotel might have two stars on Trip Advisor, but they sure did get their fries crispy. Special potatoes? Special oil? I considered asking, but then I decided I’d rather not know.

The Library grew a little busier in the evening. A couple walked in, glanced around, and left again. Pink Dress waved as two friends in similar attire appeared, and they moseyed over to her table in the corner. One of them waved to the bartender on the way. Whatever they were up to, it was clearly sanctioned.

Another three girls teetered in, all blonde, and I wondered if they might be friends with Pink Dress too, but the newcomers were younger and they didn’t so much as glance in her direction. They made a beeline for the bar instead, and was it me, or did the bartender grimace faintly?

Yes. Yes, he did.

A tall guy meandered in, wearing loose-fit jeans, a baggy sweater, sunglasses, and a ball cap with mid-brown hair sticking out from underneath. Who wore sunglasses indoors? Did he have a vision problem? Or was he a rapper? No, his chin was hidden by a big, bushy beard, and didn’t rappers mostly have goatees? Anyhow, he seemed to be able to read the menu okay, although he’d be waiting a while for service. There were only two busy waitstaff working in the restaurant tonight compared with the three yesterday. Did someone call in sick?

Ari said that Cole wanted to save the hotel for the staff, that he didn’t want them to lose their jobs, but the place was already running on a skeleton crew.

At seven, Ari texted to say she’d be another hour or so because she was still going through numbers with Rennick.Did that mean they’d found something? I hoped they had. Sitting in the Library would be fun for a day or two, but any longer and I’d get bloated and bored.

I began typing out a text.

Me: Did you?—

“Hey, could you move seats?”

I raised my head to see the trio of blonde girls staring at me, drinks in their hands. They looked nearly the same—bleached hair, tan skin, condescending expressions on their faces—but each wore a different shade of lipstick. Cotton candy, cherry, and plum.

“I like this table.”

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