Page 78 of Blind Luck

“I’m Ari Danner—a friend of Rusty and Erin’s—and this is Dusk.”

“Dusk? That’s unusual.”

She didn’t care to elaborate. “Yes, it is. What project are you working on?”

“Sorry, but I signed an NDA. The details haven’t been announced yet.”

“Does the NDA relate to the golf course at the Galaxy?” I asked.

It definitely did. I could tell by the look of shock that crossed her face.

“How do you know about that?”

Time to put some cards on the table. “Erin and Rusty weren’t in the Funhouse by chance last night. Erin and I are private investigators, and we’ve been looking into the Fuller Group’s business dealings.”

“Business dealings?” Kelsey rubbed her temples. “It’s too early for this. My head hurts.”

“You want Tylenol?” Dusk offered.

“Right now, I want so much Tylenol that I’ll fall asleep and never wake up. This is such a freaking mess. How do I even start unravelling it?”

“Maybe we can help?”

She sucked in a breath and asked again, “What business dealings?”

“In order to clear the land to build the golf course you’re working on, the Fuller Group would have to buy the Galaxy and knock it down.”

She confirmed with a nod. “Yes, that’s the plan. Jace said the deal is pretty much finalised. They only have to hammer out a few last details in the contract, but lawyers take forever, you know?”

Oh, he was definitely up to something shady.

“That’s just not true,” I told Kelsey, and there was that shock again, although not so pronounced. Perhaps she was getting numb to it? “There’s no contract in the works, and the owner of the Galaxy doesn’t even want to sell the place.”

“Jace told me heads of terms had been agreed.”

“The Fuller Group made a casual offer, that’s all. If Nebula Holdings wants to sell, we might be interested, that sort of thing.”

“But Jace has been talking as if this is a done deal. The research phase is complete. We finished the feasibility study last year.”

“Did you ever meet with representatives from the Galaxy?”

“Jace said Mike Trevino was getting on in years and didn’t want the burden of being involved in a complex project at his age. He just wanted to sell up and get out. And then he died… I don’t understand—why would Jace drag me all the way out to Las Vegas to design a golf complex that might never be built? There’s a whole team working on this. We’ve spent thousands of man-hours.”

“He brought you because he thinks the project will get the green light. Someone’s been waging a campaign of dirty tricks against the Galaxy, and several people have gotten hurt.” That wasn’t a lie. Lucy McCall had broken her arm, and Jerry had broken her leg plus injured—or worse—at least five people during her own pursuit of the truth. “We’ve been following the breadcrumbs, and we have reason to believe there’s a golf connection, which brings us to the development at the Neptune and your work on the project. Erin was following Jace Fuller last night to see what he got up to.”

“What about Rusty? How is Rusty involved in this?”

Despite Rusty’s reluctance to lie earlier, he spoke up. “Erin’s hella busy on this case at the moment, and if I want to spend time with her, I have to be flexible. Nothing much happens on surveillance, usually. I figured we could play pinball.”

“Ten-pin bowling,” Erin said. “If Jace hadn’t gone full criminal, I would’ve beaten your ass.”

She wasn’t kidding. I’d tried playing her a couple of times, and she was a demon when it came to scattering pins. When I asked what her secret was, she said sheimagined they were her father, her husband, the Prophet, and a bunch of other jackasses from People’s Promise.

Kelsey looked between them. “You two are dating?”

Rusty tucked an arm around Erin, and far from flinching as I’d seen her do when a man made that move in the past, she leaned in closer.

“Yes, we’re dating,” Rusty said.

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