Page 26 of Speak of the Devil

Technically, Sunday was still the weekend, but most of the rabid partygoers wouldn’t be out and about when they had to get up and go to work the next day. And although Delia knew she’d be meeting with Caleb and Paige Loomis to sign the paperwork and get the ball rolling, that wouldn’t be until late morning at the earliest.

Plenty of time to recover from a pitcher of margaritas.

“Sounds good,” she replied. “Seven o’clock at Ghost Donkey?”

“It’s a date.”

They ended the call there, and Delia put her phone down on the coffee table. It still felt a little weird to reach out to Pru like this, even though she knew she was just keeping her bases covered. Ignoring her instincts was never a good idea, and besides, it wasn’t as if she was asking her friend to dig up every single piece of information she could find about Caleb Lowe, right down to the name of his pets when he was back in grade school. No, she just wanted some kind of an idea about where he’d come from…and the source of his money.

After all, the last thing she needed was to be working with someone who’d stolen from drug dealers or the mob or whatever.

Life was complicated enough without getting dragged into that kind of drama.

Having reassured herself that her motives were pure, Delia got up from the sofa and went down the hallway to her bedroom. An hour or so of watching TV in bed sounded like the best way to wind down what had turned out to be a much more hectic day than she’d planned.

And then she’d sleep and hope she wouldn’t dream about the nightmarish sensation of those two angry hands pushing against her back…or about the strength of Caleb Lowe’s fingers as they grabbed her by the arm and saved her from serious injury, if not worse.

The way his dark eyes had met hers across the table at Battista’s.

Damn it.

You will not get involved with a client,she told herself.You willnot.

She just wished she believed herself.

Chapter Nine

Caleb had drivenhome after his dinner with Delia Dunne, but a restless fifteen minutes or so of puttering around the house told him he wasn’t going to be content with hanging out and watching some TV.

Maybe he should get a dog.

The idea had occurred to him more than once after he’d bought the place — it had a big yard, and he could certainly adjust his schedule to be around more to play with the pup. When he was a kid, he’d had a dog, a scary-smart German shepherd who’d been his constant companion. As he grew older, he realized the dog hadn’t been much more than a prop to make the Lockwoods look as much like the typical all-American family as possible, but the boy he’d been hadn’t cared.

No, he’d loved Riley and had mourned when the dog passed at the ripe old age of thirteen, about the maximum expected from that breed. By that point, Caleb was almost twenty and already thinking about moving out, and losing Riley had seemed to be a sign that it was time to go.

But eight o’clock on a Friday night wasn’t exactly prime time to visit an animal shelter, so it wasn’t as if he could just run out and grab himself a new canine companion.

Instead, he got into his Range Rover and drove downtown, figuring he might as well start racking up some more wins to replace the money he was about to spend on the house on Pueblo Street.

And to pay for all the massive renovations it would require to make it remotely habitable.

Although things were supposed to slow down in Vegas after the first of the year before they ramped up again around spring break, Caleb didn’t see much sign of that as he hunted for a space in one of the casino parking garages. He finally was able to snag one at the Strat, which seemed to be a signal that he should start his night of gambling there. Because he hadn’t played at that casino yet, he figured it was ripe for the picking.

The darkness of the garage helped conceal him as he shifted his appearance, this time taking on the face and build of an Asian man in his forties. So far, he’d never deployed the same identity twice, using as inspiration people he’d seen on the street or at the grocery store or on the evening news, or failing that, using AI to cook up some useful faces. Once he saw a person, their features were permanently engraved on his memory, making it easy enough to shuffle through all their various visages and decide which one would be right for a particular occasion.

And when he went inside, the stray thought passed through his mind that, although the design elements might change from venue to venue, all casinos were still basically the same — noisy and dark and smelling of cigarette smoke.

In that way, he supposed they were a little like Hell.

He wanted to win, but he wasn’t going to go crazy about it. Maybe 25K here, another 30K somewhere else, and he’d just hopscotch from casino to casino until he had another half million ready to be deposited in yet another bank. Eventually, he’d probably need to get a financial advisor who could help him guide it into T-bills or mutual funds or whatever, but for now, hekind of liked the idea of having millions stashed in the various banks and credit unions around town.

Blackjack first, followed by some time at the craps table. He went into the bathroom in between, making sure to change his appearance before he exited. While he supposed some people might be lucky enough to win big at both games, he thought it better to be careful and make the security team at the Strat — and their cameras — think that two entirely different people had won big tonight.

He got into the flow while playing craps, now wearing the face of a man around his own age, but with dark hair and hazel eyes and features that were entirely unlike his own. Roll after roll went his way, while crowds began to gather around the table and cheer him on.

Among the group were a couple of extremely attractive women, their interest piqued, he guessed, just as much by his appearance as the continued luck he displayed. One of them even leaned on him, rubbing her hip suggestively against his, and he knew she’d be just fine with him taking her home after he collected his winnings.

And would that be such a bad thing? It had been a while since he’d scratched that itch, and he had to admit the girl was pretty spectacular in that tight black dress with her blonde hair cascading down her back.

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