Page 50 of High Roller

“Thank you, Luke. I appreciate it. Today has made me realize I’m not taking good enough care of her. We’ve always been just friends, but I brought her here, I should have been paying better attention. No wonder she jumped at the chance to live with Sabrina.”

Luke claps me on the shoulder. “We’ll take good care of her. Find out who did this to her car and then go ask her why she doesn’t seem to believe in car washes.”

With a laugh, I head for my own car so I can meet with Owen before I have to go to work. We both work out of the same casino, The Pink Sapphire, and we agreed to meet there before my shift starts. I know he’ll have already pulled every piece of footage he can find near the coffee shop to see if we can pinpoint who slashed Grace’s tires.

When I enter the command center where he runs a vast security network for Hunter Novak’s casinos, his jacket is off, and his sleeves are rolled up as he stares intently at a bank of monitors while typing feverishly.

“Anything useful?” I say to announce my presence.

His only acknowledgment is a grunt as he kicks a chair out from under the second desk along the wall of monitors. I sit and watch him work, knowing it’s best not to interrupt him.

“The coffee shop’s cameras are in shit spots, so we can’t use them to catch the bastard. Instead, I’m just running every vehicle that comes in and out of the parking lot in that ten-minute window. It’s going to take some time.”

I figured it would be a long shot, but if anyone can do it, it’s Owen.

“Have we heard anything from our network about why Phineas isn’t looking for Liliana?” I ask.

Owen shakes his head. “Nothing. It’s a little disturbing. Are we sure she isn’t a plant?”

It’s crossed my mind to think that a couple of times, but it doesn’t make sense no matter which way I look at it. The shift I was working the night she came into the casino was a scheduled shift, but that information is kept private. I would be more suspicious if I were covering for someone at the last minute.

“It’s worth looking into, but I don’t think so.”

Owen shakes his head. “I don’t either. But we have to look at every possibility. It’s been almost seventy-two hours since he last saw her. It just seems odd that he isn’t even checking the location on her phone.”

I don’t disagree, but right now my focus is on who slashed Grace’s tires, so I nod to the screen. “Have any interesting names popped up on your list so far?”

Owen shakes his head. “Nothing I can connect to us or to Gracie. But there has to be something.”

“What about someone who works for the mechanic who changed her oil the other day? I’m still not convinced that was an accident.”

Owen opens a new window and begins typing. I watch, only pretending to understand what I’m looking at.

“Not directly. But this guy has the same last name as someone from the coffee shop. It’s a place to start anyway. Simmons is a common enough last name it could be nothing, but I’ll check it out.”

“I gotta get to work. But we’ll talk again after my shift.”

Owen gives me another grunt, and I leave him to mutter at his screens.

As I go through the process of a shift change, my mind is not focused on the task. But it’s repetitive enough that no one notices. I’m back at the High Card with Grace and Lili. The women are night a day in everything from appearance to personality, and yet they both occupy my mind as questions of what if swirl.

Gracie

MydaywithBellamyand Lili is better than I expected it to be. I’m not sure what I expected, but the conversation is easy as we talk about life in Las Vegas, dream jobs, and the careers we thought we would have growing up. It’s as if we are three friends in a hotel suite instead of one of us being a hostage.

I feel bad for Lili, but in a twisted way I’m glad I’ve met her.

Tobias calls Bellamy home in the late afternoon, and she leaves me alone with Lili. Our conversation flows just as easily as it did with Bellamy in the room, which is surprising.

When Luke arrives a couple of hours later with the keys to a town car, I fear the worst for Cam Cam, but he quickly soothes my fears.

“Victor is concerned about the last mechanic you took it to, so I’m using one of my guys, and he’s short on the tires you need. Just drive this for a couple of days and your car will be as good as new.”

My shoulders sag with relief.

“Do you need to get out of here? Victor said you could go home if you need to.”

I glance back at Lili’s door. “After I finish visiting with Lili. I do have work in the morning, so I should get home.”

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