Against The Odds (Anna Dawson #1) (12 page)

Especially strangers. Believe or not, it’s easier to read strangers than people you know really closely. With strangers it’s a clean slate. Everything is noticeable. With those you know well, you bring your own feelings into it.

It’s what makes me a good poker player. If I’d wanted to help people rather than win their money, I’d probably make a good shrink.

But I couldn’t read Jack Schiller.

And that just made me want to all the more.

Jimmy gave up on an answer from Jack, gave my hand a squeeze—which startled me—and headed back into the main area of the church.

“Something I said?” Jack said as he watched Jimmy make his way down the aisle and settle in next to a surprised Lorelei. He hadn’t wanted to disturb Ben on the aisle ahead of them.

“More like something you didn’t,” I said, trying to draw his eyes off of the boys.

“Such as?” he asked, but continued to watch the crowd ahead of us.

“Like, ‘don’t worry, Jimmy, we don’t think you or any of your friends could have had anything to do with hurting Danny’.”

He gave a little snort. Turning his head slightly, he looked at me out of the corner of his brown eyes. “Good thing he didn’t hold his breath.”

The crowd was standing again, singing another hymn. I turned fully toward Jack. “You can’t possibly believe that any of those sweet old men had anything to do with this?”

“Sweet? Jimmy Mancino, sweet?” He raised a brow at me. He had that down perfectly, the one brow raise. I’d practiced it in the mirror when I first started playing, practicing poker expressions. Intimidation tactics

I could never pull it off.

But what was probably intimidating to most—Jack’s brow raise—had a different effect on me. One I chose to ignore while talking about the welfare of The Corporation.

“Jimmy
can
be sweet,” I said, but didn’t have much conviction in my voice. I decided to try a different tack. “What motive could they possibly have? They all loved Danny. Everybody loved Danny.”

Jack turned back to the front, sighed. “That’s what I’m finding out. Everybody loved Danny O’Hern.”

“You sound disappointed.”

He shrugged, and for the first time I noticed he was wearing a sports coat and tie instead of his usual leather jacket and tie. I looked down. Slacks instead of khakis. And nice loafers.

 
I liked the idea that he’d put some effort into this. For Danny.

“Everybody loving the victim just makes my job harder.”

“You like it when everybody hates the victim?”

“Well, that’s difficult too. Too many suspects.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said.

“Which was? Sorry, I was so involved in the Danny O’Hern love fest.”

I gave him my best scowl, but he either didn’t see it or ignored it—the idea of either infuriating me. “What motive could one of the boys have for killing Danny?”

“The same motives for any murder—revenge or money.”

“What about a crime of passion?”

He looked at me. “Same as revenge, only with a twist.”
 

“What about just a random act of violence? That happens all the time. No motive other than needing a few bucks for a fix.”

“There was nothing random about Danny O’Hern’s murder.”

“How do you know that?”

He looked around us, at the empty room. But apparently that wasn’t secluded enough. He took my arm, just above the wrist and pulled me toward an empty hallway that led to offices.

Was I going to get some details? We’d all been going crazy the last few days with knowing—or not knowing—exactly what had happened to Danny that night.

“They knew exactly where to do it. What parking lot didn’t have any kind of security system. That suggests somebody who knows Vegas.”

“So, you think it was somebody who knew the town—that narrows it down,” I said, the sarcasm dripping.

“Or somebody from out of town hiring local talent,” Jack said. “Mr. O’Hern’s car was not at the scene, so he was most likely brought there by the killer. If he was brought there against his will, we probably would have found some signs of struggle on his body; there weren’t any.”
 

The words brought a chill to me. “Jesus,” I said. It couldn’t have been any more real to me than Danny being in a coffin two rooms away, and yet, this made it seem so…scary.

“I guess…I mean… I got that he was dead, and that he’d been killed, but I guess…”

“You hadn’t thought about someone actually putting the gun to the back of his head and pulling the trigger?”

A vision of sweet Danny with the muzzle of a gun to his head came to my mind and a shudder ran through me. I looked up at Jack. It wasn’t too hard; he was only a couple of inches taller than me.

There was something close to compassion in his eyes. And also…measurement of some sort.
 

I took a deep breath, put my chin up, and nodded for him to go on.

He studied me for a second, then nodded, like I’d passed some kind of test.

“We’re thinking he knew the killer. Was lulled into a false sense of security. Enough to get into a car with them, anyway.”

“So, you really think it was a friend?” I said, disbelief in my voice.

“Spouses, friends and family come to mind the quickest in all homicides, yes. But…”

I clung to that but. “But?”

He raised a shoulder, a half shrug. “Think of all the people you’d get in a car with. More than just close friends and family, right? I mean, there are business associates, neighbors.”

I thought of the car ride I took ten years ago with Paulie, the one that ended in a hospital stay. “Yes,” I whispered.
 

He saw that I’d left him, that I was remembering something. He just didn’t know it had nothing to do with Danny.

At least I thought it didn’t.

One of the funeral directors peeked his head down the hallway. “There you are. Miss Dawson, we’re ready for you.”

I nodded, started to move past Jack. He stuck an arm out, stopping me. He leaned into me, but not touching. I could feel the heat, the intensity pouring out of him.

“What are you needed for, Miss Dawson?”

“Anna,” I said, a little more breathily than intended. “I’m a pallbearer. A stand-in for Ben.”

He nodded, but left his arm where it was, blocking me from the hallway. His other hand came up and went to my throat. He turned over my twisted pendant, patted it to my skin, much like the way I do when I’m watching a game or playing poker.

“Horseshoe. For luck,” he said softly. It wasn’t a question, so I said nothing. “Does it work?”
 

I thought of all the money I’d won over the last ten years. More money than my parents had made in their whole careers.

And then I remembered Vince; out there, probably cursing himself for giving me a week interest-free.

“Not often enough,” I said.

He looked from the pendant to my eyes. “I hear that,” he said and dropped his arm away from the wall, though he kept his hand on my necklace. On my skin.

 
“Will you tell me if you think of anything that might help in the case? So far, we’ve got nothing.”

“Is that why you told me about Danny’s death? So I would help?”
 
The thought didn’t really bother me; I just wanted to know up front what Jack’s motives were.

Though something told me one never knew what Jack Schiller’s true motives were.

He shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“From what I understand, you know Vegas well, know a lot of players. I just thought you might hear something from somebody that could shed some light on this.”

Like Danny was a degenerate gambler? That he owed someone not-so-nice a lot of money? That the life he led outwardly to his friends and family was a sham?

Those thoughts ran through my mind so quickly that I didn’t even stop to wonder how—or from whom—Jack had found out I was in a position to possibly know something.

 
“Will you tell me if you hear anything? Anything at all,” he said.

If it would hurt Danny’s reputation, or destroy his family, and not even help solve the case? I couldn’t make that promise to him, and something told me not to lie to him. “I don’t know,” I said.

He looked away, took a breath, then looked back at me. “Fair enough,” he said.

He pulled his hand away from my neck and as he did I noticed the slightest tremble in his hand.

The weakness pissed me off. Unfair, yes, but it did. I didn’t want to think of Jack as human. I needed him to be more. I needed him to avenge Danny for us all.

As I brushed past him I said, “Need a drink?”

“Need a casino?” he zinged right back.

I studied him for a minute, recognizing a part of myself. Perhaps that’s what had pissed me off.
 

“Desperately,” I said softly, then turned to go bury my friend.

Chapter Nine

M
y new phone rang two days later. “Dancing Queen” came on and I knew who it would be. I excused myself from the poker table. I hadn’t been in a hand in half an hour anyway.

I’d been trying to build the small amount of funds I had available to me into something I could parlay into enough to pay Vince back, but hadn’t had any luck. Hard to build something that big with just a few hundred dollars. And there was no way I could play at one of Vince’s games on marker while I still owed him so much.

I’d tried different casinos, looking for bad players with big wallets, but no fish swam today.

“Hey, Lor,” I said when I got to the small alcove that used to be used for payphones but was now only used by those needing to be heard on a cell. “You’re the inaugural call.” So wrapped up in my new gizmo that Lorelei had given me a crash course in yesterday, I’d forgotten that Lorelei rarely called me while I was playing cards. “What’s wrong?” I quickly asked.

“Nothing. Nothing. Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

I exhaled, not realizing I’d been holding my breath. “That’s okay. You didn’t,” I lied.

“Ben and I are car shopping,” she said.

“Oh. That’s right.” I’d forgotten all about that. It seemed like years ago when I’d brought Ben home from the morgue. It’d only been a week. “Did you find anything?”

“That’s why I’m calling. Is it okay if we go over thirty thousand? We both really love this Lexus SUV. It’s exactly the perfect height for Ben to get in and out of. Not too high, but not low like our cars.”

Her voice was so innocent, so blasé. And why shouldn’t it be? We had a Porsche and a BMW 650i in the driveway. We bought expensive cars.

How was she to know what that money could do for me? That it could get me out of debt with Vince. That I wouldn’t have had to spend the last two days grinding at the tables to try and prevent the re-emergence of JoJo onto the college basketball scene.

“Can the slush fund handle a Lexus?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” she said, and I cringed. God, I wish I hadn’t known that.

“Lor…I,”

“Yes?”
 

I opened my mouth and then shut it. I couldn’t. It would bring down an avalanche of shit. Lorelei would freak out. The interventions would ratchet up. She might even leave.

 
It would bring stress to the entire household on top of Danny’s murder still being unsolved. And most of all, Ben would be disappointed in me.

I’d rather deal with Vince, Paulie and JoJo.

“I think a Lexus sounds great,” I finally said.

There was a sound of relief and I vaguely wondered if perhaps her thought process had gone in the same direction as mine.

“Thanks, Jo. We’ll see you later?”

I thought of my small stack at the table. “Yeah, I won’t be too much longer.”

A
few hours later I pulled into my driveway the same time Lorelei and Ben did in a shiny gold Lexus. Lorelei’s Beemer was already parked in the open garage.

I didn’t even want to think about how Lorelei could pull off buying, registering, insuring the Lexus and getting both cars home in just a few hours.

The woman was a wonder and I didn’t tell her enough how much I valued her.

I was just about to as we all gathered together to admire the new wheels, but a blue sedan pulled up to the curb and Jack Schiller stepped out.

A tiny zip went through me until I realized that it probably wasn’t a good thing he was here. I looked into his back seat. Empty. I don’t know what—or who—I expected to see.
 

The rest of The Corporation in handcuffs?

As if they’d even fit. Jimmy alone would take up most of the back seat.

“Detective Schiller,” Ben said in greeting. He shook Jack’s hand.

“Mr. Lowenstein. Ladies,” Jack said, nodding to both Lorelei and me. I tried to read his face, but as usual, came up blank.