My Ex-Boyfriend's Wedding (24 page)

I peeked through the peephole, not able to disguise the groan that slipped from my lips when I saw Britton's bleached-blonde self staring back at me.

I briefly thought about not answering, but even as I entertained that thought, my cell buzzed to life on the nightstand, Britton's name coming up on the caller ID. I could run, but chances were I couldn't hide from her for ten whole days.

Reluctantly, I opened the door to find her tapping one designer heel against the carpet, pink cell in hand.

"Oh. Hey, I was just calling you. I thought maybe you were out."

"Nope," I answered. "Right here. What can I do for you, Britton?"

Which she took as an invitation to come in, flopping herself down on my double bed. "I need your help," she sighed. "We have an issue with one of the VIP guests."

I frowned. "
My
help?"

"Yeah. Ellie said you're in charge now?"

"Who's Ellie?"

"Penthouse housekeeping. She heard it from Buckie, the valet, who heard it from Tate at the front desk, who overheard Alfie telling Dave in security to keep an eye on you in the surveillance booth."

Mental face palm. I looked up at the ceiling, half expecting Alfie to have wired my room with cameras, too.  

"So, it's true, right?" Britton pressed. "Ellie almost never gets a rumor wrong. Dickie left you in charge?"

I paused before answering, suddenly wondering what my father had left Britton in his will. The lifestyle she'd enjoyed had come with the position of chairman's wife. Once the board appointed a new one, would Britton be ousted?

Suddenly I sort of felt sorry for Britton. But if she was worried, it didn't show in her heavily-lined eyes, wide in anticipation of my answer.

"Sort of," I mumbled. "Only technically."

But that was good enough for Britton. "Fab. So, here are the deets:  one of the guests just called to the front desk saying stuff was missing from his room. You need to go check it out."

"Isn't this the kind of thing we have security for?" I protested.

Britton nodded. "Yes, but the guests like a personal touch. Dickie always did that stuff himself. He said it smoothed feathers and loosened wallets faster." 

I'll bet.

I glanced at the clock. I had two hours before my scheduled massage. "Okay, fine. I guess I could go try to smooth some feathers."

"Cool! Let's go," Britton said, popping up off my bed.

"Did you always come with my dad?" I asked as she led the way down the corridor to the bank of elevators.

Britton shook her head. "No, but I figure you're a rookie. You might need some back-up."

I looked down at her outfit. Britton was dressed in gold stilettos, a pink mini dress, and about a dozen silver bangles. If this was my back-up, God help me.

One elevator ride later we were on the tenth floor of the east turret tower. This was the wing where the hotel's whales, their high rollers, stayed. The hope was the luxury accommodations would keep them on the gambling floor and not out on the ski slopes. Usually it worked, too. 

Outside the door to room 1012 a guy in a black "security" jacket stood guard.

"Hey, Johnny," Britton said, waving at him.

He nodded. "Mrs. King." He looked at me and did a duplicate of the nod. "Ms. King."

I'd never met the guy before, so I could only deduce that Johnny was on the same rumor circuit as the penthouse housekeeping staff.

Either that or he'd already been watching me on Alfie's monitors.

"Mr. Carvell inside?" Britton asked the guy.

He nodded again. "Oh yeah. Not too happy, either."

"No worries. That's why Tessie's here," Britton said, giving me a huge smile.

I bit my lip. She had a whole lot more faith in my ability to smooth feathers than I did.

Johnny opened the door to the suite for us, and Britton and I walked inside.

The room took up roughly the space of four normal guest rooms, a sunken living room in the center, a kitchenette and wet bar to the right, and a doorway leading to a bed and bath on the left. The floors were hardwood covered in soft rugs, the furnishings modern and sleek, and the windows covering the back wall displayed a view of the snow-covered Sierras that rivaled any artwork the hotel's designer could have hung.

Along the wall near the wet bar sat a large, mahogany armoire. Alfie, another guy in a black security jacket, and a man with thinning hair and acne scars wearing an expensively tailored suit stood next to the open cabinet.

Alfie looked up when we entered, his eye twitching ever so slightly at the sight of me. I squelched the urge to tell him the feeling was mutual.

"Mr. Carvell, I am so sorry this happened," Britton gushed, surging forward with her signature air kisses. "But rest assured we will get to the bottom of it. This," she said, beaming, "is Dick's daughter, Tessie. She's running the casino now."

"Uh, temporarily," I mumbled, sticking a hand out to shake Carvell's.

He nodded at me. "Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise," I told him. "I'm sorry it's under such unpleasant circumstances. Is there anything I can do?"

"Security is handling it," Alfie quickly cut in.

I paused, thought 'smoothing' thoughts, and pulled out my biggest smile. "Glad to hear it. I know they're very capable."

"I hope so," Carvell said. "I can't afford a loss like this." He paused. "And I wouldn't expect it at the Royal Palace," he added, the meaning behind it clear: fix this or I'm playing somewhere else.

"Understood," Alfie assured him. "So, you said you put your cash in the safe?"

Carvell nodded, gesturing to the mahogany chest. "Yes. In there. About midnight."

Up close I could tell that it wasn't just a decorative piece of furniture. A black, metal safe sat inside one of the cupboards.

"How much cash?" I asked.

Alfie shot me a look, clearly willing me to be a
silent
figurehead.

"Five grand."

I couldn't help the small whistle that escaped me at the amount.  

"Is there a reason you had such a large sum of cash in your room, Mr. Carvell?" Alfie asked.

The guy pursed his thin lips together, looked down at the carpet, shuffled his feet a bit.

"Mr. Carvell?" Alfie prompted again.

"All right. I was invited to a high-stakes poker game later tonight. This was the buy-in."

Alfie's eye twitched again. While it was impossible to police, casino staff did not look kindly on side games in their hotel. If they didn't get a piece of the action, it generally wasn't allowed.

But, considering the circumstance, Alfie glossed over the admission, asking instead, "Did you know the person who invited you?"

"Not really. I met him at the tables downstairs yesterday morning."

Alfie and the security guy shared a look. My radar perked up. Clearly this tidbit of info meant something to them.

"Was he a guest, too?" I asked.

Alfie narrowed his eyes at me. I did a silent "what?" shrug in his direction.

"I don't know. I assumed so," Carvell answered.

"Did you happen to get a name?" Alfie asked.

"Price. The guy said his name was Price, and that I should meet him in room 1424 at ten tonight." Carvell looked from Alfie to the security guy. "Why? You think this Price guy had something to do with it?"

"What time did you notice the cash missing?" the security guy asked, avoiding the question, I noticed.

"Just now. I called down right away."

"Has anyone else been in your suite with you?" I asked.

Alfie sent me a snarl to go with his narrowed eyes. Geeze, he was territorial. I rolled my own pair of baby-blues, then did a zipping-the-mouth-and-locking-it-shut thing.       

"No," Carvell answered. "It's just been me."

"Between midnight when you deposited the cash and just now when you noticed it missing, how long were you out of your suite?" Alfie asked.

Carvell chewed his lower lip, thinking. "A couple hours, maybe. I went to bed right after I locked up the money. But I had breakfast in the café downstairs this morning, then might have stopped to play a hand or two at the tables."

"And you're sure the door was locked when you left?"

Carvell nodded vigorously. "Completely sure."

I glanced back at the door we'd just come through. Like the rest of the suite, it was in pristine condition. The fact that the lock wasn't broken was a clear sign we were looking at an inside job of some sort. Card key codes were wiped and recoded every time a customer checked out. Unless someone had swiped Carvell's key, stolen his cash, then returned said key to his possession, all without him knowing, whoever had entered the room had to have a master key.

Alfie must have come to the same conclusion I did, as his eyes went dark, the line of his mouth tightening. I suddenly felt a little sorry for the thief. I shuddered to think what Alfie would do to an employee caught stealing.

"Look, can't you guys just take a look at your security tapes?" Carvell said. "You got cameras all over the place. Just look at who was leaving my room this morning."

Alfie and his security shared that look again.

"Actually," the security guy said, "we don't use tape anymore. It's all digitized and logged by computers."

"So check the damned computer then," Carvell told him, his voice rising in proportion to his obvious frustration.

Alfie cleared his throat. "I wish we could. Our system experienced some turbulence this morning resulting in gaps in our currently available footage."

I raised an eyebrow at Alfie. While his language was vague enough, the meaning was alarming. "Are you saying someone messed with your system in order to erase the theft?"

His eyes shot to mine, clearly thinking a whole list of dirty words.

"Our techs are working on recovering the footage," his security guy answered.

"Oh, that's just great!" Carvell said, throwing his arms up.

"Was anything else taken?" Alfie asked, trying to pull Carvell's attention away from the security team's apparent inadequacies. "Any personal items?"

Carvell shook his head. "Not that I noticed. I didn't do a full inventory before I called you guys, but I travel fairly light. Do you need me to do that now?"

"Please," Alfie said.

Carvell sighed deeply, then moved into the bedroom. "Okay, let's go look."

Alfie and the security guy followed him, leaving Britton and me alone.

"Carvell's one of our high rollers," Britton confided in me as soon as he left the room.

"Oh?" I asked, wandering over to the armoire to get a closer look at the safe.

"He sells cars," she explained. "He owns six dealerships in the Bay Area. Comes up here a couple times a month to blow a wad when sales are up." She paused. "Or when his wife is getting on his nerves."

"Has he ever played in private games here before?"

"Not that I know of," Britton told me. "But it's not something he'd advertise, right?"

"Good point," I agreed.

I peered into the cabinet at the now empty black box. I didn't know a lot about safes myself, not actually owning anything worth locking away, but it looked fairly standard. Much like the one we used at the gallery to house our pricier pieces before a show. Only this one was smaller, the interior shoebox sized, and made of thick, fire-safe metal. The door had a keypad on it with several numbers and a little screen. Neither looked damaged. Whoever had broken into the safe hadn't used force. While it didn't look like Fort Knox, it clearly took someone who knew what they were doing more than I did to get into it.

A master key, a knowledge of safe cracking, and the ability to take out the casino's security footage. Not only were we looking at an insider, but I had a bad feeling we were also looking at a pro.

CHAPTER THREE

As soon as Alfie and his security guy ascertained that the cash was the only thing missing, we all left Carvell and dispersed at the elevators. Alfie and his sidekicks took the service elevator to the control room, while Britton headed up to the penthouse, saying she had someone coming in to help her pack up my dad's things.

I tried to ignore how final that sounded. Instead, I looked down at my watch. I still had an hour and a half before my spa appointment. I hit the lobby button on the elevator, riding it down to the main floor. I had a bad feeling I hadn't done all that much to smooth Mr. Carvell's feathers. Yet.

Four clerks were on duty at the check-in desk: a red-head with a pair of ruby lips, a brunette woman in her forties, a guy in a suit who had a "manager" tag pinned to his lapel, and a large, Hispanic guy with dyed blond hair humming a Bette Midler tune to himself. I made a bee-line for the blond.

He spotted me as I approached, throwing both hands up in the air and doing a squeal that could have come from a twelve-year-old girl. "Tessie King, as I live and breathe, is that you, darling?"

I couldn't help an answering grin. "Hi, Tate. It's great to see you," I told him truthfully, coming in for a hug over the top of the counter.

Tate was about my age, and his mother had worked at the Royal Palace for as long as I could remember. As kids, we'd spent countless lazy summer days by the pool together. As an adult, Tate hadn't wandered far, his love of the casino world only growing where mine had waned. But it hadn't kept me from enjoying my last summer before art school here with him, day-tripping to Reno for mall runs, and enjoying "girl days" at the spa.   

"Baby, I am so sorry about your dad. Are you doing okay?" he asked, his well-waxed eyebrows drawing together in concern.

I nodded, shoving the now-familiar lump in my throat down. "I am. Thanks, Tate." Maybe not quite the truth yet, but close.

"Listen, a guest called down here earlier about a theft in his room?" I said.

Tate nodded, his jowls wobbling up and down. "Carvell. Room 1012."

"Right. Can we comp his room? And maybe give him some credit at the poker tables?"

Tate smiled, showing two dimples in his chubby cheeks. "Darlin', you have your father's instincts when it comes to guest relations," he told me, fingers moving over a hidden keyboard behind the counter.