The Good Girl's Guide to Bad Men (13 page)

Tears began to well in her eyes, and I waited patiently for her to dab them away.

"But then, eventually the initial blow of it all subsided and we started talking about adoption. I was afraid he would be opposed to the idea. I know I was at first. It's just impossible to tell how you're going to feel about raising a baby that's not your own flesh and blood until it's the only option you have left. When Ben told me he would be just as happy adopting, a relief washed over me. I was ecstatic. I felt like I was finally going to get what I'd always wanted."

She had paused then and looked longingly out my office window, the moisture creeping back into her eyes. "But now, I don't know." She turned back to face me. "I can't bring a baby into a marriage that's not one hundred percent solid. I just can't do that."

I nodded, compassion and empathy rising inside of me. These were the kinds of assignments that made me feel good about what I did. Not that I wasn't happy to help everyone who came to me for answers. But it was assignments like this one that renewed my spirit, reminded me of my purpose, kept me fulfilled.

I could feel something cold and grimy under my fingers, and I realized that I was now gripping the bars of Shawna's jail cell. I quickly released them and wiped my palms on my sweatshirt.

"Ashlyn?" Shawna was standing in front of me now, her sparkly shadowed eyes watching me curiously. "Are you all right?"

I shook myself from the reverie of my flashback. "What? Yeah, I'm fine. What else did the file say about Benjamin Connors? About why he was here. In Vegas. What was he doing here?" The questions were flying out of my mouth, rushed and ineloquent. I already knew the answers, I just needed to hear some sort of confirmation. To assure me that my memories were trustworthy.

She squirmed in her uncomfortable costume and adjusted the seashells on her bikini top as she thought. "It just said that he likes to come to Vegas on his own to play blackjack. And that he knew he wouldn't be able to go as much after the baby arrived, so he was going to make the most of it."

Ding. Dong. Ding. Dong. Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Suddenly the bells were back. And they were ringing louder than ever. In the back of my mind, I heard Darcie Connors's voice again. This time it came through with some kind of echo effect, almost ethereal:
I wouldn't be surprised if he stays up all night. Or at least until his money runs out.

I pulled my cell phone out of my bag and checked the clock. It was two-thirty in the morning. If I was lucky, there was a chance it wasn't too late.

The scratchy sound of a loud, obnoxious throat clearing filled the hallway just then, and I glanced in the direction from which I'd come. The cheerful security guard was standing there with his arms crossed, indicating that my five minutes was up.

I turned my head hastily back to Shawna. "I have to go. But I promise I'll be back first thing in the morning." I glanced down at her outfit, then swiftly pulled my sweatshirt over my head and passed it through the bars to her. "In case you get cold tonight."

I turned toward the door, but her hand reached through the bars and touched my bare shoulder. "Wait!" she cried, her eyes still struggling to read my face for clues. "What are you going to do about Benjamin Connors?"

I paused for a moment as images of Jamie's face flashed before my eyes, but I did everything in my power to keep them at bay.

Sometimes in life you have to make exceptions. Sometimes you have to break the rules. Because not everything is clear-cut. Not everything happens the way you plan it. People are unpredictable. Things go awry. Messes are made.

And sometimes there's no one else to clean them up.

"I'm going to take care of it."

The minute I stepped into the casino of the Palazzo Hotel, I was struck with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

It felt like decades since the last time I went undercover. Another lifetime.

Another
me.

But nonetheless, there I was. Just like old times. Dressed in my sexy little dress and designer shoes and armed with nothing but a fake name and a hidden purpose.

My dress was slightly wrinkled from the plane ride, and my hair was far from perfect. I had found some mascara and lip gloss in my purse and was able to do a quick makeup touch-up in the cab on the way here, but I was still nowhere near the level of glamour that usually accompanied a night like this.

I attempted to smooth my hair as I approached the row of blackjack tables and discreetly surveyed the crowd.

It was surprisingly busy for three in the morning. Or maybe not so surprising given the nature of this town. Eight blackjack tables were currently in use, all of them full. The only time I had ever seen what Benjamin Connors looked like was when Darcie Connors first handed me his photograph and I placed it in the case file I assembled for Shawna. I knew that at this very moment, that file was sitting in a suite thirty-five floors above my head. And the little cardboard key that unlocked the door was being held captive with the rest of Shawna's personal effects at the Clark County Detention Center, and I didn't have the time or the resources to figure out alternate ways to gain access to her room.

I would have to rely on memory and instincts alone.

I circled the eight tables slowly, pretending to be engrossed in each of the games as my eyes subtly scanned the faces of the players. Not one of them looked even remotely familiar. I completed two more laps around the cluster of tables before starting to resign myself to the fact that Benjamin Connors might have run out of steam or money or both and could have gone to sleep hours ago.

"Are these the only blackjack tables in the casino?" I asked one of the pit bosses as I completed my third rotation.

He nodded, his jawline firm, as if smiling on the job were grounds for termination. "But there are more in the Venetian."

My eyebrows rose. What if he had gotten bored with the tables here and moved to a different casino? But if that was the case, he could be anywhere by now. The Strip was huge, and it would take me six hours to search every casino. Not only did I not have the energy, I didn't have the time. It was coming on 3:15 in the morning already. I had to bail Shawna out of jail in five and a half hours.

A sentence I never thought I'd ever hear myself say.

"Is the Venetian close by?" I asked.

He nodded again and pointed toward the large interior courtyard in the distance. "It's connected to the Palazzo."

I thanked the man and started in the direction his finger had pointed. Darcie Connors was fairly certain her husband preferred the Palazzo, but then again, she was also fairly certain he would never cheat on her, and look how that ended. I figured the possibility that Benjamin Connors had decided to try his luck next door at the adjoining Venetian was high enough to warrant a thorough investigation of their blackjack tables as well. If I couldn't find him in half an hour, then I supposed I would have to admit defeat.

I was almost to the clearing that led into the courtyard and could see the signs above my head leading the way to the Palazzo's sister hotel when a roar of loud cheering ripped through the space around me. I turned my head to see where it had originated, and my eyes landed on a craps table at the end of the row. In all the times I had been to Vegas in my career, I had never fully understood that game. It always seemed to elicit the most enthusiastic responses of any table in the house. Every time I passed by a lively craps game, I felt as if I were stepping into the final fifteen seconds of overtime in a tied Super Bowl game.

The entire table was up in arms, high-fiving one another and making childish whooping sounds. I stopped walking for a moment, watching the group of people as they all held their breath and someone standing near the far end blew on a pair of dice and tossed them across the table.

Another eruption of cheers ricocheted off the walls, and I almost laughed at the spectacle of it all. That is, until my eyes landed on the man in the blue polo shirt and khaki pants standing three spaces from the center of the table. And all traces of amusement were wiped clean off my face.

I thought that it might be difficult to recognize him. I thought the fading photograph in my mind might leave me with doubt. But every bone in my body was telling me that this was Benjamin Connors.

Apparently, I was right: He
did
get bored with the blackjack tables here. But instead of changing casinos, he simply changed games.

My body stiffened as I watched him, unseen, from a few feet away. He was far too absorbed in what was going on at the table to notice me standing there.

As soon as I laid eyes on him, I could feel all my old instincts start to kick into gear again. My internal men-reading device seemed to know exactly what was happening and switched into active mode.

Darcie Connors had told me that Benjamin had just turned thirty in July and that they had been married for five years. She had told me about their struggle to conceive a child and their decision to adopt. She had even told me that they were once college sweethearts.

But these were just facts, numbers and dates and events. There were still so many other things that she didn't tell me. Not because she didn't want to, but because she
couldn't.
Because she didn't even know them herself.

I, however, was able to spot them instantly. Almost like magic.

Benjamin Connors once lived a picture-perfect dream life. It was effortlessly sold to him without the slightest forecast of buyer's remorse at the age of twenty-four. His marriage came a year after that, along with a monthly house payment, a barbecue in the backyard, and the promise of children someday.

This was what life was about. And he was fine with that. After all, if it had been good enough for his two brothers who settled down before him, it was good enough for him.

And then he turned thirty.

And something changed. At first, he didn't even know what it was. A feeling. A constant buzzing in the background that was tolerable but not silenceable. Over the next few weeks, the buzzing got gradually louder, eventually making it hard to concentrate at work, while watching TV, even during sex. And the talk of babies and adoption and picking out a crib for the nursery only made it worse.

He found himself often waking in the middle of the night in a panic, beads of sweat appearing across his forehead, breathing shallowly. He couldn't understand what was happening to him. He considered seeing a doctor. Or maybe a shrink.

Until one night he woke in his usual anxiousness, gasping for breath, and he looked over at the woman sleeping next to him, the only woman he'd ever loved. And that's when he realized what the buzzing sound was. It was a question. And it demanded to be answered:

Is
this really what I want out of life?

He assumed the feeling would eventually pass. He wrote it off as being some strange rite of passage that comes to all men who enter their third decade of life.

And he's right.

He certainly isn't the only man to turn thirty and feel the sudden urge to take inventory of his life. There are many men in the world like Benjamin Connors, who have, at one point or another, wondered what else is out there.

Some of these men resolve to find it. Others just continue to wonder.

And now it was up to me to determine which category Benjamin Connors fit into.

I peered into my purse and checked my financial situation. I had approximately three hundred dollars in cash left over from the ATM withdrawal I'd made before we left for Cabo. I hoped it would be sufficient to keep me in the game long enough to make that determination.

I took a deep breath and one step forward. Then another deep breath and another step. Until I found myself standing directly behind Benjamin Connors at the craps table.

It's just one time,
I told myself repeatedly.
Just this once.

This was it. One year of retirement, and I was back. Unofficially, of course. And only out of necessity. I tried desperately to remember what I was supposed to do. The way I was supposed to act. Deep down, there was a small fear that after being out of commission for nearly a year, I would be rusty and out of practice. And an even bigger fear that it would show and blow my cover.

But I swallowed down both of them and squeezed my way up to the table, claiming the space directly to the right of my first subject in over a year.

The minute his eyes acknowledged my presence, it all came rushing back to me. The flirtation tactics, the charm, knowing how much of my hand to show and how much to save for later. Almost as though I had never left.

It was just like riding a bike. And I immediately realized that mine was a skill that was not so easily forgotten. I guess there's just something about being an undercover fidelity inspector that stays with you. That never leaves.

And honestly, I couldn't figure out if that was a good thing or not.

I glanced casually in his direction, meeting his eye and flashing him a shy smile.

"Welcome to the table," he said, giving me a quick yet not-so-subtle once-over.

"It sounds like a lucky one," I remarked, keeping my voice light and playful.

The only direction I had given Shawna for this assignment was to sit next to him at the blackjack table and act as though she'd never played before. Clearly the game itself had changed, but I figured the approach was still valid. Plus, I had no idea how to play craps, so it wouldn't take much pretending on my part.

Benjamin Connors nodded. "Yeah, it's been pretty hot for the last ten minutes. You chose wisely."

I giggled in response, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. As I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth, I leaned over the edge of the table, taking in the length of the playing field. It was covered in hundreds of various-shaped boxes and rectangles, all labeled with some type of cryptic, craps player secret language. My eyes skimmed over words like "Pass," "Field," and "Hard Way." And I couldn't help but marvel at how this long, complicated stretch of green felt seemed to be narrating my life. There I was, at nearly four in the morning, fresh out of retirement and back in the "field," trying to determine whether this man would "pass" or fail my reluctant inspection. It was pretty safe to say I had taken "hard way."

"And it looks like you came right on time," Benjamin commented, and motioned toward the table in front of me. I looked down to see six red dice staring back at me. The uniformed casino employee standing across the way had pushed them toward me with a long, hook-ended stick.

And suddenly all eyes at the table were on me. I felt a knot form in my stomach. Apparently, playing the role of the naïve and inexperienced craps player was already off to a believable start.

I looked to my neighbor for help. He chuckled at the bewildered look on my face. "You have to select two of the six. It's your roll."

"Oh no," I replied, snapping my body upright and holding out my hands in surrender. "I don't know how to play. I was just going to watch for a little while and see if I could learn."

"No way," he replied, motioning to the dice. "You can't learn craps by watching. You can only learn by doing. And don't worry, I'll help you."

I bit my bottom lip as I pulled my wad of cash out of my bag and placed it in front of me. Within seconds, my money had magically transformed into three equally sized stacks of red Palazzo-monogrammed chips.

Benjamin leaned in close to me—close enough that I could smell what was left of the cologne he had applied earlier in the evening— and told me to place four chips on the pass line. I immediately obliged. Then he instructed me to pick up the dice and throw them toward the other end of the table. I did as I was told, watching the swirls of white spots on red plastic as the dice floated gracefully in the air.

"Winner eleven," the man with the long stick called out as soon as they had settled on the far side of the green playing field. Everyone at the table broke out in another round of cheers and applause.

I didn't have to fake the confusion on my face as I asked what had just happened.

He laughed. "You won! We all won!"

I beamed. "You mean, I won for everyone?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Seven or eleven on the first roll wins all around."

I nodded, taking it all in. "Well, that sounds easy enough."

I proceeded to roll four more elevens in a row. The crowd gathered around the table was going crazy, and I was starting to understand what all the fuss was about in this game.

But the only reaction I was really interested in was that of Benjamin Connors. Because as much fun as it was to watch my stack of five-dollar chips grow exponentially before my eyes, I was here with a purpose. And I was determined to stick to it.

My next roll was a nine. Benjamin clasped his hands together and rubbed them fiercely. "That's all right, baby. Nine is good. Nine is easy."

"What happens now?" I asked, staring at the numerous piles of chips that were being placed around the table. "I didn't roll an eleven."

"Now," Benjamin explained, clearly enjoying his role as the craps master, "you have to roll another nine
without
rolling a seven. Think you can handle that?"

I smiled deviously. "No problem."

"That's my girl!" Benjamin shouted, and pointed at me. "Right here, my Lady Luck. She's gonna make me a rich man tonight."

I smiled and pretended to blush under the attention. Then with a quick shake of my hand, I tossed the dice in the air. One landed on four and the other on five.

"Winner nine!" the stickman announced.

And with this, Benjamin actually picked me up off the ground and twirled me around in his arms. "What did I tell you?" he cried to no one in particular. "Lady Luck, right here!"