Amy Atwell - Lying Eyes

“We must go back to the room,” Tatiana announced. “Edgar is tired from all this excitement.”

“But what about your sauna?” Marko asked from over her shoulder.

“I cannot take a rabbit into the sauna. What are you thinking?” Her voice was intense but not loud enough to startle Edgar, who was now sniffing at her shower cap.

Marko gave a beleaguered sigh. Overdramatized, but it did the trick. The four male security guards nodded with commiseration, then hastily retreated to their other duties, while Marko spun his aunt’s wheelchair around.

Spotty applause broke out from the scattering crowd, and Tatiana gave a princess wave as they exited the conservatory. Iris stuck close behind them, instinctively knowing there was safety in numbers, until Sergei leaned in to her.

“Where did they go?” he whispered. He pulled Allie close while his eyes scanned the lobby full of humanity.

“They who?” Allie asked.

Iris was busy searching the crowd for Jock and Pebbles, but they’d disappeared. Where had they gone? What were they up to? Instead of relief, their absence rattled her. After all, how was she supposed to avoid what she couldn’t see?

Outside the county jail, Jock and Pebbles waited in the double-parked purple PT Cruiser.

Pebbles’s hand rested on the steering wheel. “How long do we have to sit here?”

Jock gritted his teeth. It was the thirteenth time Pebbles had asked the question since they got here. “I told you, we wait for Turner’s call. He doesn’t want Mickey to get away this time.” Neither did Jock. He was still pissed Mickey had flattened their tire.

“Mickey said I could have the bunny. He lied.”

“Yeah, Pebbles, he lied.” Jock looked at his partner. Honestly, it was like hanging out with an elephant, except an elephant had more brains. “He’s a bad man.”

Pebbles smiled at him. “Thanks, Jock. You’re always on my side.”

“Yeah, I’ll always be on your side.” Jock leaned his head back against the seat. Three in the afternoon, and it had to be over a hundred degrees out here. “Could we please turn on the AC?”

Pebbles shook his head. “It’s bad to idle the engine. You want my fan?” He held up one of those tiny hand-held plastic things and pointed it toward Jock.

The whirring breeze in his face made him squint. “Get that thing away from me.”

“Sorry.”

Jock’s cell chirped. Finally. He flipped the phone open. “Yeah.”

“Bail him out and bring him to me now.” Turner’s command brooked no argument. “Mess this up, and you two are dead.”

“Yessir.” Jock fingered his tie. “Might I just say-”

The phone went dead.

“Yeah, well, fuck you very much.” He popped the phone back into his pocket. Jeez, ever since Mickey and Fortune’s daughter escaped last night, Turner talked to him as if he and Pebbles were a couple of morons. Find Cosmo-hell, the old guy was supposed to be two days dead-no, wait, don’t worry about Cosmo, go get his daughter. Yeah, that had been a circus. She’d had herself surrounded by an army, and all Pebbles could talk about was that goddamn rabbit. Then, out of the blue, Turner called all pissed off and demanded they drop everything and go bail Mickey out of jail. No, wait-go there and sit until Turner said to move.

What, like they were a couple of trained dogs?

Jock looked at his bumpy-headed partner whose mouth hung open while he enjoyed the breeze from that goddamn whirring fan. “Wait here. I’m going in to get Mickey.”

The big guy nodded.

Entering the jail made Jock’s skin crawl. He’d been here himself a couple times-well, five, if anyone were keeping count. Actually, the uniforms around here did tend to keep count, and they reminded you of it all the time. Thirty days in this place sucked the brain energy from you, made you do stupid things. Like make friends with an elephant.

Well, today he wasn’t here as a prisoner. Today, he had the upper hand. Jock decided to play it cool.

That plan fell through within two minutes.

“What do you mean he’s not here?” he asked the cop at the desk. “Where’d he go?”

The cop peered over a pair of half glasses at him, too bored to even frown. “You want to be smart? Get the hell out.” He flinched as someone slid a clipboard bursting with papers beneath his elbow. “Someone else bailed him out first. If you’ve got a problem with that, don’t talk to me about it.”

Jock’s fingers twitched as they always did whenever he’d been played for a fool. This was so goddamn Mickey. Here they’d been sitting out in that car for the past hour and a half, and Mickey wasn’t even here.

Shit, what was he going to tell Turner?

“Excuse me, sir?” Jock smacked his lips at the distasteful necessity of being polite. “Can you tell me who bailed him out?”

The cop pulled his glasses down his nose to sneer at him. “Oh, so now you want to get on my good side, is that it?”

Jock reminded himself this was a matter of life and death-his own. Grinding his teeth together, he forced his next words out. “Please, sir?”

“Hold on.” Papers flipped and shuffled. “Michael Kincaid, released thirty minutes ago. Says here a Cosmo Fortune posted his bail.” The cop chuckled. “Now there’s a stupid name. How’d you like to be stuck with that all your life?”

“Don’t know.” Depends on how long your life lasts. For Cosmo, that wasn’t going to be long. Jock stormed toward the exit, wondering how Mickey and that magician had gotten out of here without him seeing them. As soon as he cleared the doors, he dialed Mickey’s cell phone.

Mickey picked up after only two rings. “How’s that tire doing?” The smug sonofabitch.

“Is Cosmo with you?” Jock snapped.

“Haven’t seen him.”

“But he bailed you out.”

Mickey chuckled. “I posted my own bail. I just asked them to tell you that.”

“Why the fuck would you do that, man?”

“It got you to call me, didn’t it? Now I know exactly where you are. How long have you been sitting out there, Jock? An hour? Two?” Mickey laughed some more.

That rumbling chuckle grated Jock’s nerves. Every time he’d gone head to head with Mickey, that bastard had bested him. It would be a pleasure to make sure Mickey got what was coming to him. “You’re a dead man, Kincaid,” he sneered into the phone.

“Jock, I’ve got news for you-it takes one to know one.”

It was late afternoon when Allie serpentined through the tables at the Venetian in search of her sister’s dark curls. Zeroing in on them, she sidled up to the table, devoid of players at the moment, and seated herself.

Cory’s eyes darkened at the sight of her. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine.” Her brows rose in a clear order for Allie to leave her alone.

She ignored the message.

Cory sighed. “Hell, are you even old enough to gamble?”

Setting her jaw in a hard line, Allie guarded against the brimming tears. She would not cry. Her sisters already thought she was a baby. Well, screw it. She didn’t need their approval. She just wanted them to accept her as family.

“Don’t start, all right? I’ve already had a run-in with Iris today, and I’m over it. She’s pissed at Cosmo, you’re pissed at your mom, and I’m tired of being the scratching post. Go sharpen your claws on someone else.”

“Why was Iris pissed?”

Allie coughed up a sharp bitter laugh. When wasn’t Iris pissed? “She just discovered she’s got Russian relatives on her mom’s side, and they’re in town.”

“What kind of relatives?”

“An old lady aunt, who I think must have been a hell-raiser in her day, and a boisterous uncle, and wow, you should see cousin Sergei.” Her eyes rolled heavenward and her tension eased a bit at the memory.