Carla Neggers - The Mist

She’d arrived in Las Vegas in late June after a few days on her own at her house in Maine and a quick stop in Boston to make an appearance at the family hotels’ main offices. Her uncle, Bradley, her father’s younger brother, ran the company and had been losing patience with her erratic schedule. He’d even begun making noises about finding another role for her. She was very good at getting a lot accomplished in a short time and had managed to placate him. Traveling from one Rush hotel to another had allowed her the flexibility to dip in and out of Norman’s world as well as to breathe new life into her ideas about the concierge services and excursions the hotels offered. Her uncle, however, liked to see her at meetings and behind a desk once in a while. Since his older brother lived in Las Vegas, Bradley hadn’t objected to Lizzie’s heading there. He’d given up seeing her father at meetings or behind a desk a long time ago.

She’d enjoyed being back in the hot, dry, sunny, vibrant town her father called home, but Norman had arrived unexpectedly that same morning for a high-stakes poker game. Lizzie hadn’t been able to bring herself to smile at him. Still unaware of Simon’s undercover mission at that point, she’d been trying to figure out what else she could do to fire up the FBI to go after Norman. But none of his drug-cartel friends had been with him, and she’d made an effort to relax.

During a break in the game, a man with close-cropped brown hair had approached Norman and spoke to him briefly out of Lizzie’s earshot. Whatever they discussed, it had seemed important. She’d retreated to the hotel bar, and ten minutes later, the Brit joined her. She did her best to look bored as she simultaneously nursed a bottle of water and a martini.

He’d eased onto the stool next to her. Unlike Norman, he’d struck her as being very fit. “More of that water in your bag, love?”

“Sure.” She’d reached into her tote bag and handed him a bottle. It was Vegas. She knew to stay hydrated. “I’m Lizzie Rush. Who’re you?”

He’d taken the water and uncapped it. “You should behave, love.” He’d winked at her, and she’d noticed he had gray eyes. “Sorry, I can’t stay. I’m in a rush. No pun intended.”

He’d left, chuckling to himself, and later that night, Lizzie had reluctantly flown to Montana with Norman. Simon had been scheduled to join them after visiting his friend Will Davenport in London. He and Norman were to work on plans for future high-risk adventures.

Three days later, Norman was under arrest.

Lizzie had provided the FBI with a description of the mysterious Brit in Las Vegas, anonymously, over the Internet, a trick she’d actually taught her father.

As far as she knew, nothing had come of it.

She’d asked her father about him before she’d left for Montana. “Who’s the Brit?”

“No one I know.”

He could have been telling the truth.

Or not.

And now here she was in Ireland with sheep nuzzling up to her. She got a disposable cell phone out of her jacket pocket and dialed her father’s cell phone. “It’s me, Dad. Are you in Las Vegas?”

“Losing at poker. How are you, Lizzie?”

She could hear the worry in his voice but sidestepped his question. “Do you remember the Brit who stopped to talk to Norman Estabrook in June?”

“Who?”

“You heard me. I asked you about him that night, and you said you didn’t know him. I’m wondering if you’ve run into him since, or maybe done a little digging.”

“I’m losing at five-card stud, sweetheart. Just dying here. Where are you?”

She pictured him at his poker table at the hotel, at just under two hundred rooms their largest. Harlan Rush was a tawny-haired, square-jawed man in his late fifties. He was handsome and rich, and he’d swept her Irish mother off her feet thirty-one years ago after she’d stayed at the Whitcomb Hotel in Boston on business. She had been in Irish tourism development.

Supposedly.

Lizzie didn’t want to tell her father where she was. “Let’s just say I’m jetlagged.”

He sighed. “You’re in Ireland. I told you not to go there. Years ago. I told you.”

“ Ireland isn’t the problem.”

“It’s bad luck for us.”

“I love it. Cousin Justin is doing great at the Dublin hotel, which, I might add, is a huge success. Maybe Ireland was bad luck for you and my mother.”

“I remember you reaching for her as a baby. ‘Mama’ was your first word. She was gone, and it was still your first word.”

“Don’t, Dad.”

“You’re in trouble. I can hear it in your voice.”

She looked up at the sky. There’d be stars tonight. She could stay here and watch them come out. “I think the Brit we saw in Las Vegas might know another Brit, Will Davenport, who is friends with Simon Cahill.”

“Cahill? The FBI agent?” Her father groaned. “Lizzie.”

“And I think Will is from your world,” she said.

“Will, he is now? How well do you know him?”

“We just met over brandy in an Irish pub.”

“You only drink brandy when you’re in trouble.”

“Not only,” she said with a smile, hoping it relaxed her voice, “but it’s the best time.”

“Go back to Maine and watch the cormorants.”

“Dad-”

“That bastard friend of yours, Estabrook, was turned loose this morning. He’s not your problem. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Sure. So, nothing on my Brit in June?”

He hesitated just a fraction of a second. “No name. No nothing. Forget him, Lizzie. If he and Lord Davenport are friends, forget him, too.”

“I said his name was Will. I didn’t say ‘Lord.’”

“What, he is a lord? I was being sarcastic.”

True or not, her father wasn’t telling her everything, not because he was a liar, but because he never told her or anyone else all he knew about anything. He could have researched Simon Cahill’s friends as easily as she had-before or after Norman ’s arrest. Her father had never particularly liked her hanging out with Norman and his entourage.

“Will is from your world, isn’t he?”

“Just because I taught you a few things doesn’t mean you should be jumping to conclusions about what I used to do for a living.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“You’re an amateur with the skills and the instincts of a pro, Lizzie, but you’re still an amateur. You don’t have anyone behind you. You stand alone.”

“I have you.”

“Lizzie.” He took in a breath. “If you need me, I’ll be there for you. You know that.”

“I do, Dad.”

“Your aunt Henrietta is in Paris buying linens.”

“I adore Aunt Henrietta, but do you know what it’s like to shop with her?”

“I do. Pure hell. Paris is closer to Ireland than Maine. Pop over and help her. Get drunk on expensive brandy. Have some fun, Lizzie.” He hesitated before continuing. “The Davenports are a fine British family. A bunch of good-looking devils, too. If you have cause to drink brandy, having a sip or two with a Davenport isn’t a bad thing.”

That was all the endorsement she needed. “Thanks. You can go back to your poker game. You’re not bluffing on a pair of threes, are you?”

“I wish. Stay safe, my girl.”

“I love you, Dad.”

After she hung up, Lizzie smiled as more sheep joined her trio and crowded along the fence, the wind blowing their long, woolly coats. Because of her father, she could defend herself in a fistfight, spot a tail, disarm a rudimentary bomb. “The first step, Lizzie,” he’d told her, “is knowing the bomb is there.”

She returned to her car and dug a change of clothes out of her pack, just as prosaic as the ones she had on, but clean, and put them on right there at the side of the road, in front of the sheep. She kicked off her mud-and-manure-encrusted shoes and tossed them in the trunk in exchange for a pair of pricey little flats she’d picked up at Brown Thomas in Dublin. Her father had hated and avoided Dublin for as long as she could remember. It was where Shauna Morrigan Rush, his wife, Lizzie’s mother, had died.