Luke Murphy - Dead Man's Hand

He peeked out the window.

“Settle down, Calvin. I did what you told me—circled a bunch of times and retraced my steps.”

“Where did you go?”

“Relax. You haven’t slept for days, so I didn’t wake you. I had to see my friends.”

“Hookers?” Calvin’s eyes grew large.

“My colleagues.” Rachel’s voice was stern.

“Sorry.” He shook his head. “What did you possibly need from them that you would risk leaving here?”

“I can’t just sit around and do nothing, Calvin, while, as you say, ‘our lives are in danger.’ I want to help, but you refuse to let me. I can do stuff. I’ve been protecting myself for a long time.”

He knew that and also realized that Rachel was just being proactive, wanting to do all she could to help him, as well as her. But in his heart, he didn’t want anything to happen to her and would do anything to protect her. He respected and admired Rachel all the more now, but he would never tell her. He needed to make sure she knew the consequences of her actions.

“It was Amber.”

“Who’s Amber?”

Rachel swiped away a single tear. “It was Amber in Pitt’s office. She was new and I’d only met her once. No one really knew much about her. But she was sweet.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “I’m sorry.”

She pushed him away. “That’s not all. People are asking about us.”

“I know. Once the cops found out about you, your colleagues would be the first ones they’d question.”

“I’m not talking about the cops.”

Calvin saw fear in her eyes. “Who?”

“I don’t know. Wanda said he’s pretty creepy though. He asked about me and you. He didn’t show any identification and they said he definitely wasn’t a cop.”

“What did he look like?”

“They all gave me a different description—but all confirmed he was tall and skinny and very strange.”

He shook his head. That helped very little. The man could be anyone, working for anyone. “Listen, Rachel. I’m not joking. You’re not to leave again.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

He was about to say more when he heard the familiar “bing” from his computer—another emergency message alert. He rushed to the computer room and clicked on the blinking icon. He saw two familiar faces on the computer monitor.

Sanders and Linda Grant, hand in hand on a podium set up outside the Greek. He read the writing that scrolled across the bottom. Sanders had just purchased the rights to own a small percentage of the casino.

Bingo! Sanders killed Grant.

Calvin had been sure that there was some connection between Sanders, Linda Grant and Pitt. But he hadn’t known exactly what it was.

Seeing the news about the sale, he made the final connection. Pitt, who’d done so much dirty work for Sanders, was involved somehow in making that sale possible. Pitt was probably an accomplice in Grant’s murder too.

He closed the document and focused on gathering intelligence that connected Grant’s killer and his accomplices. He was sure Sanders had killed Pitt because he had known too much about Sanders’ plans and actions and because Sanders, being Sanders, had never intended Pitt to be any kind of partner, silent or otherwise. They’d used Pitt until the deal was done and then killed him. Now it was just Sanders and Linda, which Calvin suspected was their plan all along.

He could have hacked into Pitt’s database, but since the cops would have wiped out everything useful by now, he picked up the phone and dialed out. “Please be right. Please be right.”

“Hello?”

“Dixie, it’s me again. Please tell me that you still have the personal USB key Pitt gave you from his files?”

“No, I gave that to the officer who came to interview me.”

“Damn it!” He slammed his fist down on the desk.

“But I saved it on my hard drive.”

He took a deep breath. “Thank you, Dixie Miller. Send it to this secure address, please.”

He gave her his new email address and hung up.

The file arrived within minutes.

There was nothing obvious in the file folder. But he found a “mislabeled” hidden file in which Pitt had recorded an agreement to work with Sanders to take over the Greek. Pitt had been afraid of Sanders—and the trick with the filename and security opened a new question. Who was helping Pitt? As far as Calvin knew, no friend of Pitt was clever with computers.

Since Dixie had given the USB to the cops, he knew they had the same information and had to see Sanders as a suspect.

Why weren’t they acting on that?

Returning to his desk, Dale logged onto the KVVU FOX5 Vegas website to see the press conference with Sanders, staged in the parking lot of the Greek. Dale turned up the volume as Linda Grant, to massive applause, approached a cluster of microphones set up on a podium.

“It is my great pleasure to announce a new member of our team.” She read from a prepared statement. ”’Because of the passing of my husband and my lack of experience in casino operations, I have decided it is in everyone’s best interest for me to sell my share of the casino to someone with experience, someone who can make a real contribution to running the great Greek Hotel and Casino. He is already the owner of two major casinos in our wonderful city and I have the utmost confidence in his future success. My husband would be very proud today. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to present to you the new part owner and team member of the Greek Hotel and Casino—Mr. Ace Sanders.’”

Dale watched as the camera focused on Sanders, who had been seated at a table next to Shawn Grant, the majority shareholder of the casino. Grant’s face showed displeasure and a fake smile. Dale didn’t see Melanie or her mother.

Sanders approached the microphones—to what Dale considered mixed reviews from the gallery—and shook Linda’s hand. Dale thought that Sanders had been born for the spotlight. “Now that’s motive,” Dale muttered.

“Thank you, Mrs. Grant,” Sanders said. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am more than honored to be a new member of the team and I look forward to working with Shawn Grant. I think that together we can create an ever brighter future for the Greek Hotel and Casino.”

He smiled, pausing for dramatic effect and waiting for the applause to die down. “I am thrilled that the Grant family has accepted my bid and welcomed me into their family. I hope to do even more for the community now that I’m involved with three casinos. I just wish to do the Grant family justice and make them proud.”

Sanders and Linda stood together, hands clasped. Shawn seemed in no hurry to join them, but he finally did. The three members raised their hands in unison as the cameras flashed and reporters yelled questions.

Dale read the article that complemented the video.

There was no public record about the deal, but “informed sources” said that Sanders purchased his share of the casino for an estimated $40 million.

He closed the report and removed the coroner report folders from a drawer.

A single powerful slice from a strong killer, maybe known to the victim, had killed Pitt in seconds, just like Grant. No damage had been done to Pitt’s front-door lock, so either the door was unlocked or the killer had a key. But when Dale had arrived at the scene, all the doors had been locked.

This still didn’t rule out Watters, an employee, who could have had a key. Sanders could also have had a key if he and Pitt were such tight associates.

Why would Watters kill his boss? To cover up the Grant murder, or, if Dale’s assumption was correct, the fact that Pitt had framed Watters? Maybe it was payback.

Dale still wondered about the anonymous phone call. The detective couldn’t figure out who would call or why. Why was some of the information right and some wrong? Misinformation to hide the source? Who could have known so much about exactly what Watters was doing that morning, disguised and on his way to Grant’s private office?