Maybe I could help you, maybe I could help keep the bra.s.s from pushing this investigation so hard. Uh-oh. What if Joe were right? Just when I thought I might have someone else to trust-was he using me to get me?

"What about power?" I changed the subject.

Joe threw me a quick look. He knew I was trying to distract him. "Maybe we should look at who the new sheriff of Clark County is. Or who wants to be sheriff."

"What will that prove?"

"The eyes of the world are on Vegas right now with the most internationally popular game's biggest tournament underway. What better time to create a crime, one that has all the best elements of a movie-s.e.xy game, s.e.xier woman, innocent child, religious zealot, violent murders and millions of dollars-and then solve it to get the job of your dreams."

"That's sick."

"It would work, though, wouldn't it?"

I didn't want to admit it, but I imagined it would. "Unless you got caught," I answered.

"And who might best catch you but another cop?"

"Frank? They did something with Frank."

"Maybe." Joe nodded thoughtfully. "And the one thing that is irrefutable with cops is, the best ones are the ones who best understand the criminal mind. The best ones walk the line between good and bad. It just takes one misstep to end up on the wrong side of that line."

"Were you a cop, Joe?"

"How else would I know this so well?"

Joe's a.n.a.lysis did nothing to rea.s.sure me. Every time I found a refuge, it was revealed to be a possible trap. I ached for Frank, but then told myself I shouldn't want him. Not only had Serrano painted him a coldhearted b.a.s.t.a.r.d killer, but he was a struggling alcoholic, had a surrept.i.tious job that I'd hate to live with twenty-four hours a day and another family I had yet to meet. What a mess. Why desire a mess? I should be glad he disappeared and use the excuse to wash my hands of him.

If I made that a mantra, would I come to believe it?

Twenty-two.

Joe advised that I take the cash they gave me and send it to the FBG lab for fingerprint and extended fiber a.n.a.lysis. I was to use my own cash to lose at the high-stakes table instead. Goody, everyone loves spending fifty thousand of their own dollars in a game they have been bound to lose.

We decided fifty thousand was fair because they couldn't know how much money I'd lost. We still couldn't figure out why they wanted the money lost, but that was the requirement. And apparently Affie's life depended on it.

I arrived at Poseidon's with Joe in tow. He'd called in another member of FBG's surveillance team to take over once he'd gotten me there, while he took the cash to their lab. I still didn't know who from the cop shop had my tail, although I was beginning to wonder if that wasn't all just a bluff after all. The poker room was perhaps the polar opposite of the Mellagio room in that you reached it through a long corridor that kept it completely isolated from the rest of the casino, from onlookers, from everything. One you overcame the intimidation, it was a great place to focus on the game. I checked in with the desk, bought my chips, but paused when I was asked which game I'd like to sit in on. An emerald earring on a woman is one thing, on a man it is often obscure. I made a bathroom excuse to tour the room. He turned out to be near the front. I wouldn't have guessed that.

Losing money on purpose playing poker is harder than it sounds. And of course, I just kept getting cards, wishing with each nut hand that I could save it for the Main Event.

Because the house got suspicious when I kept folding, even on the big blind, I ended up only betting bad hands, and even there I ended up winning.

How do you win with a Dolly Parton (nine/five) on a table with eight players?

When the only one left at The River misses a straight draw and you squeak by with a middle pair.

"How bad are the hands you are folding, Bee Cool, if you played that one?" the Nascar driver to my right asked.

I just smiled. How bad was my luck if I just kept getting impossible-to-fight good luck when that was the last thing I needed? Karma again.

I knew I should be using this opportunity as a great tutorial for tells and the nature of the game, but Emerald Ear was glaring at me so intensely I couldn't think of anything but getting through this with no chips left. I was also running out of time. It was eleven fifteen. Play at the Fortune started at noon.

Finally, I tried a reverse strategy. I went all in on The Flop with the nuts. I had three Aces with an Ace of hearts, Jack of spades and 3 of diamonds on the board. Emerald Ear growled low in his throat. The Nascar driver was the only one left after that. Oops. I guess I might have scared everyone away. He still remembered me playing the lame Dolly Parton. He probably thought I had muck. Although I had the nuts now, a host of hands could beat me. The only thing I had beat was a kicker, a pair or smaller three of a kinds. Still, I had an intuition that Nascar was operating under the a.s.sumption I was betting on a King kicker. I kept my fingers crossed under the table that Fourth and Fifth Streets would help him win.

The dealer was playing this out, drawing players from other tables to the rail to see what was going to happen.

My phone rang, and I saw it was Joe. I had to let it go to voice mail as the dealer turned over a deuce of hearts on The Turn. I prayed Nascar had the flush draw with two hearts in his pocket, with one to come floating in on The River. Otherwise I was about to win with only another fifteen minutes to lose twice what I walked in with.

This was crazy.

A 10 of spades fell on Fifth Street.

Nascar whooped as he flipped over his straight. I nearly pa.s.sed out with relief, pushing up from the table and nodding good luck to everyone.

"Why the rush?" the floor manager asked.

"Gotta get to the Main Event."

"Oh, right, it's about that time, isn't it?" He commented, glancing at his watch. "Good thing you used up your bad luck here, huh?"

I tried not to smile as I nodded and waved over my shoulder. As I walked down the corridor, I realized how backward my life had become when I'd lost fifty thousand dollars and felt like I'd won the million-dollar lottery.

I didn't remember Joe's call until I'd reached the end of the corridor. I paused to check his message. "Bee, get out of there now, it's an ambush. I got a wild hair to check that cash before I took it to the lab and it's counterfeit-"

"Excuse me, ma'am." I spun at the hand on my shoulder. Behind me were a phalanx of casino security, flanked by what looked like the Blues Brothers and were likely the FBI. "Y-yes?"

"You're blocking the corridor. We need to get by."

"Oh, I apologize." I stepped out of the way and they jogged to the poker room. I turned and hustled to the casino floor, hopefully blending in as I raced to the nearest exit. Why had they wanted me to get caught with counterfeit money? That almost made less sense than losing money. Unless the cops were trying to frame me. Or a compet.i.tor was. But who?

Apparently when well motivated, I can lose a tail. Joe called as I was slipping out onto The Strip to say their man had lost me outside the sports room. I imagine that is precisely when I realized that everyone in the poker room had recognized me and the authorities would come after me for questioning no matter how fast I ran. I sat down in front of the horse race for a moment to compose myself. I guess the tail kept going. I made a mental note of that. I suppose up to now, I'd been terribly predictable to follow.

"Joe, what is going on?"

"I wish I knew, Bee. But it was a good call not to use what you'd been given."

"No kidding," I breathed as I walked straight into a picket line.

Phineas Paul stood not far from his followers, because his voice boomed through the crowd. "There she is, the infamous Bee Cool, on her way to lay more than most hardworking people make in a lifetime down on a single bet. A half million dollars at a time, can you believe that? Where've you been, Miss Cooley, fleecing more senior citizens out of their life savings under the pretense of 'entertainment'?"

"Actually, Reverend, the senior citizens just finished fleecing me."

"Hallelujah, proof there is a G.o.d."

There were more adults with him this time. They chorused on his second "hallelujah!" clasped hands and raised them in the air next to their signs. I hated to tell him but they made a better accompaniment than the brooding teens.

"Do you good people know how much money Miss Cooley will make if she wins the World Series of Poker? Fourteen million dollars!"

They murmured disapprovingly "devil's work" and "h.e.l.l money" among other things I didn't strain to hear.

"Shall we challenge Miss Cooley to donate her winnings to a charity to make the world a better place?"

I very well might donate my winnings but it wouldn't be to the Church of the Believers. "But Reverend, your church certainly wouldn't accept 'h.e.l.l money,' now would it?"

"Of course we would, Miss Cooley, the means justify the end. Our ends are always holy. It is a way to wash clean the money you garnered in a less-than-devout way. It might allow you to repent as well."

Without answering, I turned and walked toward the Fortune.

If I took a page off Frank's book and didn't believe in coincidences, I would say that had almost been scripted. If so, I'd walked straight into a trap. There again, why? So that he could guilt me into turning over my winnings? It was the wrong tactic to use on me, since bullies made me obstinate.

How did Paul know I'd been in Poseidon's? Was he having me followed too? If so, pretty soon I was going to start looking like some kind of bizarre Pied Piper.

Jack caught me by the arm. "Sam Hyun's here."

"What?" I demanded. "I thought he was in jail."

"Out on bail, apparently, and playing in the Main Event. He's shaved his head, and is being real low-key. No one knew he was here until now, when one of the reporters saw his name on the registration list."

"Is that legal-to be under indictment for kidnapping and still able to play in the tournament?"

"Yes, Bee, this isn't like joining the Secret Service, they don't do criminal checks on the players. I don't have any hard evidence yet, but it looks like he might be the one behind the talk of using you as a scapegoat for bad poker player behavior."

"Darn." Sam didn't like me. Worse, actually. He had a weird vendetta against me for being a woman and a visibly successful poker player. There were hundreds of others who fit that bill, certainly, but apparently I'd been the lucky one singled out for Sam to hate. Sam had been a legend in his time playing the game, but he hadn't made the transition from a smoky backroom game to the media-blitzed glitz game that it was now. The only time I'd ever seen him he'd vowed to kill my game and did his best to carry through with that promise. This was a player that might have enough angst to set me up with counterfeit bills and call the cops, but I couldn't see him kidnapping my G.o.ddaughter. That part didn't make sense.

"You're thinking too hard," Jack said, watching me closely. Sirens sounded somewhere outside The Strip. It wasn't uncommon to hear them here in Vegas, although I was pretty sure they only used them when they had to for PR's sake, so I only made a note in the back of my mind.

"Smoke's coming out your ears," Jack joked.

I smiled at him distractedly, then remembered Ingrid. "Hey, hey! Your girlfriend is beside herself with worry over you. You'd better call her right now."

Jack lit up. "Really? Ingrid's worried?"

"Jack, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. She is almost sick with it."

He sighed and sucked on his front teeth for a second. "I'm sorry, Bee. Ingrid is rather hard to read."

I nodded. The phrase "emotional mummy" came to mind but I kept it there.

"And I just wonder sometimes why an absolute knockout and one of the world's smartest women would want anything to do with me."

Jack was no Ben, but he wasn't ugly. Five nine and one hundred thirty pounds, he was awkward, but at the same time, endearingly cute with his big dark puppy dog eyes, long arms, long legs and wide-open smile. He was good through and through. No artifice here. And talk about uncomplicated. "Don't sell yourself short, Jack. I'd love to fall in love with you."

"Aw, Bee." Jack nudged me with his shoulder. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

"It's true." Unfortunately. Wouldn't it be better if I weren't trying to fall in love with every appealing bachelor I knew instead of just accepting who I was in love with? "Now call your gal pal. It's not nice to torture her, even though she probably deserved it."

"I will call her, but first, let me tell you where I'm going next."

Running late by now, I jogged to the Fortune. As I turned the last corner, I paused at the commotion on the street in front of the hotel. Now I knew where the sirens had been headed. Sheriff's department cruisers were parked at odd angles. Officers were jumping out of their vehicles to block off traffic. A body lay in the middle of the street, facedown, arms askew, legs at unreal angles, b.l.o.o.d.y. And eerily still.

"Do you know anything about this?" One of the officers demanded of me as an ambulance screeched up to the curb.

"No, of course not. I just got here," I said, self-righteously. Despite telling myself not to, I looked down as the paramedics turned the poor woman over. I gasped, "But I know her!"

"Of course you do," Trankosky moaned behind me.

"Detective Dale," I said.

"That makes me sound like some kind of cartoon character," he muttered.

"If the shoe fits," I began.

He held up his hand, murmured in the officer's ear, cupped my elbow and led me toward the hotel.

Like an apparition, Phineas Paul had materialized amidst his picketers. "Is he a ghost or something? I just saw him in front of Poseidon's," I told Trankosky.

Paul's voice carried even without his ever-present megaphone. "Look at G.o.d's judgment. That poor woman succ.u.mbed to the work of the devil-she played poker, she was a gambler-and this is her judgment day. Who do you think she stands in front of right now? G.o.d is sending her to where she belongs!"-he pointed dramatically straight down-"with him."

"How does he know she was a poker player?"

"Easy guess, wouldn't you say, since about 101 percent of the people entering the Fortune right now are going to play or watch in the Main Event? And she d.a.m.ned sure wasn't dressed like a wh.o.r.e."

I shrugged, conceding the point. Poor Thelma wore the same thing she had on the last time I'd seen her.

"What do you think happened?"

"She got hit by a car."

"But why?"

"That's what you are going to tell me," he said, turning me to face him.

"I have to get in and make my table." I didn't think the kidnappers would take some random hit-and-run as an acceptable excuse not to make the cut.

"I'll escort you there, and, on the way, tell me this woman's name and how you know her. I'll make sure you'll be able to play."

Gosh, thanks. This was all playing into Joe's supposition. "You think I had something to do with her death?" I asked, accusingly.

Trankosky nodded with his cop's face I recognized from my time with Frank. "Indirectly, yes, I do."