Then I went to throw up.

As I came back into the living area, I heard a noise behind me, spun and sprayed.

And got Ingrid square in the face. I dropped the spray and tried to grab her as she went down. Shana, who'd been behind her, started coughing from the fumes. Ingrid was gagging, gasping, writhing on the floor. I hurt for her. Pepper spray was the worst experience I'd ever had, and lately I'd had some bad experiences. It worse than burned your sinuses, lungs, mouth-I'm sure acid did more damage but it couldn't hurt more than pepper spray.

"Ingrid, I am so so so sorry."

She was hacking now, her corneas bloodred, eyes streaming with tears. The destruction of her perfection was almost as upsetting as hurting her.

"I thought you were the killer," I explained.

Shana had run to the bathroom, and I could hear water running. She returned, still sniffling, with a washcloth which Ingrid took and breathed into deeply.

"What killer?" Shana asked me.

I c.o.c.ked my head at the couch as I covered Shana's mouth with my hand just in time to m.u.f.fle the scream. "What happened?" she said behind my fingers.

Ingrid struggled to her feet and stumbled over to the couch. She shook her head, gagged out a nasty swearword and lurched into the bathroom, battling a new fit of coughing.

"Who is this guy?" Shana asked as we heard the shower running.

"He was a jerk at my tournament table. He tried to get me to collude, but I knocked him out instead. He made a scene in front of everyone and told me he'd get even," I recalled. "It was very disconcerting. I kept thinking he might be connected to the gang who has Affie, but all the pieces don't fit. Especially now."

"What are we going to do?" Shana asked.

An obvious question with no obvious answer. I didn't want to call Frank right now in case the cops had the phone tapped. It would be nice to call Trankosky to take care of things, if I wouldn't be the immediate first suspect. I doubted he could get me out of this one if he wanted to. Joe had disappeared some time after dinner, leaving me either with a Frank-ordered tail I didn't know about or alone to walk back to the Mellagio.

I'd disabled Ingrid, so I looked at Shana and said: "I guess we'll have to take care of him."

"'We'?" she wiped her nose with a tissue. "Are you kidding?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

The phone rang and we both jumped. We stared at the phone. Ring. We stared at each other. Ring. Ring.

I reached over and picked it up without answering. "I guess you've found our little message."

"Your message?"

"Don't be coy, Bee Cool, it doesn't become you. What you found will be the way you will find your G.o.ddaughter if you don't cooperate."

Hurry, Frank. "I have been cooperating."

"Not entirely. You were lucky to win tonight. You should have let our friends in the right places help."

"I'm not doing anything illegal," I said bravely, as I stared at the gaping b.l.o.o.d.y smile on Terry's neck. Except harbor a murdered body in my suite.

"You'll do what you have to, I imagine," he said rather sagely. "And, by the way, you might want to get rid of our little message before the police catch you because if you can't play tomorrow, Aphrodite dies."

"But, I don't know how to get rid of, um, it." I spared a glance at Terry and grimaced. "I know the police can trace hairs and fibers from our clothes, our fingerprints."

He laughed. I shivered. "I don't care if they catch you two days or two weeks from now after they do their tests on the body, you stupid woman. I just care if they catch you in the next twenty-four hours. So get rid of it now!"

I fought the wave of nausea filling the back of my throat. He continued, "Tomorrow, you'll have to find a way to win on your own because, as you can see, your help is no longer available. During the game, order a vodka gimlet from the waitress and the location of the drop will come with the drink. When they cash you out, you bring the money directly to the drop."

"Where do you expect me to end up?"

"This mission had a particular earning ratio and that should be met if you end up in the top half of the final table. Just don't win first."

"Don't win first," I repeated, trying to calculate his mixed language that sounded like it was coming from both a general and a CEO.

"First drags in too much attention; you won't be left alone for weeks."

"I won't win first. And what about Affie?"

"We get our money and you'll get her back. In that order."

"But-"

"I think you're not in any position to try to bargain. Just hope your luck holds beyond the tournament."

The base of my throat closed with tears. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because we can."

I could tell Shana had been holding her breath as she listened, because she began to weave. I forced myself to be strong for her. I hung up the phone and put my arm around her shoulders, easing her down onto a barstool. "This is about to be over. Frank's on his way to her now."

Nodding, she said: "We called him with more information about her location that Moon gave us tonight. Now what are we going to do about that guy?"

I followed her gaze to the corpse. I'd been knocking around possibilities in my mind but nothing that I could even seriously consider. They all revolved around the fact that Terry had threatened me, so I would have some sort of self-defense option. I looked closely at him, trying to figure out if he'd been killed on the couch or somewhere else. It was hard to tell how much blood was in the couch since it was essentially the same color. There were no splatter marks, though, which would seem to be a requirement if you sliced a jugular vein. I didn't know what the security cameras in the hallway had recorded-when he'd arrived and with whom, so claiming he'd broken in and tried to kill me probably wouldn't fly since the wound was older than the twenty minutes I'd been in the room.

"Let's throw him out the window," Shana said. "You've done that before."

"I have not done that before!"

"Well, sort of. Someone fell out your hotel window. Same difference."

"Not really, Shana. Besides, what about the people you'd hit with the body? Wouldn't you feel bad if you squished a half dozen tourists in the process?"

"Oh. Won't they get out of the way?"

"Do you regularly look up when you're on the sidewalk to make sure bodies aren't raining from the sky?"

She stuck out her lower lip. "It was an idea. It's more than you have."

Maybe not. If the killers were smart, wouldn't they have dismantled the security cameras so they couldn't record the killers' presence?

Hmm. Ingrid came, still sniffling, coughing and gagging, out of the bedroom, wearing my robe. "I can't see."

"That happened to me too," I told her. "Get some Visine out of my makeup bag, lie down on the bed and close your eyes for about thirty minutes and your vision will get better."

"But, we need to take care of the body," Ingrid argued.

"We'll do it," I said.

Her bloodshot eyes gave me a totally skeptical look. "Just..." She paused for a coughing fit. "...wait for me. You don't know what you're doing."

"Okay, Shana and I will have a drink with him while you get better." I smiled, guiding her into the bedroom and shutting the door. Putting my finger to my lips to make sure Shana didn't say anything, I let myself out into the hallway. Bingo. There was a maintenance man on a ladder examining a light fixture that I know had been operating when I'd walked down the hallway minutes ago. "Good evening," I said cheerily. "What's up?"

"Ur, bulb's out," he grunted.

"Too bad," I commiserated as I kept walking toward the elevators.

The third one from the left opened and another maintenance man hollered at his colleague, "This one's down too, Hector. We gotta go get the camera equipment."

Hector c.o.c.ked his head at me and I smiled largely at the man coming out of the elevator as I got in. "Good evening."

I pressed the b.u.t.ton to go three floors down. As soon as I got there, I pressed the elevator to go back to my floor. When the doors opened, the maintenance men were both waiting by the freight elevator.

"I am so stupid," I giggled. "I forgot my purse!"

They nodded, rolling their eyes only after they thought I wasn't looking. I ambled back down the hallway, making sure I didn't reach my room until they'd disappeared.

"Shana, go get one of Ben's shirts out of the dry-cleaning bag in his room," I whispered as I rummaged through Frank's briefcase for the evidence gloves he kept in a side pocket. I donned a pair, then s.n.a.t.c.hed a pair of scissors out of my purse and began cutting the b.l.o.o.d.y shirt off Terry.

Shana returned with a red b.u.t.ton-down. "Good thinking," I said as I handed her some gloves.

We struggled and got him into the shirt. A two-hundred-pound rag doll is not easy to dress. "Now, sneak into my bedroom and get one of my scarves. Preferably a dark color."

I heard Shana say something to Ingrid as she slipped in, returning an instant later with a floral-print scarf. "That doesn't match the b.u.t.ton-down," I commented.

Shana gave me an exasperated look. "Just joking," I said.

She shook her head. "Why are we re-dressing him?"

"Because we have to hold him between us as we walk down the hallway in case anyone comes out. He'll just look drunk. Hurry."

I opened the doorway and peeked both ways. The coast was clear for now, so we panted, struggling to keep him upright between us, on our way toward the elevators, which seemed marathon miles away instead of mere meters. Our luck held and the hallway stayed empty. I reached over to press the b.u.t.ton for the elevator. "Press both," Shana recommended.

The problem here was we had to stand here until the right elevator came along-third from the left. I kept an eye on the freight elevator, praying the maintenance men would take a few more minutes. The first elevator dinged, going up. I held my breath. It was empty. I pressed the up arrow again. The second elevator dinged, going down. It opened and I cringed as a man poked his head out. We were angled away, so all he could see was our backs. "Hey man, got two for the night, huh? Menais je tois. Want a fourth?"

"Sorry, buddy." Shana used her best fake Jersey accent. "Three's our lucky number."

As the doors slid shut on that elevator, ours arrived. Now we just had to hope it would be empty.

It wasn't empty. Of course. But the couple who was in it was rather busy. Shana gasped. I tried to figure out what that position would be called as I held the up b.u.t.ton to keep the elevator in place. "I gotta go, I gotta go, this is our floor," he was saying as she chanted, "Yes. Yes. Yes!"

"Be quiet. What if my wife hears you?" he whispered. Perfect. Even if he saw something suspicious, I had something on him.

Leaning Terry against the wall, I stepped in front of him and Shana, so the coupling pair couldn't see them clearly. "Are you two going to get out of there tonight?" I demanded.

His head spun around. They hadn't known we were there. He jumped away from her and out the door. "Wait, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she yelled. "You owe me!"

He ran, she ran. We shoved Terry into the elevator, pushed the up b.u.t.ton and ran too, reaching our room behind them before they reached his.

As we doubled over to catch our breath I was disturbed by how easy it had been to dispose of a dead body, but resolved not to a.n.a.lyze that until after this nightmare was over.

We'd cut up Terry's shirt into tiny little pieces and flushed them down the toilet. The couch was another story. Fortunately, upon closer inspection, the blood in the cushion was almost invisible because of the color match. Though, even if we rented a steam cleaner, it wouldn't fool any crime-scene team. I blotted up the worst of it with a wet towel, then sent that in pieces to join the shirt. Shana was running a hairdryer on the couch when the phone rang.

"Belinda," said a familiar voice. "You wouldn't know anything about a dead body in the elevator of your hotel, would you?"

"What?" I exclaimed, willing my voice to sound sleepy yet stunned. "Who died?"

"We don't know yet. But it is such a coincidence to have found another body under a roof you share, also coincidentally in an elevator with a disabled security camera. And by the way, of all the floors in the hotel, the only one with a nonworking security camera is yours."

"You're making me feel very unsafe, Detective."

"Belinda," he said, "I don't think you killed this guy. Just tell me what is going on so I can help before you end up dead somewhere."

I thought about Joe's theory. This fell right in with it. Yeah, right, Trankosky. Although, another part of me was tempted to spill the story by the invitation in his voice.

"Where is your boyfriend, Belinda?"

"Good question," I answered, relieved I could finally be honest.

A red-eyed, red-nosed Ingrid opened the door and looked at the couch in shock. "Where did it go?"

By morning, Terry's murder was all over the news, although they had yet to identify him. Although police didn't speculate on the similarity of the MO's of this murder and the one at the Image, reporters gleefully did. They did man-on-the-street interviews asking tourists if they were worried there was a Jack the Ripper on the loose in Vegas, which most hadn't considered until it was suggested. By midmorning the mayor had to call a press conference to rea.s.sure The Strip that these were likely targeted gangland killings and not random acts of a psychotic serial murderer.

It just managed to up the ante. Between the World Series of Poker, the religious zealot pickets and now a bloodthirsty gang on the loose on The Strip, Vegas couldn't get more exciting.

Or so I thought.

With each step I took on the way to my debate with Paul, I prayed Frank would call to say he'd saved Affie and I wouldn't have to play in the final game of the WSOP after all. I had absolutely nothing but dread in the pit of my stomach-what if I busted out at number nine? Would they slash her throat as they did Terry's?

Jack had gone MIA again-no one had seen him since he'd last caught me on the sidewalk-so Ingrid and Shana had left earlier to try to hunt him down. Joe, I sent to hunt down the two girls who'd waylaid me for money and then had shown up trapping johns in the newspaper. I had a plan for them. And, Ben, well, I almost couldn't think about him, because when I did, I imagined him being tortured by the Medula who'd found him out. I really had no faith in Ben's ability to pull off a gang infiltration. After all, look what happened the last time he tried to play at being an investigator.

I didn't know if Joe had left one of Frank's men on my tail or not, and frankly at this point, didn't care.

So, of course, this was when I would be accosted. I felt the tug on my sleeve before the hand actually closed around my forearm and pulled me into the alley between two hotels.

I kicked out, pointy heels first, and made contact. He swore and I recognized the voice before I recognized anything else. "Sam? Sam Hyun?"

"Belinda Cooley." He nodded, still holding me, now with vise grips on either arm. This man had dangled me ten stories above the Gulf of Mexico once, but somehow I found it hard to work up the energy to be afraid of him now. Go figure.

"What are you doing here, Sam? I thought you were in jail."

He shrugged. "My attorney is working on a deal. I'm out on bond."