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  The only real competition was Rashawn and the mystery guy, who’d been splitting wins. No one was paying attention to the obvious pattern. Whenever mystery guy raised after the last community card was dealt, he won.

  He looked older than us, though not by much. It was his facial hair and the way he tucked his Oxford shirt. Maybe Cedric’s age. Though Cedric’s presence made sense as Davis’s driver and an entrepreneur looking for a young, wealthy client base.

  To Molly, I said, “Do you know that guy?”

  She shook her head. Cedric overheard me, though. “Chuck, introduce yourself.”

  “I think you just did.” The player tipped his head at me. “Chuck Pearl. I’ll be taking this.”

  He threw down a full house and raked in the current pot. He had a jackal’s grin, his mouth crowded with teeth that seemed too big or too numerous. I couldn’t tell which.

  “You sure you don’t want to play?” Cedric pressed.

  “I’m sure.” A lie. I wasn’t sure about anything other than I now felt uncomfortable around a game I’d played my whole life. The rage sparked again. Maybe Molly was ready to go.

  Cards gathered and stacked, Rashawn passed the deck to Chuck for the deal. His fingers were nimble, barely moving as he spewed cards the way machine guns spew bullets. Again, Justin did a poor job guarding his hand. He had a king of hearts and a seven of diamonds. Meh.

  Chuck dealt the flop. With three community cards on the table, Justin didn’t have anything, but he played bold and tossed chips into the pot, forcing others to do the same.

  The fourth community card was a king of clubs. Rashawn and Cedric folded. Brady stayed with it.

  The last card was a king of spades. Justin went from a set of nothing hole cards to three of kind. Odds totally in his favor for the first time all night.

  And he folded.

  Dude!! I screamed in my head, stepping closer to the table.

  That left Chuck and Brady in a showdown. Chuck raised again. Brady called, oblivious to Chuck winning every hand where he’s raised this late. Over seven hundred dollars in the pot now. Should be interesting.

  “Let’s see ’em!” Chuck said.

  Brady flipped his cards. Ace of diamonds and ten of clubs. Combined with the queen, jack, and either of the kings on the table, he had a straight. A great hand. Not great enough.

  He turned over his cards one at a time, relishing the victory. A king of diamonds and … A king of hearts?

  “Four of a kind!” Chuck said.

  My eyes bounced from Chuck’s winning hand to the facedown cards Justin pushed toward center table when he folded. “What the—”

  Justin saw me coming, attempted to mix his cards in with other cards. I was standing, with superior leverage and shoved him in the chest, tipping him and his chair. While he toppled, I flipped his cards, showing the stunned room what I knew.

  “This is a single-deck game. Justin’s got a king of hearts. How’s Chuck got a king of hearts, too?”

  All night, I’d been skirting the edges of anxiety and anger. I shouldn’t have come here, shouldn’t have put myself in a situation where others could see me cycle from one extreme to another. No undoing it now. I was my father’s daughter, and I didn’t deal well with cheaters.

  I stepped over Justin, grazing his chin with one of my heels hard enough to bruise. “Grab them.”

  “You heard her,” Brady said.

  Rashawn seized Chuck’s arms when he tried to push from the table and run. Davis and Cedric lifted Justin to his feet.

  There was an umbrella stand filled with sports equipment—tennis racket, a putter, and others—next to the rec room doors. I rifled through and came across a field hockey stick.

  Chuck Pearl wasn’t smiling now.

  “This will do,” I said. “Outside. Let’s go.”

  I shoved open the door, crossed the driveway, examining all the cars in view. On the lawn, Gavin and other VR football players squared off with Cardinal Graham’s quarterback and his crew. The conversation seemed dangerously close to breaking Brady’s truce, but our host wasn’t exactly keeping score.

  I stalked straight through bickering jocks, the field hockey stick propped on my shoulder. Rashawn, Brady, and the rest dragged Chuck and Justin behind me.

  Gavin motioned to Molly, alarmed. “What’s going on?”

  “Not sure, but you should come,” Molly answered.

  He did. The VR Lions followed, as did the CG Griffins. After them, more of the party was in tow.

  At the street, I spun on Chuck. “Tell me which car is yours.”

  He twisted and squirmed, still trying to wrestle away. I lowered the stick so it hovered inches from his crotch.

  “You’re being difficult,” I said, feeling almost jubilant now that I’d let the rage roam wild. “Should I be difficult, too?”

  “Over there.” Resigned, he motioned left with his head. “The blue Lexus.”

  I went to it and the mob made sure Chuck and Justin kept pace. I pointed the stick at the grille. “There.”

  Chuck fell in place before me, back to the bumper. Justin next.

  “This is not a town that takes kindly to cheaters,” I said. “Would you like blindfolds?”

  Justin’s chin thunked on his chest like a dropped hammer. Chuck steeled himself. A tough guy.

  Him first, then.

  I swung my stick for Chuck’s head, pulling back at the last second so I only tapped the car’s bumper. He yelped.

  “Where are you from?” I butted his shoulder with the stick.

  “Arizona!”

  It didn’t even sound true. He said it too fast. Where he came from wasn’t important. This lesson was.

  I smacked the bumper again, hard that time. “Justin, you’re helping him. Why?”

  Justin broke immediately, looking almost relieved, “I—I lost one of the cars off my dad’s lot to him, okay? It was a stupid bet and I couldn’t pay up and he said if I got him into some rich kids’ games, he’d … he’d …”

  “When you let him put one of his dad’s cars up, you really thought he could honor that?” I asked Chuck.

  “A bet’s a bet,” he said with a shrug.

  Beginning a slow circle of the Lexus, I said, “I can’t imagine you came by this honestly, Chuck.” The cream leather upholstery inside was pristine. The dashboard was loaded with buttons and displays. “You don’t deserve something this nice when you disrespect the game. Would you agree?”

  Chuck said nothing, so I threw the question to the crowd. “Would you?”

  Cheers and fist pumps from most. Though Molly, Gavin, and Davis looked on with something like horror.

  “See, Chuck, I think it would be in your best interest to leave. While you still have a vehicle to—”

  Through the back passenger window, I saw a torn plastic bundle with an assortment of boxed card decks spilling from it. On the boxes, familiar logos. The Tropicana. Harrah’s. The Rio. Official casino decks, in sealed boxes.

  Casino decks differed from run-of-the-mill Bicycle cards you bought from drugstores or Toys “R” Us. They were customized with lush coatings, beveled edges for better dealer control, watermarks, and proprietary artwork. They’re bought in huge quantities with delivery procedures as rigorous as an armored car moving cash from bank to bank. Because in Vegas, fraudulent playing cards could be as lucrative as fraudulent credit cards.

  Selling used decks to tourists was a small piece of the souvenir trade, after the casino’s done with them. Used cards always had the corners machined off, so they were easily recognizable should they ever make it back to an official table with an ambitious cheater. Like Chuck.

  Opening the door and dipping into the backseat, I rifled through the various decks. All new and sealed. The Luxor. Flamingo. The Quad. Andromeda’s Palace.

  Breaking the seal on the box featuring my casino’s logo exposed a fresh set of cards with corners intact.

  Chuck Pearl wasn’t just some lowlife out to cheat kids. He was
the kind of top-tier grifter that had our security team on alert whenever the Gaming Control Board caught wind of the next great schemer. The kind like John Reedy before his untimely demise.

  I backed away from the car and flung the deck at Chuck.

  “You were going to come into my home? Steal from me?” My arms flailed wide. I’d forgotten I still held a field hockey stick. It still didn’t quite register when that stick shattered Chuck’s front passenger window.

  I swung the stick again, purposely this time, and broke the headlight next to Chuck’s head.

  “Time to go.” It was Davis, looping an arm around my waist and lifting me away.

  I bicycle-kicked the air and threw the stick in Chuck Pearl’s general direction. It skittered across the pavement five feet shy of him.

  Davis carried me, tossed me sideways into Molly’s backseat, the slamming door colliding with the bottom of my heels and sending a mild shock wave up my legs. Outside the vehicle, a small-scale argument erupted between him and his brother.

  “No,” Cedric said.

  “I’m going with her. Just follow.”

  “Dude!”

  “Dude, what? Come get me.”

  All the other doors swung open. Davis jumped in the backseat with me. Molly hopped behind the wheel and was in motion before Gavin closed his door. A well-executed escape plan. Though I couldn’t figure the point at which the plan was conceived.

  Sitting up, fighting not to aim my frustration at them, I managed actual words. “Why did you stop me?”

  “The cops were coming,” Gavin said. “You didn’t hear those sirens.”

  “What sirens?” An unnecessary question, now that my ears weren’t thrumming with my own fury, and I caught them in the distance. I pounded a fist into the seat, imagining it was Chuck Pearl’s face.

  “Hey,” Molly said. “I didn’t cheat you out of anything. Stop beating up my ride.”

  I opened the window and screamed into the night. My lungs burned before I stopped. Empty. I folded in on myself, elbows on knees, and head tucked the way they tell you to do on airplanes before you crash.

  Spiraling, down, and down further.

  Davis patted my back the whole way home, and said the right things, like “You’re fine” and “Breathe.”

  None of it brought comfort.

  At Andromeda’s Loop, I pulled myself together enough so Molly and Gavin agreed I didn’t need an escort to my room. Davis followed me from the SUV as Cedric’s trailing car cruised to Molly’s bumper.

  Davis said, “Nikki—”

  Please don’t ask me if I’m okay.

  “—what do you need?”

  Surprised, I said, “Find out how your father knows my family.”

  I skulked inside.

  “Excuse me. Nikki.”

  My head whipped toward the check-in desk. “What?”

  Veronica, a hospitality specialist who’d been with us a couple of years, flinched. Taking it down a notch, I said, “Sorry, sorry. Yes?”

  Skittish, she pushed forward. “A patrolman came by. With a box.”

  A patrolman? “Where is it?”

  “He said it was for your mom, but she’s not here, and when I saw the label, I didn’t want to leave it in the offices—”

  “I’ll take it.”

  She ducked beneath the desk, returned with something similar to a shoe box but plain, no logos. Only a label adorned with Sharpie script.

  N. Tate Personal Effects

  The world froze. Someone hit MUTE on the sounds from the gaming floor. That winding rage in me stopped. I touched the box with shaky fingers. It was real. I snatched it off the counter.

  “You did the right thing, Veronica.”

  She nodded, gave a pinched cautious smile.

  “Don’t worry about telling my mom. I’ll let her know.”

  N. Tate Personal Effects

  It sounded like dragons or robots from movies. My computer-generated dead dad.

  I sat in his room, on his bed. The box balanced on my knees. The items were from his car. The cops confiscated his ride for a cursory examination only—photos and cataloging. They indicated everything in it would likely be returned. One of their few kept promises.

  There were a few loose chips—five-dollars and tens, nothing major—from casinos around town, chewing gum, an all-you-can-eat buffet coupon. Junk. Except for the iPhone.

  Scooping it up, I examined the white glass smudged with dark dust. Was it fingerprint powder like I’d seen on all sorts of police shows, or dirt from the box? Flipping it over and powering it on, that white Apple with the missing chunk glowed on the scuffed display.

  I blinked away tears. Everything about the night crashed down. How I’d turned into a lunatic on that cheater’s car. Who does that?

  Dad never set a passcode. I swiped off the lock screen and got a low-battery message; the phone’s remaining power was at 7 percent.

  After dismissing the warning, I swiped right to left. Dad still had the default apps, nothing extra. No surprise. When I gave it to him, he’d eyed it like a suspicious time traveler.

  He had unread texts (twenty-two) and missed calls (twelve). Scrolling the menus revealed some were from Mom, but most were from unrecognizable numbers Dad hadn’t bothered linking to contact names.

  The phone buzzed in my hand, startling me, and I dropped it facedown. Recovering quickly, I snatched it up. The incoming call screen didn’t show an unidentified number but one of the few contacts from Dad’s missed calls list. Just initials. F.S.

  Panicking, I answered, “Hello?”

  “Izz thish Nathan’s goil?” The slur in the voice was extreme, but having been exposed to more than a few Vegas drunks, I translated expertly. Is this Nathan’s girl?

  “Who is this?”

  The caller spoke slow, straining to enunciate properly. “Nathan told me to … call if something … happened.”

  Urgency overtook me. A drunk man calling on my dead dad’s phone should inspire a hang-up. It really should.

  “This is Nathan’s daughter. Who are you?”

  Back to slurring again. “Thanksh god. I been callings for dayss.”

  “Okay, you got me. Say what you have to say.” Silence. My pulse thumped hollow in my ears. “Hello?”

  I lowered the phone, the screen was black.

  The battery died.

  I lunged for the box the phone came from, searched for the charger. Not there. Spinning in place, I checked each visible outlet for that distinct white cube and cable. Pulled the nightstand away from the wall in hopes of locating the power supply. Nothing.

  Bolting from the room, I bypassed the elevator for the stairs. On my floor, I shouldered past guests congregating in the hall and let myself into my room, seeking my own charger.

  Jamming the cable into the dead phone’s port, the reboot time was purgatory. It took three minutes before the phone lit up, functioning. I redialed F.S. from the call history. It rang five times … ten … before a generic voice mail greeting informed me the user’s mailbox was full and I should try again later.

  “No!”

  Redialed. Again and again. Same result.

  Nathan told me to call if something happened …

  What did that mean?

  Flopping on my bed, I cradled the phone in my lap. Maybe F.S. left a message on one of his previous calls. No, there was nothing. Text messages offered no clues either.

  A scream bubbled. It would’ve escaped—not like Mom was around to get alarmed—but I’d tapped Dad’s photo icon accidentally.

  His albums did not show the same neglect as other features on his phone. He’d been busy with his camera. Hundreds, maybe as many as a thousand, pics. Locations around town. Iconic signs, buildings, and landmarks.

  Really, the photos were plain fare. The sort of pics a tourist with a twitchy finger and oversized memory card snapped and never looked at again. Only … Dad wasn’t a tourist. He grew up in Vegas and often lamented how the visual aesthetic of the
Strip cheapened the richness of the city, like the tacky homes in nice neighborhoods that went crazy with holiday decorations. His taking so many pictures around the city was strange. Even stranger: More than half of the photos showed the latest, greatest casino resort in the city.

  The Nysos.

  I slept better that night than I had since … since it happened. That Sunday, energized and ready to work, I spent the morning in Andromeda’s business office, reviewing the month’s dismal financial reports and filing some of the minor but infinite paperwork that was a part of casino ownership.

  At mid-morning, Mom walked in and seemed taken aback by the sight of me. “She rises!”

  “Drama. Queen,” I said.

  “When I peeked in on you earlier, you were comatose.”

  What time was that, Mom? When I peeked in your room, after midnight, you weren’t there.

  “I took it the party went well,” she added.

  “Meh.”

  An awkward silence flared. In it, I became hyperaware of the shuffle-hum coming from the Xerox machine in the next room. When she craned her neck that way, I cleared my throat. “Mom, a patrolman brought a box of Dad’s things by yesterday.”

  The box rested in the footwell beneath my desk. The contents rattled when I passed it to her.

  Serious now, she upended the lid, then shook the box without touching anything in it. “There’s not much here.”

  There really wasn’t. Especially since the phone was in my pocket. “Have the police said anything? Are there any new leads?”

  A heavy sigh. “They’re exploring the possibilities.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nikki, how much of this do you want to hear? It’s not pretty, or comfortable.”

  “Have we ever been comfortable here?” I said it with a pointedness that might’ve gone over her head. Or not.