FaceIt found nothing.” Luke named the high-tech surveillance technology that, in conjunction with an Internet security database system, was capable of identifying casino cheaters, card counters and those associated with them.
Esposito’s face tightened.
“With the new digital-recording system, plus the incident-reporting and risk-management software, we’ve been able to call up every aspect of each case individually. We’ve tracked tape from each dealer down to every single time a drawer opens—and there’s absolutely nothing.”
“What about dealers?” Esposito demanded. “New technology only means that crooks find new ways to get around it. We’re only as good as the people who work for us.”
Luke shook his head. “Everyone checks out,” he said. “I talked to Jackson, and he vouched for all of them, as well.”
Arnold Jackson was not only the best dealer they had, he was the closest thing Luke Everson had to a personal friend. He was as much a part of the family as Luke himself—and one of the handful of people Esposito trusted.
His tanned face creased in a frown beneath dark silver hair, Amadeo leaned forward. “There is one pattern,” he said, his voice lowered to the decibel of dangerous. “All the wins are at the Bonaparte.”
The back of his neck aching, Luke shook his head. “It’s beginning to look like there are at least two others.” Luke named them both—well-known strip resorts—listing the dates and exact amounts of the wins in question. “And there’s no pattern in the locations,” he added. “One’s new, one’s been around for years. One is independently owned, one’s part of a corporation.
“And none have any relationship, either past or current, with Biamonte Industries,” he said, summing up what they already knew. He added, “I’ve been working with the security directors to run a check on all current and past employees to look for someone in common to all three—or even to two of us. Nothing significant has turned up.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence.”
Sighing, Luke sat back, running a hand through his blond hair. “I’ve viewed and reviewed the tapes. Didn’t even come up with a case of enlarged pores.” Luke wondered how many of the gamblers they caught counting cards every year knew that something as innocuous as their skin could give them away.
Amadeo didn’t reply for several moments. Moments that would’ve seemed endless had Luke not been fully aware of the older man’s habit of focusing silently when he had something to ponder.
“There is one pattern here.” Esposito’s usually nonexistent Italian accent slipped into his speech.
Raised brows were Luke’s only response.
“No two wins took place at the same time.”
“Anything else would just be stupid,” Luke said.
Nodding slowly, Amadeo said, “And it would also allow a person or persons to be at those tables, as a bystander, guiding the potential winners and waiting in the wings to collect a share of the take.”
In Luke’s opinion, Esposito had underestimated his ex-marine officer protégé.
Luke elaborated. “The operation would have to be large enough to hire a different player for every win. We have two thousand cameras out there, Amadeo, with a several-yard radius around every table. There isn’t a single instance of anyone in the vicinity sharing even a slight resemblance with those in the vicinity of the other wins.”
“So maybe we’re dealing with a damn good makeup artist,” the older man shot back, sitting up straight. “For God’s sake, man, this is Las Vegas, home of illusion.”
“And home of the people who can spot illusion with eyes half shut.”
“You’ve had the films studied by someone who’d know?”
Luke replied with a slow nod. “Three.”
“Carson Bova.” Esposito named the city’s best.
“Of course.”
“Follow up on the payout.” There was no mistaking his words as anything but an order. “I want to get inside the personal finances of every single winner. I want evidence of increase equal to the full win.”
Technically it couldn’t be done.
But Luke nodded. He already had someone on it.
“And run another check on every single one of our security staff.”
Already done. But he didn’t bother telling his boss that. Amadeo needed to be the one giving the orders. Luke stood, his polished black shoes sinking into the carpet.
“How’s the baby thing going?” Esposito asked, his voice, his whole demeanor, softer and more compassionate as he asked the question.
It was this side of the man that Luke trusted. His godfather, whom he honored and cared about. He still couldn’t stand Amadeo in his business life.
“I filled out the paperwork,” he replied. Amadeo Esposito had given Luke this chance—hooked him up with an agency in town that specialized in finding children for families who didn’t qualify for regular adoptions. Luke hadn’t even known such a place existed.
Coming around his desk, Amadeo stood mere inches from Luke, his eyes warm and personal. “What’s the next step?”
Luke glanced at his watch. He was on the clock. Had work to do. “A series of checks into everything from my medical history to grades in elementary school, by the sound of things,” he muttered, stepping toward the door.
“Luke?”
He turned back.
“You’ll have your son.”
Anticipation filled Luke’s chest, but only for a brief instant. Still, after he’d passed Amadeo’s current thugs in the outer office, he couldn’t help a satisfied nod.
If Amadeo said he’d get his son, he would.
2
She had her car—a “used though still in excellent condition” Grand Cherokee. A single woman on her own didn’t need anything so big, but Francesca didn’t know how much stuff Autumn had accumulated in the two years she’d been gone. A shopping cart full?
Her half sister had called her mother from a pay phone. For anonymity? Or because that phone on the street was her home phone?
Just before eight on Saturday morning, Francesca drove slowly down the Strip, only minimally distracted by the visual cacophony of fantasyland elite mixed with the gutteresque. The opulent signs and landscaping stood beside parking lots filled with potholes and garishly lighted marquees advertising souvenir mugs for ninety-nine cents, beer and three T-shirts for twelve dollars.
Already older couples strolled the sidewalks hand in hand, stepping aside periodically as the occasional man hurried from one casino to the next, exuding an air of desperation—and the desperate hope of someone who’s broken free.
Did
