She intended to be just as prepared, just as thorough.
Rebecca snapped her bag shut and let the masquerade begin.
She curved her mouth into a subtle pout at the appreciative glances and outright stares that followed her across the wide, fixed gangplank leading over the water to the Riverboat’s light-studded entryway. Good. She didn’t have the money to throw around at the gaming tables necessary to garner the attention of the men she was here to investigate. And she couldn’t exactly flash her press pass or use her real name, in case someone connected her to her father or the paper.
But there was more than one way to get herself invited into the back rooms and private offices on board. And though it stuck in her feminist craw, Rebecca Page was relying on the long legs she’d inherited from her father and the dramatic sculpt of cheekbones she’d inherited from her mother to get her inside that inner circle to the secrets hidden there.
The noise of bells and whistles, chatter and music assaulting her ears nearly sent Rebecca back out the sliding glass doors. But, seeing the wine-red carpet and refined appointments of an Old South cruise ship as some sort of surreal memorial to her father, she curled her toes inside her stilettos and refused to retreat. Bright lights and false fronts aside, this was where her father had died. It was where he might have hidden a disk or notebook before taking a bullet and plunging into the river.
His killer worked here. Or played here. Had rebuilt the place from below the waterline on up to the bright-red smokestacks. Someone here knew something or somebody. The money that had created this gambling mecca was tainted. Her father had known that and had been silenced for that knowledge.
If she couldn’t find the actual killer, then Rebecca was certain this place would provide the clues to lead her to him.
“WELCOME to the Riverboat.” A young woman wearing a mini version of a dance-hall girl’s costume pressed a brass coin into Rebecca’s hand. “We’re giving a token to every new player who comes in tonight. It’s good for one game at the quarter slots, or a free drink at the Cotton Blossom bar.”
Rebecca glanced at the token in her palm, arching an eyebrow with skepticism. “How do you know I’m a new player? You’ve been open since the Memorial Day weekend, haven’t you? Maybe I’ve been in here before.”
The hostess’s blank expression told Rebecca she’d interrupted the girl’s memorized spiel. Then the young woman laughed.
“Okay.” Rebecca waited for a “like, totally” to pop out of the blonde’s giggly mouth. “So we’re really giving a token to every customer who comes through our doors all summer long, whether it’s your first time or not. We want you to play the games and feel at home.”
In the enemy’s camp? Not likely. Rebecca returned a smile to the two men who entered behind her and who walked past before she dropped the token into her purse. Her questions had only just begun. She scanned the bubbly golden girl’s nametag. “Who’s ‘we’, Dawn? You and the other dance-hall girls?”
“Of course, us. Oh, you mean, who’s in charge?”
Rebecca nodded, gesturing around her and acting duly impressed. “Somebody laid out a pretty penny for this extravaganza.”
She knew the names on public record, but it wouldn’t hurt to know who the employees felt they really had to answer to. And if the perky blonde was willing to chat…
Dawn greeted two more guests and handed out tokens before she answered. “Well, there’s Mr. Kelleher. He does a lot of the boring business stuff.”
Rebecca ticked the name off her memorized list. That would be the chief financial backer from the Kansas City area. Local gossip claimed he had a grudge against the Westin family, who owned another wildly successful casino about two miles farther down river. Just how far would Kelleher go to get one up on the Westins? Would he murder a man whose story could close him down before he ever opened for business?
The hostess greeted another guest and continued, enjoying the opportunity to show off her inside knowledge of the place. “Let’s see. There’s the security guy. He used to be a bouncer, but now he’s in charge. Never smiles. And I don’t know Mr. Cartwright’s title, but I guess he designed the place and now he’s, you know, like the fix-it-up guy? Except he doesn’t do the work himself. I see him here more than I do Mr. Kelleher.”
Cartwright? Rebecca’s blood simmered as her subtle interrogation took a sharp turn into unexpected personal territory. That was a name she could have lived without hearing again. Shauna Cartwright was the stubborn lady commissioner of the KCPD whom Rebecca had interviewed more than once since assuming the position of crime beat reporter for the Journal. Even though the older woman had ultimately earned Rebecca’s grudging respect, she couldn’t exactly say they were friends. And, as if the chief cop wasn’t difficult enough to get along with, an even bigger thorn in Rebecca’s side was the commissioner’s bull-headed son, Seth Cartwright.
Another cop.
Built like a tank. To compensate for height issues, no doubt. Rebecca might even be a shade taller than KCPD’s lean, mean, testosterone machine.
But there was no debating the vivid memory of taut, hard muscles. Once, they’d been pressed intimately against her, and all that man and heat had left an indelible imprint on her skin and her psyche. Contact with Seth Cartwright had ignited her temper, along with something at the core of her that made so little sense that she’d dismissed it. Denied it, actually.
Maybe if her previous run-ins with the detective had had more to do with passion, and less to do with her right and his refusal to get to the heart of a story, she wouldn’t resent this visceral response to the mere mention of his name.
The prickly sea of goose bumps bathing her skin was no trick of the Riverboat’s air conditioning. Rather, it was an involuntary response to the humiliating memory of being wrestled to the ground like a common criminal. Like an overprotective bulldog, Cartwright had pinned her beneath him to keep her from approaching his mother and questioning her about a baby’s murder that had sent the entire city into a panic nearly eight months ago. The jerk. Hadn’t he ever heard of freedom of the press? Or respect for a woman? Or…hell.
Rebecca rubbed her arms to dispel the unwanted memory that refused to fade from her body. The name had to be a coincidence and she was doing a mental freak for no reason. A cop in his mid-twenties couldn’t have put away enough money to invest in an operation like this one.
Unless he’d quit the force and gotten a new job. Or was on the take.
Now there was a story she’d love to sink her teeth into.
“And there’s Teddy, of course.”
Rebecca dragged her attention back to the present and Dawn’s eager smile. “Teddy?”
Her father’s ring burned against her skin inside her dress. Rebecca fisted her hand around her purse to keep from reaching for it. How could she have forgotten her purpose here, even for a moment? How had she let a man, especially that one, distract her from her investigation?
Burying all thoughts of her nemesis at KCPD, Rebecca asked, “Who’s Teddy?”
“I mean, Mister Wolfe, of course,” Dawn’s cheeks pinkened as she corrected herself. “He manages the casino, bars and restaurants. He’s more of a people person than Mr. Kelleher.”
Now the
