The Heist
leaned in to her ever so slightly, and a hot rush of panic flashed through her. The panic was followed by something she feared was desire. Holy Toledo, she thought, he’s going to kiss me.
“See you in Denpasar,” Nick said, his lips lightly brushing hers when he spoke.
“Mmm,” Kate murmured, ready for the kiss. “Denpasar.”
Nick stepped away, smiled at her, and messed up her hair.“Wear something sexy,” he said, and then he turned on his heel and sauntered off down the hall.
Kate snapped her mouth shut, and narrowed her eyes. The hideous man had conned her into thinking he was going to kiss her! That was so typical of him, so sneaky, so
horrible
. She looked around for something to throw at him. Finding nothing she kicked a shopping bag.
“I hate when you mess up my hair!” she yelled after him, but he’d already disappeared into the elevator.
On her way to Encino Grande later that day, she called her father and invited him to the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino for breakfast the next morning.
“Sure,” he said. “I could play some blackjack and break in my AARP discount card at the outlet stores in Cabazon.”
Kate had an easy time seeing her father at the blackjack table. Seeing him using an AARP discount card at the Cabazon outlets was a struggle. She disconnected from him, and minutes later she rolled into the compound at Encino Grande. Boyd was floating on a raft in the pool, and Chet was returning to the house after serving Burnside his dinner tray in his cell. Tom had already gone back home to be with his family for the night but would be returning early in the morning to relieve Chet.
Boyd abandoned his raft and joined Kate and Chet in the kitchen. Kate made herself a bologna sandwich, and Chet tore open a bag of chips.
“It looks like Nick, Willie, and I are going to be gone for at least two weeks,” Kate said.
Chet stopped eating for a beat. “That’s longer than I expected. You really think we can pull off this charade for that long?”
“I did 212 performances of
Love Letters
on the dinner theater circuit with a different woefully untalented local actress every night. I can handle two weeks of this,” Boyd said. “Of course it took a lot of alcohol to get me through
Love Letters
.”
“I’m arranging for a senior operative to stop by from time to time,” Kate said. “His name is Jake and he’s a pro. Do as he says. And if anything goes wrong, and he’s not around, call him at this number.”
She passed Boyd a piece of paper with Jake’s cell phone number on it.
“What happens in two weeks?” Chet asked.
“If it’s not practical for Griffin to get picked up at sea, we might have to bring him back here for act three,” Kate said.
“I wish I could be there for act two,” Boyd said. “It’s poor storytelling to have the central character off the stage for so long.”
“I thought Derek Griffin was the star of this show,” Chet said.
“I’m the character that ties together all of the plotlines,” Boyd said. “I’m like Hannibal Lecter in
The Silence of the Lambs
, only without all of Anthony Hopkins’s outrageous overacting. Remember how the movie dragged when his character wasn’t around?”
“Not for me. I loved Jodie Foster,” Chet said. “There was something really sexy about her as that FBI agent.”
“Clarice Starling,” Kate said.
“Yeah. Even though she was all buttoned up and tightly wound, there’s something hot about a take-charge woman with a gun and a badge.”
Kate perked up at that. She had a gun and a badge and she was take-charge.
The faux stack-stone décor of the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino was the same as the lobby of the Ventura retirement home that Kate had visited with the MPAA investigator weeks ago. There was also a similarity in the clientele. When Kate stepped out of the elevator at 10 A.M. , there were already dozens of seniors ramming money into the slots, one hand poised on the big red button, ready to hit it as soon as the cherries stopped spinning.
She picked up the passport envelope Nick had left her at the desk and went to the coffee shop. Her dad was in a booth with a stack of hotcakes, two eggs, four strips of bacon, rye bread toast, and a cup of coffee in front of him. He smiled when he saw her.
“You look great,” he said.
She sat down across from him. “I do?”
“Like you’re about to leap out of a plane over Greece.”
“There’s a look for that?”
“It’s called happiness,
Weitere Kostenlose Bücher