Frank nodded slowly. He knew his wife had bid fiercely on Special Agent Lexington Duncan. He also knew why. He knew a lot of things that his wife didn’t know that he knew. He was appraised of Mercedes’s illness, too. It burned Frank, to think she was dying and hiding it from him. He loved her more than anything. For Mercedes, he’d literally move mountains.
He’d kill people.
“Could get interesting,” Frank said, eyes fixed on Jenna. He wondered what game she was playing with the federal agent, how Harold might possibly be involved and how it could all potentially backfire on him—or Mercedes.
“Put a tail on her,” he told Markowitz. “I want to know what she’s up to. Get photographic records, anything that shows her and the federal agent in a compromising position.”
One could never underestimate how useful those could be.
Frank and his security head exited the room together. “Did you take care of that fortune-teller at the Lucky Lady?” Frank asked quietly as they walked toward the elevators.
“Accomplished,” rasped the security head, inserting his elevator card and keying in his code. “But Agent Duncan had already been there.”
Frank’s temperature rose slightly. “How do you know?”
“We made her talk first.”
“She tell him anything?”
“Nothing that will bring him here.”
They entered the elevator. Frank watched lights flicking down from floor to floor. As fast as he was moving to plug up holes, the past still seemed to be seeping up into the present, somehow triggered by that Candace Rothchild murder.
Frank for one wouldn’t mind knowing who had killed the rich slut. She’d had it coming—that didn’t concern him. What did concern him was the way it was filtering into his life.
He didn’t like it.
Not one bit.
He clasped his hands behind his back as the elevator descended to the casino floor level, flexing his fingers in controlled irritation. This could not touch Mercedes. Not now. Not ever.
Especially when she had so little time left.
Jenna left the party at the Desert Lion early, looking forward to a hot bath and mind-numbing sleep. As she drove she was, as usual, grateful for Napoleon’s company. She reached over and scratched his head fondly. A pet had always been the one constant in her life. Perhaps her only true friend.
“There’s nothing like a pooch, you know, boy?” she told him. “No judgment, no worries if your hair looks like crap, just pure unadulterated love, and respect—” she hesitated as errant headlights from a car suddenly blinded her in the rearview mirror. The dark sedan behind her was coming a tad too close for comfort.
Jenna sped up a little, but the sedan kept pace. A cool sense of unease trickled through her. She didn’t like the way the driver kept his brights aimed high. She changed lanes, weaving deftly between a big SUV and a delivery truck in an effort to avoid him. The dark vehicle swerved after her.
Was it following her?
Panic whispered through Jenna.
She recalled the warning notes in her father’s desk drawer…eliminating Rothchild trash, one by one. She glanced up, trying to determine the model of the vehicle, but all she could make out was that it was a dark sedan.
The headlights loomed closer again, high beams blazing into her rearview mirror, making her eyes water. Jenna tightened her hands on the wheel. She saw an off-ramp looming ahead. It led off the freeway. On instinct, she swerved down onto the ramp, praying that the car would not follow, that she was just imagining it was tailing her.
It swerved after her.
The first dark tendrils of terror clawed through her. She was being pursued. The road fed into a quieter, secluded community near the deserted desert fringe. The sedan sped up behind her. Jenna’s heart began to pound.
“Hold on, Naps,” she whispered, hitting the gas, causing her tires to skid as she wheeled sharply round a corner.
But the sedan kept pace. The streets grew darker, more empty. Narrower. Raw fear tightened her throat. “What does that freaking idiot want with us?” she whispered to Napoleon.
As she headed over a long bridge, the headlights began to loom closer again. With one hand fisted on the wheel, eyes fixed on the road, Jenna groped under the dash for her purse. She pulled out her phone, began to dial, but the sedan drew up suddenly and smacked her bumper from behind. Her car lurched violently forward. She gasped, dropping her phone, as she clutched at the wheel with both hands.
It hit again, more at an angle.
This time her car slammed against the bridge railing on the passenger side, metal sparking against metal, tires screeching. She bounced back into the lane, swerving, managing to re-steady her vehicle, heart slamming in her throat, her body wet with perspiration. She saw the dark sedan speeding up again and veering wide out to her left, coming in for a sideswipe on the driver’s side.