Книга - Nightwalker

Nightwalker
Heather Graham


Jessy Sparhawk has seen firsthand how gambling can ruin people's lives.But one night, desperate for money, she places the bet that will change her life forever. Just as she's collecting her winnings, a man stumbles through the crowd, a knife protruding from his back, and crashes into her, pinning her to the craps table. Hired to investigate the murder, private detective Dillon Wolf finds himself fascinated by the gorgeous redhead who'd been trapped beneath the victim–and by the single word the dying man had whispered in her ear. Indigo.What neither of them realizes is that the nightmare is only just beginning. Because bodyguard Tanner Green may have been killed by that knife, but his angry ghost isn't going anywhere–not without vengeance. Now, literally caught between the living and the dead, Dillon and Jessy have no choice but to forge ahead together.








NIGHTWALKER




Heather Graham

Nightwalker








For friends in Vegas,

Dan Frank, Adam Fenner, Shelley Martinsen

and Dick Martinsen,

and with special love for

Lance Taubold and Rich Devin




Contents


Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue




Prologue


Nevada, 1876



Smoke from a dozen cigars and cigarillos filled the saloon, creating a gray mist that hung over the patrons’ heads. George Turner, a man with a curious mix of races running through his blood, was playing the piano. Milly Taylor, a soprano who survived by prostitution in this godforsaken hellhole, was singing about being in a gilded cage. The desert dust, which never seemed to really settle, joined with the miasma of smoke, and it was only the fact that the fiery red ball of the sun was finally settling that made it bearable to sit at the poker table.

John Wolf was holding a flush, aces high. He leaned back easily in his chair. There was a fair amount of money on the table, but if he appeared casual, it wasn’t just his customary stoicism that made him so.

He didn’t give a damn about the money at stake. He’d just returned from a trip that could change the lives of everyone around him. Now he was waiting for Mariah.

“I’ll see your dollar, breed,” Mark Davison said.

John didn’t bat an eye. He knew Davison was trying to rile him with the remark. The man should have known better. If there was anything John had learned from being raised between two worlds in this lawless sandpit, it was to control any outward display of emotion.

“I’ll raise you two,” Davison continued.

Davison was an ass, a would-be gunslinger.

He’d come from the East, with family money and an attitude. Whether he won or lost, he tipped the bartenders and the girls, so that, at least, was good. But he’d taken up with Frank Varny and his crowd, and that was bad.

“Two bucks,” Davison repeated. There was color in his cheeks.

“Two bucks,” John said, smoothly sliding the sum onto the pile.

He could tell by Davison’s expression that the other man had expected him to fold.

“This is a friendly poker game, fellows,” Grant Percy, the so-called sheriff said, fidgeting uneasily in his seat and folding his cards. He might wear a badge, but the truth was, Frank Varny owned the town.

He had muscled his way in, and he had kept his power in the usual way: by intimidation. You joined him—or you went out into the desert with your mule and pickax, and only the mule and pickax came back.

But today, John Wolf knew, things were going to change. Mariah would come, and whatever happened to him after that wouldn’t matter. She was the one good, honest human being he’d come across in his life, and he was going to give her the information she needed to ensure that the people here—not just the tribe but all the people in this town who’d suffered for too long under Varny’s corrupt rule—found life worth living again.

“I’m out, so lay down your cards,” Ringo Murphy, the fourth and last man at the table, said. Murphy was a wild card himself. He’d been an opinionated rancher down in Missouri, so the story went. Just a kid when his world had gone to hell. He’d become a sharpshooter during the War Between the States, and now that it was over, he was chasing a dream of wealth and comfort. He was gaunt but well toned, a fellow with a devil-may-care attitude, and he wasn’t quick to bend to any man’s brutal tactics. He leaned back in his chair with his guns visible, nestled into the shoulder holsters he wore. Names were etched on the barrels: Lola and Lilly. “Come on, Davison,” Ringo said impatiently. “I’d like to get back into this game.”

Davison was a lean man, as skinny as a string bean—letting his muscle come from the two Colts he wore holstered on his hips.

John was armed himself. Always. He, too, carried Colts. Six-shooters, each one double-barreled, providing him with an extra shot per gun. He also carried two knives, sheathed at his ankles. It wasn’t out of meanness. Out here, it meant survival.

“Call,” Davison said gruffly. John laid his cards on the table.

That was when the swinging doors to the saloon burst open. The sun was setting, painting the sky a deep red hue. Against it, a man was silhouetted in the doorway.

Frank Varny had come, just as John had known he would. But the timing was bad; Varny shouldn’t have made it in from his “office” in the hills until nightfall.

“Wolf!” he said, the single word sounding like a roar.

John didn’t twitch. He cursed silently and didn’t acknowledge the newcomer. He’d had it all planned down to a crossed T, but someone had betrayed him. Varny shouldn’t have known he was back. Not until Mariah had come.

The smoke in the air began to dissipate as most of the crowd scattered hurriedly, like dry leaves caught in a high wind, heading out the backdoor.

Even the bartender disappeared. Milly Taylor croaked out one last note, then froze, as her accompanist scrambled up the stairs.

Only John paid no attention to the other man’s arrival.

Frank Varny didn’t like being ignored. He strode across the room, so accustomed to being a law unto himself that he didn’t see the flicker of annoyance in Ringo Murphy’s black eyes.

Davison looked up nervously, though, barely noticing anything as he set his cards down by reflex alone.

John had won. “My flush beats your straight,” he said, and scooped in the gold dollars piled on the table.

“Good. Now the rest of us can get back into the game,” Ringo Murphy muttered.

“The game is over,” Frank Varny announced. By then, four of his henchmen had followed him into the saloon. They were all resting their hands on the guns holstered at their hips.

“Deal,” John told Grant Percy.

“Now, now,” Sheriff Percy said, licking his lips nervously. “Seems like Mr. Varny needs to have a word with you first, John Wolf.”

John looked toward the swinging doors and saw a tumbleweed dance by in the breeze that had suddenly lifted. He looked upward, not at Varny, but at the red sky that was darkening to crimson, deep as a dead man’s blood. From the corner of his eye, he judged where Varny’s men were standing.

Varny planted a fist on the table, leaning down. “You found the vein, didn’t you? Well, it’s my land. And it’s my gold.”

John stared back at him and smiled slowly. “It’s Paiute land,” he said calmly. He drew the cards toward himself and started to shuffle. “I brought a claim into Carson City, and I took ownership, on behalf of the tribe, of the land that once belonged to the Paiute nation, before you white men came and took it all away. Up in those offices in Carson City, they’re not afraid of you, Varny. They believe in something called the law. So now the claim is on Paiute land, my friend.”

Ringo Murphy let out a snort and stared from one man to the other. “What the hell? Are we playing cards here or not?”

“Shut your mouth,” Varny said. “We’re doing business here.”

“Get the hell out of my sight, Varny,” John said. “I told you, that gold is mine.”

It was amazing, John thought, that Varny didn’t die of apoplexy on the spot. He looked as if he was about to explode. “That’s my gold, and you’re going to tell me where to find it, you red bastard.”

“Is anyone going to deal?” Murphy demanded. “I would like to win my money back.”

“We’ll get right back to it,” John said to Murphy. He turned back to Varny. “Actually, I’m only half-red. My mother was white. She was working in this very saloon when she was captured, and she soon realized she had a better life as a Paiute captive than a white barmaid.”

“Barmaid? Whore, more like,” Varny spat out.

John looked evenly into the other man’s eyes. “Whatever she might have done in life to survive, she was a far better person than you. Hell, Varny, you murdering scum. That makes her pretty damn fine in comparison, no matter what the hell she did.”

Varny drew his gun, and his men drew theirs. Left with no choice, John Wolf rose, kicking the table over and using it for cover, as he drew, himself. He noticed Murphy drawing his own gun, evening the odds at least slightly.

As the shots began to explode and ricochet, the sheriff and Davison dived for cover, and Milly Taylor ducked behind the piano and screamed.

To John Wolf, the world seemed to slow down, letting him see every little detail of what was happening.

Murphy was good. Faster than lightning, even in John’s slowed-down view. As the sheriff threw himself under a nearby table for protection, Murphy held his ground, both guns blazing. John heard the sickening thuds as first one bullet struck home, then the other, as Murphy took out two of Varny’s men, saving John’s hide.

John Wolf took that in even as his own guns blazed against Varny’s other two thugs.

Another thud, and a spray of brilliant color as one man was struck in the heart. A moment later, the other took a bullet in the lung. Blood streamed across the floor, matching the sunset.

Varny’s men were dead, all four of them, but Ringo Murphy been hit himself. He looked at John before he died. “Sorry, partner,” he said, and fell. Hiding under a table hadn’t helped the sheriff; he was sprawled out under it now, his eyes glazed in death. It hadn’t saved the skinny fool from the East, either. Davison was bleeding out on top of the sheriff; his jugular had been hit, his geysering blood turning into a deep, dark river as it mingled with the dirt on the floor.

Milly Taylor wasn’t dead, though. She had wilted against the piano and was sobbing. The wall was blown out behind her. Varny had been hit in the right arm, but he was still standing.

Now it was just the two of them.

They stood in the midst of the carnage and stared at one another.

“You’re a lucky son of a bitch,” Varny said. “Your buddy there took down Riley and Austin. Without him, you’d be dead. You couldn’t have shot all four of them.”

“The world is full of what might have happened,” John said softly.

Varny grinned slowly. “I’m going to kill you, you know. Thing is, why the hell are you holding out? Give me the gold and I’ll let you live. Are you going to give me some cock and bull about your father’s people? You said that it was your land now. So which is it? Misplaced heroics or personal greed?”

John shrugged. “Misplaced heroics? Those who came here first, my father’s people, they need it. They’ll share. And you, you already have more than any man needs in a lifetime. You know, there’s a rumor out there that you have Indian blood, too.”

“The hell I do.”

“Thank God. The Indian nations don’t need your kind.”

Varny knew how to hold his temper, and he grinned, even if there was a tic at the vein in his throat. “What about your white half, boy?”

John hiked a brow slowly. Boy? “Well, Pops, my mother is dead. And what folks she had, I never knew about. But this isn’t about red or white. It’s about greed. Yours. You’ve managed to cause a hell of a lot of trouble since the Paiute War, kidnapping women from the villages, discarding them like garbage. And when their husbands, fathers and brothers have come after you, you’ve managed to shoot them down or get them hanged. All you’ve wanted for as long as I’ve known about you is gold. Paiute gold. And you’re not going to get it. This land—and any gold that’s on it—is the tribe’s now.”

Varny’s eyes filled with rage, but he kept his distance. John couldn’t be sure, but he thought Varny might be out of ammunition. It had been hard to count when a half-dozen guns were blazing, but if Varny carried the old army Colts he always had, he was most probably out of bullets.

Then Varny smiled coldly. “I’ve got something you want as much as I want that gold.”

John didn’t allow any sign of wariness to show on his features. He waited. What the hell did he have to lose at this point? Things hadn’t gone the way he’d expected, but now it was down to Varny and himself. He might die, but he would take Varny down with him if he did.

“Did you think I’d play all my cards so quickly?” Varny asked. He never looked away from John. “Tobias! Get in here!”

Tobias was a big man, like some corn-fed Nebraskan. He didn’t look happy as he came in, straw-colored hair flying, denims held up by suspenders.

But that didn’t give John pause. What caused his heart to skip a beat was the fact that Tobias was dragging a terrified captive.

Mariah.

She was in deerskin and moccasins, her hair braided, as befitted a Paiute maiden. But her eyes were bluer than a clear sky at noon, and her skin was as pale as porcelain. She was one of those rare creatures who found happiness and harmony wherever she went; she adored her Indian stepsiblings as much as she had loved her white father, before he died and the Paiute took her in. She was a voice of sanity and peace, and Varny must have grabbed her as she had hurried here to meet him.

“I’ll kill her,” Varny said flatly. There was no emotion in the man’s voice at all. “I’d have fun with her first, except she’s such a timid little mouse, and that’s no fun at all. But who knows? I might give it a try. I actually prefer my women wild and wicked, like Milly over there, but I’m willing to put up with a lot for that deed and that vein of gold. Then again, there’s nothing like blowing off someone’s kneecap. That would hurt like hell, and I’m betting it would get you to talk.”

The first thought that occurred to John was that he would do anything, anything at all, to save Mariah’s life. He would give up all the gold in the universe, salvation for the world, just to see her free. He should drop his weapons and give Varny everything he wanted.

But it wouldn’t help. Varny was going to kill them both, possibly torture them both, no matter what he said to the contrary, once he had the gold.

“Well?” Varny pressed.

It was amazing, John thought, that Varny hadn’t realized the truth about the gold.

“Don’t give him anything!” Mariah cried, fighting the hold Varny’s lackey had upon her. “Don’t give him anything at all.”

Her eyes flashed with her fury and her hatred, which only seemed to amuse Varny—and appeal to him.

“Maybe the lady isn’t so boring after all,” he mused.

With only split seconds before the choice was no longer his, John weighed his options. And they were few. No aid was coming. Ringo Murphy was dead on the ground, and he was the only fool who would have dared to help.

How good was he? John asked himself. He could take down Varny, but could he do that and save Mariah? Maybe. If he tried negotiation, if he stalled, if Varny was the first to draw…

No help, no hope.

He drew.

He fired like lightning; both guns blazing. One bullet for Tobias, one for Varny.

But Varny was fast, too.

John’s bullets struck both men, but Varny hit John in the chest, dead center, as well. Oddly, he didn’t feel pain. Just the punch of the bullet, and then…cold.

Cold like ice.

They always said this kind of death was instantaneous.

But it wasn’t. He was aware of far too much as he died.

He saw Mariah’s face, her mouth the O of a silent scream, as he fell. He tried to say what he needed to tell her, but didn’t know if his lips moved, didn’t know if he made any sound. He wasn’t sure it mattered.

At least she was free. She would live. He tried again to tell her the things she needed to know, but he couldn’t tell if she understood him or not.

But death trapped the final words in his throat, and death came with its white light, then darkness, and after that he was aware of nothing more, not even the ever-present dust as it sifted down and mingled with his blood as his life ebbed away.




1


Tension was high around the table, but then, there were thousands of dollars strewn out across the board, represented by colorful plastic chips.

Because this was Vegas, where men and women could rise like meteors to the top of the world, then plummet to the bottom just as quickly.

Jessy Sparhawk could feel the pressure, could feel the eyes of the other gamblers on her.

Some people were playing big money.

Others—idiots like herself—were taking a desperate, edgy, ridiculous chance, playing to beat the odds. To defy the gods of Vegas, who always proclaimed that the house won.

Oh, yes, she was an idiot. Why in God’s name had she taken the last of her savings to the craps table? She worked in Vegas, she had grown up out here. She’d seen the down-and-outers. She’d seen the poor, the pathetic, the alcoholics, the junkies, all trying for a big win when they knew the law of averages.

“Ten, baby, roll a hard ten” a man called from the end of the table. He wasn’t one of the down-and-outers. He was a regular all over town. She had seen him over at the Big Easy, and he had a deep Southern accent, but one with a Texas twang. His name was Coot Calhoun. All right, so his real name probably wasn’t Coot, but that was how he was known. Nice man. He’d inherited one of the biggest oil fields in Texas. She liked him. He had a wife named Minnie—though Jessy was doubtful about that name, too—who he genuinely loved, and he tipped well because he was generous, not because he was expecting any favors.

“I’m trying, Coot, I’m trying,” she assured him, praying for a hard ten not for Coot’s sake but for Tim’s.

She was here, gambling at the Vegas Sun, because she wasn’t allowed to gamble in the casino where she worked, which usually didn’t bother her, since she wasn’t a gambler. The Sun was owned by a billionaire who had been in the casino trade a long time. Her own Big Easy was owned by Emil Landon. A rich man, yes. A very rich man. But he hadn’t been at the casino game long. Even though she wasn’t a gambler, she knew the games. She’d been a dealer, a hostess, a waitress, a bartender, a singer, a dancer—even an acrobat for a brief period of time. She knew Vegas in and out, backward and forward, and she had learned long, long ago, not to gamble, because the house always won.

“Baby, baby, baby, bee-you-ti-ful baby, do it. Hard ten,” another man called. He was young. Drunk. Probably had too much money on the board, and definitely had too much alcohol in his system.

She was aware of so many people watching her. It had been kind of fun at first, but now she felt the tension. Even Darrell Frye, one of the Sun’s pit bosses, was watching her with a measuring stare, as if afraid she was on one of those long rolls that totally outweighed the odds.

“Ten, ten, ten,” a nearby woman repeated fervently. She was haggard looking, thin, and her dress had been stylish twenty years ago, back when she had been pretty. Now her features bore the weight of time, but she offered Jessy a smile, and Jessy smiled back.

“Get on with it,” someone else insisted. “Just roll.”

She did. To her horror, the dice bounced off the table.

“Hey, it’s all right, just a game,” said a deep, smooth, masculine voice.

She looked up. The man who had spoken was several people away to her left, and she had noticed him earlier. He was the kind of man it was hard not to notice. He wasn’t typically handsome, and certainly not a pretty boy, but he had what she could only call presence. Tall, with broad shoulders, he managed to be simultaneously casual and elegant, and rugged on top of that.

She flashed him a smile. He wasn’t drunk; he had been sipping the same drink since she had started watching the table. She was five-ten and wearing heels, but he towered over her by several inches. His eyes were so dark that to call them brown would be an injustice. His hair, too, was almost ebony, and the striking cut of his cheekbones made her think there had to be Native American blood in his background, and maybe not far back. He was simply striking, dressed in a white pin-striped shirt open at the neck, a nicely fitted jacket and black jeans. He hadn’t been risking big money, but he had played as if he knew something about the game, and he’d been playing the same money since she first noticed him. And he seemed to be watching for more than just the roll of the dice.

He lifted his glass to her and looked over at the dealer as he tossed out two hundred-dollar chips. “Hard ten for me and for the roller,” he said.

“You don’t need to—” she began.

“Jessy, just roll, sweetie,” Coot called to her, then turned to the croupier as he picked up two chips himself. “My money is on the little lady. Throw this on the hard ten, one for me, one for her, please.”

His hundreds went down.

More chips were thrown down on the hard ten, plenty of them for her, and she knew that she was blushing. “Thanks,” she murmured, looking at the man who had started it all. The pressure was really on now. A so-called “hard” bet paid really well.

But there was a lot of money to be lost if she failed.

Her handsome benefactor said, “Don’t worry. It’s going to be a hard ten. And if it’s not, it’s all right. I never put down what I can’t afford to lose.”

She wished she could say the same thing. But at this point, she was desperate. If she didn’t come up with the money, she couldn’t pay to keep Timothy in the home. She could see Mr. Hoskins’ face now, as he calmly told her, “I’m sorry, Miss Sparhawk, but there’s nothing we can do. I’ve been as patient as I can, but if I don’t have that three thousand dollars by tomorrow morning, you’ll have to find another facility.”

She hated Hoskins. He was a thin-lipped, nose-in-the-air jerk, but he only ran the Hawthorne Home; he wasn’t the one who spent time with Tim. And Tim loved Jimmy Britin, the orderly, and Liz Freeze, his nurse. And Dr. Joe, who was a wonderful man, who worked at the home in order to be able to afford to donate his time at several local shelters.

A hard ten. If she rolled a hard ten, two fives, she made not just her own hundred-dollar bet, but…ten times that hundred. Plenty of money to keep Timothy where he needed to be.

She swallowed hard and rolled the dice.

“Hard ten, hard ten!” It became a chant.

She had never seen dice roll for so long on a craps table. A four and a three…and groans went around the table, because a seven meant that she would crap out. But the dice were still rolling….

A five and a three.

A five and a two.

A five and…

A five. A hard ten.

The screaming and shouting was deafening. Hands clapping, high fives all around. She wasn’t sure who picked her up and swung her around, but she didn’t protest that any more than she protested the hugs and backslaps that came her way, or even Coot’s enthusiastic kiss on her cheek. She was simply too stunned.

The one man who didn’t grab her or go insane was the tall, dark-haired stranger. He just watched her, pleased, and yet somehow grave.

Jessy couldn’t believe the number of chips coming her way.

“I’m cashing in,” she told the dealer.

He gave her an odd look. “You’re still rolling,” he reminded her. “If you leave, these folks will lynch me. Don’t pass the roll. Go until you crap out.”

She glanced to the side, looking for the dark-haired stranger.

He was gone; of course. He wasn’t rolling. Still, she missed him. And she had the oddest feeling that things weren’t going to go right, now that he was gone. And she was right, because it wasn’t long until she crapped out. Still, as she collected her chips, which were still worth far more than the three thousand dollars she needed, everyone regaled her as if she were a celebrity. She thanked them, then turned, eager to escape as quickly as possible.

That was when the huge man plowed into her.

Huge. Bodyguard huge. He was bald and built like a wall of solid rock. His eyes were hazel and streaked with red.

“Hey!” Coot yelled indignantly.

It didn’t stop the man, who hit her so hard that he knocked her flat onto the craps table, then fell on top of her.

She was pinned, and when she tried to budge his weight, she couldn’t. She started to ask the onlookers for assistance, but her words were cut short by someone’s shrill, hysterical scream.

And then she felt the blood trickling down on her as she struggled under the man’s weight.

His dead weight…

His glazed and frozen eyes stared at her, and then his mouth moved.

He spoke one word.

“Indigo.”

And then his lips stopped moving and something, some light, went out in his eyes.

She tried to twist out from beneath him, and that was when she saw the knife sticking out of his back, saw the blood, and began to scream herself.



Dillon Wolf heard the screams just seconds after he had stepped into the special “high-roller” section of the casino. He spun around, returning at a breakneck speed, and arrived back at the craps table just as casino security descended on it. He saw the beautiful redhead he’d staked earlier, desperately trying to push the weight of the huge man off her, and he saw the man’s face almost as quickly.

Tanner Green. Hell.

He’d spent most of the night keeping track of who was coming and going, trying to get a handle on who was frequenting the new casino, and the last damn thing he’d imagined was Green turning up dead. The man was a pro. Had been a pro. Not only that, before rejoining the world, he’d worked as a mercenary; there was no way in hell he should have been taken by surprise by anyone. But a knife in the back? That pretty much screamed surprise.

The fact that the police would want the body left in situ didn’t prevent him from diving in to help the redhead free herself as quickly as possible.

“Hey, hey!” one of the security officers said, hurrying forward, but he ignored the man.

“Thank you,” the redhead whispered as he shifted her free of the corpse and she managed to get back on her feet. For a moment, though, her eyes were on his. Huge. A deep, radiant blue, like a cloudless sky. Those eyes had first met his just a few minutes earlier as she rolled the dice. Now he also noticed that she smelled good, not to mention that she felt good against him.

As soon as he saw that she was steady, he delved into his pocket for his ID, presenting it to the security officer.

“Dillon Wolf, licensed P.I.,” he said. “Have the police been called?”

“The 911 has gone in, they’ll be here momentarily,” the security officer said. Two of the men accompanying him had already begun to form an invisible ring around the craps table; two more were hurrying over to bar the door.

“Oh God, I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here!” a woman cried hysterically.

“Calm down,” Dillon said, his voice taking on a deep authoritative pitch. He had long ago learned that people didn’t obey high voices in an emergency; they only became more hysterical.

The redhead was silent, but he saw that she was shivering. Something in her eyes told him that she knew she was going to be there for a long time, the center of a murder investigation. She was stunning, absolutely stunning, and something about her intrigued him. Las Vegas was full of gorgeous women, of course—showgirls, waitresses, actresses, singers—but she seemed different somehow.

When he’d first noticed her, those eyes of hers had been…haunted. Not as if she was afraid of losing a dream, certainly not as if she was afraid of simply losing…money, but as if she was terrified of losing something far more precious. As if the roll of the dice could cost her her very soul.

He gave himself a mental shake. He had other things to think about here. Not only was there a dead man lying on the craps table, but that dead man was Tanner Green.

A man came striding onto the scene. A big guy with an attitude. Jerry Cheever, Las Vegas homicide. Dillon was pretty sure that Cheever resented him, but Cheever knew the lay of the land. He might despise Dillon on every level, but he’d been told by his bosses that Dillon was to be granted free rein. Cheever liked his paycheck and his position, so he obeyed, but he also liked to take credit for things that went well, and he knew Dillon had a talent for seeing an investigation through, and he wasn’t above taking advantage of that fact.

Especially because he simply wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.

“No one move!” Cheever bellowed. “And I mean no one!”

He took note of the blood seeping into the green felt tabletop and soaking the multicolored chips.

“Wolf,” he said curtly, acknowledging Dillon’s presence. His eyes settled on the redhead as he asked Dillon, “What happened?”

“I wasn’t here. I ran over when I heard the screaming,” Dillon said.

Jerry Cheever turned to the redhead.

“What happened?” he demanded curtly.

“I was leaving the table. This man came over and…and fell on me,” she said.

“Do you know him?” Cheever demanded.

“I’ve never seen him before,” she said.

“You’re sure?” Cheever pressed.

“Absolutely sure,” she said with confidence. She was still trembling slightly. Not surprising, Dillon thought, given that she was wearing the dead man’s blood.

“Are you hurt?” he asked her quietly.

She shook her head.

Cheever took in the corpse. “Christ! It’s Tanner Green.” He glared at Dillon again. “Aren’t you two working for—”

“Yes,” Dillon said curtly.

“But you weren’t together?”

“No.”

“Lieutenant Cheever, the M.E. is here,” a newly arrived police officer informed him.

“Give him room. No one gets out those doors, do you hear?” Cheever said.

A murmur arose from the crowd, but Cheever wasn’t disturbed. “Give your payouts, close your tables,” he commanded the casino employees, then turned to his fellow officers. “I want men posted at all the doors. No one leaves here without presenting ID and a valid local address, and not until they’ve been questioned. Are we understood?”

Another swell of protest emanated from the crowd, but no one moved. Not even the casino employees. “Payouts. Now. I want the tables closed up. I want some order here,” Cheever announced.

At last things began to happen. The M.E.—it was Doug Tarleton, a decent guy and an expert in his field, Dillon thought—was sliding his gloved hands over the dead man’s face, closing the staring eyes.

“Lord!” Tarleton said, startled. “It’s Tanner Green.”

“Yes,” Dillon said simply.

Cheever turned to the redhead. “And you are…?”

“Jessy Sparhawk,” she said quietly.

“Exactly what happened?” he asked.

She arched a brow but answered levelly. “I was leaving the table. I don’t know where this man came from. He fell on me and knocked me onto the table. I was trapped under him until he—” she pointed at Dillon “—got me out. And that’s all I know.”

“So you don’t know him?”

“No,” she said firmly.

Cheever’s officers were good, and the floor had quietly filled with them.

Dillon knew there were men already stationed at the doors, and he knew that the others would soon begin questioning the hundreds of people who had been in the casino. Crime-scene tape was already being stretched around the table.

Cheever suddenly stared at Jessy Sparhawk again. “The surveillance cameras will have picked up everything, you know.”

“I told you exactly what happened,” she said, adding, “And I had nothing to do with it.”

“Lieutenant Cheever,” Dillon said, taking a step forward, “Miss Sparhawk is a victim here, and undoubtedly pretty damn uncomfortable right now.”

“That man is uncomfortable,” Cheever said irritably, pointing to Tanner Green.

“No,” Dr. Tarleton said. “That man isn’t feeling a thing. He’s dead. Knife wound to the back, short-hilted, long-bladed weapon, which is why no one noticed it—that, and the fact that they were all staring at the tables.”

“You’re sure on the weapon?” Cheever asked.

Tarleton cleared his throat and looked daggers at the detective. He wasn’t fond of Cheever. “Oh, yeah. I’m sure. It’s still sticking out of his back.”

“Shouldn’t there be a blood trail to show where he was stabbed?” Cheever asked, frowning.

“There might be a few specks somewhere. The knife acted like a cork,” Doug explained patiently. “When Tanner fell, the knife was knocked aside and the blood began to gush. That’s why Miss Sparhawk is covered in it.”

“Bring in the crime unit—I want fingerprints ASAP,” Cheever said huffily. He was embarrassed, Dillon knew, that he hadn’t figured out that the knife would have kept the blood from flowing. “All right, get everyone cleared out of here, and let the crime unit have the area from the door to the table.” He glared at Dillon suspiciously. “You, too, Wolf. Let the crime-scene team get in here, and let Tarleton do his job.”

Dillon stuck like glue to Jessy Sparhawk, who didn’t protest when he led her away. He gave his own name, credentials and address to one of the officers, and watched as Jessy did the same. He noted that her address was in Henderson, a suburb just outside the city, and her occupation was entertainer. She was working at the newly opened Big Easy—casino. When a uniformed officer came over to interrogate her, she answered his questions calmly, even though she was still trembling.

No wonder. She was still bathed in the dead man’s blood.

“Hey! How long are we going to be kept here?” a florid man in a plaid jacket shouted angrily.

“Until the lieutenant says you can go,” one of the officers said.

Jessy Sparhawk looked at her watch and bit her lower lip.

“Are you late for work?” Wolf asked her.

She shook her head. “No, it’s Timothy…. I didn’t expect to be away from him this long,” she murmured.

“Your…son?” he asked. She couldn’t possibly have a kid over ten, and she didn’t look like the kind who would leave a child at home alone while she went out and gambled.

She shook her head. “Timothy’s my grandfather.”

“I see. Give me a minute.”

He strode across the room, to where Lieutenant Cheever was bullying a couple of the players who had been by the door when Green had entered. “Excuse me, Lieutenant,” he said politely.

Cheever stared at him and controlled his hostility. “What?”

“The woman who was caught under the corpse, Jessy Sparhawk. She’s miserable. Why not have a heart?” Dillon asked, as if there had never been the least animosity between them. “Let her go home and get cleaned up.”

Cheever frowned and pointed at Dillon. “I need to talk to you.”

“At your convenience. But let her go home. I can see that you’ve started releasing people once you’ve questioned them.”

For a moment Cheever appeared to be almost human. He shook his head in frustration. “I’m trying to prevent an all-out riot here and not let a murderer slip through my fingers,” he said.

“From what I understand, Green entered the casino, staggered through the crowd and crashed down dead on top of Ms. Sparhawk,” Dillon said. “It’s probable that he was stabbed outside the casino. Even a bunch of hard-core gamblers would probably notice someone going after someone else with a knife that big.”

“So you say. He was a bodyguard for Emil Landon, wasn’t he? Just like you.”

“I’m not a bodyguard. Landon is convinced that someone is trying to kill him. I’m supposed to be finding out who. I just took the case, and I wasn’t pals with Tanner Green. I knew him, yes, but that was it.”

“So where the hell were you, if you weren’t at the table?”

“I’d been playing at the table, but I had just wandered into the high-stakes area over there,” Dillon said, pointing toward the far left.

“Oh?” Cheever said, his eyes narrowing. His tone and his look clearly asked, What were you doing in the high-stakes area?

“I was checking out what players are in Vegas right now,” Dillon said. “Like I said, I just accepted Emil Landon’s offer. This morning, in fact. Plus, I was nowhere near the front door. And he was stabbed outside. I’d bet ten years that the crime-scene team will find specks of blood somewhere along the way.”

Cheever stared at him, knowing he was right.

“The girl obviously didn’t kill him,” Dillon said flatly. “And she takes care of her grandfather. You need to let her get home.”

“Lieutenant?” an officer said, approaching Cheever quickly through the crowd. “The security tapes are ready.”

Cheever started to move.

“Lieutenant?” Dillon said, calling him back.

“All right, take her home. But you—I want you in my office tomorrow morning, eight o’clock sharp.”

“I’ll be there,” Dillon assured him. “Emil Landon will want to know everything possible about this.”

“And he will—when I have something to share.”

“He’ll want me to see those tapes.”

“I don’t like repeating myself, Wolf, so I’ll only say this once. I know you know someone who knows the damn governor, but you’ll still wait until I’ve seen those tapes myself. Tomorrow morning, eight sharp.”

“Right,” Dillon said, turning away. More and more people were being released. Some, Dillon thought, would be heading on to other casinos, irritated that a man’s death had ruined their evening. Others were guests at the Sun, and some of them would be heading up to their rooms, shaken by tonight’s events.

Tanner Green had been no angel. He was known around Vegas. He had a record. And no matter what Cheever did that night, the killer was long gone. Even Cheever himself had to know that. He was just covering his ass, going through the motions.

Cheever suddenly called his name again. “Wolf!”

Dillon paused and waited.

“I mean it. Eight o’clock.”

Dillon tried not to laugh. Cheever always liked having the last word. It gave him a feeling of control.

Dillon turned again and made his way back around the closed-off gaming tables. Dr. Tarleton was still standing by the body with a member of the forensics unit, looking for trace evidence. Dillon paused for a moment, waiting. Watching.

Feeling the room.

But nothing came to him. He paused for a moment longer, then proceeded to the area where Jessy Sparhawk was waiting. He pulled out his investigator’s license again, in case the officers on crowd control didn’t know him. “Ms. Sparhawk has been cleared,” he said quietly to the one standing with his arms crossed over his chest, blocking the exit.

The man nodded, recognizing Dillon and barely glancing at his ID.

Dillon took Jessy’s arm and led her out the door. She didn’t protest; she readily hurried along at his side.

Once out the door—where police cars were as thick now as ants on a hill at the grand entryway—she let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks. Thanks so much. A P.I., huh? Well, I’m glad you’re friends with that lieutenant.”

“Not exactly friends,” Dillon murmured.

They kept walking until they reached Las Vegas Boulevard, where another crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, everyone staring at the action and speculating.

When his cell phone started to ring, he wasn’t surprised. In fact, he was surprised it hadn’t done so earlier.

“Excuse me,” he said to Jessy, then answered the phone. “Wolf.”

Emil Landon’s voice came through clearly, and hard with agitation. “I’ve just heard Tanner Green is dead. Dead. Murdered. Knifed in the back.”

“Yes, I was in the casino when it happened.”

“Did you see—”

“No. I didn’t even know he’d come in.”

“You should have known, damn you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I need to see you. Now.”

“As soon as possible.”

“He was a bodyguard on my payroll. And he’s dead. I want to see you now.”

“As soon as possible,” Dillon repeated steadily.

“I can fire you, Wolf.”

“Feel free.”

Immediately Landon backed down. “Just get here as soon as you can. I told you I was in danger.”

Dillon closed his phone. Jessy was looking away, courteously pretending she hadn’t been privy to his conversation. “I’m sorry. You must be busy, and I have to get home.”

“Where’s your car, then? I’ll walk you to it.”

“I didn’t drive tonight,” she said. She flushed. “I had a business appointment, and I thought I might be stopping somewhere on the way home, so I decided not to drive. I, uh, I don’t drink and drive.”

“I didn’t see you drinking.”

“I wasn’t, but I might have been. Long story. Anyway, I’m sorry, but I really do have to get home now.”

“I’ll take you. My car is just down the Strip.”

“No, no, really. I’m in a hurry, and it’s easier just to hail a cab. But thank you. Thank you so much.”

What the hell could he do? Insist? He didn’t have the right.

“You could be in danger,” he said. What a crock.

She smiled, knowing it was a line.

“Thanks. I’ll be okay.”

He kept his gaze locked on the crystalline blue of her eyes as he reached into his pocket for his card. “Please, call me if you need anything.”

She smiled without glancing at it. “Wolf. Ute?” she asked. “Local tribe? Distant tribe? Hell, Erie? Cherokee? Apache?”

He grinned. “Paiute,” he informed her, then offered her an awkward grin. “All right, so…Sparhawk? Ute, Apache, Nez Perce—stage name?”

“Lakota Sioux, my great-great-grandfather. I’m a real all-American mix,” she replied, sounding amused. They stared at each other for another moment. Then she awkwardly took a step away. “I really have to go. Thank you again.” She hesitated. “You knew him?”

He nodded.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m always sorry if a man is dead. But he wasn’t a close friend.”

“Oh.”

He frowned. “You didn’t cash in your chips, did you? No time, I guess. I forgot about them in the mass confusion.”

She shook her head. “So did I. I have them, though. I can cash them tomorrow.”

“Those chips represent a lot of money. You could be mugged,” he told her.

She laughed. “A cabdriver isn’t going to know about my chips,” she assured him. “I’m okay, honestly. I’m a big girl. I grew up out here. I carry pepper spray. I’ll be all right. I promise.”

He saw a taxi. He wondered about the grandfather she had mentioned. Was he ill and waiting for her?

Dillon stepped out to the curb and whistled, flagging down the approaching cab. He saw her into it and waved goodbye. There was nothing else to do.

He frowned, watching the cab as it pulled away. There was a strange shadow next to her, almost as if there was a second person in the seat beside her.

His muscles knotted with tension. The cab passed under a streetlight, and he could see that there was only one person in the backseat. She was alone.

So why was he still so uneasy? he wondered as he watched the cab disappear down the street.




2


She should have driven herself, but she’d known that she was likely to have a bad time out at the home, and that she might stop to have a few drinks on her way home, try to console herself with a pity party and take a little time figuring out her life.

The cab seemed very slow.

She was tense with anxiety by the time the driver pulled up in front of her home in Henderson, and she nearly fell over her own feet in her hurry to get out and reach the house.

“Sandra?” She was calling her friend’s name even as she turned the key in the lock. As the door opened, Sandra heard her and came rushing from the back of the house to meet her at the front door.

She was a pretty woman in her mid-thirties and had once been a showgirl, but now she wrote novels for young adults, having found a way to mine her own youthful angst for profit. She also had a sixteen-year-old daughter, born when she was very young herself, and Reggie gave her an even greater insight into the teenage mind.

Sandra Nelson was a good friend. Many people would have shied away from watching Timothy when he was visiting Jessy and she had to go out. Not Sandra. She considered it an easy gig and said all she had to do was listen to Timothy’s stories—and see that he didn’t set the house on fire because he was convinced he needed another log for his grandfather’s sweat-lodge fire.

Sandra’s alarmed stare brought an apologetic smile to Jessy’s face. “I’m so sorry, it’s just that—”

She didn’t finish, because just then a loud gasp came from her right, where the family room abutted a courtyard. “Mom! Mom! It’s Jessy—she’s on TV! A man was murdered!”

Sandra stared at Jessy, who grimaced and went running past her to reach the family room, where Reggie was draped over the big comfortable sofa, staring at the television. She gasped again when Jessy walked in.

Jessy stared at the television. She’d been so focused on getting home that she hadn’t noticed the news cameras out front when she and Dillon Wolf had finally escaped the casino, but there she was. She hadn’t realized that she had actually been hanging on his arm.

“You were involved in a murder?” Sandra asked.

“Forget that. Who the hell’s the hottie?” Reggie demanded. Tall and slim, she had her mother’s green, dark-lashed eyes and a perfect heart-shaped face. Despite her beauty and her age, though, she was basically a nice kid, and Jessy was always pleased when she came over to help Sandra with Timothy.

“Murder?” Sandra repeated.

At that moment, Timothy emerged from his bedroom. He was wearing jeans and a plaid shirt that was on backward. Despite that, he maintained his dignity as he straightened regally and said, “Murder? Yes, it was murder. They can bury my heart at Wounded Knee for a fact, because the slaughter of the American Indian remains one of the greatest tragedies and injustices of our nation’s history.”

“Don’t worry. The Native Americans are taking a just revenge. It’s called bingo, and it’s wonderful. They make money, and no one dies,” Sandra said, placating him gently.

Jessy walked over to give him a hug, but he only stared at her. His eyes, light blue and misted like fog at the coming of day, were blank at first. Then they registered that she was in front of him. “Granddaughter. You’re home. And you’re safe.”

She was startled to feel him trembling as he hugged her. She looked over his shoulder, frowning questioningly at Sandra.

“This just came on,” Reggie said quietly.

“You were in danger,” Timothy said. “They told me so.”

“Who told you so?” Jessy asked.

“The ghost riders. Their ghosts came and told me that I needed to be strong, that you were in danger, and that I need to defend you,” he said earnestly.

“I’m all right. Honestly,” Jessy said, really worried now. Ghosts? This was new. “Timothy—”

“I miss my bed,” he said.

“Tim, you have a bed here,” she told him.

He smiled at her, his eyes misty again. “Yes, and I’m grateful. But it’s not my bed. I should be in my own place, where you come to visit me.”

“You’re going back tomorrow, Timothy. It’s going to be fine,” she said.

Sandra was staring at her, arching a brow. Her silent look said quite clearly, It’s wrong to lie to him. Where can you get that kind of money?

“Come on, Timothy, let me get you to bed,” Jessy told him, ignoring her friend’s silent admonition.

His shoulders straightened, and he was entirely lucid. “I can take myself to bed, Jessy girl.” He turned to face Sandra and Reggie. “Thank you, ladies, for the lovely dinner, and for listening to an old man tell even older tales. Good night.”

Reggie hurried over to give him a hug, and Sandra gave him a kiss on the cheek. He turned and headed back to his room. Jessy didn’t want him to see her checking up on him, so she kept an eye on him from where she was and promised herself that she would look in on him later.

When she turned back to Sandra and Reggie, they were both staring at her, wide-eyed.

“What the hell is going on?” Sandra demanded.

“And I still want to know who that guy is,” Reggie added.

“And there’s…blood all over you,” Sandra said, ignoring her daughter. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, I promise, but you’ll have to excuse me,” Jessy said, wiping at the blood, suddenly desperate for a shower.

She practically ran to her room, where she couldn’t get her clothing off quickly enough. She threw it all straight into the trash basket, knowing she would never wear a single piece of it ever again. She hurried into the shower and turned the water on so hot that it was almost scalding, then rubbed her skin practically raw. She massaged shampoo through her hair over and over, until, finished at last, she threw on her terry robe and hurried back into the family room.

Reggie and Sandra spun around to stare at her again, and before Sandra could manage a word, Reggie demanded, “Tell me now. Who is that guy? Have you been holding out on us?”

“No. I never saw him before tonight. His name is Dillon Wolf,” Jessy told her.

“Oh, okay. They said his name on TV,” Reggie said.

“Oh? Did they say my name?” Jessy asked.

“No, you’re just the unidentified redhead,” Sandra told her. She looked concerned, and rose from the sofa to bring Jessy a cup of tea.

Jessy thanked her and took a sip, then choked. It was half brandy.

“Sandra—”

“You need it,” Sandra told her.

“You might have warned me,” Jessy protested.

“Could we get back to what happened?” Sandra asked.

“I was playing craps—”

“What?” Sandra broke in, frowning.

“Not to worry, I wasn’t betting the house or anything,” she said. Not quite, anyway.

“And was the hottie playing craps, too?” Reggie asked.

Jessy laughed. “I don’t think he’d like being called a hottie.”

“Is he here to complain?” Reggie asked.

“No, but—”

“Let’s get off the guy,” Sandra said. “We know more about him now than Jessy does, I’m willing to bet.”

“What are you talking about?” Jessy asked.

“Oh, they kept announcing his name on TV, like Reggie said,” Sandra explained. “He’s a P.I. with a hush-hush government agency of some kind.”

“I think he’s working for Emil Landon,” Jessy said, confused. She took another swallow of the brandy-laced tea. Now that she was forewarned, it was delicious.

“I bet he’s working undercover,” Reggie said, excited. “So how did you get to know him so quickly? When is your next date?”

“We weren’t on a date,” Jessy said.

“I was playing craps. Dillon Wolf was at the table—I didn’t even know his name then. But—I won. I won a lot of money. It was bizarre—as if an invisible hand was literally moving the dice until they landed on a hard ten. Anyway, I was starting to leave, and then the man plowed into me, knocked me onto the table—”

“Dillon Wolf knocked you onto the craps table?” Reggie asked.

“No, the dead man, the murder victim.”

“He was dead, but he knocked you down?” Sandra asked, confused.

“He was dying when he knocked me down, and then he died on top of me. And then Dillon Wolf came back and helped me up. Actually, I think he convinced the cops to let me out of there, too,” Jessy said.

“Cool,” Reggie told her. “So are you going to see him again?”

“I don’t know why I would,” Jessy said.

“I don’t know why you wouldn’t,” Reggie said.

“He didn’t ask me out, for one thing.”

“He will,” Reggie said confidently.

Jessy smiled and took another sip of the tea. It all seemed distant now, as if it had all happened to someone else. The man, Tanner Green, falling on her…dying.

“What a night,” Sandra said quietly. “What you told Timothy…Before all that happened, you made enough to keep him at the home?”

Jessy smiled falteringly. “It was amazing. It never happened before, and I’m sure it will never happen again, but yes, I made enough to keep Timothy there for the year.”

Sandra gasped. “You made that much? You did bet your house!”

Jessy shook her head. “No, honestly, I wasn’t that crazy. It wasn’t my money I was betting. I was rolling well, so other people kept throwing money down for me.”

“It’s all so unbelievable,” Sandra said. “All that money. And then a man dying on you. That is one bizarre night.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, then asked, “And no one saw anything?”

“Not that I know of. He plowed into me, and he…died,” Jessy said.

They all sat in silence for a long moment, and then Sandra said, “All right, we’re up and out of here. If you’re sure you’re okay…?”

Jessy nodded.

“I still feel creeped out.” Reggie shivered suddenly. “I mean…whoever murdered that guy is still out there, right?”

Jessy felt a chill streak down her spine. Suddenly, as if she were reliving the moment, she could see Tanner Green’s face, the lips moving, the eyes going dim, clearly before her. Shaking herself to drive the image out of her mind, she stood to see them out. “I’m fine. We’ll all forget it in a couple of days,” she lied, knowing she would never forget the events of tonight.

“Call me. Let me know if…well, if there’s anything I can do,” Sandra said.

“Will do,” Jessy assured her. She watched as the two women made it into Sandra’s car, then carefully closed and locked the door. She suddenly wished she had an alarm system, but until tonight, it would have been wasted money, considering the cost of Timothy’s care.

With the door closed and locked, she checked in on Timothy, who had dressed for bed properly and was sleeping soundly.

She went on to her own room, thankful for the house. It had belonged to her parents, who had bought it long before Henderson became a popular spot to live. The courtyard was pebbled, with cacti here and there, along with statuary they had bought through the years. The living room held her mother’s old piano, and had glass doors that led out to the small patio and pool area. She had a kitchen, dining room, family room, three bedrooms and an office.

Tonight, however, she wished that she also had an alarm.

She tried to tell herself that it was ridiculous to feel fear. Whoever had killed Tanner Green surely had no interest in her. She hadn’t seen anything. She had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But since Timothy was going to get to live happily because of the evening, she couldn’t really regret it.

As she curled up in her own bed, she found herself thinking about Dillon Wolf. She’d been intrigued by him, attracted to him, when he had just been standing there. That he had reappeared in time to help her up from the table was her own little minor miracle.

Why the hell hadn’t she let him drive her home?

Because there would have been no point, she told herself. She didn’t even have time to date. She was responsible for Timothy, for one thing, and she didn’t mind that. Not at all. He had always been there for her, so it made her happy that now she could be there for him. And now she was so accustomed to working, trying to catch whatever overtime came along, that she barely remembered dating, much less having a relationship, and she wouldn’t know how to date anymore, anyway, even if the opportunity presented itself.

It had been nice to touch him, though. To be touched. To feel the fabric of his jacket. To…

She closed her eyes.

And allowed herself to dream about the man named Wolf.

But in the middle of the dream, just as Dillon Wolf was smiling at her, things suddenly changed. She was at the table again, and everything seemed to shrink away. She turned, and Tanner Green was stumbling toward her. Straight at her. She could almost feel his crushing weight against her again. See his eyes staring into hers just before the light of life faded from them for good.

She saw his mouth moving, and once again heard the word he had whispered.

Indigo.

She woke with a start. It was still night, and the darkness seemed to press down on her. She was suddenly certain that something was there with her, hidden in the shadows, that she was being watched.

She leaped out of bed and dived for her light switch. The room jumped into view, and she blinked against the sudden harshness, tense, her body ready to spring.

But there was no one there. The room was empty.

She felt foolish, but she went into her bathroom, took the bloodied, discarded clothing and carried it into the kitchen, where she placed it in a larger trash bag, which she hauled out into the garage. She knew it was silly, but she wanted that reminder of the evening as far away as she could get it. Then she went back to bed, where she turned on her small bedroom TV and didn’t turn off the light.

It occurred to her then that no one had asked her if the dying man had said anything.

And so she was the only one who knew that he had spoken that single word.

Indigo.



Emil Landon was a man of an indeterminate age; he might have been a worn thirty something, or a fit man in his fifties. Because Adam Harrison—owner and director of Harrison Investigations, the rather unique private investigations firm that was Dillon’s actual employer——had contacts with access to just about any record on any human being living in the United States and beyond, he knew that Landon was forty-eight, had married and divorced three wives, had fathered one child who lived in Dublin with his mother, and had inherited millions from a grandfather who had been a Turkish oil baron. Sound real-estate investments had added to those millions. He liked to be a player. He liked the clothing and the cars, and the women who followed the call of big money. But he wasn’t a lucky gambler himself, so he’d discovered a way to profit from the propensity of most men to count on luck’s eventual appearance, gamble—and lose. He’d opened his own casino and was in the process of negotiations to create more gambling meccas, something of a sore point in the community. On his mother’s side, he could provide the proper court-required documents to prove that he was one thirty-second Paiute—in fact, he only needed to be one sixty-fourth—which gave him the right to build casinos on Indian land, where he would no doubt see to it that the proceeds of his venture stayed in his pockets and didn’t reach the Indian nation that should benefit from it.

Dillon hadn’t followed much of the legal process; he had seen it far too often already. He didn’t think much of Emil Landon, and he still wasn’t sure why a man as moral as Adam Harrison had wanted him to take the case.

Dillon knew plenty of wealthy people who were also extremely responsible with their money and were courteous to those around them, no matter what their financial or social status.

Emil Landon wasn’t one of them.

Now Landon was convinced that someone was trying to kill him, and Dillon figured that the man had been a jerk to enough people during his life that there might easily be several who found the thought of killing him appealing. But that was the thing. Most people thought about killing someone but didn’t actually take steps to do it. Revenge was frequently savored sweetly in the mind. Most people had a conscience, and even if they didn’t, they didn’t have the means to commit the perfect murder, and they sure as hell didn’t want to get caught and spend the rest of their lives in prison. Of course, with enough money, murder for hire was always a possibility. And if a crack assassin couldn’t be found, there was usually some dope addict around, willing to take a life for a few thousand—or a few hits. But dope addicts weren’t playing with all their cards, and such an attempt usually ended with a dead dope addict.

Tonight Dillon had been checking out the casinos, seeing who was in town and had the right money and connections to order a hit, along with a real bone to pick with Emil Landon. He still wasn’t certain that Landon was even in any real danger. During his first consultation with the man, Landon had told him that he’d been having dreams about being murdered. Gunned down in his own casino, stabbed in his own bed. He was certain he was being followed, though he had no proof of it.

He had hired two of the best-known bodyguards in Las Vegas, Hugo Blythe and Tanner Green. Though now only Hugo Blythe was left, and he lived in a penthouse high atop the Big Easy, where the casino security staff—bonded and put through a screening process that would have done the CIA proud—was always on guard at both the penthouse elevators and the actual door to his suite.

When Dillon arrived, Landon was wearing a designer leopard-print robe and was surrounded by his secretary—a blonde with breast implants the size of Texas—his chief security officer and Hugo Blythe.

And he was in a state.

Pacing, he barely paused to glare at Dillon when he entered, then launched right into a tirade. “I told you I was in danger. I could tell you didn’t believe me. But now Tanner Green is dead, and it’s a warning to me. A message that the killer can pick off people around me so I don’t have anyone to depend on. How the hell was he killed right in front of you?” He paused in his pacing to stare accusingly at Dillon.

Dillon just shook his head disdainfully.

“He wasn’t killed right in front of me, he was stabbed outside the casino. And there are dozens of security cameras focused on the area, so hopefully the cops will find something on one of the tapes. My theory is that he was stabbed inside a car, then thrown out at the entry. From there, he staggered inside before dying. I suggest checking his phone records and his movements over the last few days to see who might have gotten him into that car and under what pretense. Of course, there’s still the possibility that he was killed for something he did in his past, or just because he pissed off the wrong person.”

Landon frowned at him, shaking his head. “I told you, someone is after me.”

“Yes, you told me that, but have you told me everything I need to know?” Dillon asked. He wasn’t expecting a real answer from Landon. The man had been cagey from the start. There was no doubt that his activities hadn’t been totally legit through the years, and he seemed to have a hidden agenda, as well, maybe pertaining to the casino on tribal land. Still, asking him questions, even if Dillon didn’t expect real answers, might provide some bit of information he needed.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Landon demanded impatiently. “Someone is trying to kill me. What more do you need to know?”

“I need to know all the possible whys,” Dillon said. “I need you to be honest with me, to think really hard about any business deal that might have gone sour, any affair that might have ended badly. I need to know any possible reason why someone with the resources to have you killed might want you dead.”

“I am being honest with you. Sure, I have enemies.” Landon’s eyes narrowed. “There are some radical members of certain Indian tribes who don’t get the fact that my casinos could provide jobs for a lot of people. Any rich man has enemies. You know that. But this…shit! Tanner Green? He was a pro.”

The quadruple-D blonde came over to Dillon with a tray of shot glasses filled with assorted liquors. “Drink, Mr. Wolf?”

He shook his head. “Thanks, no.”

“Mr. Wolf, I’m going to be on duty twenty-four hours a day now,” Hugo Blythe said earnestly. “I’ll be following Mr. Landon every step he takes. But we’ve got to figure out who’s trying to kill Mr. Landon, and take care of him.”

“I’m not an assassin,” Dillon said sharply. “Anyway, the police are on this now.”

“The police?” Landon exclaimed derisively, then suggested what the police could do with themselves.

Dillon rose. “I should be seeing those tapes first thing in the morning. I’ll call you after I’ve seen them.”

“You’ve got to do something, and you’ve got to do it quickly,” Landon said.

“I can still use more help from you,” Dillon said.

Landon looked as if he wanted to explode at Dillon again, but though he wasn’t a genius, he wasn’t stupid, either. “I’ll think back and come up with whatever I can,” he acknowledged.

Dillon left. As he rode down on Landon’s private elevator and strode out onto the main casino floor, he appreciated the fact that Landon had found the right business managers and builders. The Big Easy was going to do well. He wasn’t too sure that he would choose Vegas for a family vacation himself, but plenty of people did, and Landon had made sure to cater to them as well as the hard-core gamblers. The Big Easy offered an entire floor of arcades, character restaurants, toddler rides and one huge roller coaster. There was a Western show aimed just at kids and a room reserved for “young’uns’” birthday parties.

As he headed over to the elevators to the parking garage, his eye was caught by an advertisement for the party room. It showed two Old West gunslingers with a pretty saloon maid between them. The picture was pure PG, but the face of the woman grabbed his attention and stabbed oddly at his heart.

It was Jessy Sparhawk. Smiling, her beautiful red hair twisted up on her head and topped with a saloon-girl hat. The costume she was wearing was almost prim, and yet he didn’t think he’d ever seen a picture of such an arresting woman.

He headed down to the parking lot, his mind still full of Jessy, so lost in thought that it took him a moment to recognize the presence at his side.

“Brilliant, just brilliant,” Ringo said, keeping pace with Dillon Wolf’s strong and determined walk. The folds of his long railway jacket made a slight rustling sound, but nothing compared to his spurs ringing against the ground.

Every now and then Dillon saw a head turn. Someone out there, someone who couldn’t quite see Ringo, was still aware that something, someone, was in the area. They heard the sound of his passing on some distant level.

“What?” Dillon asked impatiently.

Ringo cleared his throat. “The most beautiful creature in the world holds court at the craps table, I perform amazing tricks—and you let her get away. Brilliant. I may be deceased, but you’re the one who’s really dead, my friend.”

“Excuse me, my friend,” Dillon said. “But I have work to do. Tanner Green was murdered and Emil Landon is getting restless—and working for the man, I might remind you, is something you pushed me into.”

Ringo ignored him and stuck with his original topic. “I saw the way you smiled at her. Take a minute to smell the roses or you’ll be dead a whole hell of a lot sooner than you think,” he said knowingly.

“The way I hear it, you stopped to smell the roses and wound up smelling a dung heap,” Dillon said curtly.

“Ouch! Not kind at all,” Ringo said. “And may I remind you, I died because I was caught up in someone’s grudge against one of your ancestors.”

“Ringo, I’m sorry, but that was more than a hundred years ago, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it now. I’m sure he appreciated your help.”

“Probably. I was good back then. Damn good.”

A woman walked by, frowning nervously as she stared at him. He lowered his head, wincing. Usually Ringo refrained from speaking to him when they were in public, because usually he didn’t reply. What the hell was up with him tonight? A man had been killed, of course. But it went beyond that. Something felt off. Felt…

Felt urgent.

It was as if he was facing the onset of something critical. Something that might end in death.

“You are going to ask her out, right?” Ringo said.

“I tried to drive her home. She isn’t interested.”

“A man had just died on top of her. You need to give it another go.”

“Look, Ringo, you and Adam got me into this mess with Emil Landon, so let’s deal with that first, huh?” He put aside the fact that Jessy Sparhawk had affected him more deeply than he could possibly have expected, but there had just been something about her. She wasn’t some hustler hanging on to the money men, wasn’t a wild-eyed party child out to prove the truth of the slogan “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” She was different. She lived here, worked here. She knew the city. Knew the pitfalls to be found in a place where every business in town was out to separate you from your money.

So it was interesting that she had been playing high-stakes craps.

“Are you paying any attention to me?” Ringo demanded.

He felt himself flushing, because the fact was, he was completely intrigued by the woman. So why was he embarrassed around Ringo? Maybe precisely because he was so fascinated by her. But his life didn’t allow for emotional intimacy, at least right now, and business had to come first. “Ringo, I’m looking for a killer. Don’t you think I ought to find out what the hell is going on before I drag someone else into my life?”

Ringo didn’t have an answer for that. He followed Dillon to his car, seeping through the passenger door, though he could have opened it. He sat silently throughout the ride to Dillon’s house, just on the outskirts of the Strip.

Clancy, Dillon’s huge Belgian shepherd, was wagging her tail at the door. She knew Ringo was there. At first she had hated him. She had barked up a storm whenever he was around, and it had all but driven Dillon crazy. But then, to his huge relief, she hadn’t just accepted Ringo’s ghostly presence, she had decided that she liked him. And when Dillon could get Ringo to stay home, rather than trailing after him, he was great, letting the dog in and out, and playing with her.

“So what now?” Ringo asked. “Shouldn’t we be off somewhere, doing something?”

“I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m getting some sleep.”

Ringo cursed as Dillon headed for his room. Feeling completely worn-out, he stripped down and slipped between the sheets. They were into the wee hours of the morning, and he wanted a nap, at least, before heading to the police station.

But instead he lay awake. And when he closed his eyes, he could hear the drums of his childhood. He could hear the chants, see the warriors in the circle at the dance. A Paiute chief had been the one to develop the Ghost Dance, which had been picked up by many western tribes. The chief had envisioned casting the white men from the land, leading to a return of tribal power.

It hadn’t happened. Not by a long shot.

He’d been to dozens of Ghost Dances as a child, but he’d never seen a single ghost at any of them. It had been at his parents’ funeral, when he’d been a bitter young idiot, that he’d first seen the maiden in white.

It was rumored among the Indian nations that she was the guardian of the white buffalo, a mythical heroine who knew the hearts and minds of both the living and the dead. She was beautiful and wise, and she could read a man’s soul.

She had never been anything but a myth to him, a beautiful story told by his people.

Until that day at the funeral, when he looked up and she was just…there. She couldn’t be real, he had told himself. She was a figment of his imagination, dredged up by the pain in his heart, and the fury against God and fate that burned so savagely inside him.

She had stared at him across the open graves. Then, later, when he’d been about to get involved in an idiotic fight at the bar, she had stepped in between him and the man he had intentionally insulted. Apparently he’d wanted to get his face smashed in, had wanted to feel the physical pain to ease the deeper pain that tore at his soul.

But she had stopped him. He had felt her hand on his shoulder, and when he’d turned to face her, her eyes had locked with his and she had whispered, “No, this is not the way. Only time and the true path to peace will ease the bleeding in the soul.”

And ever since then…

Ever since then he’d seen the dead.

Usually they just passed through his life because they needed something, and once they got it, they moved on. He’d learned that through Adam Harrison and Harrison Investigations. Adam had taken him and turned him from a rebellious and bitter half-breed to a man with a calling. Adam had taught him about life and death, and how to value himself as a human being.

He owed Adam. Not only that, he liked the man.

So the ghosts came, he helped them…

And the ghosts left.

Except for Ringo Murphy. The problem was, Ringo himself didn’t know why he was sticking around.

He’d lived by the gun, and then he’d died by it, and there had been nothing in his life or death to indicate why he was still here.

Dillon shifted around, longing for even an hour’s sleep.

He closed his eyes tightly.

And then, in that state between wakefulness and sleep, in a netherworld between conscious thought and oblivion, he saw the maiden, felt her gentle hand on his face.

“Yes,” she whispered to him. “It is the beginning, the beginning—and the end.”




3


“I see them dancing in the sky,” Timothy told Jessy.

She was driving him back to the home, and she felt torn. Worried about leaving him alone, she’d had Sandra come over to watch him this morning while she’d returned to the casino to turn her chips into cash—later exchanged for a cashier’s check made out to the home—and fill out the IRS forms. She’d never had to fill them out before, because her winnings—the few times she’d played a few dollars for fun—had never been close to enough to report to the government.

She didn’t mind. The government was welcome to its share.

She was concerned now because she had to work that afternoon, and even her sizable winnings weren’t enough to keep her job from being very important to her ongoing well-being. But Sandra had met her at the door when she’d returned and suggested she might want to talk to someone at the home before she left Timothy there.

“Why?” she’d asked.

“Maybe it’s not as bad as I think, but…” Sandra hesitated. “He’s having conversations with imaginary people. And when I asked him who he was talking to, he gave me a sly look and said they were people in the walls, and that they were his friends and they made him happy, so I shouldn’t worry. And maybe, if he’s happy…”

Now it seemed that his friends were in the sky.

Maybe she was just nervous because she’d woken up in the night, certain that someone was watching her again. That kind of feeling usually vanished with the coming of day, though, and this time it hadn’t…. This morning, as she’d been brewing coffee and tossing raisin bread into the toaster, she’d paused again, feeling eyes on her before telling herself that you couldn’t feel someone watching you. Except that you could. Somehow people knew when they were being observed. Maybe it had to do with that huge part of the brain scientists said went unused.

But there hadn’t been anyone there. Not last night, and not this morning.

But this morning Timothy had been talking to people in the walls, and now he was seeing dancers in the sky.

Which one of us is actually going crazy here? she asked herself.

The Hawthorne Home was just outside Las Vegas proper. She parked in front of the administration building, and Timothy frowned. She usually parked by Building A, his building, when she was bringing him back from a visit or an outing.

“I have to go in and pay Mr. Hoskins,” she told him.

“Pay him?” Timothy asked indignantly.

She patted his hand. “Yeah, that’s life, Timothy,” she said, and leaned over to kiss his cheek. Once upon a time he’d been the best guardian in the world, and she still loved him so much.

“We all have to pay the rent, you know,” she said.

“Not in the day of the ghost dancers,” he said.

“Maybe, but that was a long time ago. And there’s no such thing as ghosts, anyway,” she added.

“But if there were,” Timothy said, cracking a dry grin, “they wouldn’t have to pay rent, would they? They’d just phase in, and phase out, huh?”

She was pleased by the pleasure Timothy took in his small joke. “I’m not so sure this would have been reservation land,” she said, grinning back. She started to tell him to wait in the car while she went inside to pay, then thought better of it. He still knew how to drive. His imaginary friends might suggest that he needed to run over to a convenience store for something.

“Why don’t you come in with me,” she suggested.

“I suppose that idiot Mr. Hoskins will be there?” he asked tartly.

She almost laughed aloud at his indignation. He was half Lakota, which had given him straight black hair—faded to white now—but those genes hadn’t reached his eyes. They were blue. He was still a handsome man, she thought, when he was standing straight and proud, as he was now, his face set in firm lines.

“Yes, I need to see him. And don’t say anything rude to him, okay? At least we only have to see him once a month or so….”

“I’ll be perfectly courteous,” he assured her.

She wasn’t at all certain about that. Hoskins was a man who didn’t just find himself uncomfortable around the aged, he flat out didn’t like them, and he let it show—which made her wonder why he’d taken this job to begin with. Well, like all people, he would get there soon enough, she thought. Or maybe he wouldn’t. There was always that alternative. But she hoped he would lead a long life, until one day he needed care himself, only to discover that the younger generation wanted nothing to do with him.

They got out of the car, and she linked arms with him as they walked inside together. The receptionist was pretty and young, and she looked at Jessy with surprise. “Miss Sparhawk! Good morning. We thought perhaps you’d decided to keep your grandfather at home with you. We…we weren’t expecting to see you.”

“Oh? Why not? I always enjoy having Timothy at home for a visit—” she turned to smile at him “—but it wouldn’t be practical for him to live with me, seeing as I have to work. I’ve brought the rent for the next few months,” she added, giving the other woman a saccharine smile.

“Oh. Well, if you’ll just excuse me…I’ll get Mr. Hoskins,” the girl said.

She didn’t ring his office, she jumped up and went in. A moment later Hoskins appeared, frowning. “Miss Sparhawk, Mr. Sparhawk. I hadn’t expected to see you. I was assuming that you’d be making other arrangements today.”

“Well, as you can see, we’re not. I’ll be taking Timothy back to his room now,” she said, handing him a cashier’s check.

He stared at her as if she were a ghost herself. “He was paid up through today,” Jessy said. “Now he’s paid up for the next three months. Everything is in perfect order, contractually speaking.”

She didn’t know why Hoskins looked so distressed, and she didn’t care.

“Good day, Mr. Hoskins,” Timothy said, then turned to head out. Jessy said her own rather more triumphant goodbye, and followed him.

As they walked back to the car, Jessy saw a luxury sedan pull up a few spaces away. A young guy got out, then went around to help an elderly man from the passenger side, and the reason for Hoskins’s white face became suddenly clear. He’d been all set to rent Timothy’s room to someone else. She laughed as she and her grandfather got back into the car, sharing the joke as she drove over to his building.

They checked in downstairs with the young male orderly on desk duty during the day—every building had someone at the entry day and night since they weren’t taking any chances with wandering seniors—and headed up to Timothy’s room. In the upstairs hallway they ran into another orderly, Jimmy Britin, a tall African-American with a wide smile. “Timothy, Jessy,” he said, his surprised pleasure evident.

“Hoskins was about to rent my room right out from right under me,” Timothy said. “But he underestimated my granddaughter. And the ghosts, of course.”

“Well…” Jimmy said, obviously unsurprised by what Timothy had said. He looked at Jessy, a question in eyes. What did you do? Rob a bank?

As Timothy headed straight for his room, Jessy smiled ruefully at Jimmy. “I don’t know about any ghosts, but someone must have been looking out for me. I won a small fortune at the craps table.”

“That’s wonderful,” Jimmy told her.

“I never gamble, but…” She shook her head, as if puzzled by the whole thing.

“You were desperate. And you got lucky,” Jimmy said.

“Listen, I’ve got to get to work,” she told him.

“No sweat. I’ll get him situated. And stop looking so guilty. You take him home lots of weekends. Meanwhile, I’m here, and Liz Freeze, his favorite nurse, is on today, too. He’ll be fine. Now out of here.”

“I just wanted to let you know, he’s…”

“He’s what?” Jimmy asked.

“He’s hallucinating. A lot. About ghosts. They’re in the walls, in the sky…. He even talks to them.”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before. It’ll be okay, I promise,” he said, giving her a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

“Thanks, Jimmy.”

With a grateful smile, she hurried into Timothy’s room and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m off to work now, okay?”

He nodded gravely. “Don’t worry. The ghosts are busy dancing in the sky. Things are going to be all right.”

“Of course they are,” she said, then gave him another kiss and hurried out. Glancing at her watch, she realized she was going to be a bit rushed getting into costume, but she would manage. Things will be all right, she told herself. She had the routine down pat.

She hurried back down to her car, but before she unlocked it, she paused and looked around, certain that someone was watching her again, but she couldn’t see anybody.

She checked the backseat.

No one.

She looked around one last time, then gave herself a mental shake and told herself to stop being ridiculous. It was a bright, sunny day. If anyone was watching her, it was Hoskins, no doubt ruing the fact that she had made the payment, so he couldn’t rent Timothy’s room to someone else—probably at a higher rate.

But the sensation of being watched followed her as she wove through traffic and all the way into the casino.

It was almost as if someone were sitting right next to her in the car.



“See? Two cameras, but notice the range,” Jerry Cheever told Dillon. “There’s Tanner Green, though it’s difficult to see him because there were a dozen other cars in the entryway at the same time. It looks as if he got out of a white limo. Can’t see the plate, though, and there must be a hundred of those things in town,” he said in frustration. “And Green looks like half the other drunks coming out of the woodwork at that time of night. He staggers there—” Cheever pointed at the screen “—but the guy ahead of him just shoves him away. See his look? Probably just thought it was a drunk falling on him. Then watch Green moving through the crowd. Everyone is talking to someone, no one is paying him the least bit of attention. Not even the doorman. He’s just holding the door open and watching that brunette with the huge tits, completely oblivious to everything else, even the guy with the knife in his back. Okay, right here he’s picked up on a new camera….” Cheever’s voice trailed off as he flicked the remote control, shifting to a scene in the casino. “He passed six cameras on his way to the craps table, but all you can see on any of them is him stumbling through the crowd—until he bumps into Miss Sparhawk and they both land on the craps table. And there you are, helping her back up.”

Cheever was discouraged; his frustration that so many security tapes could yield so few clues was evident in his voice.

“I’d like to run through them all again, if it’s all right,” Dillon told him.

“Be my guest. I’ve been staring at them for the last three hours. I had a video tech in here trying to home in on Green, but it didn’t help. Someone’s head, an arm, whatever, is blocking part of the view every step he took.”

Cheever tossed the remote to Dillon, who studied it for a moment, then hit a button to start the tape over. “It’s almost as if someone knew that outer drive was just out of the cameras’ useful range,” he mused.

“Just like,” Cheever agreed. “So what do you think it means?”

“I think it means our killer has to be someone involved with the casino, or who knows someone who is.”

“God only knows how many people that could be,” Cheever muttered.

Dillon turned in his chair and looked at Cheever, who was perched at the edge of his desk. “What’s happening with the knife?”

“The lab has it. But preliminary reports aren’t giving us a thing. It’s a short-bladed work knife, sold—literally—in the thousands here in town. It’s a popular blade for breaking the plastic bands on stacks of money. Every casino in Vegas has a few of them. And of course there’s not a hint of a fingerprint on the hilt. The killer probably wore gloves. Green was stabbed with considerable force, and the blade was just long enough to pierce the heart, which caused Green to bleed out. Because it was a short blade, he made it through to the craps table before he died.”

“Strange,” Dillon said, rewinding the tape. “Any possibility I could get a vid tech in here to look at this with me?” he asked.

Jerry Cheever stared at him, his eyes narrowing, as if his first instinct was to defensively tell him to go right to hell. But then he shrugged. “Sure. If you can find something I didn’t, that will be great. I’ll go grab someone.”

The minute he left the office, Dillon was out of his seat, looking at the files on Cheever’s desk. Tanner Green’s was right on top. He leafed through it quickly, but Cheever had nothing more than he had said.

A minute later a young woman from the video department came in and introduced herself as Sarah Clay. She had a controller with her that made the remote look like a kiddie toy. Dillon started with the first tape, and they went through it frame by frame, but Cheever had been telling the truth. It wasn’t that the security equipment wasn’t high quality, because it was the best. But the car from which Tanner Green had been expelled was just far enough out of range, of both the cameras and the neon lights, that making out details was impossible.

A white limo. That much was obvious, and also useless. As Cheever had said, Vegas was thick with the things, especially white ones. Every casino owned limos, the casino bosses owned limos, the rental companies owned limos, even half the high rollers in town had their own.

There was no way to tell the make or model, but even once the tapes were enhanced, there didn’t seem to be any markings on it, nothing to indicate where it might have come from, which didn’t help him now but might mean something when they moved on to the process of elimination.

They went through the other tapes in order, with Dillon asking the tech to freeze certain frames and enhance them, but once again, Jerry Cheever had been dead-on. The crowd in the casino that night had worked heavily against them. The best video tech in the world couldn’t remove a body blocking a body, and even though the different angles caught by the different cameras usually helped with that kind of problem, this time they were shit out of luck.

“Are we through?” Sarah asked him politely, glancing at her watch.

He knew she probably had a half-dozen other cases she was supposed to be working on, so he smiled. “Just about, and thank you. The last tape…could I see it one more time?”

“Sure,” she said, but her voice was faint.

He let the tape run until he got to Green staggering up to the craps table, then had her home in on Tanner Green falling forward, pinning Jessy Sparhawk beneath him. Even caught in a moment of pure surprise and horror, she was striking. He had to wonder about that last name. She was a redhead, with huge blue eyes, and he found himself fascinated with her all over again.

“Mr. Wolf?” Sarah asked politely.

He gave himself a mental shake. “Zoom in on Green’s face for me, will you?”

She pushed a button, and in seconds Tanner Green’s bulging eyes filled the screen.

Hell, the man was dying.

But his expression was surprised, as if he couldn’t believe it. Believe he was dying? Or how he was dying? Dillon wondered.

Green’s lips moved slightly. Dillon replayed the moment and leaned in, trying to discern what the man had been saying. Nothing, maybe. Or maybe he had been begging for help. Maybe he had found God at the moment of death and was praying.

Dillon had Sarah widen the view and surveyed the immediate area. The air had been filled with a cloud of smoke, despite the casino’s expensive air filters. Sometimes it seemed as if even people who didn’t smoke decided they needed to in Vegas.

He stared intently at the screen for a minute longer.

Then he sat back. “Thanks very much, Sarah.”

She might have been aggravated at the time she’d been asked to give him, but she smiled. She probably didn’t often get thanked for what was, after all, just her job.

“Sure. Anytime,” she told him.

“I mean it.” She reached into her shirt pocket and produced a card. Her name and rank were on it, along with a phone number and an e-mail address. “I’ve heard about you, about what you do, what you…see. They say you’re the real deal. I meant what I said. Whatever you need—whatever—you can call me.”

He took her card, nodding gravely. “Now that, I really appreciate.” He left her feeling very grateful indeed.

She had pretty much just told him that she would work for him on the q.t. That was priceless.

But right now he had to find Jessy Sparhawk. She was the only one who might know what Tanner Green had said right before he died.



There had been a recent period in Vegas’s history when—the tourist board had decided to turn Sin City into a family-friendly resort. The plan hadn’t worked, and the city had soon reverted to its old image, but the aftereffects lingered, and some parents still brought their children along when they came to gamble. As a result, a lot of the casinos provided diversions aimed toward the kiddie set, because the problem with Vegas was that parents could be distracted—maybe only momentarily, but still with frightening repercussions—by bright, blinking lights and a sudden insistence that the next dollar shoved into a beckoning slot machine would be the one that hit the jackpot.

At the Big Easy the problem had been solved by offering an afternoon of pirate-themed entertainment, food and drink for the younger crowd.

It was glorified babysitting.

But Jessy had never minded that. She liked kids. Sure, every once in a while they wound up with an obnoxious little twerp who wouldn’t stop tugging on beards, dumping the treasure chest or trying to look up the skirts of the pirate “queens” or the servers. But all in all, it wasn’t a bad gig. It was actually a lot better than performing at a bachelor party for a bunch of drunks who seemed to think that anyone under thirty and wearing a skimpy costume was for sale.

In contrast, working the babysitting detail was usually fun, and that day it was going very well.

They had almost three hundred kids, some of them there gratis for guests of the casino, others had been enrolled at a steep price tag by parents staying elsewhere, though compared to the hundreds—even thousands—that could be dropped at one of the gaming tables or in slot machines in a matter of minutes, it was still small change.

The audience ranged from age two up to twenty-one. The older kids were usually there because they had younger siblings—and because eighteen- to twenty-one-year-olds still couldn’t legally step out onto on the casino floor or drink.

The show itself was mostly improvisational banter punctuated by carefully choreographed dance numbers. The cast played pirates who had somehow wound up stuck on Lake Mead, and they sang traditional pirate songs as they searched for treasure.

It was when the kids were shouting, trying to point out to her rather ditsy pirate queen that the treasure chest was right beneath her nose, and she was spinning around searching, that she saw him.

He was standing just outside the room, leaning against a wall painted with a mural of the high seas and pirate ships flying the Jolly Roger, and he was staring through the glass wall that surrounded the theater space, watching her. He was wearing a suit, and he somehow managed to look both real and not real…

He wasn’t even a foot away from Grant Willow, one of the four security men—all of them highly skilled but able to relate to the kids without intimidating them—who took turns standing watch in the vestibule, and he seemed totally oblivious to the other man.

She knew the watcher’s face. She had stared at that face in the most uncomfortable circumstances imaginable. He couldn’t possibly be there—and yet he was.

She blinked.

And then he wasn’t.

She must have come to a dead halt, stunned, because Aaron Beaton, playing the role of Captain Gray-specked Blackbeard, started prompting her. “Bonny Anne, Bonny Anne, have ye found it? Have ye found me treasure?”

She stared at him without any idea how to respond as her blood grew cold.

He hadn’t been real.

She had simply conjured him up in her mind’s eye.

Or he had been real, just someone else. Someone who only looked like a dead man.

After all, a man had died on top of her last night; she had a right to be traumatized. To be seeing things. There was nothing odd about it at all.

“Bonny Anne?” Aaron said sharply.

“Your treasure? My treasure!” she insisted, dragging herself back into character.

Her declaration started a mock battle that was really a carefully choreographed dance piece. She battled gamely, whirled and jumped, then looked back to the doorway and almost missed a beat.

He was back.

And he was watching her with huge eyes and an expression filled with both tragedy and remorse.



Since the promo poster Dillon had seen the night before pictured Jessy Sparhawk, it was a reasonable assumption that if he headed to the Big Easy she was likely to be working.

She was.

The pirate party was scheduled daily from one to six, giving the parents a full afternoon of worry-free gambling. Dillon wondered how many of them forgot to come back at closing time, but he assumed the casino had a plan for dealing with that.

The theater was surrounded by glass walls, and the outer vestibule was decorated with pirate paraphernalia and wall paintings. Inside the room, the stage held an impressive pirate ship that seemed to float above shimmering blue water, an effect caused by lighting under a glass stage floor. There were interactive areas for the kids, and each seating section sported a different-colored pirate flag, dividing the kids into teams so they could root for their color-matched “champions” onstage. There were huge treasure chests around the room that held soda, candy and chips, along with healthier soy snacks and natural iced teas. It was a top-quality production, designed to appeal to kids of all ages—along with the occasional adult he saw in the audience. He noted that the smaller children were together in one area, and there seemed to be at least three employees wearing pirate-themed casino uniforms to attend to every nine or ten children.

Onstage, the pirates were going at it.

He recognized Jessy right away, despite her wig and makeup and pirate attire. The kids were shouting to her, laughing, and even the almost adults in the room were having fun and shouting right along with everyone else for her to find the treasure.

Then she froze. Just…froze, staring at the doorway.

It was only for the blink of an eye; then she jerked her gaze away and responded to one of the male actors. A sword battle ensued, then somehow turned into a dance.

Then, once again, Jessy Sparhawk froze.

Dillon felt a tap on his shoulder and thought it might be the big security guard who was keeping an eagle eye on the room.

But it wasn’t. Ringo was at his side.

“Over there,” Ringo said quietly.

Across the lobby, standing near the guard, stood another man. A big man in a suit.

Tanner Green.

Dillon started toward him, moving quickly but casually, keeping his eyes focused on the guard, as if he was just going over to ask him a question about the show.

But Tanner Green sensed him, and he was having none of it. He turned and stared hard at Dillon.

And then he disappeared, fading like mist taken by a sudden wind.

“You scared him!” Ringo said accusingly.

Inwardly, Dillon cursed himself. He should have watched the man a while longer. He should have been patient. But if Tanner Green was walking around in some spiritual limbo, it was imperative for Dillon to reach him. Speak with him.

And he had moved without menace. This was one spooked ghost—no pun intended, he thought with a grin.

The guard looked at him and nodded, mistaking him for a parent. “Kids will be out in a little while, maybe twenty minutes or so. A lot of them hang around to get their pictures taken with the cast.”

“Thanks,” Dillon said, turning away from the guard and putting his hand up to his face as if rubbing his chin, so he could speak softly to Ringo without being overheard.

“Why was he so frightened of me?” he asked.

“Duh. The man was murdered,” Ringo pointed out, as if pointing out the obvious to a three-year-old.

Irritated, Dillon chose not to respond to his ghostly companion’s sarcasm. Ringo might be from the Old West, but he had adopted the modern vernacular with enthusiasm, as if that somehow made him more a part of the earthly world.

“Maybe he was afraid of you, then,” Dillon asked. “You’re the one carrying a gun.”

“That actually makes sense,” Ringo admitted. “He probably hasn’t seen many other ghosts, and, if he has…well, I guess an old gunslinger might be a bit too much for him to handle. And he probably doesn’t want to believe that he’s dead, either. Probably hasn’t accepted it yet.”

Whatever the cause, Tanner Green was scared.

Even so, he had come out in the open to stare at Jessy Sparhawk, the woman he had been lying on top of as he breathed his last.

And she had seen him. Dillon would swear to it.

The play finished and the kids rushed the stage. The performers posed for pictures, laughing, talking, signing miniposters that seemed to come out of nowhere. He watched Jessy pick up a toddler for a photo, then talk to the little girl and sign a poster. She seemed totally at ease—until she glanced back toward the door and an uneasy look crossed her face.

Then she saw Dillon and was visibly startled. After that she looked…frightened, rattled, though she continued to smile as she interacted with the kids.

He waved to her at one point, and she waved back.

The security guard with the broad shoulders and pleasant smile walked over to him. “You a friend of Jessy’s?” the man asked. “Not just a waiting parent?”

“No,” Dillon told him, shaking his head. “And yes, I’m a…friend of Jessy’s.”

“You can go on in if you want,” the guard said.

“Thanks,” Dillon said and headed toward the stage, Ringo still at his side.

He noticed a woman turn around as they passed, a puzzled look on her face. She drew her sweater more closely around her, as if she had suddenly felt a chill. That was the way it was for most people. They didn’t see the dead, couldn’t communicate with them, but something inside told them that someone was there.

Dillon smiled at the woman and kept going, hoping Ringo wasn’t feeling mischievous and wouldn’t tease her with a tap on the shoulder or a tug at her skirt. He moved quickly, because if you weren’t looking, Ringo wasn’t as prone to act up.

Jessy was still onstage, posing with the last of the kids.

She looked at him over the head of a toddler, and he sensed she wasn’t all that pleased to see him. But she was in performance mode, so she forced a smile to her lips.

“Very impressive,” he told her, reaching the stage. He saw her fellow cast members glancing his way and whispering to one another. He was being assessed, he knew.

“What a surprise to see you here,” she said.

He decided not to mince words. “I need to speak with you.”

“Oh? This isn’t a great time. I have to get out of costume, check my schedule for the next few days.”

“I’ll wait.”

She glanced away, biting her lip. She might be a good performer, but she was a lousy liar. She didn’t have a good excuse for refusing to talk to him, and she wasn’t going to invent one.

“I’m not having a great day,” she said. “I’m really tired.”

“I won’t take much of your time. And you have to eat, right? Why not let me take you to the fast-food establishment of your choice, and then I’ll leave you alone, I promise.”

She let out an uneasy sigh and gave in. “Sure. I need about half an hour.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate it,” he told her.

She nodded curtly, and he couldn’t help thinking that she made a gorgeous pirate. Her costume wasn’t risqué, but her breasts rode appealingly in the cotton blouse above the top of a leather corset. Her skirt was long, but slit up one side for dancing. Her stage makeup was heavy and came complete with false eyelashes, but even so, up close, she was stunning.

And she was afraid.

He forced himself to take a step back. She was a bit too appealing, and he had to concentrate if he wanted to get to the truth behind Tanner Green’s death. And he just knew she wasn’t going to be receptive to anything he had to say. Most likely, given that he had been there last night, his very presence was probably anathema to her already.

And things weren’t going to get better.

“I’ll meet you at Chen’s. It’s just down the Strip,” she said.

“Thanks,” he told her again. “I’ll see you there.”

He watched her head backstage. Right before she left, she looked back—and not at him.

Then she shuddered—as if she’d seen a ghost—and disappeared behind a black velvet drape.




4


There was an incredibly simple answer to what was plaguing her, of course. She was simply seeing someone who looked like Tanner Green. It wasn’t as if she actually knew the man and could be sure it was him.

Bull.

She knew his face, and that was all that mattered.

That face was etched in her mind. She would never forget it. She had been looking into his eyes as he died.

Key words. He had died.

Maybe she had been listening to Timothy too much, and now she was seeing dead people just as he saw ghost dancers in the sky.

She winced as she sat down at her dressing table. Why on earth had she agreed to see Dillon Wolf? She didn’t want to, and she didn’t really understand why. The man was attractive, courteous, charming and, well, hot, as Sandra would have put it.

But…

He was somehow connected to the extremely odd visions she was having. How or why, she didn’t know. Everything was tied up in feelings of fear and unease, and she didn’t like feeling this way at all. At least the cops were leaving her alone; they evidently knew that she’d had nothing to do with Tanner Green’s death other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She reached for a makeup-remover pad and set to work. With her makeup gone, she looked young. And afraid. Hell, she was afraid. And she really hated that.

“Who’s the hottie?” April Brandon, one of her fellow pirates, asked, grinning.

“Pardon?”

“Tall, dark and super cool,” April said, sliding into her own chair in front of the long mirror.

“Oh, just a friend. No, not a friend. Not really.”

“An enemy?” April teased.

“No, no, I mean, I just met him.”

“Oh. Well, if you decide not to be his friend, introduce him to me, huh?” April winked at her, pulling her plumed hat from her head.

“You’ve got a boyfriend, remember?”

“Maybe, but I’m not blind,” April said. She pulled off her earrings, then turned around suddenly to survey the room.

Jessy felt as if a million goose bumps broke out over her body and asked, “What is it?”

“Footsteps on my grave, I guess,” April said, shrugging. “Sorry. I just had this creepy feeling. Ice along the spine or something.”

Jessy looked around, as well. She didn’t see anyone, but she felt uncomfortable even so. She had to get herself under control. How was she ever going to lead a normal life if she was suddenly afraid of invisible danger at every turn?

April gave a shrug and reached for her makeup remover. “Anyway, friend to friend? I’d go after him if I were you, if only just for the sex. And I’ll be wanting details when you do.”

Jessy groaned. “I prefer not to kiss and tell.”

“He’s an Indian, isn’t he?”

“The correct terminology these days is Native American.”

April rolled her eyes. “I call you an Indian all the time. People think I’m crazy, cuz you’re so light.”

“Timothy’s half Lakota,” Jessy said.

“So there you go. You are an Indian. Sorry, Native American.”

Jessy shed her boots and put them in the box under the table, then shimmied out of her pirate apparel, and quickly slid into her own sandals and knit sheath. “Gotta go,” she told April, giving her friend a pat on the shoulder.

“Take Mr. Creepy with you, okay?”

“What?” Jessy froze, turning around to stare at April.

April laughed. “Just kidding. That feeling of being watched, you know?” She shuddered. “Maybe it’s because of the newspaper.”

“The newspaper?”

“The front page is all about that guy who was killed last night.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “He worked for our boss, you know. Emil Landon, the guy who owns this place. So in a way, it was a coworker who was killed. He died right on top of some poor woman.” She looked more closely at Jessy and gasped. “What’s wrong? You’re white as a ghost. Hadn’t you heard about it?”

“No, I knew about it.”

“I’m sure it has nothing to do with us. It was probably someone he used to know before he took up the bodyguard business. Still, I guess none of us should go walking to our cars alone these days. Vegas has never been number one in the low-crime sweepstakes.”

“No,” Jessy agreed.

“You’re not walking to your car alone now, are you?” April asked her, concerned.

“No, I’m meeting—I’m going to the Strip. You have someone to walk you to your car, right?”

“I’m going to the Strip, too. Now get out of here. I’ll be right behind you!”

Jessy left the dressing room, unnerved. As she closed the door behind her, she guiltily hoped she was shutting “Mr. Creepy” in with April. She hurried past the empty theater, anxious to get to the casino floor, where there would be bells, lights and lots of people.



Dillon wondered if she was really going to show, or if she would find a way to avoid him.

But it was almost exactly half an hour from the time she had left him that she walked through the front door of Chen’s.

Vegas was filled with beautiful women. Most of them not only had killer bodies but glorious faces and legs that went on forever. And in this city, where a good showgirl was pretty much guaranteed a high-paying job, most of them came with enhanced breasts, as well.

As he watched Jessy Sparhawk come through the door and pause to look around the restaurant, he tried to analyze her appeal. Long sleek hair cascaded like a sunset down her back. Her eyes were large and expressive. Her figure was perfectly curved, but natural in every way. Her legs seemed long enough to stretch to China, and the symmetry of her features made her look simultaneously elegant, confident—and sweetly vulnerable. Nothing about her had grown hard yet, as so often happened to women out here.

He tried to figure out what made her so special, but an answer escaped him. It might have been her voice, the way she could speak so quietly yet be heard so clearly.

Hell, it might have been her ears or her kneecaps, for God’s sake. It was impossible to fathom what made her so appealing. She just was.

She was casual now. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup, and she had donned a cobalt-blue dress that echoed the color of her eyes. There was nothing showy about the way it fell to her knees and bared her arms, but when she moved, the outfit became a thing of beauty.

Ringo gave a low whistle.

Ignoring him, Dillon stood as she approached the booth and extended a hand. She accepted and sat, though she was actually perching on the edge of the seat, rather than actually sitting.

“Miss Jessy,” their waitress said, hurrying over before Dillon could say anything. Evidently Jessy had chosen a place she frequented. Was that a good sign? Or just the first thing that had come to her mind?

“Hi, Mai,” Jessy said, smiling broadly at the pretty, young Chinese woman. “How are you?”

“Good, good, I bring Michael on Saturday?” Mai asked anxiously.

“Please do. I promise we’ll see that he has a great time,” Jessy assured her.

“Thank you. I pour your tea,” Mai told her, suiting her action to her words and picking up the pot of tea in front of Dillon. He’d been pleased to discover that they brewed some of the most delicious green tea he’d ever tasted.

“So our waitress is Mai and she has a son?” Dillon said after Mai left them to decide on their order.

“She and her husband own the restaurant,” Jessy said. “And they have a four-year-old. He’s the cutest little thing I’ve ever seen.”

“If the food is as good as the tea, this is going to be a great dinner.”

She cocked her head toward him and almost smiled. Apparently she appreciated a man who knew good tea, he thought.

But not that much, he added silently as she spoke.

“I don’t understand what you want. I don’t understand what you think I can tell you. You were there last night. I never saw that man before he died on top of me,” she said, cutting to the chase.

“I just thought that, if we spent a little time talking, something might occur to you,” he said, watching her eyes.

She stared across the table at him and shook her head. “You work for Emil Landon.”

“Actually, you’ve worked for him longer than I have. I’ve only just been hired by the man.”

“Because he thinks he’s in danger,” Jessy said flatly.

“Yes.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think yet,” Dillon told her truthfully. “I’m trying to find out more about the man. There are a lot of rumors, but if you go through public documents and legal records, you can get a feel for someone. He’s rich. He owns a casino. Whether he’s really played it rough and created a few financial corpses along the way, or gotten in with the wrong connections, who knows? He doesn’t trust anyone.”

“It doesn’t sound as if you like him much.”

“Do you?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “I don’t know him. I’ve seen him on the news, but I’ve never actually seen him in person. It’s unlikely I would have any cause to meet him, unless he suddenly decided to bring in a pack of little kids.”

He sipped his tea, not wanting her to see him smile at the thought of how well she dealt with children. It was nice. Although, admittedly, he found himself so entranced by her that she might have said that lap dances were her thing and he would have found a way to find that nice, too.

Mai returned to the table, and to Dillon’s pleased surprise, Jessy looked at him hesitantly and asked if it would be all right if she and Mai decided on their order. He grinned and told her to go right ahead.

Jessy seemed to be relaxing. She was at least sitting all the way back in the booth now.

“It must be difficult for you,” she mused, sipping her tea after Mai had left again. “Emil Landon certainly has a past, maybe a lot of enemies. And Tanner Green—from what I saw on the news, he had a past, as well. It does seem strange that a man as big as he was went down without a fight. You have to get close to use a knife.”

She looked thoughtful as she spoke. Dillon wondered if she was disturbed or just stating facts.

“It suggests that he was with someone he trusted,” Dillon said. “Also, in a place as densely populated as a casino, it’s easy to get close to someone without them noticing. But he might have been stabbed before he even got to the casino. Not enough evidence yet to be certain of much.”

She gave a little shudder and offered him a rueful smile. “I feel guilty saying this, but it’s reassuring to think that someone wanted Tanner Green dead. It’s better than thinking there’s a killer out there, seeking victims at random.”

“It’s more comforting, yes,” Dillon agreed.

The meal arrived, and Dillon thought he had passed muster, because Jessy introduced him to Mai as a friend. Jessy had ordered two dishes, one chicken and one beef dish, one Cantonese and one Mandarin, and both were delicious. There were a few precious moments when the food first arrived that felt almost like being on a regular date. But she hadn’t agreed to go on a date with him; she’d agreed—reluctantly—to see him because he needed to talk to her. She didn’t dislike him, he was pretty sure, but she seemed determined to create a wall between them, and she apparently hoped that he would stopped banging on the gate.

But they couldn’t talk about food forever, and finally he brought the subject back to Green’s death.

“I don’t know what you think I can tell you,” she said, staring at him while he chewed a piece of beef.

“I think that there’s something. Maybe in your subconscious. Something you don’t think is important or even realize you know, but it might just be the clue that changes everything.”

She set down her fork and leaned toward him. “I can’t help you. A man I had never seen before stumbled through the crowd, fell on me and died on top of a craps table. You know I didn’t know him, that it happened just the way I’ve described it, and just that quickly.”

“He spoke to you,” Dillon said quietly.

Her instant frown of surprise and confusion was definitely real. Had she forgotten? Was the information he needed actually buried in her subconscious? She sat back, thinking. “We didn’t carry on a conversation,” she told him.

“I saw the security tapes. His lips moved.”

“He might have whispered something,” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. He was dying. He could have said anything. I don’t remember. All I remember is the feeling of being trapped, the horror of realizing that he was bleeding to death on top of me. And those are images I would just as soon forget.”

He couldn’t let it go at that, even though he sensed that this wasn’t the time to push her. She knew what Tanner Green had said, either consciously or subconsciously, but for now, he had lost her. Time to change the subject.

“How was your grandfather last night? Everything okay?”

“Yes, thank you very much.” She stared at him. “Timothy is…slipping,” she said, as if she thought the idea might frighten him away.

“I’m sorry. Is it Alzheimer’s?”

“He’s just slipping…that’s all. He’s fine, he takes care of himself, he just…he just needs to be watched. He has his moments. He’s functioning. He knows me, and he knows the people who care for him.” She hesitated. “He actually lives in a home, but he loves it because he has a wonderful doctor, and the people there are terrific.” Once again she hesitated, as if saying more than she wanted, but spilling it out anyway. Maybe it was still an involuntary attempt to scare him away. “My folks died when I was young. Timothy raised me. I love him to death, but I can’t work and keep him at home. He forgets things on the stove, and he talks to friends in the walls and in the sky.”





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