Against The Odds (Anna Dawson #1) (18 page)

He didn’t say another word the entire ride down, just let me review every move I’d made in the last six hours. And stew.

He knew how to play me in more than just poker.

A cab waited for us at the bottom. Apparently Ralph hadn’t been too pissed to leave us to our own devices. That, or he was too afraid of whoever got us into the game.

“Where to?” the driver asked.
 

“The Om –” I started to give directions but Jack put his hand on my knee and squeezed.

“The Hilton,” he said and the driver put the car in gear.

I looked at Jack and he gave just the slightest shake of his head. I stayed silent for the ride.

When we got to the Hilton, he took my hand and led me to the lobby bar which was just opening up with fresh coffee and some pastries.

“Bourbon. Neat,” he said to the bartender. He looked at me and I shook my head. “Make it two,” he added.
 

“Sir, the bar closed hours ago. We do have fresh coffee and some pastries if you—” the bartender stopped in mid-sentence as Jack slid a hundred dollar bill across the bar to him. “Two bourbons, neat,” the bartender repeated and disappeared behind a swinging door. Taking the hundred with him.

Jack swiveled the barstool from the front to the side, facing me. “We have about four minutes—or however long it takes that kid to poor some drinks—before I’m officially off duty so…” He rubbed his hand across his face, looking as tired as I felt. “I’m not even going to ask you why—or how—you were at that game. Just what do you think right now?”

I was so taken aback that he wasn’t going to chastise me that it took a second to put my practiced defenses to the side. “I think we need to look at Chuck. And Ralph,” I said. “You saw his fist clench when Chuck was talking?”

Jack nodded. “What about Len?”

“Yeah, him too. It was just too easy. He
could
have been trying to get an advantage on a fellow player by busting his chops, and we
were
talking about the Steelers, but…”

“Yeah. But.” Jack was looking beyond me, his wheels turning.
 

The bartender came back, setting two glasses down in front of us. At least Jack got a lot of drink for his money; the glasses were full to the top. “Thanks,” was all Jack said and the bartender went down to the other end of the bar.
 

I pushed mine in front of Jack, but other than his original acknowledgement when the bartender set them down, he didn’t seem to notice they were there.
 

Or, he was trying to ignore them.

“Anything else?” he asked.

I shrugged. “It could have been nothing. Chuck, Ralph and Len. It could have just been good friends ragging on each other about some small time bet they had with each other years ago.”

“But you don’t believe that?”
 

“No,” I said quietly. “I think one of those guys was the big money that lost out in Superbowl Thirteen.”

“And therefore has revenge as a motive to hurt The Corporation,” he finished my thought.

“Yes.”

He nodded. He took a deep breath, swiveled in his chair and looked down at the drinks in front of him.

The cop face melted before my eyes. His shoulders relaxed, tension I hadn’t even noticed left his body. A look of reverence washed over his weary face as he lifted the first glass to his lips. He took two small sips, savoring the liquid. His eyes closed, a look of near rapture on his face. It was so intimate I felt I should look away and yet I couldn’t.

I knew this was the closest I’d come to seeing the real Jack Schiller.
 
I couldn’t tear my eyes from him.

He downed the entire glass on the next gulp like a shot, though the tumbler was nowhere near as small as a shot glass.

The look on his face was one I was sure was on mine when I stepped away from a betting desk after plunking down a large amount of money.
 

Euphoria. Glee. Then caution. And then a shimmer of self-loathing.

When that last came across Jack’s face I stood to leave, not being able to bear the emotions it brought up in me.

I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t even help myself.

His eyes still closed, he reached out and put a gentle hand on my knee, urging me to sit back down, which I did.

He opened his eyes then, the brown seemed darker, more intense as he looked at me.

“I’m officially off duty. Let’s talk about something else,” he said.

No clock had struck the stroke of anything. It was quarter to seven in the morning, no shift was ending. Jack’s shift was over when the bourbon flowed.

I admired his skewed moral code. Kind of like me not betting on a game JoJo was involved with.

The truth was I did not want to leave Jack Schiller tonight.

I nodded, making myself more comfortable in the barstool. “Like?” I asked.

He pushed the empty glass to the side, much like I try to distance myself from losing betting slips.
 

At least he didn’t have to carry his empties home for tax purposes.

“Like,” he said, taking a drink from the second glass. “Like why is it that I have this case and two other homicides on my desk at the moment and all I can seem to think of is you.”

I blinked at him several times, not sure I’d heard him correctly.

I’m no dummy when it comes to reading people. I do it for a living. And I’d known Jack was attracted to me—had known it since that first night outside the municipal building that neither of us had entered.

But not in a million years would I have bet money on him coming out and admitting it.

I didn’t know if the real Jack—vs. the cop Jack—was really that much different from the man I’d been dealing with these past couple of weeks, but I doubted it.

So, was it the bourbon that brought on this confession? Or the lure of a different town with a hotel bed just an elevator ride away?

I started to analyze it like I would a poker hand. What cards was he holding? Was it all a bluff? Was the rush of winning my money some type of warped foreplay for him?

Then he reached out, turned my pendant over, barely grazing my skin and placed his hand back on his khaki-covered knee, and suddenly I didn’t care about his motives, I only cared about being with him.

“Looks like the horseshoe didn’t work for you tonight,” he said, with absolutely no gloat in his voice. He looked at me with those deep brown eyes.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said softly, nearly whispering the words to myself. He leaned in as if to hear me better, though I knew he’d heard me. My lips came to his edge of his ear, much like he’d done to me in the Incline.
 
“I might still get lucky.”

He grabbed the second glass of bourbon taking it with him and we both rose and left the lobby, heading for the elevators.

Chapter Fifteen

“J
ohanna,” he whispered as he woke me up the next morning. Or, that same day to be exact.

Having sex with Jack Schiller was very similar to playing poker with him. He was hard to read, it got competitive at times, and was altogether an incredibly exhilarating experience.

But I didn’t get these delicious stubble burns all over my body when playing poker.

“Johanna,” he whispered again, nudging me this time.

Two things went through my mind. One, I had a plane to catch today and I had absolutely no idea what time it was. And two—“How’d you know my name was Johanna?” I tried to keep the suspicion out of my voice, but had he investigated me in some way?

I had my back to him, his arm thrown over my waist, his legs entwined with mine. I felt his shrug along my back. “Ben and Saul call you Hannah. You introduce yourself and play poker as Anna. And Lorelei calls you Jo. I am a detective after all, Johanna” he said.

“Oh,” I said, letting out a small sigh of relief. I was just about to ask about the time when he continued.
 

“Johanna Elizabeth Dawson. Born thirty-four years ago in Madison, Wisconsin to Albert and Evelyn Dawson. One older sister, two brothers, one older, one younger. Attended high school and college in Madison. Left college—”
 

“Hey,” I said, turning to him. My outrage fell away as I took in his tousled hair, his well-used mouth, giving me a grin that made me press my body into his, all thought of his looking into my past gone.

He shrugged again. “We did a background check on everyone connected with the case.”

“I wasn’t connected to the case and you know it,” I said.

“You could have been,” he hedged.

“If I was the least bit connected to this case; a witness, a suspect, a potential victim, you never would have slept with me.”

“You wanna bet,” he said. He started to lean in to kiss me, but I put my hand to his chest, stopping him.

I looked at him hard. “Yes. I
would
bet on that. I’d go all in on that.”

He hung his head in an aww shucks kind of way.

“That’s not necessarily a compliment. Sometimes you have to bend the rules to get the job done,” I said.

“I know that. And at times I have. But if I start breaking
my own
rules, what hope is there?”

I had two simple rules; I never bet on a game JoJo was involved with, and JoJo never involved a player
 
- at least knowingly—in her plans. They were innocent victims, not to be held responsible for the outcome of any game.
 

I knew how Jack felt. If I were to break either of those rules to myself I’d feel like a complete failure.

He moved in again, and this time I did nothing to stop him. But when his body came down, I got a glimpse of the clock on the bedside table behind him.

“Oh, crap,” I said. “I gotta go. My flight’s in a couple of hours and I have to stop back at the Omni and get my stuff.”

“You on the two-fifteen flight?” he asked and I nodded. “Me too. Hang on, and I’ll go with you to the Omni, then we can go to the airport together.” He lifted the sheets off of himself, looked down at my body and groaned with reluctance. “Or we can just skip our flights and take the red-eye back tonight.”

I thought about JoJo’s stuff that I’d strewn all over my room at the Omni in my rush to get to the poker game.

Just as Jack seemed resigned to miss the flights and reached for me, I slid out from the bed on the other side and started reaching for my clothes. “No. I need to get back this afternoon. Lorelei’s probably going crazy watching over the boys. And I want to check on Gus.”

“Botz called me last night right before I went to Ralph’s. Gus has regained consciousness and was able to see his friends. Your friends.”

I turned to him, my earlier discarded clothes held up as a shield to cover my nakedness. I didn’t know why I bothered; the man had inspected every inch of me over the last few hours.

The relief across my face at hearing of Gus’ well-being must have been obvious.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I couldn’t at the game of course, and then afterward…” He motioned to the bed between us, its covers in total disarray, pillows thrown to the floor, condom wrappers on the beside table, traces of the bourbon that he’d licked off my body on the sheets.

Embarrassed, I turned and headed for the bathroom to dress. “It’s okay. We were both distracted. I’m just glad Gus is going to be okay.”

I left the bathroom door open and started to throw my clothes on. “Was Gus able to tell Detective Botz anything that was helpful?” I asked loudly so Jack could hear me.

“No. It was like the doctor thought, he was shot from behind. Gus never heard or saw anything.”

“Still, it’s weird that Danny was shot point blank and Gus from far away.”

“Yes, it is,” was all Jack would give me. I figured cop Jack was due to return any moment now. Even more reason not to let him see my room at the Omni.

Dressed, I stepped out of the bathroom and looked around for my jacket. “So, I’ll see you at the airport?” I said, not looking at him.

“This is silly. Give me fifteen minutes to shower and I’ll be ready to go with you. Better yet, let’s shower together,” he said, but I was already headed toward the door.

“No. I want to shower with all my stuff that’s at the hotel. I’ll just see you at the airport.”

He put his hand on my arm, stopping me, turning me toward him. He watched me for a second, then said, “Hmmm.”

“Hmmm, what?” I asked, scared that maybe I really did have a tell that only Jack Schiller could see.

He shrugged. “Nothing. I just never took you for the high-maintenance kind. Needing your own products and shit.”

Other than deodorant there wasn’t one personal product of mine in my room at the Omni. Plenty of JoJo’s.

I put my hand to his bare chest. He’d thrown on jeans while I’d been in the bathroom and they hung low on his lean hips, the button fly only half done. My fingers tangled with the rough hair on his chest, and I saw with satisfaction a mark I’d left on him. “You may have done a background check. But there’s a lot you don’t know about me, Jack Schiller.”