Against The Odds (Anna Dawson #1) (28 page)

Yep, I’d pretty much created Raymond Joseph in JoJo’s image.

“Don’t do anything stupid. Or flashy. Get the money to the place for your sister’s rehab. Tell people the insurance came through. Put the rest of it away, but not in the bank or anywhere else that has a paper trail. I didn’t spend ten hours on flights so there’d be no paper trail of the money just so you could turn around and pay cash for an Escalade.”

He snorted. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s why I chose you.”

His eyes were cold. “Lucky me.”

I turned to leave.
 

“Lose my number. Lose my address. Forget you ever met me, or someone’s going to hear about you,” he said.
 

I looked back at him, nodded. “Fair enough.”

I walked to the door, opened it, but turned one more time. “But if
you
ever want to do business again, I know someone who would pay very well for what you did yesterday.”

He walked toward me. When he reached me, he put his hand on my chest, just over my horseshoe necklace and gently, but firmly, pushed so that I stepped back, outside the door jamb. He stared at me, but did not say a word as he shut the door in my face.

I
thought about Jack on the flight home until it hurt so badly that I had to think about something else. But thinking about Ben and the boys and who was trying to hurt them scared me, so my thoughts went back to Raymond Joseph and how his sister would be getting the help she needed.

At least somebody would be benefiting in this whole shitty mess.

And Lorelei would be getting some much-deserved diamonds.

I, however, had sunk to a new level.

And what damage would this do to Raymond? He, who when JoJo had first met him in Minnesota had bragged about his team with such joy and pride. Was that all gone now? Would he forever be cynical?
 

Welcome to the real world, Raymond.

An hour into the flight I asked for a bourbon and downed it in one swallow, a silent toast for what was not to be. It, along with nearly two days without sleep, did me in and I finally dozed.

My dreams were hazy, fueled by exhaustion, bourbon, remorse and guilt.
 

Mostly guilt.

I dreamed of Vince sitting in a motel room, a gun on the table next to him. I looked behind me to the parking lot but instead of Paulie being in the car it was my mom and dad and it was Wisconsin. When I looked back, it was no longer Vince and a motel room but Jimmy sitting in the book room of the Bellagio, eating directly from a pan of ziti, a smile of pure delight on his face.

Then the scene switched to the hallway at the morgue where we went the night Danny was killed. But this time the hallway was so much longer, never ending. And in the distance was a shadow or a person, and I tried to make them out but I couldn’t. I tried to run in that direction, but hands held me back. When I turned I saw it was Jack and Frank Botz, only Jack was wearing a crazy tie and Botz had on Jack’s leather jacket and a chambray shirt. They both had unlit cigarettes dangling from their mouths.

I opened the door to one of the rooms and Lorelei, in a leotard, was doing dance movements at a barré along the mirrored walls. Gus, in his hospital gown was at the barré, too, but he couldn’t lift his wounded leg and he screamed at me to get out.

I looked at Lorelei as I closed the door and she had changed from her leotard to a doctor’s white lab coat, her hair up in a tidy bun. She started walking toward me, writing something on a clipboard and laughing and I turned to leave the room.

My hand was grabbed and I was pulled down to my bed. I knew it was my bed, but it looked like the motel room that I’d met Vince in. Jack’s body began moving over mine, a languid feeling coming over me, soon replaced with fear as I heard the gunshot and was running down the hallway to Ben’s room.
 

I entered the room to see Ben and Saul playing cribbage, but it was in Saul’s room, not Ben’s. Jack came in the sliding glass doors, holding a gun and Saul pulled out a chair for him to join their game like he’d been expecting him. The game then turned into poker and that kid that I’d lost to with my fake tell, Jason, came in and played with them. Nobody seemed surprised that Jason was playing with them, even though I was the only one that knew him.

I
jolted awake, startling the man sitting next to me. My mind went back over a detail in the mish mash of my dream.

And over it again.

Holy, shit. I knew who was trying to kill The Corporation.
 

Chapter Twenty-Three

I
couldn’t believe it. I played it over and over in my mind. I wasn’t sure, there could be a logical explanation.

And yet…and yet I knew who was behind it all.

And what was worse, I thought I knew why.
 

But there were parts that didn’t add up. Big parts. It wasn’t something I could take to authorities. Not yet. There was too big of a gap in my theory. One that I thought I could fill on my own.

If I was right, I was dealing with someone very unstable, and I didn’t want that person near anybody else. I really didn’t think they’d hurt me, but it was a chance I was willing to take.
 

For the people that I loved.

I spent the remainder of the flight figuring out how to prove my theory.

“L
or, who’s all at the house?” I asked from my phone at the airport as soon as I landed in Vegas. I tried to keep my voice normal sounding but it was hard with the knowledge I’d come to believe I had.

I was expecting a full house at my place. With a long wait in Dubuque and the time change, it was four o’clock on Sunday afternoon.

About the same time Jack and I were getting in from Pittsburgh last Sunday and had been met by Paulie.

Paulie wouldn’t be meeting me today. There was no need. JoJo had delivered.
 

“Jo?” Lorelei said on the other end of the phone. “Where are you?”

“At the airport.”

“What airport?”

“Here, in Vegas,”
 

“Are you coming home, or flying out?”

“I’m coming home. I have to make one stop and then I’ll be home. Who all is there right now?”

“Me, Ben, Saul, Gus and Jack.”

“Jack’s there?” I said, the surprise apparent in my voice.

“Yes, but,” she stopped. I could hear her moving into another room. A door shutting.
 

“But what?”

“I heard him on the phone with Frank, setting it up so that Frank would come and relieve Jack when…when…”

“Whenever I showed up,” I finished for her.

“Yes. What happened?”

“Nothing. Everything. It all caught up with me, Lor. I couldn’t keep all the plates in the air.”

“Oh, Jo,” she said, pity—God, how I hated that—in her voice.

“Lor, I need you to do something. It’s really important.”
 

I think the gravity in my voice came through because the pity was gone and she was all business as she said, “What do you need me to do?”

I launched into the story I’d come up with to make sure I’d have enough time to find out what I needed to know.

After she agreed to do what I’d asked, I gave Lorelei my time frame, thanked her again, and then hung up the phone.

As I made my way out of long-term parking in my Porsche, I called Paulie. “Is Vince available?

“When?”

“Now.”

“You mean like right now?”

“Right now.”

He hung up on me and I took the long way to the strip to buy some time. I didn’t need it, Paulie called back in less than ten minutes. “He can see you now.”

“Where?”

“The Picasso exhibition at the Bellagio?”

“Really?”

“What? A guy can’t look at pretty pictures?”

“No, no, it’s just that… Never mind, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“He said to look for him around the sculptures.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“Hey, Anna, you did real good—”

But I cut Paulie off as I hung up the phone, shaking my head. Vince Santini looking at Picasso sculptures on a Sunday.

T
he Superbowl had already been played, and it was a couple of weeks away from March Madness, so it was just the normal tourist Sunday at the exhibit, which was to say pretty light.

The art gallery exhibitions they got into the Bellagio were big names, and I’d taken Ben to a few, but Vegas was for gambling, and then a far, far second, shows. The attendance in the exhibition rooms reflected that.

Vince was easy to find and when I caught his eye, he nodded toward one of the alcoves with just one lone sculpture where no one else was near.

“I’m sorry to need to meet on such short notice,” I said as we met up.
 

“No problem, I was just heading in here when you called Paulie.”

It was Sunday and he was looking at art, but Vince still had on one of his beautifully cut suits. His hair combed back from his handsome olive face. Impeccable.

In my travel-worn clothes and with airplane hair that not even a good brushing could tame, I felt like a total schlub next to him.

We circled around the sculpture so that our backs were to one of the three walls that made up the small alcove. We’d be able to speak quietly here without anyone being able to hear, and we’d also be able to see if anyone came near.

He stared at the sculpture, leaning his head to see it at the different angles. He looked in his brochure that they gave out at the entrance, read about the sculpture. Studied it again. I waited.

It looked like every Picasso did to me; odd, askew and had me wondering what old Pablo had been smoking.

He took a step away from it, putting him side-by-side with me at the back of the little room. “What can I do for you, Anna?” he said softly, his eyes still on the piece of art.

I took a deep breath. “I just wanted confirmation—from you personally—that we’re even. That all slates have been wiped clean.”

He tilted his head just slightly in my direction, not really looking at me. “Have I ever given you reason to suspect that I wouldn’t uphold my end of a bargain?” There was no hurt in his voice, he knew this wasn’t about him.

“No, you haven’t.”

“So?”

“I just…with all this stuff that’s going on with the boys…I don’t want to have any loose ends. I need to be available for them completely for a while.”

If I was right in my suspicions—and I could prove it—being available would be the least of it. All hell would break loose.

“We’re good. Clean slate. You’re welcome at a game of mine anytime.”

“Thanks, Vince.”

“But, Anna,” he said turning to me this time. “Don’t take it the wrong way if I say I hope you don’t show up at any of those games.”

I tried to smile, but it probably came out as more of a grimace. “That’s not a good business move. You should want me in to you heavy.”

He shrugged. “Business will survive. There’s always other…”

He was about to say low-life, dead-beat—or worse—gamblers but he stopped himself.

“Yes, there will be,” I answered his unfinished thought.

He took a deep breath, looked me over from head to foot. It made me wish I’d tried harder with that brush. “You don’t look so good, Anna.”

“It’s been a long weekend,” I said.

“I imagine it was.” He turned back to the sculpture. “But a good one.”

I thought of Jack turning away from me. Of Raymond Joseph’s ideals crashing down around him. Of figuring out who wanted my boys dead.

I also thought of getting out from under Vince. Being free.

“Parts of it,” I conceded.

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help with The Corporation,”
 
he said, dismissing me.

“I will. Thanks, Vince.”

I started to walk away, but he gently placed his hand on my arm. I looked at him. He had a small smile on his face. “Anna, I would never interfere with the way you do your business…”

“Yes?”

“But, watching the CIU—Penn State game…”

I waited, not sure where he was going. Was he going to critique JoJo’s game fixing techniques?

“It was so smooth, so well done. A thing of beauty. I made a little bet with myself as to who was on the take.”

It was twisted, but in a weird way, I was flattered. “Who would you have bet it was?”

“Either the point guard or the big center. But that kid didn’t look smart enough for it, so I settled on the point guard.”