Her 24-Hour Protector (11 page)

“Does this mean you’re going to tell your FBI agent about this?” His voice was ominously quiet.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

He picked up his glass, walked over to his private bar, uncapped his bottle of prized whiskey, poured a glass—neat, no ice—turned back to face her. “Jenna, for all I know, Rebecca Lynn could have left those notes herself.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re having…relationship issues. Rebecca Lynn wants attention. She could have done this to get it. Those notes you saw are clearly different from the first one, and the fact Rebecca Lynn showed them to you would seem to confirm my suspicions. You see? I kept those notes secret, therefore Rebecca Lynn did not get the attention she was seeking, and now she wants you to cause a fuss with me.” He sipped his drink. “She wants to drive a wedge between you and I, sweetheart.”

“So…you didn’t speak to Rebecca Lynn about them at all?”

“No.”

Jenna brushed her hand over her hair, suddenly unsure. “I…I still think this is something for the FBI to decide.”

“Absolutely not. I will not have them messing around in my personal issues. Can you just imagine the media finding out my own wife left me death threats? I don’t want the feds looking into my business dealings, either. Candace’s murder has
nothing to do with all that. It’ll just cause trouble.” He paused. “Untold trouble. Look, Jenna, you’re not naive. Some of my dealings, like those with the Schaeffers, were not exactly kosher. An investigation into my private business could bring us
all
down, the entire Rothchild empire.”

“Maybe it was Frank Epstein who sent the notes,” Jenna said, pushing. “Maybe Lex was right, and bad business blood had Epstein wanting to avenge some old deed.” She took a step closer to her father. “You don’t want the feds digging into your relations with Epstein, either. Why? Because of old mob ties?”

He stilled. The color of his eyes seemed to fade, flat and hard as ice.

“Epstein didn’t do this. He had nothing to do with Candace.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me. I
know.
”

She frowned. “What exactly—” she said, taking another step toward her father “—happened in the past with Frank Epstein, Dad? What makes you so darn sure about him now?”

Harold’s neck corded, and a hint of nervousness seemed to flicker through his features. Which scared Jenna.

“You—” he pointed with his index finger off his whiskey tumbler “—have to understand, Jenna Jayne, that messing around with that FBI agent, leading him to look into Rothchild business dealings is going to end up bad news.”

“You,” she said, meeting his pointed glare, “were the one who set me up to get involved with Lex Duncan in the first place.”

“Solely for information about the ring.”

Again, the ring.

“You set me up to seduce him, Dad.”

“Not be seduced
by
him,” he snapped.

“Oh, like you can control the whole damn world! My emotions to boot.”

He set his glass down slowly, seriously registering for the
first time that his daughter might actually have some real and very dangerous personal allegiances with the federal agent. His daughter was falling for the cop who could take him down.
If
she let him.

“It’s gone too far with him, Jenna. End it.”

She swallowed, shaking inside with fury. “You don’t control me,” she whispered. “You don’t tell me to switch my feelings on and off at your own whim, for your own personal gain.”

“Pick a side, Jenna Jayne. Choose your family, everything we own, or pick that man—a blue-collar federal agent,” he spat the words out derisively. “For what? One night of hot sex, for the novelty of sleeping with a law enforcement officer?”

“No,” she whispered. “For something
real,
Dad.”

“Consider your actions very, very carefully, Jenna Jayne.”

“Oh, I am.”

“Consider, too, that your agent friend might know that you went to visit Candace the night of her murder and that he may have pegged you as a suspect, too.”

Shock rocketed through her. “Rebecca Lynn told you?” she whispered.

He said nothing.

Hatred rustled like an ugly thing under Jenna’s skin. Rebecca Lynn wasn’t just trying to drive a wedge between her and her father; she wanted to see Jenna go down.

A very dark and dangerous thought occurred to her—was Rebecca Lynn crazy enough to commit murder? Could she actually be behind all of this?

“Special Agent Lex Duncan is using you, Jenna. Once he is through, you will be left with nothing, because you will have alienated
me.
”

“Is that a threat, Dad?”

He glared at her for several beats. “No, Jenna. That’s a fact.”

V
ibrating with anger, Jenna got into her car. “Damn him,” she muttered to Napoleon, who was sitting in the passenger seat on buttery leather. She slammed her hand down on the dash. “How could my
own father
threaten me like that?” Jenna clenched her teeth, turned on the ignition, setting her convertible engine to a smooth, low growl. She didn’t want to feel hurt. Vulnerable.

For the first time in her twenty-five years of life she wasn’t going to give in to her dad, to her own subterranean need for her father’s affection.

But that meant she was alone.

She should go find Lex, tell him everything. She should let him know that she’d gone to Candace’s apartment that night to try and talk her impossible sister into a rehab program—if not for her own sake, for the sake of her two toddler sons. But Candace had wanted nothing of it. Sky-high on a cocktail of drinks and drugs, she’d launched a Ming vase at Jenna’s head.

And yes, Jenna had cut her finger picking up the pieces. It had bled pretty badly. Her blood very likely had been left at the scene. Rebecca Lynn might be right. Perhaps Lex
was
spending time with her solely to glean information that could secure him a warrant for her DNA, or something, so he could match her to the blood. Jenna didn’t want to deal with that thought right now.

She’d tackle it all tomorrow, because right at this moment, she was falling into her tried and true coping mechanism. And she knew it. She inhaled deeply, glanced at Napoleon. “Ready, Naps? Because we’re going to partay. We’re going to the Desert Lion, and we’re going to make sure Cassie has the best damn birthday celebration of her life.”

And with that, she drove out of the garage, the automatic door sliding smoothly shut behind her. As Jenna headed down the driveway she registered in the back of her mind that Rebecca Lynn’s slate-gray BMW hadn’t been parked in its spot in the garage.

Daddy’s little trophy bitch was out.

She shoved ugly thoughts of violence toward Rebecca Lynn from her mind. The night was clear, the moon high and she was going back to the twenty-four hour buzz that was Las Vegas. Where she felt safe. Where she felt herself. Where the lights and the laughter and the frenetic pace spelled freedom.

And as she neared the metropolis, the dusky gold glow of Sin City shimmered like a beckoning halo in the hot desert night, and Jenna felt her spirits lift.

She didn’t notice the dark sedan that pulled out of the shadows and followed her into town.

Cassie’s birthday celebration was a glittering event that had attracted the A-list of young Vegas natives, along with special guests and family who had been flown in from around the country. The party was being hosted at the Desert Lion, Frank
Epstein’s massive temple to excess, because Cassie’s uncle was a friend of the Epsteins, and Frank was generously returning a favor.

But no matter how she tried, Jenna could not put her heart into having fun. Her champagne martini sat untouched on the bar, and Napoleon, perched on the stool beside her, glowered at the crowds from the security of his little designer purse.

The fact Jenna was in Epstein’s opulent establishment didn’t help her mood. All she could think of was Lex, his questions about Frank and her dad. Which in turn lodged thoughts of Lex himself fast and firm in her mind. And now Jenna couldn’t shake the images of his body in the sun, or the memory of kissing him, his scent, the green sparkle in his eyes when he smiled. The way those eyes had looked so haunted when he’d heard about his mother from the Lucky Lady fortune-teller.

She wondered again about a possible connection between Sara Duncan and Mercedes Epstein. They’d have been roughly the same age when they’d both worked at the Frontline—Sara as a croupier, Mercedes as the leggy showgirl who’d won the hand and heart of the big Frontline boss himself. Jenna found herself scanning the crowds half expecting to see the sleek silver chignon of the elegant Vegas matriarch drifting by. That’s what Mercedes did—she floated. It was those long legs. She must have been truly stunning in her day as a dancer. Jenna wondered what Lex’s mother had looked like.

“Hey, hon, why so glum?” Cassie said as she came up to Jenna and Napoleon at the bar.

She sighed. “Just need to wind up I guess.”

“Well, drink that martini, and you’ll feel way more yourself.” Concern tinged Cassie’s bright hazel eyes. “Never known you not to sparkle at an event, Jenna. What’s going on?”

Jenna couldn’t even muster a grin. “I’m sorry, Cass. It’s
just…this whole Candace thing not being solved. It has me…edgy.”

Cassie crooked up her brow quizzically. “So, it’s not going so well with Mr. Sexy FBI Agent, then?”

Too well.

“I really don’t want to talk about it.”

Cassie gave her a long and knowing look. “It backfired, didn’t it? He’s gotten to you.”

Jenna said nothing.

Cassie threw back her head and laughed. “
The
Jenna Jayne Rothchild has fallen for a federal agent investigating her family for homicide.”

“I fail to see the humor, Cass.”

Her friend’s smile sobered. “Come on, let’s try our hand at blackjack. I feel lucky tonight.”

Jenna slid onto a seat alongside her friend at the blackjack table and stacked a pile of chips on the green felt, but all she could think about was losing…her dad, the bedrock foundation of her life. Lex.

Jenna played her hand, flipped over her card. A bust. The dealer raked in her chips.

Frank Epstein pointed to the top left screen along a bank of monitors. “Take camera seven in closer. Zero in on the blackjack table.”

The technician zoomed into the pit.

“There, see that woman in green at the table? Closer.”

The image of the woman filled the screen. Frank’s pulse quickened. He stepped forward, attention riveted by the beautiful young siren in a low-cut shimmering emerald-green gown. Dark hair fell in thick waves down her bare back, and her lush lips were painted a ruby-red, the precise shade of her nails. A red ruby pendant hung at her throat. Even the
mutt’s purse matched her outfit—emerald-green with little ruby-red accents.

Frank’s security head, Roman Markowitz, came up beside him. “It’s Jenna Rothchild,” he said in his characteristic sandpapery voice, a result of damaged vocal chords in his youth.

Frank nodded slightly. So Harold’s pretty young daughter was playing in his casino.

From the monitors in his Desert Lion security room, Frank could spy on nearly all activity in his establishment. Virtually every corner of his hotel was watched by these cameras—his eye-in-thesky—including elevators. Select hotel rooms had also been outfitted with hidden cameras, which could be activated if necessary. Frank had gone so far as to install hidden filming devices in his own private penthouse where he lived with Mercedes, but those feeds only Frank could see, from a private setup in his office.

It wasn’t that he was spying on his wife but he did like to record the activities of staff who serviced his penthouse. One never knew when a problem might arise and visual evidence could come in handy, perhaps even in a court case, for example. Information was currency in his business.

And in Vegas, everybody watched everyone else. 24/7.

Frank himself liked to spend several hours per day up here in the Desert Lion security room, mostly at this time of night when the action really started happening on his floors. And he never ceased to tire of the Vegas drama that unfolded nightly.

In one twenty-four hour period, at one of his blackjack tables alone, fortunes could be made and lost several times over. He’d see hearts broken, dreams shattered. People being seduced by luck and parted from their money by the shimmering illusion—the promise of a dream—that he was selling.

And all the while, he got richer.

Such was the game.

His security nerve hub was located adjacent to his private
office, and Frank felt that in standing up here, he was at the pulsing core of his happening hotel at the very heart of the Strip. Quite simply, he felt like a king.

Which, in many ways, he was.

It wasn’t an accident years ago that his inner circle had started referring to him as the Vegas Lion, or Lion King. He held power most men could only dream of.

Harold Rothchild, however, was one man who had the wherewithal to take it all away. Harold remained one of those annoying, ever-present fault lines in the otherwise solid foundation of Frank’s existence, a rival from Frank’s past who had something on him—and on whom Frank had something in return. It was not a situation Frank liked to be in.

But he also couldn’t simply make Harold go away—as much as he’d like to. He
could
kill Harold, but it would require some serious planning and risk. Frank was all about risk. Gambling, betting, odds—they were his business. Even so, the odds needed to be in his favor. The risk needed to be calculated, and resorting to murdering Harold definitely had the odds fully stacked against.

This was because Harold had “insurance,” a videotape showing an illegal business transaction between Frank and himself. That tape was being held in a bank safety deposit box. It was evidence that would incriminate Epstein in a much broader range of illegal affairs and provide the FBI with the tools to start dismantling his entire empire. Harold had made it quite clear that should anything “untoward” happen to him, his will would ensure the tape was released into the custody of federal agents.

Epstein felt fairly secure that Harold would never take the video to the authorities prior to his own demise, because the tape would implicate Harold as well. Hence, keeping his rival alive was playing the best odds. For now.

Ciccone, of course, had wanted to eliminate Harold years ago—said he’d become a problem down the road. And Ciccone
was right. He
had
become a problem. But when Ciccone had presented his plan to whack Harold Rothchild the climate in Vegas had already shifted, and simply offing people Ciccone-mob-style had come to hold serious consequences, especially during a period Frank was trying to get respectable for stock market investors. It became a time that Frank desperately needed to distance himself from Ciccone. But trying to hold the mob enforcer at arms’ length hadn’t been easy.

Frank had once liked Ciccone—but he’d have liked him even better with his hairy butt back in Chicago, doing the mob’s union work. But Ciccone wouldn’t leave Vegas. Instead, the stocky little Italian with a vile temper had accused Frank of betrayal, and he’d gone renegade, doing unnecessary violence as he’d tried to muscle in on Frank’s turf. It turned into a bitter vendetta.

And things began to look real bad for Frank.

The feds had moved into Vegas in a big sweep to clean out Sin City and Ciccone was drawing serious heat to Frank—heat he didn’t need.

Turns out, he didn’t have to worry.

Ciccone “disappeared.”

He’d been whacked, and Frank knew who’d done it.

“Rothchild’s daughter is seeing the FBI agent assigned to the Rothchild homicide case,” Markowitz rasped as he studied the gorgeous young woman down at the blackjack table. “He’s the same guy Mercedes bid on at that auction.”

Frank nodded slowly. He knew his wife had bid fiercely on Special Agent Lexington Duncan. He also knew why. He knew a lot of things that his wife didn’t know that he knew. He was appraised of Mercedes’s illness, too. It burned Frank, to think she was dying and hiding it from him. He loved her more than anything. For Mercedes, he’d literally move mountains.

He’d kill people.

“Could get interesting,” Frank said, eyes fixed on Jenna. He
wondered what game she was playing with the federal agent, how Harold might possibly be involved and how it could all potentially backfire on him—or Mercedes.

“Put a tail on her,” he told Markowitz. “I want to know what she’s up to. Get photographic records, anything that shows her and the federal agent in a compromising position.”

One could never underestimate how useful those could be.

Frank and his security head exited the room together. “Did you take care of that fortune-teller at the Lucky Lady?” Frank asked quietly as they walked toward the elevators.

“Accomplished,” rasped the security head, inserting his elevator card and keying in his code. “But Agent Duncan had already been there.”

Frank’s temperature rose slightly. “How do you know?”

“We made her talk first.”

“She tell him anything?”

“Nothing that will bring him here.”

They entered the elevator. Frank watched lights flicking down from floor to floor. As fast as he was moving to plug up holes, the past still seemed to be seeping up into the present, somehow triggered by that Candace Rothchild murder.

Frank for one wouldn’t mind knowing who had killed the rich slut. She’d had it coming—that didn’t concern him. What did concern him was the way it was filtering into his life.

He didn’t like it.

Not one bit.

He clasped his hands behind his back as the elevator descended to the casino floor level, flexing his fingers in controlled irritation. This could not touch Mercedes. Not now. Not ever.

Especially when she had so little time left.

Jenna left the party at the Desert Lion early, looking forward to a hot bath and mind-numbing sleep. As she drove she was,
as usual, grateful for Napoleon’s company. She reached over and scratched his head fondly. A pet had always been the one constant in her life. Perhaps her only true friend.

“There’s nothing like a pooch, you know, boy?” she told him. “No judgment, no worries if your hair looks like crap, just pure unadulterated love, and respect—” she hesitated as errant headlights from a car suddenly blinded her in the rearview mirror. The dark sedan behind her was coming a tad too close for comfort.

Jenna sped up a little, but the sedan kept pace. A cool sense of unease trickled through her. She didn’t like the way the driver kept his brights aimed high. She changed lanes, weaving deftly between a big SUV and a delivery truck in an effort to avoid him. The dark vehicle swerved after her.