Luck Be a Lady (Tahoe Tessie Mysteries) (23 page)

He smiled at me as he flipped each document closed and straightened them into a neat pile. "Thank you so much for taking care of this so quickly. It must be in your genes." His face grew somber, gaze falling to his hands. "Your father was always willing to drop everything when I needed him."

I stood and reached a hand toward him. He looked back up, the smile returning to his face and shook it. "I'll escort you to the elevator."

I waved him off, backing toward the door. "I'll be fine, thanks."

As I left his offices and took the elevator back down to Britton, my thoughts turned to the Vermeer again. While the other thefts had felt like a blow to the casino, this one somehow felt more personal. I would have killed to have a piece like that in my gallery. I could only hope the thief was taking proper care of it. I itched to call Alfie and ask if he'd had any more luck with the footage, but I knew if he had, he would have called me already.

I silently wondered if the painting was still in the hotel. I mean, it wasn't like anyone could just walk out of the casino with a package the size of that painting without someone noticing. Then again looking for it here was like finding a needle in a haystack. It wasn't like Alfie could conduct a room-to-room search without upsetting every single guest of the hotel. Or alerting them to the fact that a thief was amongst them. But if it still was here, then maybe we'd have a chance of catching the thief as he tried to smuggle it out. As I crossed back into the Minstrel's Lounge, I made a mental note to tell Alfie to post more security near the exits, just in case.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Tate had joined Britton at our table. "Hey, girlfriend!" he called, his voice cutting through the idle chatter at the other tables, garnering their attention as well.

Business had picked up, with almost every table now full. I wound my way through the lunch crowd toward them, noticing that not only had Britton finished her salad, but there were now two empty glasses sitting next to her.

Tate scooted toward the window, patting the bench next to him. "I heard through the grapevine you and Britton were having lunch up here. I simply had to know how the Weston meeting went and what the hell happened to the painting. So, this is where I'm spending my lunch hour. Curiosity isn't just a danger to cats, you know."

I slid in next to him and caught him up to speed on the issues currently 'endangering' him. When I was done, I asked, "So, if you had to guess, how would someone manage to get a package that big out the door?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. But I can tell you that Alfie has extra security posted at the front door and near the check-out desk."

I scratched out my mental note. Apparently my head of security was one step ahead of me. A thought that
should
have made me glad, but instead left me feeling kind of useless.

"Trust me," Tate added, seeing my face fall, "if that painting is still here, it isn't leaving this building."

"Thanks, Tate."

He smiled back at me. Then his face instantly morphed into a look of panic. "Oh, honey." His eyes scanned from one side of my face to the other. "One of your earrings is gone."

My fingers flew to my ears, and sure enough, the right one was bare. "My dad bought those for me." I felt sick.

Britton's face mirrored Tate's concern. Or, attempted to through the Botox. "When did you last have them both?"

I bit my lip. "I don't know. I mean...they were here when I was with you, right?" I asked her.

Britton nodded. "I think so?" She looked down at her empty glasses. "But I'm not sure. I've had a little bit to drink." She punctuated that statement with a hiccup, which she tried to daintily cover in one manicured hand.

I nodded. "No, I think you're right," I said, remembering how I'd fiddled nervously with it in Stintner's office. "I'm going to backtrack to see if I can find it," I said, sliding from the table.

"Want me to help?" Britton asked, standing also. Well, trying to stand. As soon as she stood her legs wobbled, and her hand shot out to catch herself on the table.

"Uh, maybe you should go lie down for a bit," Tate suggested instead.

Britton nodded. Then her eyes welled up. "But I can't go to the penthouse. The police are all over it."

"No worries, honey," Tate told her, steering her gently toward the door. "I can set you up in a room until they're done." He sent me a wink over his shoulder, and I had complete confidence that Britton was in good hands.

Myself, I made a bee-line for the elevators, scanning every inch of carpet along the way. Ditto the elevator tile as I made my way to Stintner's office again. When I got there, my heart fell to see all of the lights off. I tried the door and, thankfully, it swung open.

"Mr. Stintner?" I called out as I walked inside.

I scanned the flooring in the lobby, using my phone for light as I made my way down the hall toward his office. Luckily the light switch was easier to find here. Overhead fluorescents immediately illuminating the room. I checked around the chair I'd sat in, and then ran my hands over the desktop. I was just about to start to panic when I saw a glint of something shiny tucked between two papers. I dove for it, almost crying out in relief when my hands clutched around my earring. The back was nowhere to be found, but the important part was now slid into my pocket.

I looked down at the papers it had been wedged between. The forms I'd just signed. Only the earring was lodged into a page I hadn't looked at—one without a sticky arrow. I felt a frown pull between my eyebrows as I glanced at it. It was the page stating the value of the loss the hotel had sustained, just like Stintner had promised. Carvell's name was on it, the value of the theft easy to calculate as it had all been in cash. But in the box where the dollar amount was supposed to be, someone had filled it in to read $15,000. I slid the paper closer. There had only been $5,000 in Carvell's safe. Vaguely I wondered if Mary Beth had made some sort of clerical mistake as I shuffled through to the next stack of papers, the claim for the diamond necklace. Only this one seemed to have increased as well.

As I stared at the papers, my mind swirled, puzzle pieces magically clicking into place in perfect unison. Why the diamond necklace, why the Vermeer. It was never about the items themselves. It was about the insurance. And I was pretty sure I knew who had insured everything.

"Hello, Tessie," I heard his voice coming from the doorway.

I turned slowly to find Stintner watching me, his eyes sharp, his voice calm, and his hand gripped around a pistol aimed right at my forehead.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I held my hands out toward the gun. "Mr. Stintner, what are you doing?"

"Me?" he said calmly. "I believe you are the one trespassing."

Pointing at my pants pocket, I forced an innocent look to my face. "I just came back to get the earring I lost. I knocked, and yelled to let you know I was here."

His eyes narrowed, still staring at me over the gun barrel. "And that justifies your actions?"

"My dad bought me the earrings," I continued babbling, hoping to convince him that I hadn't seen the documents. "They were supposed to be for my birthday. I just didn't want to lose one of them. They mean so much to me."

He looked past me at the desk and disheveled papers. "Nice try. I see you were digging through the insurance documents. Find anything that interested you?"

"No." I shook my head emphatically. "I swear."

"It isn't nice to lie to your elders." His expression softened a bit. "I watched you grow up, Tessie. It shouldn't have had to end this way."

"What way? Please, Mr. Stintner," I said, hearing the desperation in my own voice. My mind was numb, unable to come up with any sort of escape route, all attention focused on the gun pointed at me.

"I'm sorry, Tessie," he said, shaking his head as if he really were.

"Wait! What are you talking about?" I tried to play dumb and stay calm, but panic blazed through every cell in my body.

"You aren't stupid, Tessie. More importantly, I'm not stupid."

Dammit. I swallowed hard, looking left and right. There was only one way out of the room, and Stintner was blocking it. I glanced above myself at the ceiling. It was one of the few places not graced with black security cameras. I cursed attorney client privilege as my mind raced for some way to get out. I needed more time. I needed to stall him.

"Okay, look, yes, I...I'm not that dumb," I said.

"Obviously," he observed, dryly.

"I know it was you who orchestrated the thefts, wasn't it?" I asked, trying to appeal to his ego. "You were the genius behind the scheme?"

At this, a small smile quirked the corner of his mouth. "It
was
genius. I mean, who ever reads the entire fifteen pages of an insurance claim?"

I'll admit, I hadn't.

"All I had to do was inflate the claims a little, and pocket the cash," he continued. "All the checks were drawn out to the company account where I was a signer. No one noticed, no one questioned."

"But these sorts of claims are few and far between normally," I prompted, keeping him talking.

He nodded. "Normally, yes."

"So, you found a way to create more."

"It was so simple, really. I was surprised no one else had thought of it before," he bragged. "One day I overheard the valet talking about a whale he'd seen come in with cash for a high-stakes game. I realized he saw
everything
that came into our casino. So, I paid him to keep me informed when a high roller was checking in with extra cash on hand. As soon as they hit the tables, I'd let myself into their rooms and helped myself to the contents of their bags. Just one every now and again, nothing to raise any suspicions or scare anyone off." He paused. "Then I met Mr. Dunley. This is, if you think about it, his fault." Caught in thought, he looked down for a few seconds.

I took the opportunity to close the gap between myself and the door by a few steps. Stintner's eyes shot up.

I froze.

"Uh, Dunely? How is everything his fault?"

Stintner blinked, pulling himself back to present. "He told me he could help grow the payout. Get the whales to order in more cash. He said he'd done it before in Vegas. I gave him a shot with a percentage of the payout. Then he said he needed to bring in Cannetti in order to get the safes open. Fine by me. I just got to sit back and collect the cash. It was a perfect scheme—get paid once from stealing the cash, then get paid again through the insurance company."

I was only half listening at this point, trying to remember how many other doors were in the hall outside his office. Storage? Stairwell? Emergency exit? There were at least three, maybe four. I inched a bit closer to the door. "How did you get the security footage shut down?"

He snorted. "That was thanks to your dear old dad. He gave me his login information once."

"Once? Don't they change that often?"

"Yes, they do, but once was all I needed. I had a hacker set up a ghost login for me. It was expensive, but it's paid for itself several times over, and no one even knew I was in there." He tossed his head back to laugh.

Which explained why Alfie hadn't been looking into him. I inched closer.

"What I don't get is why?" I said, calculating just how quickly I could dive for the doorway versus how quickly his finger could pull a trigger. I wasn't sure I was a fan of the odds.

Stintner blinked at me as if I was an idiot. "For the money, of course. You think I'm stupid?"

"Uh...no?" And even if I did, I certainly wasn't going to say that to the guy holding a gun on me.

"Of course not. I knew every aspect of your father's business. I knew the casino was in trouble. Another year, and your father would have run this place into the ground. I'd be dammed if I was going down on that sinking ship. I gave twenty-five years of service to Richard King. I deserved a payout."

Clearly he was losing his grip on reality. Unfortunately his grip in the gun seemed as strong as ever. I licked my lips, running out of stall techniques. Wasn't there anyone else on this floor? Didn't anyone work around here on a Saturday? A janitor, someone?

"So what happened?" I asked. "If it was all going so well, why stop?"

"Those assholes got greedy," Stintner said, spittle flying from the corner of his mouth as he talked. "Bastards were going to sell me out to Weston. They heard he was trying to take down the Royal Palace while it was vulnerable and mortgaged down to your dad's socks. They turned on me. The traitors!"

Which I found ironic considering he was the one calling the kettle Benedict Arnold.

"So, I had to make some changes in my plans," he continued. "The police and feds were everywhere, you and that blonde bimbo nosing around. It was time for me to retire. I just needed one more score. So, I took the Vermeer from the penthouse. It will look lovely on the walls of my estate in a non-extradition country."

If he wasn't holding a gun on me, I'd have killed him. Instead, I tried to employ some of my mom's yoga breathing to calm my rising anger at the thought of a priceless work of art in the hands of this psycho sleaze. "I suppose your plans also included killing off all of your crew?"

He rolled his shoulders, gaining his composure as he steadied the gun on me. "The valet, yes. I caught him at the end of his shift, then took him for a ride to the lake. Turns out, he couldn't swim. At least not with his hands tied."

I felt my stomach churn over itself, icy goose bumps breaking out on my skin at the thought that "Smith" was now somewhere at the bottom of the crystal blue waters outside the windows.

But if Stintner felt any emotion at the thought of killing a man, he didn't show it. In fact, a small smile curled his upper lip. "That's how we used to do it in the old days, you know. We took care of things
our
way."

"And Dunley?" I took a deep breath, not really wanting to know about the
old
days or the recent ones. But I had to keep him talking.