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  “No,” he said evenly. “You do go back. That is nonnegotiable.”

  “No.” She jutted out her sharp little chin.

  His smile faded. “Get up. Right now.”

  She climbed to her feet, gazing warily at him. “Please, Senor, please, let me stay.”

  “No,” he said, implacable. “Come along now, be a good girl.”

  But she gazed up at him, defiant.

  I’m not putting up with this crap.

  He thrust his hands on his hips, giving the impression of thinking this through, then, quick as a cobra, lunged for her, grabbed her by the neck, and cracked it before she had a chance to utter a single sound.

  She gazed at him with horror, surprise, and a trace of anger, and then, as she collapsed to the ground, her eyes turned vacant.

  He bent down to the ground to put her body into a wrapped-up, fetal position, then leaned back on his haunches and studied her.

  It might be awhile before anybody found her.

  And hopefully, by then, the trafficking operation would’ve moved on to a new location far, far away from here.

  He rose to his feet, turned around and walked back to Houser’s Farm.

  If she’d only listened . . .

  18

  Monday, April 8, 3:45 p.m.

  Brittany walked home from her first day of private school in Chicago that her dad had enrolled her into, and as she walked home, along the busy streets, she realized she’d been so busy and happy and trying to keep up with her school work, she had no time to worry or fret or even think of her mother, and that came as a mixed blessing; a blessing, because the schoolwork kept her mind occupied and her thoughts free from anger; a not-so-blessing, because with every passing day, she realized that she was forgetting her mother. This woman who’d once put her needs and wishes and desires before all others, who’d done anything Brittany wanted, was now gone, and Brittany, who should’ve been the most devoted person to her mother’s memory, was letting her go.

  This realization shamed her, and as she let herself into the house, she hurried upstairs, found her camera at the back of the closet, studied the images of her mother, and wept.

  When am I ever going to do something?

  It was easier to sit back and let life move on, roll on over her. So much easier to remain numb. But numb wasn’t going to help her. And didn’t she want the world to know what Randy Randalls had done to her mother?

  Her eyes blurred with tears and she turned the camera off and tucked it back into her backpack and pushed it into the back of the closet.

  She had a French reading assignment to read, translate into English, and then translate back into French, and it was due tomorrow.

  Her mother? Her poor, dear mother?

  Mommy would never be due, ever again.

  19

  Monday, April 8, 2:00 p.m.

  The minute Kathryn walked into the Casino, she knew trouble was afoot. And then it hit her. The shambling man didn’t expect her to show up at work this early; no doubt, his informant had given him Kathryn’s hours, but it didn’t account for Kathryn showing up six hours early for her shift, because there he was, the asshole, walking up to the blackjack dealer. In the hair’s breadth of a second, Kathryn saw it all. She saw the shambling man reach into his pocket and put something into the blackjack dealer’s hand, and the blackjack dealer give him something in return, but it happened so fast, one would have to be looking for it to happen, that’s how quick it was.

  But her senses were just as quick.

  She surged forward, her gaze focused on the blackjack dealer. She reached the blackjack dealer’s side in an instant, and she knew, for the first time ever since she’d started working here, she’d caught the blackjack dealer in the middle of a crime.

  “Empty your pockets,” she said gruffly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the shambling man ducking for the exit, and then she saw the pit boss.

  But she was prepared for them today.

  She was ready.

  True to Kathryn’s expectations, the pit boss was beside her in a moment. “What the fuck are you doing with my blackjack dealer, Kathryn?”

  “Stand aside,” Kathryn ordered him in a harsh voice. The pit boss, momentarily surprised, stepped backwards. Without waiting for him to recover himself, Kathryn turned back to the blackjack dealer. “You heard me,” she growled. “Empty your pockets.”

  “Why don’t we do this in the break room?” the dealer said, eyeing the customers standing at the table and looking at him with surprise and a little wonder.

  “Yeah,” the pit boss said. “Let’s do this in the break room, where we won’t disturb the customers any more than we are already.” He glowered at Kathryn, but Kathryn wasn’t putting up with it this time. Yes, the guests were getting nervous, yes, this was going to reflect badly on the Casino, but Kathryn had had enough of being pushed around by these assholes.

  She’d had it.

  And she decided to do something that was regular behavior for a deputy sheriff, but which was clearly prohibited in the employee manual for the Casino. With a lightning quick gesture, she grabbed his baton with her right hand and grabbed the blackjack dealer by the right arm and put the baton up against his neck, in the classic choke hold, pressing the blackjack dealer up against her chest. The blackjack dealer, not expecting this, started choking.

  “You gonna fuck with me?” Kathryn whispered into the fellow’s ear. “You really gonna do this?”

  She lightened her pull on the baton just enough for the blackjack dealer to croak, “Okay,” at the same moment the pit boss put his meaty hand on Kathryn’s right arm.

  “That’s enough,” he cried.

  “It’s okay,” the blackjack dealer said hoarsely. “I’ll do it.”

  “Fine, that’s just fine,” Kathryn said, releasing the guy. She shook the pit boss’s grip off his arm.

  The blackjack dealer staggered back a few steps while at the same time emptying out his pockets. He pulled out his wallet and a small plastic baggie filled with a white, powdery substance. He dropped these items onto the floor and stepped back and put his hands up, in the classic dealer pose of releasing himself from a blackjack table.

  “I’m taking that baggie into evidence,” Kathryn said.

  “Fine,” the blackjack dealer said.

  “God-dammit, Jerry,” the pit boss said.

  Kathryn pulled a pair of plastic gloves from the kit attached to her belt and slid the gloves onto her hands. She bent down and picked up the plastic baggie and set it onto the smooth green surface of the blackjack table. She pulled a sticker from the evidence kit and neatly wrote on the label, “Retrieved on September 1, at Lakefront Casino,” then neatly affixed the label to the front of the baggie. She glanced over at the customers, who continued to stand there, staring.

  “God damn,” a man said. “They’re selling drugs in the Casino?” he reached for the hand of the woman beside him. “Come on, Molly. Let’s go to Lawrenceburg. They don’t allow drugs in their place.”

  “See what you’ve done?” the pit boss hissed. “I’m reporting you to management. You didn’t do anything by the book.”

  “By the book?” the man asked, turning on the pit boss. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Sir, I can’t divulge—”

  “Are you telling me, that you’re okay with the dealers in this Casino handing out drugs?” the man demanded. “Are you telling me that this kind of thing is going on all the time around here?”

  The pit boss’s face turned ashen. “No, no, no.”

  “And I saw you,” the man said, pointing at Kathryn, then at the pit boss. “You tried to prevent this security guard from doing her job. You were trying to hide the evidence.”

  “She used an illegal choke hold,” the pit boss said.

  “I don’t give a damn if she used a flame thrower,” the customer said. “I don’t like Casinos that allow drugs inside their walls. You sir, are part of the problem.” And with that, h
e took his wife’s hand and walked out of the Casino.

  The pit boss looked after them, then looked at the blackjack dealer.

  “I’m calling the narcotics unit,” Kathryn said calmly to the blackjack dealer, “and I expect you stick around.”

  “Okay,” the blackjack dealer said.

  Kathryn glanced at the pit boss, who glared back at her. Nobody said anything. Kathryn turned on her heel and walked with the baggie over to the cash cage where she used the phone to call narcotics.

  She was finally starting to like this job.

  A few minutes later.

  Yet another deputy sheriff—someone she didn’t know—arrived at the Casino and arrested the blackjack dealer and took the baggie into custody to have it tested by BCI. The pit boss, Kathryn knew, would be called into questioning soon, and she highly suspected the blackjack dealer would give up the name of his supplier soon enough; what usually happened in these kinds of situations, was the blackjack dealer, in exchange for a better plea deal, would give up the name of his drug supplier, because the shambling man was probably a scourge and haunted several establishments in the tri-county area. He probably had his own supplier, in Indianapolis. And he probably haunted a lot of different places; the blackjack dealer might be part of the problem, and probably sold cocaine to everyone in the Casino, but once he was gone, the shambling man would find a new person to sell his drugs to.

  So, they needed to cut the head off at the source, not just the man arms and legs of the serpent itself.

  But as she clocked out that day and walked back out to her car, she felt strangely ebullient and light. She’d never had a better day at work in a long time. She felt useful again, useful and of benefit to the people of Rowan and Broward Counties.

  Maybe things were going to get better for her, after all.

  As she reached her car, she sensed a presence near her. She put her hand protectively on her hip, reaching for his revolver, and turned to face the man who’d approached her.

  “Easy there,” the man said, and Kathryn instantly recognized the voice.

  “What is it,” she said.

  “Just take it easy,” the pit boss said. “I ain’t gonna touch you.”

  “What do you want?” Kathryn asked in a neutral tone of voice, her hand still hovering at the safety.

  “Just wanna talk to you a bit,” the pit boss said.

  “About what?”

  He jerked his head back, toward the Casino. “You may think you scored big today. You may think you’re the big woman on campus, but you’ve just committed the most colossal fuck-up of your life, and you’re too fucking stupid not to see it.”

  “Tell me,” Kathryn said evenly. “Tell me, and then you can head on back to that Casino you’re running into the ground.”

  “That blackjack dealer whose life you just ruined, you may think you’re hot shit right now, but there are things going on around here that you know nothing about.”

  “Enlighten me, then.”

  “Won’t. Sorry, lady. You’re gonna have to find out for yourself, but there are forces at play here well beyond your capacity to understand.”

  “Are you telling me management is in on this?” Kathryn asked, and scoffed. “Somehow I find that very hard to believe.”

  “Believe it, don’t believe it, it’s up to you.”

  “Are you telling me management condones this?”

  “There are things you don’t know, and now that you’ve opened Pandora’s Box, bud, you’re in for a whole heap of trouble.” The pit boss turned on his heel and walked away. “Just don’t want you to forget I was there to say, ‘I told you so,’ and you didn’t listen.”

  Kathryn stood there a moment longer, after the pit boss said his final piece, watching to see if he said anything else or came back. The pit boss was a short, fat, bully of a man; he’d been accustomed to running the Casino the way he wanted, and when Kathryn walked in, she spoiled it for him. No doubt, the pit boss was probably getting a cut of the sales, and Kathryn, by running the shambling man out of the place, had effectively cut the pit boss’s income. Well, too bad.

  But the other thing the pit boss said . . . well, Kathryn hated to admit it, but it did cause her a moment’s concern. The pit boss, she suspected, was probably talking the truth. The owners of the Casino, the management, the people at the very top, people she’d never met, probably might not ever meet, were going to be upset with her, because, obviously, Kathryn had spoiled something for them.

  And this gave her cause to reflect and to worry.

  What the hell was going on at this Casino?

  Was something evil afoot?

  She got into her car and drove home to Mom, her sister Melanie and the little girls, but her uneasiness took seed, flowered, and bloomed.

  20

  Friday, April 5, 3:45 p.m.

  “Honey,” Mom said, when Ginny got home from school that day, “I need to talk to you, in private.”

  Ginny, who’d forgotten entirely about her accident that morning, suddenly flushed with shame and looked at Evie. Did Evie know? Did she suspect?

  “Evie, honey, go get your snack. I need to talk to your sister alone.”

  “Okay, Mommy,” Evie said. Mom stored their healthy snacks on a special shelf in the refrigerator, and Evie made a beeline for the refrigerator where Mom stored their healthy snacks on the bottom shelf, as Mom and Ginny sat down at the dining room table for the horrible talk.

  “You know what this is about,” Mom said.

  Ginny ducked her head. Yes, she knew.

  “Honey, I noticed you tossed all your bedding into the wash this morning, and at first I was a little surprised, I thought maybe you’d suddenly decided to become Martha Stewart, you know?” Mom laughed, as if this were funny, and Ginny, knowing that Mommy expected her to smile, forced a grin across her face.

  “But then, when I went up to your room and saw you’d completely re-made your bed, and I did wonder if perhaps you’d had a little accident, or if perhaps . . . you’ve started your period?”

  Ginny’s face flushed with shame. Why didn’t she blame it on her period? They’d talked about menstruation in health class; if she’d claimed it was her period, there wouldn’t have been any problems at all.

  Mom would’ve understood that, no problem.

  Oh, she’d made such a hopeless muddle of it all.

  “Is it your period, sweetheart? Have you become a woman?” Tears filled Mommy’s eyes.

  And then, just like that, Ginny realized that Mommy didn’t know. Mommy didn’t know she peed her bed. Mommy didn’t know the secrets she harbored, the terrible secrets, buried deep in her heart.

  Mommy thought she’d started menstruating, and Ginny had been clever, getting the urine-soaked sheets to the wash in enough time, that she didn’t smell the sheets, soaked through with urine, and she’d awoken—barely, oh, so barely—in time to catch the sodden sheets before they seeped through to the mattress, so the mattress still smelled clean.

  She could go along with her mother, pretend that she’d started her period, and everything would be fine.

  But then I’ll have to pretend-leave blood-stained maxi pads in the trash. Well, Jesse’s got her period; it’s gross to ask her, but she can give me her used maxi pads, and yuck, even her tampons.

  Mommy’s eyes shone.

  Mommy hadn’t look so happy in a long, long time.

  “Yes, I got my period,” Ginny said, and ducked her head.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Mommy said, and she wrapped Ginny up in her arms into a cocooning embrace and Ginny couldn’t help it; she’d been under a lot of stress lately, she’d been very stressed out, and so she burst into tears.

  “We’ll get you all fixed up,” Mommy said. “Oh, Honey, don’t worry. It’s just the most wonderful thing in the world.”

  Yes, it was. Indeed, it was, the most wonderful thing in the world.

  21

  Friday, April 5, 9:00 a.m.

  Wearing a crisp whi
te-button-down shirt, black pants, a slender black tie, and armed with a Taser on her hip belt and handcuffs on the belt loop, Kathryn began her first day of work as a security guard at the Casino.

  She stood in the center of the Casino, keeping an eye on the retirees, the pensioners, the elderly and the infirm as they yanked the one-arm bandits and breathed through their oxygen tanks.

  A movement out of the corner of her eye, and she swiveled to the left, but saw nothing. During her days as a deputy sheriff, she got called out to the Casino all the time and the offenses ranged all over the place, from theft to child endangering, from assault and battery, to aggravated assault, from drunken and disorderly behavior, to lewd acts.

  A glorified rent-a-cop.

  Another movement, a furtive gesture, out of the corner of her eye. She whirled around, and this time she saw him, the man they’d warned her over when she got hired. She’d been warned about this guy; he hadn’t gotten caught yet, but the minute he committed another offense, he’d be evicted from the Casino.

  He dressed like a homeless man but drove an expensive car. He was shamming to avoid detection, and thus far it’d worked.

  But now, as she pivoted around to gaze fully at the homeless man, she noticed something different to him this time.

  He held an envelope in his right hand.

  What was this man doing at the Casino?

  As she kept a discreet eye on the shambling man, he rumbled toward a blackjack table. The dealer looked up, noticed the shambling man, then quickly looked back down. Not necessarily suspicious behavior; all the dealers had to be sharp operators to keep the customers from cheating them with their sleight-of-hand tricks and subterfuge, but she also sensed the dealer knew this man, knew what the man was doing, and was watching him, too.

  But the shambling man surprised her as he bypassed the blackjack table and strolled up to the dealer at the roulette wheel.