"Just taking some personal time." I lean against the bar while he pours vodka into glasses. "How've things been here?" I do miss this sometimes—of course, not the grabby customers and shitty tips, but this. Talking to my coworkers and hearing about their lives.
"Same as always." He slides the drinks across to me. "Drunk idiots losing money and hitting on the staff. You know, the usual."
I load the glasses onto my tray and scan the casino floor. Cameras are positioned everywhere and I know Dimitri's watching from his office upstairs. But still I feel nervous. I know how desperate those men are to kill me. All it would take is one well-placed bullet to end me.
Scary how fragile the human body is.
Zoya appears beside me looking exhausted. "Table twelve wants more champagne and they're getting rowdy. Can you handle them while I take my break?"
I almost chuckle, because it's like I've never missed a day or skipped a beat. Even when I came in already seeding the "gossip" of my impending appointment with investigators, the normal busybody types were hovering like honeybees on a flower.
"Sure," I tell her as I balance the tray and head toward table twelve.
The men there are celebrating something are and already too loud. I smile and pour their champagne while they make crude jokes and try to look down my shirt. I've dealt with worse—much worse. But a few drunk businessmen are nothing compared to being kidnapped and nearly killed.
When I finish serving, I head back to the employee break room. Linda's there checking the schedule, and she looks up when I walk in. Of all the folks I've dropped the bait in front of, she's the only one who hasn't heard mynews. We know based on the picture placed in my locker that it was done by a woman. No men were ever seen going into the women's locker room. So setting up our mole means making sure every woman in this place has heard about the interview with investigators that's not really happening. Linda is the last one to hear, though after some strange things in the past few weeks, I have already pegged her as the most likely candidate.
"Tatiana, it's strange to see you back." Her voice is cool. "I didn't expect to see you back so soon after your incident."
"I needed the money." I grab a bottle of water from the fridge. "And sitting around wasn't helping anything." Dimitri is certain it's not her—says he vetted her himself. But I don't trust it. And being back this evening has only shown me how odd her behavior has been. I was just too stressed out to notice before.
"Still." She sets her clipboard down. "After everything that happened, I'm surprised Dimitri's letting you work the floor again."
The way she says his name makes my skin crawl. And how does she know what "everything that happened" really is? Is she referring to the murder here, or my kidnapping? Because no one really knows about that. Just that I was assaulted.
"He doesn't control what I do." I take a drink of water. "I make my own decisions."
"Of course." Linda's smile is so fake. God, I really hope she is the mole so she gets called out. "I just meant with the investigation and everything, it seems risky to be so visible."
"I'm fine now." I lean against the wall. "Actually, I'm meeting with the investigators again this Friday to give another statement."
"Why?" Linda frowns. "I thought you already told them everything." Her eyes narrow on me, and the expression on her face is a strange mix of confusion, fear, and anger. It's like she's happy to hear this but conflicted at the same time.
"I did, but they want me to look at some photos." I'm making this up as I go, but it sounds believable. "They think they might have identified one of the men I saw."
"That's good, right?" another server asks as she walks past with a soda in hand. "Maybe they'll finally catch whoever did it."
"Maybe." I drop my voice like I'm sharing a secret. Making it feel conspiratorial might just help us. "The thing is, I saw a tattoo on one of the shooters. The detective thinks it might belong to someone from the Kozlov family."
Linda's shoulders square, and the other girl's eyes grow wide. Everyone knows about the Kozlovs. In this town, the name is synonymous with crime, just like dropping the name Gravitch.
"You saw a Kozlov?" Her eyes are wide. "Tatiana, that's dangerous. What if they find out you can identify them?" I glance at Linda, who busies herself with stooping to tie her shoelace.
"That's why I'm meeting at the police station instead of here." I keep my voice steady, though I’m starting to get giddy the more Linda reacts. "The detective said Friday evening would be best because the station will be mostly empty. Less chance of anyone seeing me come and go."
"I don't know." The girl whose name I don't know shakes her head. "This seems really risky. Are you sure you want to get involved with organized crime stuff?"
"I'm already involved." I push off the wall. "I witnessed it. I can't just pretend I didn't see anything."
Linda straightens and clears her throat. "We shouldn't be gossiping. We should work…"
"Yeah," I mumble at the other server, "we should get back to work."
The server scatters, and I head back toward the casino floor, but Linda intercepts me before I make it three steps.
"Do you know what you're doing?" she asks cautiously, narrowing her eyes. If this is some sort of warning, she's not acting like it. It seems more like she's genuinely concerned. It's not a threat at all. Maybe she's not the mole, after all.
"Yes." I watch her carefully. "The detective wants me to look at some photos… I said that."
