This wasn’t my dream job by any stretch of the imagination. Frankly, I was surprised I was still in it. Then again, when you sell your soul to the devil, you do it without an expiration date.
Al yawned as we headed back to the security office to get the night started. He’d start at the door while I manned the video feeds from the office. “What’s got you tired?” I asked. “You didn’t work last night.”
He cupped his hand over his mouth as another yawn stretched out. If he didn’t cut it out, I’d be yawning too. “Boss had me run an errand up the coast.”
My brows knitted together. Why hadn’t John told me Al was doing something that crossed state lines? Then again, I had done something that crossed state lines last night. John just didn’t know it.
I dropped down into the desk chair and pulled up the camera feeds, studying the line that had begun to grow at the front doors. “Oh yeah?” I scanned the casino floor, spotting Jolie getting cozy at the blackjack table closest to the bar. Jerry was hauling buckets of ice from the back to stock up while the barback sliced lemons, limes, and oranges.
Al chuckled as he pulled his phone out and showed me photos of a car that was wired to explode. “Some of my best work, if I do say so myself. Big boom without a blast radius. The cars beside it didn’t even get singed. Fucking beautiful.”
Wait . . .That car was familiar. The lot was familiar.
I had been there.Last week.
“Boss is early,” Jeremiah clipped through the feed that filtered into our earpieces.
Shit.
I hit a button to print the most current banned patrons list for Al so he could head to the door. “Whose car was it?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
“That kid who didn’t pay up. The one you visited last week.”
And by “kid” he meant Joel Hawthorne. A thirty-year-old man who should have been responsible for his own choices, yet his sister was skirting John Valentine’s radar just to get him out of it.
“Nice work.” I handed him the door list as the other man working the entrance with him began to let patrons inside.
“Almost got made too,” Al said as he swiped across the screen and showed me another photo of a silver sedan pulling into the lot. The next photo was of Amelia getting out of the vehicle. “But I kept a low profile.”
Goddamn it.
I glanced at the video feeds as folks filtered in, immediately clocking an undercover cop.
“5-O heading for a drink,” I said across the line that connected everyone working the floor.
On the video screen, I watched Jerry spot the man. Those thick-soled black shoes were a dead giveaway every time. And the man’s outfit looked like he pulled it out of a lost-and-found bin.
Jerry turned away from the man and pretended to check the bottles in the well. “Cop or ABC?” he asked.
“Cop is my guess. He looks green. ABC walks in like they own the fuckin’ place.”
“Who’s acting like they own my place?” John Valentine said as he sauntered into the security room.
“We got a cop sniffing around,” Al said as he set his phone on the desk and pointed at the screen, where the man had gotten a Coke from Jerry.
Of course he wasn’t drinking. What a fucking idiot. He might as well have walked in wearing a beat uniform. He should have at least gotten a beer andpretendedto drink it.
Valentine glanced at Al. “You do that job I asked you to do?”
“Yes, sir,” Al said, picking up his phone to show John the proof of his handiwork. He probably expected John to praise him. Or maybe a “good job.” Or even a grunt of approval.
But John frowned. “The fuck is wrong with you? I told you to send the guy a message, not follow the girl who’s been cleaning up the blackjack tables.”
I stiffened at the mention of Amelia, and John noticed immediately.Shit.I was usually better than that. I knew how to stay neutral.
“Got something to say, Jude?”
“No, sir,” I said coolly as I scanned the feed, keeping an eye on the cop.
