LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

      Lady Luck Strikes Again

      LAS VEGAS, BABY. My kind of town.

      Home to five different Cirque du Soleil shows, about 197,000 slot machines, over thirty-six million annual visitors, who knows how many Elvis impersonators and, of course, one Lady Luck.

      However, as luck would have it, I’d spent the past half hour in a hot car, my digital camera poised near the small opening at the top of the tinted window. One of my best friends had let me borrow the Toyota from her used car dealership. My beloved Harley Davidson Softail motorcycle isn’t exactly conducive to surveillance.

      Downtown, the casinos are smaller than on the Strip, the hotels cheaper and the atmosphere more nostalgic than glamorous. “Glitter Gulch” is where you’ll find the Golden Gate’s ninety-nine-cent shrimp cocktails, the annual World Series of Poker at Binion’s Horseshoe and VegasVic, the forty-foot neon cowboy. However, once you move past the four main blocks of interest, downtown feels meaner, gritty and weather-beaten.

      The February temperature was a balmy eighty degrees, which meant it was over one hundred in the Toyota’s driver seat. And I wasn’t exactly sitting here for the fun of it. Waiting across from a run-down bar like a paparazzo anxious to snap photos of a clandestine meeting wasn’t my idea of a good time, but it is part of my job.

      My name is Stella Mezzanotte—midnight star in Italian— and I’m a private eye.

      Damn, I like saying that.

      Which was why I was roasting my ass outside of the Polar Lounge. At the moment I was following a client’s girlfriend of two months because he thought she was messing around on him. Well, duh. With clown-red hair, capped teeth, collagen-filled lips and saline-filled boobs, did he honestly think she’d be genuine about her feelings?

      People lie about anything and everything, especially when it comes to relationships. I hate these cases. I usually end up finding out things my clients don’t really want to know and then nobody wants to pay for bad news. But, until I get full ownership of the agency, I’ll take almost any case that comes in my door.

      My mind was drifting toward a heat-induced nap when something—or rather someone—caught my attention.

      The man walking out of the Polar Lounge was all kinds of gorgeous, but there was something else about him… An aura of quiet violence. This guy wasn’t bulging with muscles under his dark T-shirt, but he had strength.

      My instincts told me he wasn’t afraid to use it. And yet beneath his military-short, dark blond hair was one of the most sensual faces I’d ever seen. Fascinated by the powerful, confident way he moved, my finger instinctively triggered the camera shutter. When he glanced over at me, I noted the intensity of his light blue eyes.

      “Hey! What the hell are you doing?”

      Oops. I’d been so focused on the golden god I hadn’t seen Scarlet’s boyfriend cross the street. Rat yanked open my car door and made a grab for the camera.

      “Hands off, pal. I’m just getting some exterior shots for a story I’m doing on the bar.” Lame, I know, but it was all I could come up with since I’d been taken off guard.

      “Sure you are, honey.” This time he tried to grab me.

      Big freakin’ mistake.

      My real name is Stella, but everyone, except my parents, has called me Steele since I was nine years old. After I bluffed him out of his pocket change playing stud poker, my Uncle Vin used to shake his head and mutter, “That girl’s got nerves of steel.”

      I need them in my line of work. In the end we all agreed to part ways: Scarlet with a torn handbag and an ex-lover; Rat with a bloody nose and sore balls; me with a headache and a broken camera lens. I did manage to save the image storage card, though. So, even though it was an affair to forget, my client would get proof and I would get paid.

      Good thing since now I was out a three-hundred-dollar Sony Cybershot.

      Mission accomplished, I slid into the Toyota and cranked the air conditioner to “arctic.” Then I looked down, cursing when I saw Rat’s blood on the hem of my favorite T-shirt, the powder-blue one that read Spoil Me and We’ll Get Along Just Fine.

      Some days I love my job. This was not one of them.

      I’D JUST LEFT one bar and was headed for another, this time in my father’s restaurant across from the University of Las Vegas campus. Mezzanotte’s offers authentic Tuscan recipes straight out of my Nonna Angela’s trattoria in Siena. The pappardelle primavera and the bistecca alla fiorentina are to die for. It’s a family business. My father, Paolo, and my brother Raffaele run the kitchen while my mother, Vivian, acts as hostess.

      Since I have no life outside of work—much to my mother’s disappointment—I help out at the bar a couple nights a week.

      Thursday nights are pretty slow, especially since Papa refuses to do gimmicks like karaoke or wet T-shirt contests. It took a lot of convincing to get him to put a TV above the bar for the sports channels. Tonight there was a decent crowd, though, enough to have me pouring drafts and shaking drinks at a regular pace.

      I’m good at tending bar. I flirt a little so the guys keep thinking and keep drinking. I make the cocktails strong enough to earn a reputation without depleting the inventory. And I’m normally a good listener, even when I’m really keeping an eye on the liquor levels for a row of customers.

      But not tonight. Oh, I was getting the job done but my mind wasn’t engaged. Tonight I felt… Itchy. Like my skin was too tight and my nerves were exposed. None of my customers needed refills, so I was absentmindedly watching the NFL Pro Bowl game when I heard a voice behind me.

      “I don’t suppose you’ve got a McEwan’s Ale about?” A hot shiver danced down my spine. The Scottish accent

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