LITMIR.BIZ

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sense of self. Of direction.

      Almost a year later, contemplating her trip home, she wasn’t sure they’d produced anything quite so significant. But these long months had given her Gian.

      And he’d given life meaning.

      Finished packing, she went to wake her son.

      Five weeks later.

      God, it was sweltering. Carrying a single duffel filled mostly with cameras she hadn’t used in more than a month, Francesca climbed the steps of Lucky Seven, an extended-stay motel off the Strip, to the room she’d just rented. Las Vegas in July was hell.

      She’d forgotten that.

      Just as she’d forgotten anything of value in taking pictures. She hadn’t picked up a camera since that last day in Italy, when she’d packed them in the bottom of a bag. Nor did she intend to.

      She’d buried any meaning her life held in a little old cemetery a couple of miles from Sancia Witting’s home.

      The phone was ringing as she pushed her way through the door of her two-room suite.

      “Hello?”

      A cursory glance told her the room was clean.

      “This is José at the front desk, Ms. Witting.”

      “Yes?” What was he bothering her for? She was tired. Hot. Lacking even an ounce of the capacity it would take to be civil to other human beings.

      “I have that number you asked for. The one for the used-car dealer.”

      She wasn’t planning to be in town for more than a week. But she had to get a car now that she was back in the States—she’d sold her Mustang before she’d left for Italy—and figured that, rather than paying for a rental, she’d buy one here. She’d drive Autumn back to Sacramento when they returned together.

      “That was quick,” she told José now, duffel still on her shoulder as she scribbled the number on the envelope he’d given her downstairs with her receipt.

      “My friend’s at work tonight. He’ll be there all weekend, too.”

      “Great, thanks,” she said, conjuring up enough energy to say a pleasant goodbye and get off the phone. Car-shopping on a Friday night in Vegas. Just what she wanted to do.

      But then, she thought, dropping her duffel on the bed, there was nothing in the entire universe that Francesca Witting wanted to do. Except not think about that crib with the too-still infant. That Italian cemetery.

      And she wanted to follow up on the phone call her mother had received that week from her younger sister. A runaway, Autumn had been missing for more than two years. Earlier this week, she’d been in Las Vegas. Francesca was going to find her.

      And get Autumn’s ass home where it belonged.

      “Luke, have a seat.”

      He’d rather stand. But he sat in one of the lushly upholstered high-backed chairs across from his boss and mentor’s oversize mahogany desk. The chairs were gold now. The year before they’d been maroon.

      Luke preferred the maroon.

      “How’s your mother?” Amadeo asked.

      Fingers steepled at his lips, Luke shrugged. Luke Everson didn’t talk about his mother. Amadeo Esposito knew that.

      And still, without fail, every time he saw Luke he asked.

      Glancing beyond Luke’s left shoulder, Amadeo gave a slight nod, dismissing the two “companions” who were never more than a few feet away. Their feet moved soundlessly on the plush maroon carpet that had recently replaced last year’s golden brown. Maroon and gold were Esposito’s colors. Always had been.

      When the heavy wood door clicked shut behind them, Amadeo met Luke’s gaze, his dark eyes narrowed. “You want to tell me what’s going on at the Bonaparte?”

      A lesser man might have been intimidated. Most men who came in contact with the owner and CEO of Biamonte Industries—a conglomerate that owned a tenth of Las Vegas—were intimidated. Italian-born Esposito, while having no Mafia affiliations or connections, was a very rich and sometimes ruthless man who knew how to use his money to get what he wanted.

      Amadeo Esposito did many things Luke wouldn’t have done—or would’ve done differently.

      But Luke had known the man all his life. He’d seen Amadeo cry at his daughter’s funeral fifteen years before. And then again at his wife’s.

      Amadeo had cried with Luke at Luke’s father’s funeral three years before.

      “There’ve been too many big wins.” Luke told Amadeo what he already knew.

      The Bonaparte, one of the Strip’s newest and most elite casino-hotels, was Luke’s personal responsibility.

      Esposito waited. He was not a patient man, something Luke had never respected about him.

      Leaning forward, Luke rested his forearms across his knees. “There’s no apparent pattern,” he reported. “The winners come from all over. All ages. An eighty-year-old woman from a retirement village in Phoenix, a twenty-two-year-old Wall Street wannabe and everything in between. They hail from no particular part of the country, come at no particular time, stay in no particular hotel, frequent no particular casinos, stay no particular length of time. For some, this is their first time in Vegas. Others are veterans. FaceIt found nothing.” Luke named the high-tech surveillance technology that, in conjunction with an Internet security database system, was capable of identifying casino cheaters, card counters and those associated with them.

      Esposito’s face tightened.

      “With the new digital-recording system, plus the incident-reporting and risk-management software, we’ve been able to call up every aspect of each case individually. We’ve tracked tape from each dealer down to every single time a drawer opens—and there’s absolutely nothing.”

      “What about dealers?” Esposito demanded. “New technology only means that crooks find new ways to get around it. We’re only as good as the people who work for us.”

      Luke shook his head. “Everyone checks out,” he said. “I talked to Jackson, and he vouched for all of them, as well.”

      Arnold Jackson was not only the best dealer they had, he was the closest thing Luke Everson had to a personal friend. He was as much a part of the family as Luke himself—and one of the handful of people Esposito trusted.

      His tanned face creased in a frown beneath dark silver hair, Amadeo leaned forward. “There is one pattern,” he said, his voice lowered to the decibel of dangerous. “All the wins are at the Bonaparte.”

      The back of his neck aching, Luke shook his head. “It’s beginning to look like there are at least two others.” Luke named them both—well-known strip resorts—listing the dates and exact amounts of the wins in question. “And there’s no pattern in the locations,” he added. “One’s new, one’s been around for years. One is independently owned, one’s part of a corporation.

      “And none have any relationship, either past or current, with Biamonte Industries,” he said, summing up what they already knew. He added, “I’ve been working with the security directors to run a check on all current and past employees to look for someone in common to all three—or even to two of us. Nothing significant has turned up.”

      “I don’t believe in coincidence.”

      Sighing, Luke sat back, running a hand through his blond hair. “I’ve viewed and reviewed the tapes. Didn’t even come up with a case of enlarged pores.” Luke wondered how many of the gamblers they caught counting cards every year knew that something as innocuous as their skin could give them away.

      Amadeo didn’t reply for several moments. Moments that would’ve seemed endless had Luke not been fully aware of the older man’s habit of focusing silently

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