Lucky Catch Read online

  The boy’s quizzical look reflected back to me in the polished metal doors. His face peering at me over my shoulder reminded me of an angel whispering in my ear. Stranded in the quicksand of my own confusion and ambivalence, I wished he had words of wisdom, but he was just a boy.

  “Maybe he is like a puppy who has been scolded—he bites even though he is the one who has been bad.”

  Wow. That stopped me for a moment. My experience with children had been limited, but I guessed that whole out-of-the-mouths-of-babes thing had some truth to it. “You’re probably right.” I hitched him higher on my hips. “Teddie can be quite charming. You’ll like him . . . everybody does.”

  “But you don’t?”

  “I like him, but with us, it’s a bit more complicated.” I rolled my eyes at myself. Relationships. I totally sucked at them. Pasting on a smile, I contemplated who to kill first—my father, Teddie, Mona—I wasn’t sure the order mattered. Of course, I could line them up and rid myself of the lot of them all at once—a Thanksgiving Day Massacre. Tempting.

  “Ms. O’Toole,” a disembodied voice asked—the eye-in-the-sky, our omnipresent security system, “Mr. Jerry asked me to find you. He said you weren’t answering your phone.”

  “One can run, but one can’t hide?” I asked the voice.

  “No, ma’am, I’m afraid you’re screwed,” the voice said, then paused awkwardly. “That probably isn’t how I’m supposed to talk to a vice president, is it?”

  “Well, since this vice president just yelled a not-so-nice word to an empty elevator in the presence of a youngster, I’d say you were well within propriety.” The elevator stopped, and the doors eased open. A middle-aged couple stood there, waiting to enter.

  I stayed where I was. “Now, did you want something?”

  At first the couple looked taken aback, as if I were talking to them. Then they leaned forward slightly and glanced around the empty elevator.

  “Yes,” came the voice. “Mr. Jerry is apoplectic. He said to tell you that your mother is not answering her phone.”

  Stepping to the side and holding the door, I motioned the couple inside. At first they hesitated, but then they moved past, eyeing me as they did so. “What floor?” I asked them.

  “Twelve,” the lady responded.

  I punched the appropriate button, then answered the voice. “Tell him I’ll be on my way after I make a quick stop in the Bazaar, and I’ll bring Mona if I have to shoot her with a tranquilizer dart and throw her over my shoulder.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Letting loose the doors, I stepped out. As the elevator closed, I overheard the man say, “A tranquilizer dart. I wonder if she would do the same to Irene.”

  * * *

  I paused for a moment staring at myself in the elevator doors, gathering my wits, or what was left of them. Irene? The man’s comment to his female companion certainly triggered an interesting visual.

  Vegas, where two is a date and three is . . . an even better date.

  Carefully, I shifted the boy on my back. Once again, Christophe’s head had sagged onto my shoulder, his eyes fluttering, then remaining shut. The ability to sleep anywhere—if only I could bottle some of that.

  Thanksgiving was three days away—an eternity in my world. The holidays were supposed to bring families together, to let bygones be bygones, giving us a chance to relax in the presence of folks who—short of homicide—couldn’t get rid of us.

  I wasn’t feeling the magic.

  Apparently, I was the lone lump of coal floating in a sea of the milk of human kindness—or I was the only sober one in a sea of well-oiled humanity. Excited voices swirled around me as I turned and strode through the lobby. As they waited for the next check-in clerk, travelers in their Bermuda shorts, sundresses, sandals, and goose bumps rubbed their bare arms, some cuddled against the chill. Most swilled the free Champagne passed by cocktail waitresses in their barely-there togas with gold braid belts, strappy gladiator footwear with five-inch heels, pearly smiles, and other Vegas assets properly displayed.

  Vegas’s location in the middle of the Mojave Desert fooled most folks into thinking summer was a year-round season. Not true. Winter could be windy and chilly. Today was a perfect example—a cool breeze wafted in each time someone pushed through one of the multiple sets of double-glass doors forming the Babylon’s grand entry, letting in a taste of the out-of-doors. To be honest, I welcomed the change in the weather—while my life kept me teetering on the brink of insanity, twelve months of hundred-degree days would shove me right over.

  For a moment, I let myself absorb some of the crowd’s energy and enthusiasm. Glancing at the ceiling, I smiled at the Chihuly blown-glass hummingbirds and butterflies arcing in flight. A dozen skiers bombed down the indoor ski slope sheltered behind a wall of Lucite on the far side of the lobby. Multicolored cloth tented above Reception. Equally colorful mosaics decorated the white marble walls and floors, hinting at the Babylon’s Persian motif. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a problem to solve—everything hummed with a well-timed precision. Darn.

  Guess I had to deal with Mona and her turkeys.

  Then a dead woman and a smoking thing, which sounded like the perfect recipe for a migraine.

  I eased Christophe to one hip as he slumbered, freeing a hand. With a practiced motion, I grabbed my phone from its holster and flipped it open. My thumb found Mona’s button. After the fifth ring, I started to ring off when she answered, her voice breathless.

  “Lucky, honey. This isn’t a good time. Your father and I . . .”

  “TMI, Mother.” I stifled a shiver of revulsion. No matter how old I got, how worldly I became, there was just something so . . . disturbing about picturing my parents inter-coitus. “And, come to think about it,” I grimaced at the unintentional pun as I once again shifted the boy who clung to my back like a monkey, “are you supposed to be having S-E-X in your condition?”

  “S-E-X? Why are you spelling? And what are you talking about? We’re hanging pictures.” She stifled a giggle.

  “Right.” I shifted the phone to my other ear, holding it with my shoulder, then put a hand on my hip, nearly taking out a cute Marine as he dodged around me.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” he said as he shot me a grin.

  Even though the “ma’am” thing rankled, I allowed myself a moment to admire his ass as he hurried on. “Mother, Jerry needs you downstairs. Basement Level Two.”

  “Honey,” her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, “can’t it wait?”

  I tried to picture Jerry, his well-armed staff, and a thousand turkeys. “No, I don’t think so. Jerry needs your help with the turkeys you ordered.”

  Mona’s voice turned brusque. “Oh, well, I already had the staff clear enough room in several of the walk-ins. I don’t see what he needs me for.”

  “I think he wants to blindfold you and stand you against a wall.” I started laughing; I couldn’t help it. “Seriously, Mother. I know your heart’s in the right place. But couldn’t you at least have ordered the turkeys already dressed?”

  “But Chef Omer said he would make the dressing.”

  The sea of humanity in the lobby flowed around me as I let my head drop forward. My emotions, ragged and somewhat irrational, burbled up. I didn’t fight them. Instead, I relinquished myself and laughed until I cried. It was the only non-self-destructive antidote to Mona and a day that, with Teddie’s sudden reappearance and Romeo’s little bombshell, had taken a hard turn toward abysmal. And to think, it had started so well. Warmth suffused me as I pictured my chef in his shorts and a smile. “Mother.” I managed to squeeze the words out with what little air was left in my lungs. “‘Dressed’ means plucked, gutted, and ready to stuff.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line, which gave me time to compose myself somewhat. I wiped my tears on the shoulder of my blouse—I never did like the color of this one anyway—then I bit my lip as I fought down another burble of laughter.

  “You mean they�
��re . . . alive?” Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, Mona apparently still had a bit of an edge.

  “Mmmmm.” That was the only sound I trusted myself to make.

  “Oh, my!”

  I took a deep breath. “Mother, at your behest, the press is coming tomorrow. And you’ve given the go-ahead to Crazy Carl to invite all of his fellow storm drain dwellers for the big feast on Thursday. The staff is ready to go, but I feel pretty sure they’ll mutiny if you expect them to behead, gut, and pluck a thousand turkeys.”

  “But what should I do?” Her voice sounded small, imploring . . . like a child’s.

  Wise to her game, I refused to play. “You need to get down there ASAP. After that, I haven’t a clue. You wanted to campaign for an appointment to the Paradise Town Advisory Board. You wanted to ‘change the world one homeless person at a time,’ which I believe were your exact words. You wanted to run this show. Well, run it.”

  “Lucky, you’re not being very helpful,” she harrumphed.

  “I know.” As I terminated the call, I couldn’t wipe the gloat off my face.

  Chapter Two

  After I reholstered my phone, then once again tucked an arm under one of Christophe’s legs, I eased him into a more comfortable position on my back. A shiver hit me as I contemplated what awaited me on the back lot. Who was the dead girl? And why would someone kill her?

  I so did not want to deal with death today . . . unless I inflicted it.

  Apparently, the Fates didn’t care—my day was galloping off without me, and unless I wanted to be left eating dust for the foreseeable future, I figured I’d better deposit the boy with his father and jump into the fray.

  Jean-Charles Bouclet, Christophe’s father, was a world-renowned chef who signed on to develop the signature restaurant in one of our new properties, Cielo. While he was tinkering with recipes and menus, he’d agreed to open a gourmet burger joint in the Babylon’s shopping area, the Bazaar. Strictly for fun, the Burger Palais was an engaging trifle for a man of his abilities.

  Let’s hope he didn’t view me in the same way.

  Yes, I’d spent the night with Jean-Charles—a long, languorous, passion-filled rendezvous. Capped off by a pancake breakfast then a hot, hurried tryst in the bathroom behind closed doors, and obscured by the soundtrack from Thomas the Tank Engine. I was probably scarred for life, and most likely in need of serious chiropractic care, but my heart hummed and there was a spring in my step even Teddie, Mona, and my father couldn’t flatten. Romeo? Now he just might. Murder made me twitchy.

  But one problem at a time.

  On the far side of the lobby, just past Reception, I angled to the right and entered our high-ceilinged temple to the Gods of Conspicuous Consumption—the Bazaar. The glistening white marble floors continued from the lobby, the intricate inlays in brightly colored stones beckoning like the yellow-brick road.

  But the Bazaar was way better than the Emerald City.

  Christophe still clung tightly, although he was awake now, as I dodged the window-shoppers eyeing all manner of goodies from French jeans, serious bling, and high-end shoes—my weakness—to the latest Ferrari—another weakness. Yes, even though I was immune to most of the city’s vast array of excesses, I’d found it impossible to live in Vegas, the Consumption Capital of the World, and not get bitten by the bug. Samson’s, our salon—billed as “the place where a woman’s every need is met”—looked like it was doing a land-office business. Its double-wide, twenty-foot-high wooden doors thrown open, the beauty salon displayed some of its more obvious treasures—long-haired, beefy young men dressed in scanty togas and gladiator sandals who balanced trays of fluted crystal filled with Champagne and proffered them to the waiting patrons.

  A couple waited outside the Temple of Love, the Babylon’s wedding chapel. The woman was fittingly dressed in a white bikini topped with a fishnet cover-up that really didn’t live up to its billing, six-inch white stilettos, and a red rose peeking out of the string bottom half of her swimsuit. Her platinum hair draped in a flowing wave, ending just above the backs of her thighs. The groom, fully a couple of decades older than his blushing bride, sported white tie and tails. Surrounded by a mismatched gaggle of people who I hoped had some relationship to the bride and groom, they chattered excitedly. Never one to judge, I hoped the happy couple wouldn’t be looking for a lawyer and a bottle of aspirin in the morning. Weddings were easy in Vegas. Annulments? Not so much.

  Vegas, we get you coming and going.

  Now there’s a tag line the city fathers could be proud of.

  Jean-Charles’s Burger Palais held a primo spot just past the Temple of Love. Perpetually open for business in this 24/7 Vegas world, the restaurant had yet to fill—the morning only now segueing toward the lunch hour. A lone hostess manned the station out front. Looking far too perky, she gave me a smile as I walked though the door heading to the kitchen in the back.

  With exposed brick walls, drippy mortar, rich green leather upholstery, white tablecloths, and subdued lighting, the Burger Palais stood as testament to its proprietor’s taste and savvy, and was so much more than a burger joint. In short order, the hungry hordes would descend. In preparation, the kitchen was up and running at full bore. Billowing water vapor hissed from the steam tables. Smoke rose from coals just reaching red-hot in the grill, then was quietly vacuumed into a huge hood and vented outside. Prep cooks . . . prepped. Everyone in clean whites danced to a silent, shared rhythm—the normal, pulsing tunes absent. That could mean only one thing: Jean-Charles was within hearing range.

  Rinaldo, Jean-Charles’s right-hand chef, a huge, towering mountain of a man with three chins, dark dancing eyes, and a mop of curly black hair, paused to give me a grin as he checked the coals. “Can’t decide which of the Bouclet men to hang with?”

  “Each has his particular charms.” I tossed him a smile. “Jean-Charles in the back?”

  “In his office.” Rinaldo gave me a warning look. “But between you and me, I wouldn’t go in there without a stun gun and a Taser.”

  “That bad?” My chef could be mercurial, but I’d never known his bad humor to faze Rinaldo.

  As if on cue, voices escalated above the kitchen noise . . . French voices. Two of them. One male—that one I recognized. The other female. Rinaldo shrugged in response to my questioning glance.

  Christophe provided the answer. “It is Aunt Desiree,” he whispered in my ear, a hint of awe in his voice. His little legs beat against my sides as if spurring me forward.

  “Hold on there, big guy. I’m not a pony.” After a moment’s hesitation, I followed the voices toward the far corner of the kitchen where Jean-Charles had partitioned a makeshift office.

  As we rounded the corner, we caught Jean-Charles, his face crunched into an angry frown, and a woman who looked exactly like him, but for the obvious distinctions, in mid-tirade. Catching sight of us, both fell silent and whirled in our direction.

  Neither of them smiled.

  Walking into the middle of a fight always made me nervous. “I’ve interrupted.” I glanced between the two of them. Tension clouded the small space like dense smoke from a fire. “I’m sorry.”

  Christophe didn’t seem to feel the same. He squealed in delight and wriggled down my back. “Hang on. Hang on,” I said as I bent my knees so he could safely dismount.

  The second Christophe’s feet hit the floor, his legs started churning, propelling him, arms open wide, toward the woman. “Tante!”

  A look of love smoothed her scowl and bent her lips into a smile. Throwing her arms wide, she dropped to a squat. “Mon petit chou!”

  The boy ran into her embrace, almost knocking her over. Jean-Charles placed a hand on her back, steadying her. Balance restored, he stepped back, then smiled at me, breaking the hardness in his eyes—although his cheeks remained flushed with emotion. As he moved to wrap me in his arms, I wasn’t sure exactly which emotion.

  His hugs were strong, infused with sincerity, which gave him a huge advantage
. . . huge. Was there anything better than a heartfelt hug? At the moment, and considering the venue, I couldn’t think of one. “Lucky, you have done something to me.” He nibbled my earlobe, making rational thought impossible.

  My arms encircled his waist. “I’m sorry to interrupt.” That wasn’t really the truth, but it sounded good as I sighed into his embrace. He felt good. We felt good.

  I’d felt good with Teddie, too—a reality I didn’t want to acknowledge. What had I missed? I pushed him from my mind, which was way easier than pushing him out of my heart.

  Love . . . the slippery slope to self-destruction.

  Jean-Charles must’ve felt me stiffen as he loosened his hold and stepped back. “I am sorry. I am being rude.” With a sweeping motion, he gestured toward the woman who now stood, eyeing me with a cold yet quizzical gaze. “Lucky, may I introduce my sister, Desiree. We are twins. She is two minutes older, which makes her, how do you say it, a boss?”

  “Bossy,” I answered before thinking.

  “This is it.” Jean-Charles clapped as if he’d been given a present. “Bossy. She is bossy. Yes.”

  Desiree eyed me with a hint of amusement coupled with a dose of curiosity. Her eyes were blue like her brother’s, perhaps a shade darker, but equally as expressive. The same high cheekbones and the same wavy brown hair, although hers held the light kiss of the summer sun. Thin and incredibly chic in her casual dark slacks, stiff white shirt with the collar turned up, and the perfect Hermès scarf knotted around her neck, she would be intimidating even to a woman much more self-assured than I. She rose out of her nephew’s hug. With her hands on Christophe’s shoulders, she held her nephew, his back against her legs.

  “Bonjour,” she said in that perfect lilting accent that made everyday words transcendent.