checked it in years. She had no idea if she ever would have again, had Kira not happened to mention the Encore.
Of course, the fact that the app had fallen into a state of quasi-disrepair didn’t prove anything, not by itself. Maybe other companies had made their own, better versions. Maybe now that gamblers could bet online for real money in states like New Jersey, they had decided they trusted the big casino companies more.
But there were other clues. The size of the ransom demand, which now seemed less like coincidence than a coded message to Brian. The way he had frozen when she mentioned that fact to him on the train. His nervousness the first night before they knew anything was wrong, so unlike his personality. The way he’d insisted since the kidnapping that they shouldn’t push the investigation.
Most of all, she’d always believed Jacques had targeted Kira, that the kidnapping wasn’t random. But she’d never understood why, never really convinced herself Jacques planned to sell Kira. That version of the story was too tabloid. And the kidnappers had been so much better trained than a typical gang. Even their response to Kira’s escape had been professional. They’d shut the operation down and vanished. No hard feelings, no grudges. Game over.
* * *
So. Her husband had pissed off the Russians, and they’d used Kira to send him a message. Why? She could guess.
One thing she knew about Brian, the man always wanted something for nothing, always thought he was better than the bargain he’d made.
Yeah, she had an inside line on this case.
She’d learned over the years to trust her gut on complicated investigations, the moment the answer came into focus. Sometimes intuition outran evidence. But she knew the danger of relying on intuition, too. When it was wrong, innocent people wound up in prison.
She needed proof. So here she was.
* * *
The office building on Tropicana Avenue was dated, seventies-style, white cladding and black glass. Silver State Gaming Consultants was in Suite 212. Rebecca marched up the stairs. Just another investigation. Lock down the facts, then move forward.
The office behind the wooden door of Suite 212 looked real enough. A secretary out front, a corridor that led to half a dozen offices. Voices on phones, Okay, lunch, then, the chatter of business. On the wall behind the secretary, framed photos from industry journals. Silver State Gaming picked to market Henderson’s first casino-brewery! They mostly featured pictures of a ruddy, chubby guy in his sixties who wore a cowboy hat and an I’d never cheat ya grin. Rebecca had to be honest with herself: he couldn’t have looked less like a Russian operative.
“Can I help you?” The secretary was in her fifties, bottle-blond hair and electric-blue fingernails.
Rebecca handed over a résumé, Tracy McDaniel, a freelance web designer looking for full-time work.
“Too bad you weren’t here last month. We just hired somebody.”
Rebecca smiled. “That is too bad. I’m Tracy. I mean, obviously.”
“Linda.”
“Nice to meet you. Just moved here from Buffalo, papering the walls. I know everybody says Indeed and LinkedIn are all you need, but I feel better getting out.”
“Buffalo? Like New York?”
“Yeah, done with those winters. Mind if I ask, do your Web work in-house?”
Linda nodded. “Our specialty. We help independent casinos with marketing. The places the locals go, not the Strip.”
Rebecca pointed at the framed photos.
“That’s the man in charge? Carl James?”
Linda lowered her voice. “To be honest, we keep the photos up, but Mr. James had a stroke a few years back. He’s in a wheelchair, doesn’t come in much anymore. His daughter and son-in-law run the company. Joanna and Fred.”
“Oh. Sorry to hear that. Anyway, if you could please pass along my résumé—”
“Will do.”
* * *
She started with real estate records. Carl James turned out to be that rarest of birds, a Las Vegas lifer. He lived in a house valued at a million-five in a gated community in Summerlin, west of downtown. He was long divorced and had two kids, Joanna and Michael.
Michael’s last known address was in Eugene, Oregon. He had cycled through jails since his early twenties, arrests for vandalism and petty theft and narcotics possession, the sad litany of a wasted life. Joanna had a marketing degree from the University of Southern California and three kids. She lived close to her father in a nine-hundred-thousand-dollar house. Silver State Gaming Consultants must make pretty good money. Its corporate records listed her as the company’s treasurer.