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She smiled at him and he continued to stare at the hat. Her throat tightened. They had laughed at a similar joke at the museum. What had changed such that he wouldn’t even take the stupid hat?
“If you’re worried about the wool, it’s really soft. I bought it on a whim a year ago, not sure what I would make with it and I couldn’t sell it before coming.”
“Vivian,” he said, still not reaching out to touch the damn hat. “How do you cheat at roulette?”
Her legs buckled and her butt bumped against the edge of the couch on its way to the floor. “How did you find out?”
It’s not like it had made the papers or anything. Middle Kingdom had promised her they’d keep the incident a secret, so long as she never tried to work at a casino again. When she’d asked what would happen if they were called for a reference, the men around the table had been silent. She’d been stupid enough to hope their silence had meant they’d at least not mention the cheating.
“I have former FBI agents working in my office. They get curious.”
“I didn’t do it. And they could never prove I did it, either.”
“Which is why you’re not awaiting trial, I assume. Cheating a casino is a felony.”
Her heartbeat pounding in her ears meant she had to stare at his mouth to know what he was saying. “They couldn’t even prove I intended to do anything.”
“Why don’t you tell me what actually happened, rather than what they could or couldn’t prove.”
Why wouldn’t he sit down? This conversation would be easier if he wasn’t looming over her.
“I agreed to the scheme. I wouldn’t have, but I didn’t have enough money to cover everything my father lost, and, well, Frank liked the idea of having a dealer in his pocket so he was cutting my dad a deal. Everything was going according to plan. Frank and his stooge sat at the table and we played some normal rounds. When the appointed time came, I moved to block the camera, like I was supposed to. Only when I moved back, I didn’t let the extra chips stay.”
“How does the cheat work?”
She sighed. “It’s called past posting. You place your bets and, when the marker lands, you place a late bet. The dealer calls you on the late bet, but if you’re good, what the dealer doesn’t see is that you slipped extra chips under a winning bet at the same time you pull the late one. If you have a team, the person trying to place the late bet puts the extra chips under his partner’s bet. It’s less suspicious that way.”
“And your role?”
“With the 360-degree cameras, past posting is pretty hard to pull off. All I had to do was move my body such that I blocked the camera. I did, and then I changed my mind. When I moved my body again, I removed the extra chips. Frank saw and would’ve kept his mouth shut, but his stooge balked and we got caught.”
“That’s why you were at the bar the night we met.”
“Yes. I didn’t lie on Saturday. I just let you assume the wrong order.”
“You lied by omission.”
She wanted to reach out and strike something. Karl was the obvious target, but she’d break her hand before she cracked his granite facade. “I hoped you wouldn’t find out.”
“The classic hope of every criminal.”
“Why are you coming after me?” She gripped the edge of the coffee table, desperate for something to keep her stable when the floor was crumbling beneath her. “Why don’t you go after Frank and his stooge criminals? They threatened me when I got off work that night, so that I was afraid to go home.”
“Why don’t you call your father a thief for stealing all your money?”
“Because he’s my father.” The rug she sat on absorbed her voice; she could barely even hear herself. “But, yes, he’s also a thief. When I came home from the hotel the next morning, after I’d spent the night with you, everything of value I owned was gone. Even when I missed my period, I thought I would be okay. I had a job, an apartment and benefits. And I figured you would probably provide some money for the child.”
She looked up, because she wasn’t, and would never be, a coward. “But then they fired me and told me never to look for employment in Nevada again. They offered me a severance package if I could tell them where my father and Frank were, but I didn’t know.”
