Free Vampire Beach: High Stakes by Alex Duval Page B

were gonna make me keep playing until they had the shirt off my back! But it’s your shirt, Jason, so I didn’t care too much.’
    ‘What?’ Jason examined Adam’s button-down white shirt. ‘That is my shirt!’
    ‘Yeah, I can’t believe you really thought I was willing to iron ,’ Adam said. ‘Anyway, then the skinny guy joined in the game, and I think he threw the others off, because I started winning again.’ He grinned. ‘I won it all back, and then some.’
    He dug through his backpack, doing a quick count of the money as the cab turned back on to the Strip.
    ‘How much?’ Jason asked.
    ‘I’d say 15, maybe 18,000 dollars.’ Adam did a little dance in his seat.
    ‘Sweet,’ Zach commented with a nod. ‘Too bad it’s counterfeit.’

Eight
     
    ADAM STARED AT Zach in open-mouthed horror. ‘Say what?’
    ‘It’s counterfeit.’ Zach took a twenty from Adam’s hand and held it up to the lights of the Strip. ‘Look. The watermark is wrong. Check it against one of mine if you want.’ He dug out a twenty and handed it over.
    As Adam frantically held the two bills up to the window, Zach went on. ‘And I’ll bet you every dollar I won at the Rouge et Noir tonight that the serial numbers on those bills are sequential. It’s not the kind of thing you would’ve noticed in the middle of a poker game, but I bet you could line them up in order.’
    ‘Don’t take that bet, Adam. Zach won a ton of money tonight.’
    ‘Yeah, real money,’ Adam agreed, slumping back against the seat. ‘And here I thought I had suddenly turned into a poker god.’
    ‘I think the skinny guy wanted you to win so that he could funnel the fake money to you. Then you’d go spend it around town,’ Zach said.
    ‘But the Grim Reaper wasn’t in on the plan,’ Jason guessed. ‘He was just trying to take you for as much as he could get.’
    ‘So you’re saying I got taken in by two different con men with two different agendas, all in the space of one poker game?’ Adam asked. ‘Damn! I should’ve been filming that.’
    ‘Even you couldn’t film and play at the same time,’ Jason consoled him.
    Adam was rifling through ten and 20 dollar bills as they talked. ‘I can already see four sequential numbers,’ he moaned. ‘Zach is totally right. It’s fake. Oh, my God!’
    ‘Don’t freak out,’ Zach said, glancing through the divider at the driver.
    ‘Why not?’ Adam cried. ‘I’m trafficking in counterfeit money!’
    ‘You are not,’ Jason said. ‘Trafficking means spending it. All you’re doing is carrying it in your backpack.’
    ‘That’s still illegal,’ Adam argued. ‘What if I get caught? My father will kill me!’
    ‘You’re not going to get caught,’ Zach said. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong.’
    ‘But the cops won’t believe that. I’m sitting here with thousands of fake dollars!’ Adam clutched his head. ‘I can see the headlines now. Sheriff’s Son in Funny Money Ring Bust . I’m a dead man.’
    The cab pulled up in front of the hotel, and Zach handed over another fifty. The driver just snatched it and peeled out.
    ‘I don’t think he liked us,’ Jason commented, watching him go.
    ‘He was just worried those guys from the Red Lake were going to come after us,’ Zach said. He yawned. ‘I seriously need to sleep.’
    ‘Sleep? We can’t sleep,’ Adam said. ‘You have to help me figure out what to do with this cash.’
    ‘Keep it in your bag and don’t spend it,’ Jason told him, leading the way across the empty lobby to the elevator. ‘The cops aren’t going to randomly ask to search your bag.’
    ‘What if they do, though?’ Adam insisted.
    ‘Then they would be breaking the law and doing an illegal search,’ Zach replied. The elevator whooshed up to the 17th floor. ‘You, of all people, should know that, Turnball.’
    ‘No. I have to get rid of it,’ Adam was saying as the doors opened. He stepped out into the hallway with Jason, still talking. ‘But how?