Free Deadly Gamble by Linda Lael Miller Page A

standing on my own two feet whenever possible, literally and figuratively. Besides, Tucker and I were officially Not Dating, and I was just scared enough to go from being carried to being laid without passing Go and certainly without collecting $200.
    I gave a moment’s forlorn thought to the credits I’d left in the Ten Times Pay machine when I fled the casino. I could have made my car payment with that money.
    â€œI can walk,” I said, though it was still pretty much a theory.
    Tuck squired me up the stairs, unlocked the door and swung it open.
    Chester sat waiting in the hallway. There was a faint, greenish glow around him.
    I burst into tears.
    Tucker muttered something, steered me to the couch and bent over me to look deep into my weepy eyes.
    â€œBooze,” I said.
    â€œYou’ve been drinking booze?”
    â€œNo. I want to drink booze. Now.”
    Tucker nodded, probably relieved that he wouldn’t have to bust me for drinking and driving, went into the kitchen, rifled the cupboards and came back with a double shot of Christian Brothers in a jelly glass. I hadn’t touched that bottle since the last bad bout of cramps, but if things kept going the way they’d been going, I’d be hitting the sauce on an hourly basis.
    I took a few sips, holding the jelly glass with both hands. Chester jumped onto the back of the couch and nestled behind my neck, purring. Tucker dragged over an ottoman and sat down, his knees touching mine.
    â€œStart at the beginning and take it slow,” he said.
    I knocked back the rest of the brandy and set the glass aside. My nerves, all trying to break through my skin only seconds before, collapsed with dizzying suddenness.
    â€œWhen I was five years old,” I said shakily, “my half brother shot my mom and dad to death.”
    Tucker’s face tightened. “Jesus Christ, ” he muttered.
    I drew another deep breath. Let it out.
    â€œGo on,” Tucker urged.
    â€œI was there, but if I saw what happened, I don’t remember. A neighbor found me hiding in the clothes dryer. I was d-drenched in blood. Their blood—”
    I gagged a couple of times.
    â€œEasy,” Tucker said, and took both my hands in his.
    His strong grasp felt so treacherously good that I immediately pulled free.
    â€œMy half brother—his name is Geoff—was arrested that night, according to the newspaper accounts I read a lot later. He confessed, so there wasn’t a trial, and they sent him to a youthful offenders’ program in California.”
    Tucker nodded in solemn encouragement when my voice faltered again, but he didn’t say anything. He might have looked like a biker, but he was in cop mode now.
    â€œI saw him tonight, Tuck. At Talking Stick. He sat down at the slot machine next to mine—” I swallowed, pushed my hair back with the palm of my right hand. “It was the Sizzling Sevens.”
    A faint grin flickered at one corner of Tucker’s mouth, gone as quickly as it appeared. His eyes were dead serious.
    â€œAre you sure it was him? Not just somebody who looked like your brother?”
    â€œMy half brother,” I said. I didn’t want to claim even that much of Geoff, but we had the same mother. The thought made me want to check into a hospital, have all my blood drained out and replaced with somebody else’s. “And yes, Tucker, it was Geoff. He tried to pass himself off as Steve Roberts, but I know who he was.”
    Tucker took a notepad from his hip pocket and scrawled the name on a page, but I knew what he was thinking. There were probably a dozen Steve Robertses in Phoenix alone, never mind all the once-separate cities butting up against its sprawling borders—Scottsdale, Mesa, Tempe, Chandler, Glendale.
    â€œGoogle,” I said, catching sight of the computer across the room, and started to get off the couch.
    Tucker pressed me gently back onto the cushion. “Take a few minutes