Free Nobody Dies in a Casino by Marlys Millhiser

every casino on the Strip.
    Meanwhile, the other totally polite and humorless suit—public security folks here wore dark blue policelike uniforms—looked for robbers in her drawers, empty luggage, behind the couch, in the shower, in the closet, and had absolutely no trouble with the combination of the small safe where she kept her notebook computer.
    Having determined that neither robbers nor their proceeds lurked in Charlie’s room, they solemnly rechecked her identification and went off to secure other areas. She left the Asian housekeeper to do her job and sought sustenance downstairs.
    The coffee shop, awash in dangerously aging waitresses, fake red flowers on fake vines hanging from fake-wood rafters, fake trees planted in fake stucco Southwestern adobe–theme planters, was uncrowded for this time of day, and Charlie sat facing the room. Having been here often enough to know the food wasn’t even pseudo-Santa Fe, she ordered an omelette and studied those souls on her side of the fake stucco planters who would brave a hotel with electric and robber problems.
    No thugs in sight, no commando types from her government—just Bradone McKinley and Richard Morse across the room, in a booth for two, facing each other over the table, coffee cups to lips and postures suggesting her boss had scored.
    No way. Charlie was imagining again, like the orange light she and apparently the denizens of Rachel, Nevada, hadn’t seen.
    Charlie gulped at her own coffee and tried to blink smears from her contact lenses. She’d have thought Richard would have lost interest after the yak crud, and why would Bradone dine here, with her own cook and butler upstairs?
    You haven’t checked for messages at the desk or E-mail from Libby or the office.
    â€œWell, I have to eat, you know.”
    â€œI know, sweetie, and here’s your omelette.” Her server was considerably older than Edwina, Charlie’s mother.
    â€œThanks, uh … this looks wonderful.” Charlie determined to open a retirement account the minute she got home, and added sheepishly, “I talk to myself.”
    â€œDon’t we all, sweetie?” The elderly server walked off on ankles swollen to the knee. Her name badge identified her as Ardith.
    Ardith shouldn’t have to be working now.
    Yeah, she could be starving instead.
    Big tip, right?
    The omelette wasn’t anything you’d order wine with, but it was smooth and bland and comforting.
    â€œYou eat too many eggs, kid.” Richard stood over her, Bradone, with that sort of smile, behind him.
    â€œI know.” And I had McDonald’s last night. What could this impressive woman see in Charlie’s boss? “Did you hear about the robbery?”
    â€œYeah, we missed all the excitement, didn’t even notice the lights went out. So how did the lunch with our boy Evan go yesterday?”
    A lot better than a little airplane ride later. So, they had been together last night. Life was becoming one big mystery. “We need to discuss Evan Black, Richard, and his new project. He’s getting himself and me into some trouble.”
    â€œWe’ll be on the pool deck. Check the office messages and come on out when you’re done.”
    *   *   *
    Charlie’s E-mail had some personal messages as well as news from the office. And the message light on her telephone was blinking. Would there never be time for blackjack on this trip?
    The voice mail was from her mother. Funny, Edwina Greene had a computer, but she never E-mailed Charlie. The last thing Charlie wanted was to answer it, but the last time she’d ignored her mother’s needs, she hadn’t discovered the woman had cancer until Edwina’d gone into the hospital and a neighbor called to inform Charlie of the pending mastectomy.
    All in all, Charlie thought she carried her burden of guilt pretty well for the unwed mother of a terrifying teen. She didn’t