Free Lucky Break by Deborah Coonts Page B

shake the feeling he’s dressed like that for a reason.”   I didn’t mention Kimberly Cho.   I needed to find her first.
    “Any luck on tracking down the gun?”   Romeo gave me his best wishful-thinking look.
    My face snapped into a frown, I could feel it crushing my joie de vivre, assuming I had any left.   “It’s heading toward midnight on a Saturday night in Vegas.   What do you think?”
    “Short of paying Mr. Gittings a visit, the answer would be no?”
    “And, while many of my choices are suspect, I’m not foolish enough to go charging into Irv’s lair, assuming I knew where he was hanging his hat, with nothing to go on other than a curious coincidence and armed with nothing but my sharp sword of sarcasm.”
    “So, you still think this could be personal?”   Then what I’d said seemed to penetrate Romeo’s haze of fatigue.   “Isn’t Ol’ Irv in jail?”   Irv always referred to himself in the third person, a very irritating habit, one of his many.
    “Murder is always personal, kid.   The question is personal to whom.”   I rooted in my purse for my phone.   “Guess you didn’t know Irv Gittings was sprung a few days ago?   Some legal technicality.”
    The tip of Romeo’s pencil broke.
    “I’ll take that as a no.   Something about the guy in the white dinner jacket reminded me of Irv.   Can’t put my finger on it.   Irv had a dinner jacket like that, monogrammed gold buttons.   And he loved red bow ties.”   The whole idea that Irv could be behind Holt Box’s murder seemed a bit out there.   If he was after me, why didn’t he just kill Teddie or the Big Boss?   Now, here I go, making myself truly terrified rather than just marginally so.   “Maybe I’m seeing monsters where there are none.”
    Romeo fished another pencil out of his pocket.   “Murder is pretty monstrous.”
    “All I know is, somebody’s playing games.”   I palmed my phone between us.   “Not sure if this is related to the murder, but it’s worth checking out.”   I played the message for him.
    “Creepy.”   He jotted down the number.
    “And awfully coincidental.”   I turned my phone off, then dropped it in my purse.   “I’ve got Jeremy trying to trace it.”
    “Once again, you are at the vortex of a shit-storm.”   Romeo said it with a resigned groan.
    “It’s a gift.”
    “I’m assuming you didn’t call him back.”
    I pretended to be offended.   “What, and give him the satisfaction?”
    “Good.   We’ll reach out when we’re ready.”
    “And the same rules, okay?”   I touched him lightly on the arm as he glanced over his shoulder at the men who were waiting.  
    My touch brought him back.   Romeo gave me a grin filled with energy. “Same rules.   You get to shoot him.”  
    His flush of energy arced between us, jump-starting hope.   We were on the hunt.
    “Any preliminary from the coroner?”
    “Stab wound killed him.”
    “I’m shocked.”
    He smiled, a cat playing with a mouse.   “There was a blood trail.   Stabbing occurred around the corner from where he died.   Near the walk-in refrigerator.”
    “Teddie’s in the clear?” I pressed, trying to tame my hope.   Nothing this bad was ever that easy to fix.
    Romeo confirmed my cynicism.   “You know how this is going to go down.   The media, all the hype, we’ll have to take extra care that we are not only exploring every possibility, but that we actually look like we’re doing exactly that.   The world will be watching.   It’s been what, a couple of hours?   I’m sure you saw them out there—the sharks are already circling.”
    “Extra scrutiny.”   I knew the drill.   That weight was on my shoulders, too, but unlike Romeo, I was used to the load.   “Like running the gauntlet, kid, there is an end.”
    “If they don’t kill you before you get there.”
    “There is that.”   Although it’d be easy to jump on the Irv Gittings’ bandwagon and go tilt at another