Free Deadly Odds by Adrienne Giordano Page B

any employees who get press calls.”
    HR had instructed all employees to forward any statement requests from the press to the company’s in-house public relations department. Ross didn’t expect a lot of calls at Fortuna, considering Dale hadn’t worked there, but some of the dealers had come over from Dominion and might be contacted.
    He entered his office, went about his morning ritual of hanging his jacket and organizing the folders Marcia had handed off. The all-important revenue report sat on top of the stack in the tattered red folder marked CLASSIFIED.
    Marcia and her humor. Kept things light.
    He sat at his desk, dug his breakfast sandwich from the bag and the aroma of the spicy mayo and bacon sent his stomach growling. He flipped open the folder and scanned the summary report.
    Whoa .
    Revenue from yesterday compared to the day before was down. Only by half a percent, but since the opening they’d developed a month-to-date average and table revenue had either been flat or up.
    Until today.
    “Where’s this coming from?”
    He dropped his sandwich, wiped his hands and flipped to the detail pages. Blackjack up four percent, Keno down one percent, mini-bac down twelve percent.
    Twelve percent.
    That number he hadn’t seen before. Mistake. Had to be. “Marcia?”
    In seconds, she appeared in the doorway. “Yes, master?”
    “Do me a favor. Have Jackie pull the hit sheet and check these numbers. Mini-bac specifically.”
    “Something’s off?”
    He glanced up. “I hope so. Wait. Never mind, I’ll do it.”
    “Ross, I can do it. You’re already imploding your schedule.”
    “I know. But this one I need to handle.”
    Either that or he’d have a stroke while waiting on an answer.
    He scooped up his desk phone and dialed Jackie, his numbers guru.
    “Hey, Ross.”
    “Jackie, good morning. Question on the reports.”
    “Sure.”
    “Mini-bac is down twelve percent.”
    “I noticed that too. I triple checked it. According to everything I have, that’s the number.”
    A triple check. And Jackie was good. If she took the time to triple check it, it had to be right. Crap.
    “Thanks. I’ll call you back if I need anything else.”
    He hung up and perused the numbers again. The error might have occurred before the numbers had gotten to Jackie. Machine error in the count room? Or maybe one of the vault employees miscounted the banks delivered from the count room? Hell someone could have entered a wrong number into the system.
    Could happen.
    But with all the checks and balances, someone would have caught it. He spun to his laptop, pulled up the reports from the count room. Identifying which table was short would take him all of twenty seconds. A couple of clicks later and there it was. MB18, Mini-bac18 down ten percent and Mini-Bac 17 down two percent.
    Seriously wacked numbers. Ross sat back, stared at the hateful report that had just ruined his day. With numbers like these, a double-digit revenue loss when they typically only saw single digit losses, it could be a freak occurrence. One of their whales could have had a landslide of a win after Ross had left last night.
    That, or the lovely Kate Daniels might have her first assignment.
    * * *
    When Kate approached Marcia’s desk just before 9:00 the first thing she heard was Don Sickler’s voice.
    “Are you fucking kidding me? Twelve percent?”
    Great. She’d spent the entire ride up here, prepping herself, getting her emotional armor in check after the scene in the conference room yesterday only to walk into a crisis.
    Maybe it was a good thing. Something she could latch onto. Something to distract her from her friend’s murder. Something that would force her to ignore the sizzle between her and her client.
    Marcia leaped from her chair, a cheery smile in place. “Good morning. How was the drive? Okay, I hope. I know he’s expecting you.”
    Even as she spoke, she speed walked to Ross’s office and casually closed the door. No wonder he liked her.