Death On the Flop by Jackie Chance

this, Belinda,” Frank called low and hard.
    “Call me Bee.” I threw over my shoulder. “And watch me buzz away.”

Seven

    As I stomped to the front desk, I forgot to worry about Electric Blue Rambo jumping out at me from behind a potted palm. All I could think about was Frank trying to boss me around like Toby did, albeit in a different way. Toby was a smooth manipulator. From what I could tell of Frank he was his name—frank to the point of being blunt. One didn’t wonder what Frank wanted because he spelled it out. Toby was sneakier about getting what he wanted, but he still got it. Same difference. I’d let one too many men control me. No more. I was forty now and I was independent. I might die a spinster but at least I would go my own way doing my own thing.
    I marched through the blue granite waves and polished sandstone that was the lobby floor of the Lanai. A marble dolphin leaping out of a wave almost caught my right thigh. I detoured and nearly ran over a killer whale. Was that onyx and quartz? Ack.
    Thankfully, no one was in line. I approached the desk clerk who looked up, her eyes widening. I probably had smoke coming out my ears. “Yes, ma’am?” she asked cautiously.
    “I have a problem and need you to call the police for me.”
    “Is there something I can help you with?” she asked.
    I felt like I was dealing with a diplomat from the United Nations. Sheesh. I remembered that Frank said the casinos liked to equalize trouble immediately. I remembered that the last casino had not even liked the way it looked when I was wandering around with luggage. Blood and break-ins would be much worse. I took a deep breath and tried not to scream. “I . . . Just . . . Told . . . You . . . How . . . You . . . Could . . . Help . . . Me. Call the police.”
    “Oh yes, ma’am. You are in luck.” I bet I was. She tapped something into her computer. Probably a red alert message and the casino goons would be on me momentarily. She nodded and spoke with a careful tone reserved for those not mentally stable. “There is a detective with the sheriff ’s department here right now checking out security for the big pro-am poker tournament that starts tomorrow night. I’ll take you to him. Maybe he can help you.”
    She poked her head in the open door behind her and another young clerk appeared, giving her colleague a sympathetic look as she took over the computer. The first clerk beckoned me to come around the front desk and follow her through a door she opened by punching a code into the keypad above the knob. She led me down a hallway and opened another door with the same code, 7826, which I memorized. Who would’ve guessed reading all those Nancy Drews when I was thirteen was coming in handy.
    She opened the door and motioned me to go ahead of her into what looked like a conference room. Two men in suits stood with their backs to us, bent over what looked like schematic blueprints. “Excuse me, Detective Conner?” my escort said apologetically. “This guest was asking for the police.”
    I walked past her as the taller man turned to look at us. His eyes were electric blue. I sucked in a breath and tasted Iceberg Effusion. Uh-oh. This changed everything. I tried to rewind the conversation I heard in the stairwell in my mind, playing the bad guy as a cop to see if I had misunderstood anything. Nope. Electric Blue Rambo was still the bad guy. Just so happened he was also a cop.
    That meant Frank was right.
    “Are you Detective Conner?” Maybe he wasn’t the cop after all. But he nodded.
    “Daniel Conner, Clark County Sheriff’s Department.” He turned to the man next to him who was still bent over the papers on the table, more than happy to leave any police business to the police. “This is Wayne Cedillo, head of security here at the Lanai. What seems to be the problem?”
    “I, uh . . .”
    “Yes?” Conner cocked his head, drew his eyebrows together and looked at my earrings, my jacket, my boots.