“You’re not going with us?” Samantha asked Leo. She was surprised.
“No. But I’ll be seeing you around. You can count on that.” Leo Perez gave her a hundred-watt smile, and it was breathtaking. She bet that he had hundreds of women swooning over him. But it didn’t do anything for her. Nope, just a little quirk of Ezio’s lip, and she was a goner.
“I look forward to it.”
“We both do,” Ezio said.
Eden gave Samantha a knowing smile, which Sam did her best to ignore.
They waved Leo, Eden, and Asher good-bye, then Ezio turned to Samantha. “I guess we’re going to the police station.” He sounded disappointed.
“Sounds like.” She sounded equally disappointed.
“Well, we better get going. We’re burning daylight.”
Samantha giggled.
“What?”
“Does every man say that?”
“Yep, it’s mandatory. I learned it from my father who learned it from his father. I’m betting that phrase goes back to the covered-wagon days.”
“I know my dad and grandfather use it too,” Sam nodded. “Okay, let me get Eden’s coat and my purse. Do you think they’ll be able to recover my cell phone?”
“Not a chance in hell.”
Ezio sat next to Samantha in the small conference room and watched in disbelief as one of the detectives handed her her cell phone in a plastic evidence bag.
“Is this yours?”
“Yes! Thanks so much. I would be lost without it.”
The young man with a buzzcut looked abashed. “I’m sorry, Miss Brooks. I’m not giving it to you, I just wanted you to identify it.”
Samantha gave a half-smile. “Well, at least I have everything backed up to the cloud, so I’m covered. But if you have my phone does that mean you found Murray?”
“I can’t really get into the particulars of the investigation with you. The reason you’re here is to tell us everything you can remember from your perspective.”
So once again, Ezio listened to Samantha explain yesterday’s misadventure, and once again he felt his blood pressure rise. When he thought of all the chances she took, he felt like his head might actually start spinning around. But here she was, just talking about it like it was a normal day for her.
“So anyway, that’s what happened. It was pretty straight forward in the end.”
The older detective cleared his throat. “I’m not sure that’s how I would describe it, Miss Brooks. Now, I must say that neither Mr. Stanwood nor Mr. Everly mentioned this guy you refer to as Mr. Antsy, as the plant. Why is that?”
Samantha laughed. “I’m not sure that they were really paying attention. Neither of them was very good at poker, I don’t think they noticed how he sometimes caught the eye of the game-runner.”
The older detective laughed. “You know, they didn’t even use the term game-runner, they just called him the old guy with the briefcase. Yeah, I’d say you knew a bit more about the game. Where’d you learn?”
“My granddad took me to all of the Chamber of Commerce games. They had lots of poker nights to raise money for different charities.” Then she leaned in. “Sometimes he and his buddies had poker games on their own and he let me sit in if he was babysitting me.”
Ezio had to laugh at that, so did the other two men.
“Okay, so now we’re going to have you go through our mugshots. See if you can identify anyone.”
“But you already have at least one in custody, don’t you?” Ezio asked. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have her phone. Isn’t he talking?”
“Not so far,” the older detective admitted. “If we can get two of them in here, then we have a chance of squeezing one against the other.”
“I can do this, but can I go to my apartment and get some stuff I’m going to need for work?”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” the young detective said.
“I would be with her,” Ezio informed them.
The older man sighed. “Besides being her boyfriend, what do you do?”
“I’m in the Navy, I work out of JEB-LC.”
“How come I’m not surprised,” the older man chuckled. “Yep, I’d say she’s covered.”
“Sy, what are you talking about?” the younger man protested.
“That’s the Joint Expeditionary Base at Little Creek. The SEALs are stationed there. I’m thinking he can handle things if they get hairy,” Sy explained to the younger detective.
“Oh, yeah, I guess so.”
“So where are the mugshots? And do you have any coffee?” Samantha asked.
“Most of them are computerized and you view those on a tablet. We do have about four books left that you’ll have to look through, so we’ll bring in the books, the tablet, and some coffee."
16
Ezio left Samantha in the conference room and then did a conference call with Leo and Asher and explained what was going on.
“Samantha needs me to go over to her apartment to pick up her stuff, and I’d like one of you as back-up when I go over there.”
“I’m in,” Leo said.
“In that case, I’m out,” Asher said with reluctance. “Eden’s brother Pete is in town early. I really want to spend some time with him. I want to hear what he’s doing over in Vegas.”
“Oh yeah, he owns and operates Force-Tactical in Vegas,” Ezio remembered. “Former Green Beret lost his leg overseas and started that training center run entirely by disabled vets that does firearms, martial arts, and combat training. I want to meet him.”
“Me too,” Leo seconded.
“I’ll see if we can have some kind of barbeque or something over at our house before Pete leaves and get the team together.”
“Perfect,” Leo enthused. “So, what time do you need me, Stark?” Leo asked Ezio.
“Probably four or five hours from now. I’ll give you a
