Double Dog Dare
Praise for the Davis Way Crime Caper Series
“Seriously funny, wickedly entertaining. Davis gets me every time.”
– Janet Evanovich
“As impressive as the amount of sheer fun and humor involved are the details concerning casino security, counterfeiting, and cons. The author never fails to entertain with the amount of laughs, action, and intrigue she loads into this immensely fun series.”
– Kings River Life Magazine
“Fasten your seat belts: Davis Way, the superspy of Southern casino gambling, is back (after Double Dip) for her third wild caper.”
– Publishers Weekly
“It reads fast, gives you lots of sunny moments and if you are a part of the current social media movement, this will appeal to you even more. I know #ItDoesForMe.”
– Mystery Sequels
“Fast-paced, snarky action set in a compelling, southern glitz-and-glamour locale...Utterly un-put-down-able.”
– Molly Harper,
Author of the Award-Winning Nice Girls Series
“A smart, snappy writer who hits your funny bone!”
– Janet Evanovich
“Archer’s bright and silly humor makes this a pleasure to read. Fans of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum will absolutely adore Davis Way and her many mishaps.”
– RT Book Reviews
“Snappy, wise-cracking, and fast-paced.”
– New York Journal of Books
“Hilarious, action-packed, with a touch of home-sweet-home and a ton of glitz and glam. I’m booking my next vacation at the Bellissimo!”
– Susan M. Boyer,
USA Today Bestselling Author of Lowcountry Bonfire
“Funny & wonderful & human. It gets the Stephanie Plum seal of approval.”
– Janet Evanovich
“Filled with humor and fresh, endearing characters. It’s that rarest of books: a beautifully written page-turner. It’s a winner!”
– Michael Lee West,
Author of Gone with a Handsomer Man
“Davis’s smarts, her mad computer skills, and a plucky crew of fellow hostages drive a story full of humor and action, interspersed with moments of surprising emotional depth.”
– Publishers Weekly
“Archer navigates a satisfyingly complex plot and injects plenty of humor as she goes….a winning hand for fans of Janet Evanovich.”
– Library Journal
“Archer’s writing had me laughing out loud…Not sure if Gretchen Archer researched this by hanging out in a casino or she did a lot of research online. No matter which way, she hit the nail on the head.”
– Fresh Fiction
“In the quirky and eccentric world of Davis Way, I found laughter throughout this delightfully humorous tale. The exploits, the antics, the trial and tribulation of doing the right thing keeps this story fresh as scene after scene we are guaranteed a fun time with Davis and her friends. #LoveIt #BestOneYet.”
– Dru’s Book Musings
The Davis Way Crime Caper Series
by Gretchen Archer
Novels
DOUBLE WHAMMY (#1)
DOUBLE DIP (#2)
DOUBLE STRIKE (#3)
DOUBLE MINT (#4)
DOUBLE KNOT (#5)
DOUBLE UP (#6)
DOUBLE DOG DARE (#7)
Bellissimo Casino Crime Caper Short Stories
DOUBLE JINX
DOUBLE DECK THE HALLS
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DOUBLE DOG DARE
A Davis Way Crime Caper
Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection
First Edition | March 2018
Henery Press
www.henerypress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Copyright © 2018 by Gretchen Archer
Author photograph by Garrett Nudd
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-316-7
Digital epub ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-317-4
Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-318-1
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-319-8
Printed in the United States of America
This one’s for my Beckys
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you Deke Castleman, Stephany Evans, and Henery Press.
ONE
Security called Saturday morning at seven forty-five to say I had a visitor.
My name is Davis Way Cole. I live on the twenty-ninth floor of the Bellissimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, with my husband and our twenty-month-old twin daughters. At any given time, there were three thousand employees and ten thousand guests below us, so security screening to our private residence was necessary. The security screening that Saturday morning was a necessary formality, because the visitor was my only sibling and younger sister, Meredith.
Except it wasn’t.
“Vree.”
It was Vreeland Howard, my sister’s best friend.
Meredith was supposed to arrive at eight, Vree at ten. I was expecting Meredith, but it was Vree at the door. I didn’t get the memo. I was still in my pajamas. I’d had one sip of coffee.
Vree, between two tall stacks of hot pink luggage, opened her mouth to speak. I braced myself for what I knew was coming. In ten seconds flat, Vree managed to get all this out without taking a breath: “Hi, Davis! It’s me! I couldn’t sleep knowing tomorrow would be today. And then it was today. I was awake and packed and I couldn’t wait one more minute, so here I am! I left before the sun came up and only stopped once for Starbucks in Mobile. Am I too early? Meredith isn’t answering her phone. She’s here, right? Meredith! Bubbles? Bubbly Girl? Bubblegum? It’s Mommy!”
And that was why I had Meredith arriving first. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Vree. I’d known her my whole life; I liked her just fine. It was that I didn’t want to be in charge of Vree. I wanted Meredith here first so she could handle her. I opened my mouth to speak, but not fast enough.
“Davis?” She dragged my name out. “Are Meredith and Bubblegum not here yet?”
Bubblegum was Vree’s Westie. Her West Highland White Terrier. Cute little dog. The most spoiled rotten cute little dog to ever prance on four paws, and reigning Grand Champion of the Southern Canine Association, who would be staying in our home, defending her title at this year’s Bellissimo-hosted SCA dog show. So, for a week, an entire week, I had my sister, Vree, and Vree’s dog.
My husband, Bradley, would be out of town.
And who could blame him.
“They’re not here yet, Vree.” I opened the door wider. “Come on in.”
She came on in, rolling her hot pink luggage towers. She moved faster than she talked.
“I can’t believe I beat them. Traffic, you think? No. There was no traffic. It’s Saturday morning. Saturday morning is the best time to be on th
e road for that very reason, because there’s no traffic. Everyone’s still in bed. You can’t sleep and drive at the same time, right?”
Four little hands were tugging my robe.
Bexley and Quinn, my baby girls, didn’t know Vree. They’d met her a few times when we’d been home to see my parents in Pine Apple, Alabama, where Vree and Meredith lived and where I was from too, but at their ages, my daughters were out-of-sight-out-of-mind unless the person in front of them was family or a regular. Vree was neither. The girls were busy assessing her for playmate potential and eyeing her hot pink luggage for climbing possibilities, and all from behind my legs. Bex peeked around one of my knees and Quinn the other. Bradley, who’d been out of bed all of ten minutes on his only day off called out from the terrace, where he was waking up with the Sun Herald and a hot cup of coffee. “Hello, Meredith!”
“It’s not Meredith!” I yelled down the hall. “It’s Vree!”
Nothing back from Bradley, because he, like me, was probably trying to figure out who crossed which wires.
I reached for the extended handle on one of the hot pink suitcase stacks and pointed Vree in the direction of the guest wing. Bex and Quinn ran ahead. “Settle in, Vree. Make yourself at home. Let me grab a quick shower, then we’ll have breakfast on the terrace with Bradley. Meredith will be here by then.”
Except she wasn’t.
Bradley ordered breakfast and dressed the girls, or better put, Bradley was with the girls when they dressed. I passed the coffee pot for the adults and sippy cups of chocolate milk for the princess-cowgirl and the ballerina-fireman. I think. I wasn’t sure what the girls were going for, because Quinn topped off her blue ball gown with a pirate hat, and Bex, her red fireman jacket over pink tutu with a plush purple wizard’s hat. Between them, there were four purses, three different shoes, two unmatched socks, and a dusty cowgirl boot. Saturday was one of their favorite days of the week, in direct competition with the other six. Saturdays were extra special, though, because Daddy was in charge, and that meant wardrobe freedom. They’d stay in their Saturday get-ups until they were ready for pajamas again, unless Bradley let them play in mud, run through sprinklers, or like last Saturday, decorate their own cupcakes at Frostings, the bakery on the mezzanine level of the hotel. My phone was stuffed with Saturday pictures of my husband and daughters. And my phone was right in front of me. Vree’s was too. Both of us waiting to hear from Meredith, who was officially an hour late, hadn’t called, and wasn’t picking up. Something stopped me from calling my parents to ask if they’d heard from her. That something was Vree.
“Let me get this straight.” She zoomed in on my husband. “You’re the president of the casino? This whole place? Every square inch? You’re large and in charge? Like the buck stops here? I can’t imagine how much money you make. I mean, look around. You’re making the big bucks. And you’ve never been married before you married Davis? And you’re from Texas? And you don’t have any brothers or sisters? Neither do I. I love being an only child. Do you? You know who you remind me of? Young Paul Newman. Remember that movie where Paul Newman was in jail and ate all those eggs? I swear, I can’t even eat eggs because of that movie. My husband Gooch loves eggs. He has three brothers, and if I wasn’t glad I was an only child before I married Gooch, I tell you what, I was glad after. When his brothers show up, which is every single Friday night of my life, Double Bubble and I hit the road. Those Howard boys are horrible one at a time, you can’t even image what it’s like when they’re together. They were raised by their aunt because their parents got in a race with a train and lost. Splat. So their aunt, the creepiest woman on God’s green earth, raised them. She smells like eye of newt. Or bat wings. And she smells that way because she’s a rip-roaring witch. Certified. Papers. I swear, she casts spells on me. Her name is Bootsy. Her name should be Broomhilda.”
Vree could talk the stars out of the sky.
I believed she talked so she wouldn’t have to listen; there was always something Vree didn’t want to hear. When we were little girls, she didn’t want to hear my mother say it was time for her to go home and tried to talk Mother into letting her stay. When we were in elementary school, she didn’t want to hear her parents were divorcing and tried to talk them back together. When we were in high school, she didn’t want to hear she was failing, again, and talked herself all the way into a cap and gown. Vree talked over, under, and all the way through her life. I always thought she’d grow out of it, yet here we were, and she was still talking her head off. I wasn’t sure what it was adult Vree didn’t want to hear.
Bex and Quinn said, “Shiny, shiny, shiny.”
Something she did want to hear.
She looked at them curiously.
“They’re saying you’re pretty, Vree. That’s their word for pretty.”
She thanked them for the next five minutes.
They didn’t catch a bit of it.
They were right, though, Vree was pretty. She’d always been pretty, in a Marilyn Monroe sort of way. Think Marilyn Monroe on Red Bull. She was thirty-four years old with waist-length flyaway blonde hair, cocoa brown eyes, perfect skin, and wore her clothes two sizes too small. Her husband, Gooch the egg eater, looked like a tall Yosemite Sam—the ten-gallon hat, the handlebar moustache, the six-shooters. And Vree might be right about Gooch’s Aunt Bootsy. That woman was spooky. Unlike Vree, who truly believed, I gave up the notion Bootsy was a bona fide witch around the time I learned the truth about the Easter Bunny. Was Bootsy terrifying? Yes. A witch? No. Probably not. Surely to goodness, not. There was no such thing.
(Was there?)
“Who cooked all this food?”
Plethora, Vree didn’t give me time to answer, the buffet just inside the casino. One of the many perks of living above a resort. That, plus no lawn to mow and no neighborhood-association fees.
“I barely cook anymore,” she said. “We have nachos every single night of our lives. I tell Gooch all the time we need to eat better. Like stir-fry. Or whole-grain organics. Or at least Lean Cuisine. But no, every night, I’m dragging out the Velveeta for nachos. Unless we order pizza.”
I wondered what she’d ordered from Starbucks. Triple espresso? I could see Bradley mentally counting down the hours between now and tomorrow morning when he would leave for a conference. Bex and Quinn stared. They’d never seen, or heard, anything like Vree in their little lives.
“This is the most beautiful place in the world.” She took a breath to admire the view past our terrace, the city of Biloxi waking up behind Bradley and the morning sun cutting a shimmering line through the Gulf waters behind me. “I don’t know when I’ve seen anything as beautiful as this. I’m so happy to be here I can’t see straight and Bubblegum is going to go crazy loving it. She’s going to run in circles for hours when she gets here. Where are they? Did you ever think in a million years you’d live in a place this nice, Davis? I mean, you know, growing up like you did in your parents’ little house? It’s like I tell Mer all the time, you were born under a lucky star. You’re the luckiest person alive. It’s like you rolled in a field of four-leaf clovers or you were hit over the head with a horseshoe when you were little. Another thing I tell Mer all the time is if I’d had any idea you’d wind up here and we’d end up stuck in Pine Apple, I’d have hitched my wagon to yours and left her in the dust. Not that I don’t love Meredith, you know I do, thick and thin, but you’ve got it going on, Davis. You really do.”
A cardinal sang an April song from a high branch of the terrace cherry tree. Bex and Quinn’s hats whipped around. They said, “Bird, bird, bird.”
“Are they in school yet?” Vree asked. “Do they play musical instruments or speak Japanese? Kids are so super smart these days. How old are they now? Two? Four? I don’t even remember when they were born. A year ago? Three? They’re not afraid of dogs, are they? It’s so funny how the baby bug bit such a big chunk out of you, Davis, and didn’t even ligh
t on me. Everyone keeps telling me I should have a dozen by now, because everyone else does, which they actually don’t. I mean, there’s Brenda Gray, who has seven kids, maybe eight by now, but she’s the exception, not the rule. I tell everyone Bubblicious is all the baby I need, and it’s the truth. She’s every bit my baby, just like yours are yours, and the only difference is mine has fur. And she’s the cutest furbaby ever born. Not that your kids aren’t cute too. They’re really cute. Adorable. They don’t look a thing like you, Davis, but, I mean, you know they’re yours because you had them, right? I guess it’s a good thing I don’t have any of my own because they’d be six feet tall and look just like Gooch. Can you imagine? I can’t. I’m too busy with Bubble Pop to think about kids anyway.”
Bradley, who hadn’t blinked once since Vree sat down and opened her mouth, pushed his chair back and stood. “Who’s ready to go help Dad in the office?”
I raised my hand.
(No, I didn’t.)
“Ladies.” Bradley kissed the top of my head.
He was barely out the front door with the girls when a notification flashed across my phone. It wasn’t Security, telling me Meredith had finally arrived, but it was the next best thing, a notification I had an email from her.
“What is it?” Vree placed a heavy hand on my arm.
“It’s an email from Meredith.” I clicked it open.
“Email? Why? Is something wrong with her phone? Do you think she dropped her phone and busted it? No, because she probably sent the email from her phone. If her phone’s not busted, why wouldn’t she just call? I bet because her hands are full of Bubble Trouble. But wait. Texting is easier than emailing. And calling is easier than texting. She sent an email? That doesn’t make sense. What does it say?”