Double Dog Dare Read online

  For the first few, we did nothing but pant.

  “Let’s get the count over with, then we can talk.”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  We verified seventeen million dollars.

  We did not sign off on it.

  We had another ten minutes in the vault.

  Plenty of time.

  We pulled metal stools from under the count table, then perched on them, the seventeen million in wrapped stacks on the table between us. We talked over it.

  “Davis, where’s the dead woman?”

  “I don’t know.”

  We contemplated our bleak futures.

  We verified the seventeen million dollars without stealing one of them.

  I couldn’t do it.

  I’d have to find another way, because I couldn’t bring myself to take a million dollars from the Bellissimo.

  * * *

  “I miss Harley.”

  It was six thirty Monday night. The sun was setting on the Gulf. Another search of my home hadn’t produced Princess’s Harry Winston collar, we left the vault without a million dollars, we didn’t know where Bootsy was because the iPad was dead, as dead as the AWOL caregiver, plus we hadn’t done what we’d said we’d do, which was get back with His Excellency Hiri for a tell-all. On top of all that, my husband had cancelled his dinner plans with the general manager of our sister casino, Jolie, also at the SGF Symposium, because now he had three bricks between his eyes. Fantasy, Vree, the girls, and I were having dinner on the veranda because Bex and Quinn were spaghetti slingers. Vree was crying in hers. “I miss Harley so much.”

  I poured her more red wine.

  Bex and Quinn, tangled in noodles, said, “Dink, dink, dink.”

  Vree took a big dink of the wine and said, “I mean, first I missed Meredith and Bubble Bath.” She pushed her salad away and pulled her wine closer. “And it’s not like I don’t miss them anymore, I do, even though they don’t miss me a bit. It’s like this was supposed to be our vacation together, but they’re the ones who are having fun—I guess it won’t be fun when Mer has to go to the hospital—but for now, they’re having fun. The hotel they’re staying in has a doggie pool. Meredith sent a video of Bubbs in her bikini swimming with two beagles from California, but she didn’t know their names. They were sister and brother, so you know they had cute names. Can you even believe it? A doggie pool?”

  Bex and Quinn, covered in red sauce, said, “Dog, dog, dog.”

  “Then Harley came.” Vree dabbed her eyes with a napkin. “He filled the hole in my heart. He was so sweet. He stared into my eyes like he knew me. And that was one thing about Harley that reminded me of Gooch, like how Gooch was when we first started dating, because he stared into my eyes like that too. Like looking all the way into my soul. Harley did the same thing, and I have a feeling Harley would love me like that forever, while Gooch hasn’t even called me one time. Can you believe it? Not one time? I was thinking that if we didn’t give Harley back he could come home with me, like, I’d walk in the door with him and tell Gooch there was a new man in my life. One who would love me forever, even if I was the biggest disappointment in the whole wide world, and Harley wouldn’t go fishing all the time, because, for real, dogs don’t fish, but I’m not saying I’d pretend like I had a dog husband. Wouldn’t that be funny? A dog husband? That would be a good Hallmark movie. I love Hallmark movies. Especially at Christmas. Those are the very best. I mean, it would be more like Harley would be Bubblegum’s husband, but, you know, they could never have puppies.”

  Vree went silent.

  Fantasy and I looked at each other.

  “I mean—”

  Vree snapped back.

  “—Meredith and Bubbs are having the time of their lives, Gooch won’t answer the phone, Harley is gone, and I’m stuck with Princess.”

  From the Pop N’ Play under the cherry tree, Princess, deep in a dish of manicotti, yapped. I turned my head for one second to look at her, and when I looked back, Bex and Quinn had donned spaghetti bowl hats.

  “Davis,” Fantasy said, “your children need another bath.”

  Bex and Quinn said, “Bath, bath, bath.”

  “Then what?”

  Good question.

  “Then we face facts.” Fantasy checked the time. “Vree can’t win the money at the slot tournament because she’s not in it. We didn’t steal the money from the Bellissimo vault because we thought we had the dog collar. We don’t have the dog collar.”

  I said, “We don’t have Bootsy either.”

  Bex and Quinn said, “Boo, boo, boo.”

  Vree said, “What are we going to do with the collar when we find it?”

  Another good question.

  Fantasy stood and tugged the sleeves of her Bellissimo blue security jacket, on her way to the evening round of the Three Dog Night slot tournament. “What are we going to do if we don’t find the collar?”

  The million-dollar question.

  SIXTEEN

  Rain slapping the bedroom windows in sheets woke me before dawn Tuesday morning. I rearranged Bex and Quinn, who slept through everything, thinking about Bradley, wondering if he felt better or worse, and thinking about Atlanta.

  The dog-show judge with the toothache who didn’t show—Atlanta.

  Hiriddhi Al Abbasov—Atlanta.

  Princess, the Smuckers, the fake housekeepers, the dead caregiver—Atlanta.

  I wondered why Southern Gaming hadn’t moved their headquarters to Atlanta. Home Depot, Coca-Cola, and UPS were based out of Atlanta. And if Bradley was so dead set on raising the girls away from a casino, well, Atlanta was away. There wasn’t a casino in or near Atlanta. Atlanta gambled in Biloxi.

  I wondered if there might be a dot to connect all the Atlanta people.

  I couldn’t see His Excellency running in the same circles with the Smuckers.

  So, probably not.

  I reached for the phone, dialed, and whispered, “Are you awake?”

  “I am now,” Meredith said. “Are you waking me up to tell me you have the money?”

  “I’m working on it.” I tucked a corkscrew curl behind Quinn’s baby ear. “Did Greene live through the night?”

  “I don’t know.” I heard the click of a bedside lamp. “It’s still night,” she said. “I’m assuming he did because I haven’t heard otherwise. How’s Vree holding up?”

  “She lived through the night,” I said. “I’m assuming she did because I haven’t heard otherwise.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In one of the guest rooms with the worst excuse for a dog I’ve ever seen in my life.” Speaking of dogs. “What’s Bubbles doing?”

  “She’s curled up in her velvet bed. Dreaming dog dreams. It’s six in the morning, Davis, everyone’s dreaming. What about Bootsy? Has she surfaced?”

  “Not here. What about there?”

  “No Bootsy.”

  “She could be anywhere.”

  “Instead of looking for Bootsy, why don’t you try looking for the fake housekeepers?” Meredith said. “If Bootsy has them, even if she turned them into lizards, you’d probably still be able to track their phones. Surely she didn’t voodoo their phones.”

  “Meredith, you’re brilliant.” I told her I loved her, we promised to stay in touch, then I gently eased out of bed, propping pillows in my place. I tiptoed to the coffee pot. I’d go to Candy Smucker’s Bellissimo guest profile, find her phone number, hack her phone, then find the fake housekeepers’ phone numbers. They’d surely reported to her after they misrepresented their way into my home. I’d get their numbers, track their phones, and maybe find Bootsy. On the off chance Bootsy didn’t have them bound and gagged in the backseat, or hiding under rocks in a lizard cage, I wouldn’t mind finding them anyway. I had a few questions for those two. One was whose idea was it for Can
dy Smucker’s bodyguards to pretend to be housekeepers and waltz into my home? What was the point and what was the purpose? Next, I’d ask how they intercepted an internal call to Bellissimo housekeeping. Then, I’d ask them the question I really wanted an answer to—when they were at Fantasy’s, did they see or hear anything related to the caregiver’s death?

  One thing at a time, Davis. One thing at a time.

  I poured a cup of coffee, sat down at my desk, fired up my computer, and found the Smuckers’ Bellissimo portfolio. Two clicks later, I had Cleavon Smucker’s cell phone number, not his wife’s. His was listed on the guest profile, hers was nowhere to be found. Instead of taking the time to hack his phone to get her number, I logged onto Facebook, because finding her number there, and I was sure I would, would be faster than hacking his cellphone provider’s database. I pulled up her page and didn’t find her phone number, because I found his toe. Her last post, from the casino, twelve minutes earlier, was a stomach-flipping close-up of her husband’s bare and beleaguered foot propped on a blackjack table. Above it, her heartfelt plea: Cleavs ingrowed toe busted wild open!!! I danced on it by accidint! We need a doctor rite NOW. Were waitin here cause he cant walk.

  I had to act fast, before I passed out.

  I phished and cloned Biloxi Urgent Care’s Facebook page, then posted a comment on Candy’s page under the picture of Cleavon’s nasty nasty nasty nasty toe: On the way.

  Candy, nose to phone, responded immediately, Thank U! Hes hurtin. Free drinks for U and I pay GOOD!!!!

  I pushed my coffee aside. I was finished with food and drink for the rest of my life. I picked up the house phone, dialed the Bellissimo operator, and asked for Leverette Urleen’s room.

  He answered on the fiftieth ring. “Who is this?”

  “It’s Davis. Get up, Urleen. You’re needed in the casino.”

  “By the Amazon goddess?”

  Fantasy would kill him if she knew he called her an Amazon goddess.

  “No, Urleen. It’s a medical emergency.”

  “Let me put my pants on.”

  And there was an image to replace that of Cleavon Smucker’s ingrowed toe.

  I had to put my head between my knees.

  When I came up for air, I covered my eyes, leaving myself a sliver of vision, just enough to get to the corner of Candy Smucker’s post and hide it without seeing it again. Then I scrolled. I scrolled down, and down, and down, past the endless documentation of her life to her “Help Wanted” post of two weeks earlier. I clicked through the comments thinking I’d stumble on her phone number—she’d surely posted it somewhere—and before long I’d scrolled to the thread of correspondence between her and the fake housekeepers, sealing the deal. Then I saw, in the early light of a new day, what I hadn’t seen in the frenzied haze of the afternoon before. The initial response to Candy’s ad hadn’t been from Brutus Sebastian. It was from someone who tagged Brutus Sebastian. Someone following Candy Smucker’s social-media misdeeds saw the Bellissimo opportunity and led Brutus Sebastian to it by typing his name in the comments, tagging him, thus alerting him. The fake housekeepers would have never known about the Smucker job had someone not led them straight to it.

  Who was that opportunistic someone?

  That opportunistic someone wasn’t a someone at all. It was an organization. The Atlanta Council for the Blind. The Council for the Blind led the fake housekeepers to the Smuckers, the Bellissimo, my home, and ultimately Fantasy’s home too.

  This was a big Atlanta con. The question was, who was conning whom?

  There wasn’t a shred of useful information about the Atlanta Council for the Blind on the world wide web. Nothing. I found a single webpage with directions to their facilities, lean office hours, and links to additional resources. I didn’t find a phone number, email address, board of directors, list of donors, officer’s names, or a membership roster, any of which could’ve helped. To tie the Atlanta Council for the Blind to the fake housekeepers, I’d have to go next door to Leno’s and do it myself. I seriously doubted it was His Excellency. How could Hiriddhi Al Abbasov be on Candy Smucker’s Facebook page when he wasn’t on Facebook? Someone with His Hiri was the link to the fake housekeepers.

  I texted Fantasy. We might need your tranquilizer gun again.

  She texted back. What’s this “we” business?

  Vree appeared in the doorway, yawning, stretching, and wearing baby-blue shortie pajamas with matching fuzzy slippers. “Davis?” She yawned again. “I can’t find Princess. She got out of the playpen. Have you seen her?”

  * * *

  If someone had told me that one day I’d try to talk my sick husband into staying at a strange hotel five hundred miles away instead of coming home to his wife, his daughters, and his own bed, I’d have said they were crazy. That day came, and I was the crazy one when Bradley called at eleven Tuesday morning to say he was seriously considering calling it a Nashville day, boarding the Bellissimo jet waiting for him at the airport, and seeing me in an hour. “I want a bowl of chicken soup from Chops.”

  “They don’t have chicken soup in Nashville?”

  “What are you saying, Davis? Don’t come home?”

  He sounded awful, and that was exactly what I was saying. He couldn’t come home. I’d rather him be sick in Nashville than divorced in Biloxi.

  “Of course not,” I said. “I’ll get in the car and come get you myself.” When what I really meant was what he said—don’t come home. Not yet, anyway.

  “You don’t have a car.”

  “I’ll drive yours.”

  “Please don’t.”

  I let it slide, but only because he was sick. “Do you have a fever?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “Does your hair hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Then you don’t have a fever.”

  “Again, Davis. It sounds like you’re trying to talk me out of feeling bad.”

  I was.

  “I’m not trying to talk you out of it so much as I hate to see you cut your trip short when, if you give it a minute, you might feel better.”

  We were on the terrace again—me, Bex and Quinn, Fantasy, Vree, Leverette Urleen M.D. (yes, Urleen the Idiot)—and Princess, who was back in the Pop N’ Play, but this time we had the playpen upside down and over her. She could still see out the mesh walls, but she couldn’t tunnel out, like she had earlier that morning, then nestled her garlic Dorito self between my two babies in my bed. Which was where we found her. In the bed I sleep in. In the bed my sick husband wanted to come home and crawl into. Urleen the Idiot was there because I called him. For the second time in a single day. He’d hospitalized Cleavon Smucker, much to the delight of each and every one of the Bellissimo’s four thousand employees, diagnosing him with a bacterial infection approaching mutilated abscess that would hit his heart chambers any second and kill him dead. Candy posted a selfie on Facebook taken from the interior of the ambulance, accompanied with this explanation: Cleavs toe is fixin to kill him. We need blessins and prayers. I had to call Urleen again because Fantasy refused to touch her pink tranquilizer gun. She said I didn’t need her pink tranquilizer gun to go next door and connect the housekeepers to the Council for the Blind, and if I did, I was on my own, because Hiriddhi Al Abbasov would smell her on it, and she didn’t want to go to prison. I knew less about knockout drugs than Fantasy did, so once again, Urleen was my only option.

  Fantasy waved to get my attention and mouthed, “Bradley can’t come home until we steal the money.”

  I mouthed back, “I know that.”

  “Let me talk to him.” Urleen’s hand was in my face. I smacked it away.

  “Who was that?” Bradley asked.

  “Nothing. No one,” I said. “I didn’t hear anything. Do your ears hurt too?”

  “My ears, my eyes, my throat, my head. If it’s above my
neck, it hurts.”

  I mimed writing. Fantasy dug in her purse and tossed me a small spiral notepad and a pen. I scribbled. Ears, eyes, throat, head. I shoved the note under Urleen’s nose.

  He read it, then sat back, tapping his chin. “Could be brain cancer.”

  “Hold on, Bradley.” I kicked Urleen under the table. “What else? Do you have any other symptoms?”

  “I can’t taste anything,” Bradley said.

  I scribbled it down. Can’t taste.

  Urleen’s bushy eyebrows closed in on themselves. He leaned too close to Fantasy and whispered in her ear. The look on her face would have been no different had a boa constrictor had its lips to her head. She shoved Urleen away and started scribbling again, then passed me another note. This moron says if he can’t taste, it’s a brain tumor. Not brain cancer. Is there even a difference in a brain tumor and brain cancer?

  I wrote back, You’re not helping.

  “What have you tried to taste?” I had to keep Bradley on the phone long enough to talk him out of coming home.

  “What have I tried to taste? Davis? Was that a real question?”

  “It was.” (It wasn’t.) “What I meant—”

  “I know what you meant. I tried to taste hot Jack Daniels with lemon.”

  Fantasy and Urleen were in the middle of an aggressive low-volume exchange. She was the aggressive part, slapping Urleen twice. She shoved another note in front of me. This fool has decided it’s a brain aneurism and insists I tell you Bradley should get his affairs in order. I wrote back, Tell him one more word out of him and he gets a bullet in his brain. I let her read it, then wadded it and let it sail. It landed close to the Pop N’ Play. Princess yapped at it.

  Bex and Quinn said, “Woof, woof, woof.”

  “Was that a dog?” Bradley asked.

  “That was Bex and Quinn. You’re hearing things,” I said. “How hard did you try to taste the Jack Daniels?”