Confidence Tricks (18 page)

Asprey clapped a hand over his face, his gaze meeting Poppy’s over the heads of the poker players.
Do something
, he seemed to say.
Save me.

So she screamed.

“What?” The two extra men shot up out of their seats, ready to come to her aid. Graff reached for Asprey’s gun. And Todd put his hands over his chips, protecting them from whatever it was that had caused Poppy to release such a bloodcurdling sound. Only Asprey remained unmoved, flashing a grateful smile as he fished the mustache out of his glass and excused himself from the room.

“A rat!” she cried, jumping onto the nearest chair. “In the corner—he was as big as my head. Kill him. Kill him!”

“For Christ’s sake, Natalie,” Todd said, not moving from his protective huddle over the table. “Control yourself.”

“Did you see where he went?” one of the other men asked, preparing to come to her aid.

“I hate rats,” she wailed, ignoring them both and shuddering dramatically. “Those eyes. Those
tails
.”

Her rescuer made a big show of looking for the rat, using the long end of a dirty mop to poke in the corners for any sign of the creature. Poppy was pretty sure he dislodged about ten actual rats in the process, but she allowed herself to be helped down on shaky, feminine legs.

“You’re sure it’s gone?” she asked, feigning disgust.

“Sit down,” Todd barked.

Asprey chose that moment to breeze back into the room, mustache fully attached, if a little askew. “My cousin, she overreacts.” He shrugged and smiled, like a parent apologizing for a temper tantrum in the grocery store. “Shall we continue?”

“Yes,” Todd said firmly.

The game didn’t last much longer after that. Poppy worked at becoming Most Annoying Woman ever, dropping wide hints about the Bubonic Plague and fleas and the scientific likelihood of rats acting as carriers for the zombie apocalypse.

“I once heard the chupacabra is actually a breed of rat that has mutated and grown to be the size of a dog,” Poppy added, rattling off facts that existed only in her imagination. “People sometimes mistake them for pets, and there have been three cases this year alone of owners getting their faces eaten off while they slept.”

Across the table, Asprey choked on his drink.

“Todd, doll, do
you
think a rat would eat a human face? Or are they mostly vegetarian?”

When he turned to face her, there was a snarl on his lips. “Do you want to go wait in the car? Where it’s safe?”

She smiled brightly and hugged his arm. “That’s a good idea. I think I’m ready to go home.”

Taking the cue, Asprey rose from the table, kicking at an empty cage with little white feathers poking out the bottom. “Natalie is right, as always,” he said. “The night grows late, and my luck strikes again. I’m going to walk away with nothing.”

He whirled on Todd, his eyes narrowed and intense for a beat too long. Then he smiled and stuck out his hand, all icy cool and polite. Even Poppy got a little shiver, watching him. “It was good to play with you. You get to take my luck, my cousin and my money home with you. I think this means you win. For today.”

Todd made a big show of getting up from the table and thanking each man individually for a great game. When he reached Graff, he nodded once, as if that that motion contained some meaning beyond I’m-a-middle-aged-jerk-who-thinks-he’s-badass.

“We will meet again soon, I think,” Graff said vaguely, motioning for Todd to join him at the meat counter. Poppy could hear their low murmurs as Todd’s winnings were counted out.

“How much did you let him take?” Poppy asked under her breath, watching the two men make their transaction.

Asprey thought for a moment. “Probably close to thirty, by my count. I lost track there at the end, though. You don’t want to know what the stripper out front gave me to hold this mustache on.”

Poppy laughed softly. “And by thirty you mean…”

“Thirty thousand. Give or take a few g’s.”

Say what?
That couldn’t be right. “Are you kidding me? Not in real money?”

“No,” Asprey replied. “In Monopoly money. Hopefully he won’t notice that most of it is bright orange.”

She nudged him with her hip, but she was far from feeling playful. That was way more than she’d expected them to lay out. “You can’t really let him walk out the door with that. What if he bolts?”

“Then I guess you’re in trouble.” Asprey grinned as he said the words, his eyes flashing. Poppy had the distinct impression that he might be willing to lose that kind of money just to have the upper hand.

“And Graff is okay with this?”

“It’s not Graff’s decision to make.” He shrugged. “I can be very convincing when I need to be. Don’t tell anyone—it’s my superpower.”

That’s one hell of a superpower.
Thirty thousand dollars dropped like it was nothing, like he picked it up with his dry cleaning.

What a luxury that must be.

“Don’t worry, Poppy,” he added, his hand coming up to brush her cheek. It was a quick movement, almost hidden, a stolen caress in the middle of a dung heap of a room with her mark just a few feet away. “We’ll get it back. It’s just the bait. This is only the beginning.”

The beginning of what?
she wanted to ask, but there wasn’t time. Todd and Graff completed their transaction, the latter moving to stand menacingly by the door, the former taking his place at Poppy’s side. Her conversation with Asprey would have to wait.

For the first time that evening, a worried look puckered Asprey’s brow. Like all of his facial movements, it was heavily lined and emphasized, a map of emotions he neither attempted nor cared to hide. “Should I walk you out?”

Her heart sputtered.

He was worried about
her
. Asprey Charles, a man she had no doubts she could take out in less than ten seconds, felt concerned she might not be able to handle herself on the way to the parking lot with Todd, a man she had no doubts she could take out in less than five seconds. These men had no idea who they were dealing with.

She smiled brightly, latching on to Todd’s arm, trying not to notice the bulge in his pocket. She knew that bulge. It was wads of cash. “No need. I’ll see you around, Rufio. If I were you, I’d take care of the rat situation.”

At her mention of the rats, Todd stiffened, remembering the role she’d played in bringing the evening to an early end. He didn’t mention it as they moved through the kitchen, though, instead giving her hand an almost paternal pat.

“I think they liked me. Do you think they liked me?”

“They don’t like anyone,” Poppy said, waving a cheerful farewell to the surly cook as they left. “Especially when they lose.”

“The one with the face—that Drago character—said we’d meet again. I think he wants me to play another time. Do you think you could get them to invite me?”

“I might,” Poppy replied, feigning thoughtfulness as they reached the parking lot. It was probably close to three in the morning, but this part of town was full of outdoor activity—the kind that involved slinking along the streets in search of the darkest alley. “But it’s not a good idea. You don’t know these guys like I do—they don’t take losing lightly. If you play again, it’ll be higher stakes and a lot more competition. It’s not just a game with them.”

As she expected, Todd practically vibrated with excitement. “Do it for me, Natalie, please? Just drop a casual word when you can.” He paused and offered her a kiss. She accepted it, but it was obvious neither one of them felt anything as lips met lips, so far from a sizzle they might have been shaking hands. It was a comforting sensation. Any sexual promise Poppy contained just hours earlier had been replaced by the high of the poker game and the promise of things to come.

It was a promise Todd was desperate to cash in on. He lowered his voice and added, “I think we have a good thing going here, you and me.”

The words carried the kind of meaning every woman dreamed of. A good thing. A future together. Untold riches. Even better, someone to share them with.

Too bad it was the wrong man—and the wrong woman. Poppy didn’t want any plans for the future beyond her own freedom.

She smiled and said a vague good night, slipping into her own car, which she’d insisted on driving to the game. She’d have bet the full thirty thousand dollars that she’d have a text from him in the morning, asking her to contact her cousin for the higher-stakes game.

This was it—her break. She was in.

She rolled the windows down, letting the night air blow in and cool her skin. It was effective in cleaning off the stink of the strip club and Todd’s cologne—but not in wiping off the smile that worked its way across her face, ear to ear and soul-deep.

Grandma Jean would have been proud.

Chapter Thirteen

Poppy drank the last of her coffee and shook the cup, determined to get every drop of caffeine she could out of the damn thing. Her throat hurt from working so hard to breathe clean air the night before, and her five a.m. wake-up call wasn’t doing the bags under her eyes any favors. Todd and Graff and Asprey and the stripper might have been able to spend the entire day recovering from the smoke and depravity in the comfort of their own beds, but until the con was all the way complete, Natalie had her usual yoga class to teach.

Besides, Poppy figured the extra income couldn’t hurt. There was every chance she’d end up owing Asprey thirty thousand dollars when all was said and done. She needed a getaway fund.

“Good morning!” she called with a brightness she didn’t feel, greeting her students at the door. “Nice to see you again.”

Most of them were regulars, the same dozen women who got their morning calm on before heading off to high-intensity jobs as surgeons and professors and account executives. There was an eerie similarity to each one, with their sleek ponytails and name-brand gear, but Poppy liked them. They were the kind of women who had purpose and drive, willing to get up early five days a week to stick to their goals.

Kind of like her, if you didn’t count their college degrees and intrinsic value to society.

“I thought we might work on our flexibility today, so we’re going to start with some intense stretches to loosen everything up.”

As one, all twelve women followed her to the ground, their legs spread as they reached slowly toward each foot, toes pointing and muscles awakening.

“Is there room for one more?” a deep male voice asked, materializing at the door.

Poppy looked up from her stretch to find Asprey with a rolled blue yoga mat under one arm, dressed the most casual she’d ever seen him in loose gym pants and a gray T-shirt. Instead of making him look grubby, as it would most people, the informal look suited him. His dark hair was adorably rumpled, pieces of it falling into his eyes, and he exuded a refreshing energy she could feel from all the way across the room.

In fact, he looked fantastic, not at all as though he’d spent most of the previous night twirling a fake mustache.

She couldn’t compete. Not at six o’clock in the morning. Not when there was a good chance her hair was on crooked and there were coffee grounds in her teeth.

All heads turned toward the interruption, more than one of the women straightening her posture once she noticed what—or rather, who—caused it.

“Come on in,” she said, motioning with one hand and allowing her middle finger to shoot clearly up as she did. Asprey noticed it and smiled wider, beaming as though he’d gotten a full eight hours of sleep.

Of course he’d be a morning person on top of everything else.

“Set up anywhere there’s space. I hope you’re more limber than you look, because we’re getting really deep today.”

“I can go deep,” he promised, trotting into the small studio, which was set off from the weight room by a mirrored partition wall. “’Scuse me. Pardon me.” He touched the shoulder or back of every woman he passed as he made his way to the exact center of the room, asking politely if a few of them would scootch over just a touch so he could squeeze in.

Dead center. Right in her line of vision.

She stabbed the MP3 dock behind her and cranked up the sounds of the surf as they went through the regular warm-up, trying her best to remember to breathe. That tiny act, so integral to yoga, seemed beyond her in that moment. It didn’t help when Asprey looked up from a pelvic tilt, his pants stretched tight across the crotch with all his manly, unapologetic parts right there for her to ogle, and gave her a thumbs-up.

“Let’s all move into Downward Facing Dog,” she called. She would
not
pay attention to Asprey’s unapologetic parts. “I’ll come around and help you extend your legs one at a time to add a challenge. I want to see straight lines and tight cores.”

At least with this pose, she wouldn’t have to look directly at him. Besides, in her experience, men couldn’t handle the dog. They got distracted by all those yoga-tight asses in the air and moved into a trance. She was pretty sure that was why yoga had been invented in the first place.

The women shifted into rows of human molehills, so Poppy started at one end, checking form and technique as well as she could, given her lack of any actual training in the field. When she got to Asprey, she lost her footing a little, and only caught herself from toppling into him at the last minute. He had good form.
Great
form, actually, and he didn’t seem at all distracted by the woman in front of him, whose incredibly trim glutes were on his eye level.