Dangerous Bond (Jamie Bond Mysteries Book 4) (23 page)

"Is there a reason you had such a large sum of cash in your room, Mr. Carvell?" Alfie asked.

The guy pursed his thin lips together, looked down at the carpet, shuffled his feet a bit.

"Mr. Carvell?" Alfie prompted again.

"All right. I was invited to a high-stakes poker game later tonight. This was the buy-in."

Alfie's eye twitched again. While it was impossible to police, casino staff did not look kindly on side games in their hotel. If they didn't get a piece of the action, it generally wasn't allowed.

But, considering the circumstance, Alfie glossed over the admission, asking instead, "Did you know the person who invited you?"

"Not really. I met him at the tables downstairs yesterday morning."

Alfie and the security guy shared a look. My radar perked up. Clearly this tidbit of info meant something to them.

"Was he a guest, too?" I asked.

Alfie narrowed his eyes at me. I did a silent "what?" shrug in his direction.

"I don't know. I assumed so," Carvell answered.

"Did you happen to get a name?" Alfie asked.

"Price. The guy said his name was Price, and that I should meet him in room 1424 at ten tonight." Carvell looked from Alfie to the security guy. "Why? You think this Price guy had something to do with it?"

"What time did you notice the cash missing?" the security guy asked, avoiding the question, I noticed.

"Just now. I called down right away."

"Has anyone else been in your suite with you?" I asked.

Alfie sent me a snarl to go with his narrowed eyes. Geeze, he was territorial. I rolled my own pair of baby-blues, then did a zipping-the-mouth-and-locking-it-shut thing.

"No," Carvell answered. "It's just been me."

"Between midnight when you deposited the cash and just now when you noticed it missing, how long were you out of your suite?" Alfie asked.

Carvell chewed his lower lip, thinking. "A couple hours, maybe. I went to bed right after I locked up the money. But I had breakfast in the café downstairs this morning, then might have stopped to play a hand or two at the tables."

"And you're sure the door was locked when you left?"

Carvell nodded vigorously. "Completely sure."

I glanced back at the door we'd just come through. Like the rest of the suite, it was in pristine condition. The fact that the lock wasn't broken was a clear sign we were looking at an inside job of some sort. Card key codes were wiped and recoded every time a customer checked out. Unless someone had swiped Carvell's key, stolen his cash, then returned said key to his possession, all without him knowing, whoever had entered the room had to have a master key.

Alfie must have come to the same conclusion I did, as his eyes went dark, the line of his mouth tightening. I suddenly felt a little sorry for the thief. I shuddered to think what Alfie would do to an employee caught stealing.

"Look, can't you guys just take a look at your security tapes?" Carvell said. "You got cameras all over the place. Just look at who was leaving my room this morning."

Alfie and his security shared that look again.

"Actually," the security guy said, "we don't use tape anymore. It's all digitized and logged by computers."

"So check the damned computer then," Carvell told him, his voice rising in proportion to his obvious frustration.

Alfie cleared his throat. "I wish we could. Our system experienced some turbulence this morning resulting in gaps in our currently available footage."

I raised an eyebrow at Alfie. While his language was vague enough, the meaning was alarming. "Are you saying someone messed with your system in order to erase the theft?"

His eyes shot to mine, clearly thinking a whole list of dirty words.

"Our techs are working on recovering the footage," his security guy answered.

"Oh, that's just great!" Carvell said, throwing his arms up.

"Was anything else taken?" Alfie asked, trying to pull Carvell's attention away from the security team's apparent inadequacies. "Any personal items?"

Carvell shook his head. "Not that I noticed. I didn't do a full inventory before I called you guys, but I travel fairly light. Do you need me to do that now?"

"Please," Alfie said.

Carvell sighed deeply, then moved into the bedroom. "Okay, let's go look."

Alfie and the security guy followed him, leaving Britton and me alone.

"Carvell's one of our high rollers," Britton confided in me as soon as he left the room.

"Oh?" I asked, wandering over to the armoire to get a closer look at the safe.

"He sells cars," she explained. "He owns six dealerships in the Bay Area. Comes up here a couple times a month to blow a wad when sales are up." She paused. "Or when his wife is getting on his nerves."

"Has he ever played in private games here before?"

"Not that I know of," Britton told me. "But it's not something he'd advertise, right?"

"Good point," I agreed.

I peered into the cabinet at the now empty black box. I didn't know a lot about safes myself, not actually owning anything worth locking away, but it looked fairly standard. Much like the one we used at the gallery to house our pricier pieces before a show. Only this one was smaller, the interior shoebox sized, and made of thick, fire-safe metal. The door had a keypad on it with several numbers and a little screen. Neither looked damaged. Whoever had broken into the safe hadn't used force. While it didn't look like Fort Knox, it clearly took someone who knew what they were doing more than I did to get into it.

A master key, a knowledge of safe cracking, and the ability to take out the casino's security footage. Not only were we looking at an insider, but I had a bad feeling we were also looking at a pro.

LUCK BE A LADY

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