“Dealer wins,” the dealer said. The thin blond woman swept up the cards from the last hand and stacked up the chips, tucking them into the slot built into the table. “We have a new player?” she asked, still looking down. I didn’t know if she was talking to me or someone else until the dealer looked right up at me. “Are you playing?”
My mouth fell open.
The dealer was the blond woman who’d paid me a thousand dollars to get Carter out in that alley.
10
“What are you doing here?” I breathed.
The woman didn’t answer—she took one look at Carter and turned white, her hand holding the edge of the table as if it were keeping her upright.
Behind me, where Carter stood, an arctic wind blew.
The silence was charged, electric, and I didn’t know much but I knew I wouldn’t be playing cards here.
“I’m not playing,” I said quickly, but Carter interrupted.
“She’ll play.”
“I don’t have any chips,” I said as Carter nudged me into one of the chairs.
“You can buy them here,” the dealer said, not making eye contact with either of us.
A hundred dollar bill floated over my shoulder and landed on the table.
“Carter—” I began to rise, but Carter pushed me back into the chair.
“Buying chips,” the dealer said and a woman with a tray of chips came to our table, took Carter’s hundred dollar bill, and put down some blue, white and red chips.
“For charity,” Carter said, his smile tight, and I didn’t believe it for a moment. Something terrible was going on between Carter and this woman, and I wished I had a minute to talk to him, though I doubted he’d say anything at all.
Before I knew it, I had cards and a twenty-dollar bet on the table.
I had a ten and a four.
“Hit,” Carter said over my shoulder, and I turned to glare at him.
“I can play my own game,” I said, and he nodded stiffly, his jaw so tight it looked like it could crack teeth.
The dealer flipped down another card. “Five, that’s nineteen. The lady wins.”
Any little surge of triumph was thwarted when Carter tossed more chips on the table over my shoulder.
“If you want to play…” I muttered.
“I don’t.”
Now I had an ace and a five.
“Hi—” I started to say, but again, Carter butted in.
“We’re good.”
Someone down the table won, and a little crowd of women cheered as Carter threw down more chips with almost violent force. The energy rolling off him was poisonous.
“I’m out,” I said, standing up and stepping out of his way. Out of his gravitational pull.
“Zoe—”
“You stay and play or whatever it is you’re doing, but I’m not with you on this.”
I didn’t stick around to hear what else he might have to say. I headed out of the ballroom toward the women’s bathroom but then changed my mind and headed out a side door to a small empty courtyard surrounded by a low fence and the parking lot beyond.
I stretched my arms out, lifting my chest as if I could get more air that way, as if I could pull myself right out of this situation.
Nothing is ever just simple for me, I thought, staring up at the star-splashed sky. What rotten luck.
I like him. He likes me.
But whatever was going on in there was …off.
I wondered if the blonde was an old girlfriend. She was older, but it was hard to tell how much older.
I heard the door pop behind me and didn’t even turn, sure of who it was and not knowing if I even cared enough to get involved.
“Who was that woman?” I asked.
“Well,” a voice that was definitely not Carter’s said, “I was sort of hoping you could tell me.”
I whirled only to find Jim Blackwell, standing against the shut door and suddenly—despite the big black sky and the open night around me—I felt trapped.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said and he only laughed.
“Leave the lying to Carter,” Jim said. “He’s much better at it than you.”
“What do you want?” I asked, slightly threatened despite his little boy looks.
“Well,” he said. “I wanted to help you with your photographer problems, but you never called.”
“And I won’t. The chief of police is in there,” I said, pointing toward the hotel and the ballroom full of Baton Rouge and State officials. “I could talk to him about harassment.”
Jim Blackwell only scoffed. “Dean Begusta wouldn’t care if I stripped you naked out here.”
I stepped back, my heart going cold, my brain colder. Was that a threat? That was totally a threat. Wasn’t it?
He stepped toward me so fast I backed up right into a wrought iron table. The clank of it was loud, but not as loud as the blood pounding in my ears. He stopped and held out his hands as if begging for a chance. “I just need to find out who that blond woman is to him—”