Double Strike (A Davis Way Crime Caper Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

clockwork.
    The Strike It Rich Sweepstakes, however, skipped all those steps. It’s been shrouded in secrecy and the closer it got, the less we knew about it. At first it was annoying, like going to the mall. (What is Victoria’s big secret? Just tell us.) Then it was irritating, like a new bottle of Advil. (I already have a headache. After thirty minutes of breaking into the bottle, I have a migraine.) It was approaching downright suspicious. (Like sushi.)
    Our old casino manager never blinked an eye when a “temporary” employee showed up to lend a hand. Our new casino manager didn’t want a hand, and if we offered a hand one more time, I had a feeling he might chop it off.
    Three weeks ago Fantasy and I got the bright idea to sneak in and nose around. (No Hair said, “You two sneak in and nose around.”) We’d been turned away. Local features reporters weren’t welcome in the new casino; they had their own media person, thank you. We waited a week, then waylaid two faux finish painters (sat them down at slot machines, liquored them up, and gave them free play credits), then showed up at the Strike door as their faux finish replacements in cute painter-girl outfits only to be refused again. Our names weren’t on the approved entry list. And just last week, when Junior League Fantasy and I, in Lilly Pulitzer and pearls, had tried to get in with silver trays loaded with lemon bars, the door had been slammed in our faces a third time. At which point we were aggravated, irritated, suspicious, and mad.
    What were these Strike people hiding?
    One thing we did know was who they were hiding behind—our new casino manager, Levi Newman. Levi began his current reign six months ago, the first month a transition of out-with-the-old and in-with-the-new(man), as the former casino manager, Ty Thibodeaux, who’d come with the first brick, the only casino manager the Bellissimo had known since the ribbon cutting in 1996, was retiring.
    Naturally, the new casino manager wanted to bring in his own staff of faithfuls who’d also lost their jobs when—don’t know the details—someone had gone on strike, and in the end, the Montecito closed its doors. And Richard Sanders, as good as they come, wouldn’t dream of displacing his own staff just because it was a new day. Handily clearing the line in the sand, Levi Newman tossed up pie charts, bar graphs, and earnings projections, selling Mr. Sanders on a fall campaign guaranteed to blow the lid off, with one caveat: It would need a separate staff. And designated space for a second casino, a mini casino Newman would be in charge of. “Let me show you what I can do, Richard.” He showed Mr. Sanders how he could sneak his people in the back door to implement the Strike it Rich package. Bellissimo staffers would fill the grunt-work gaps when the time came, but until then, the Vegas transplants were in charge. Total strangers had called the gaming, marketing, accounting, and mini casino-floor shots for Strike. And there had been, to date, exactly zero information sharing. We had no idea what was going on behind the Strike doors.
    Mr. Sanders said it was simply a matter of the Strike staff not wanting the details of the gaming leaked before the event. I doubted that. I felt certain they were locked up in that mini casino emptying the Bellissimo vault. No Hair landed in the middle. He understood the Strike staff wanting to keep a lid on the big gaming reveal, but as we were turned away again and again, he too wondered if there wasn’t something shady going on. The consensus was the Strike Sweepstakes only lasts a week. What all can happen in one little week?
    The one little week was a little week away, we were finally getting in, and the better question turned out to be how many times could our phones ding? Clearly the Strike It Rich Sweepstakes was powered by Twitter. Because we were forced to sign up (@WayToGo) and instantly began receiving tweets. Tons and tons of tweets.
    We were deep