hands as soon as Mom could knock him over for it. After six rings, however, it went to their voice mail. Not expecting this, I paused in the dead air, not sure what to say. âMom, Dad, we all made it to Vegas fine. We wanted to give you our room number at the Mellagio, 1717. Oops, I just realized what time it is. Duh! So sorry! Yâknow this place designs it so you never know what time it is. Call us as soon as possible and let us know Aph is behaving herself. We canât seem to get ahold of her on her cell phone.â
âWhy wouldnât they answer?â Shana asked, chewing on her lower lip.
Ben and I shrugged, holding each otherâs gaze. There wasnât a good reason. Our parents had never failed to pick up the phone next to their bed on the second ring for every crisis that involved an overnight phone call, and, believe me, there had been many when Bad Boy Ben was a teenager. âMaybe Dad needs a hearing aid,â Ben offered.
Of course that didnât explain Mom, who still could hear a whisper through walls three houses down the street. I sighed and threw Shana a brave smile. Bowing her head, she looked away, knowing me well enough not to buy it.
âI say you three get a couple hours of sleep, giving Affie a chance to call back after the sun comes up in Houston, then we can proceed with some other venues.â
âUs three?â I looked at Frank. âWhat about you?â
âIâm going to find my friend on the force here and see what he can tell me about where you really stand with the cops in this case.â
I remembered Abel from our last fiasco in Vegas, nice guy, took bribes for inside information. I reached for my purse. Frank grabbed it first and slapped my hand away. âThis oneâs on me.â
âBut Iâll owe you even more,â I argued.
âThatâs what Iâm counting on.â He dropped his voice to a dangerous level. I squirmed in my Luckys. He cleared his throat. âAnd when I get back from visiting with my friend, Iâll check into our room.â
â Your room?â Ben interjected, waving his hand around the suite that was two bedrooms and at least 2500 square feet. âThereâs plenty of room for us all in here.â
âTrust me, Benjamin, this suite is not big enough for the vacation I have in mind,â Frank said smoothly. I squirmed harder and tried to contain the blush running up my neck by going to put a protective arm around Shana to guide her to the bedroom doorway.
The phone in our room rang. We all stopped and looked at the phone, then each other. I held my breath. Shana relaxed with relief, then tensed, then went weak against me. Ben looked frozen. Frank was the first to recover, as usual. He strolled to the end table and picked up the receiver. âYes?â
I could see the tension around his eyes dissipate and knew he recognized the caller. âSheâs right here,â he answered, holding the receiver out to me.
âHello?â I tried not to let my voice catch on the lump in my throat.
âBee, youâre in d-danger. You g-gotta get outta Vegas and get out q-quick.â
Three
âJ ack! I thought you were meeting us at the airport?â
âIâm sorry, Bee, I got caught under a game and had to wait it out, but thatâs where I heard something that scared me.â
Jack Smack was currently the hottest journalist covering the poker world, thanks to a stint on Good Morning America after our rather deadly Texas Hold âEm cruise last autumn. More importantly, he was my friend and did me the highly underpaid favor of writing a gossip column on my fledgling website called âHold âEm Hearsay.â I was pretty sure his column was the only reason why anyone would log on. Well, maybe some came for Ringoâs poker shades update. Anyhow, Jack had SAD. Yes, you got that right, he suffered from social anxiety disorderâa pathological aversion