Hold ’Em Hostage

Hold ’Em Hostage Read Online Free PDF

Book: Hold ’Em Hostage Read Online Free PDF
Author: Jackie Chance
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. “Mom, 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! Y’know 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 can’t seem to get ahold of her on her cell phone.”
    â€œWhy wouldn’t they answer?” Shana asked, chewing on her lower lip.
    Ben and I shrugged, holding each other’s gaze. There wasn’t 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. “Maybe Dad needs a hearing aid,” Ben offered.
    Of course that didn’t 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.
    â€œI 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€œUs three?” I looked at Frank. “What about you?”
    â€œI’m 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.”
    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. “This one’s on me.”
    â€œBut I’ll owe you even more,” I argued.
    â€œThat’s what I’m counting on.” He dropped his voice to a dangerous level. I squirmed in my Luckys. He cleared his throat. “And when I get back from visiting with my friend, I’ll check into our room.”
    â€œ Your room?” Ben interjected, waving his hand around the suite that was two bedrooms and at least 2500 square feet. “There’s plenty of room for us all in here.”
    â€œTrust me, Benjamin, this suite is not big enough for the vacation I have in mind,” 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. “Yes?”
    I could see the tension around his eyes dissipate and knew he recognized the caller. “She’s right here,” he answered, holding the receiver out to me.
    â€œHello?” I tried not to let my voice catch on the lump in my throat.
    â€œBee, you’re in d-danger. You g-gotta get outta Vegas and get out q-quick.”

Three
    â€œJ ack! I thought you were meeting us at the airport?”
    â€œI’m sorry, Bee, I got caught under a game and had to wait it out, but that’s where I heard something that scared me.”
    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 ’Em 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 “Hold ’Em Hearsay.” I was pretty sure his column was the only reason why anyone would log on. Well, maybe some came for Ringo’s poker shades update. Anyhow, Jack had SAD. Yes, you got that right, he suffered from social anxiety disorder—a pathological aversion
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