Love You Dead Read Online Free PDF

hotel,’ Don said.
‘Your choice.’
    Suddenly she heard a male voice call out, ‘Jodie!’
    She turned, saw the strobe of a flashgun and heard the whirr of a camera motor. Another voice called her name and, as she glanced to the right, another flashgun went. Then another.
    There were a dozen paparazzi lined up, all now shouting her name.
    ‘Jodie, did you know about Walt?’
    ‘How much did you know about Walt’s finances?’
    Jodie had met Walt in Las Vegas just over six months earlier. He’d been sitting at a table on his own, in a smoking bar at the Bellagio, drinking a Martini and lighting a
cigar. She’d sat a few tables away, smoking a cigarette and drinking a margarita, eyeing potentials. This was one of the city’s most expensive hotels; people who stayed here or even
just came in for a drink were likely to be reasonably well off at worst, seriously loaded at best.
    She’d travelled from Brighton, arriving the day before, to have a break, play some blackjack at the high-stakes tables, and try to find a new man. Her kind of man. A nice, lonely, elderly
man. Someone who would be grateful for her attentions. But, most importantly of all, someone rich. Very rich.
    This trip was an investment, just like her profiles on the high-end dating agencies were.
    She chose blackjack because it was sociable, you got a chance to talk to your fellow gamblers and there was a steady turnover of players. She’d made a study of it, read books and knew all
the tricks of the game. There was no strategy that could guarantee winning, but there was one that enabled her to stay at a high-rollers table for hours on end, losing very little money. A small
cost for the opportunities it gave her to size up the men who perched beside her at the table.
    And you could get married in this city, with no fuss at all, any time from 8 a.m. to midnight, on any day.
    It looked like she was getting lucky sooner on this trip than she had expected. The jackpot on day one?
    A little overweight and flabby, in his mid-seventies, she guessed, with a thick head of wavy silver hair. He was dressed in a yellow Gucci cardigan over a shirt with gold buttons, and blue suede
Tod’s loafers.
    He looked lonely.
    And sad.
    And had no wedding ring on his finger.
    Hunched up over the table, he was peering at his phone, reading something. Wall Street prices? After a while he put it down, ate the olive from his Martini, then drained the drink and signalled
to a waiter for another. Then he puffed on his cigar – a Cohiba, she could tell from the yellow and black band.
    She stared at him, holding her cigarette between her fingers, the smoke rising. It took some moments before he finally looked up and caught her eye. She smiled. He gave her a brief, slightly
embarrassed nod of acknowledgement, blinked his heavy-lidded eyes, then made a play of looking back down at his phone and tapping the keys, as if to show he wasn’t any kind of Billy-No-Mates,
but a busy man.
    Instantly she made her move, crushing out her cigarette, scooping up her glass and her bag. Then she strode across to his table, in her silky Ted Baker dress and red Jimmy Choos, and sat down
opposite him. Putting on her poshest, cut-glass English accent, she said, ‘You look as lonely as I feel.’
    ‘That so?’
    He lifted his eyes from his phone, and gave her a melancholic stare. She raised her glass. ‘Cheers!’
    Obligingly, at that moment, the waiter produced a fresh Martini for him. He raised it and they clinked glasses. ‘Cheers,’ he said back to her, a little hesitant, as if unsure whether
he’d just been hit on by a hooker.
    ‘Jodie Bentley,’ she said. ‘I’m from Brighton, England.’
    ‘Walt Klein.’ He set his glass down and folded his arms.
    Mirroring him, deliberately, she set her glass down and folded her arms, too. ‘So what brings you to Vegas?’ she asked.
    ‘You want the trailer or the full three hours with intermission?’
    She laughed. ‘I don’t have a