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Chapter 7

JC ordered lunch and then handed Royce a paper copy of her electronic calendar. It was color coded. “My assistant does that,” she said, a little embarrassed to be caught being so anal retentive. But he didn’t appear to care how she kept track of her life.

He pointed at the first entry, a two-hour block this afternoon, that she’d labeled “Financial Review/Cole Hager/Wallington Hotel.”

“Cole Hager. Who is that?” he asked.

“He’s the senior analyst for a large mutual fund. Our board is hoping that he’ll come out strong in support for us.”

“Isn’t it the CFO’s job to talk to investors about financial results?”

“Yes. And he’ll probably do that. But I’ve met Cole once before and it’s not that strange that he’d want to talk to me, too.”

“He can’t come here?”

“I don’t want to ask him to do that. At this point, it would look like a power play on my part and that’s not in my best interest.”

He made no response to that. Simply settled his index finger on the X that she’d used to block out 10:00 a.m. to noon the next day with Sparrow next to it. “What’s this?” he asked.

She’d written the information on the sheet after she’d printed her electronic calendar. Her assistant would be upset that it wasn’t appropriately color coded. “Sparrow is the room name,” she said. “Evidently, all their meeting rooms are named after birds.”

“What’s happening there?” he asked.

“That’s the panel presentation I mentioned this morning. I wasn’t originally scheduled to do it but evidently one of the original presenters had a conflict. Wayne Isman contacted me and asked if I’d fill in.”

“Wayne Isman. Your old boss at Geneseel?”

She was surprised that he’d remembered. “Yeah. We’ve kept in touch over the years. We do some humanitarian work in Africa together. This particular presentation is on new pathways to fighting drug-resistant bacteria. Wayne knows that’s a topic near and dear to my heart and he figured I wouldn’t need much prep time.”

“Who else is on the panel?” he asked.

“Besides Wayne and me, there’s a physician from Mass General.”

“Name?”

She knew where this was going. “Really, Royce? You think my two fellow panelists are hit men in disguise?”

“I think that they’ll be the two closest to you during the event. That automatically puts them on my watch list.”

“Fine.” She reached into her bag that was at the end of the couch and pulled out a sheet of paper. “This is hot off the press. Wayne is getting enough printed that we can give one to every attendee.”

He stared at the paper and she regretted the impulse to show it to him. Not only were there biographies for Wayne Isman and Dr. Lilah Moorhead, there was also one for her. He knew her educational background and her work history. But would he be surprised to learn that she’d served on a presidential committee? Or that she authored a white paper that had gotten her an appearance on the Today show?

“I remember you thinking a lot of Wayne Isman,” he said, pointing at the man’s picture.

She was grateful that he didn’t want to talk about her. “He was a wonderful boss. I learned so much from him. Very bright and, of course, he’s got that killer accent, too,” she added.

“Australian, right?” he asked.

She nodded. “I could listen to him read the phone book and be totally entertained.”

“The phone book, huh? I haven’t run across one of those, but there’s a manual that describes how the dishwasher works in that cupboard.” He pointed across the room.

It was a spark of the old Royce, the one who made easy jokes and found pleasure in silly things.

“I’m sure that would be lovely, too. Wayne is one of the most respected people in the industry,” JC said. “The project we’ve been collaborating on is making children’s vaccines more readily available in underdeveloped countries.” She paused. “Of course, I let him do most of the talking in the meetings.”

“The accent thing,” he said. “I got it.”

He was staring at the paper. Wayne was a good-looking man. Was it possible that Royce thought they were collaborating on more than the vaccine project?

“Wayne Isman has been married for many years. He talks about his wife all the time. I met her once and thought she was lovely. And he’s crazy about his three daughters.”

“How nice for him,” he said, as if he couldn’t care less.

Maybe she’d read him wrong. Or maybe she’d been hoping that he was just a teensy bit jealous.

She was pathetic.

“Do attendees preregister for these sessions?” he asked.

“No. This is like most conferences. There are concurrent sessions and attendees are free to choose whatever sparks their interest at the time. There are probably seven or eight different sessions in each time slot. Presenters have been advised to plan for 150 to 200 attendees.”

“I wish you wouldn’t do this,” he said.

“We’re not confident that it’s even a real threat.”

“We’re not confident that it isn’t.”

She sighed. “Look, I don’t want it to be obvious that I’ve got security.”

“I’ll do the best I can,” he said. “But no promises. If I feel that the situation warrants it, I’m going to shut it down.”

“The session?” she said incredulously.

“At least your participation in it.”

He was serious. “Royce, I have a professional reputation to maintain.”

“My job is to keep you safe. That’s the priority.”

Of course that was what she wanted, too. “All I’m asking is that if it’s possible, I’d like the two goals not to be mutually exclusive.”

He shifted his attention back to the calendar. Six to ten on Thursday night was colored green and labeled Ballroom. “Is that the awards dinner?” he asked.

“Yes. It may not last that long, but I wanted to plan on the careful side.”

She was not the type to arrive three minutes before going onstage—after anyone remotely responsible for the event had had a mild stroke for fear that she wasn’t going to show—and then leave as soon as the applause had ended.

She would arrive on time, mingle with other attendees, participate in dinner conversation, hopefully give a great speech and then hang around to answer questions afterward.

He leaned back in his chair. “Who else has access to your schedule?”

“Glory, my administrative assistant, and I are the only one who can see the details. Others, many others, of course, can look at my calendar and know if I’m busy or out of the office. Makes it easier to schedule things.”

“We need to change that. Immediately.”

“But—”

Royce shook his head. “Can Glory do that on your behalf?”

She nodded. This was a small hill. Certainly not one she intended to die upon. “Yes.”

“Good. And I need Glory’s information. Full name, address, social.”

“Miatroth has a rigid background screening process, I assure you.”

“I don’t care. How long has she worked for you?”

“Five years.”

“No recent issues? Strange behaviors? Odd conversations?”

She shook her head. “She’s amazing.” She wanted to implore Royce not to do anything that might upset Glory. The woman was already a little irritated with JC because she hadn’t gotten to come to Vegas, one of her very favorite places. “A good assistant is worth his or her weight in gold.”

“Noted,” he said.

A knock on the door made her jerk. Royce motioned for her to stay where she was. He looked through the peephole. “Room service,” he whispered, turning to look back at her. “Fast.”

“Bet the orders from the suites get priority.”

This from Charity who’d again emerged from her bedroom. She was carrying Hogi. The cat seemed calmer and when Charity put him down, he promptly jumped into one of the deep windowsills and pressed his nose up against the pane.

Royce opened the door and motioned the young man outside to come in. Then he watched him like a hawk, as if confident that he was intent upon doing them harm versus getting the tray delivered and returning to the kitchen for the next one.

She signed the room charge slip and added a generous tip, not only because of Royce’s scrutiny but partially in pity for the checkered bow tie and cummerbund the poor man had to wear. She’d always thought periwinkle blue was sort of a pretty color before this, but the combination of it and olive green just wasn’t nice.

Once he was gone, the three of them sat down at the glass-topped table. For a few minutes, the only sounds in the room was silverware softly clicking against the plates.

Royce was almost half-done with his burger before he spoke again. “So, Charity, are you a student?”

“Like in college?” Charity said, her upper lip raised in a sneer.

Royce nodded.

“Not for me,” Charity said.

Royce put down his fork. “So you’re working?”

“I would,” Charity said. “But nobody seems inclined to help me have the American dream.”

If Charity had come across as snippy in the interviews as she was acting now, JC understood why she was unemployed. But based on what the private detective had been able to dig up, the kid had had some hard knocks and she suspected some of Charity’s bravado was more for show. “I have a few contacts,” JC said. “I’d be happy to make some calls.”

“We’ll see,” Charity said.

JC snuck a look at the clock in the kitchen. She did not live in a world where one wasted a whole morning. Not that meeting Charity had been a waste. No, that was totally worth it. But to miss a whole morning of work was going to set her back substantially. “I have to be at the Wallington in an hour,” she said, looking at Royce.

He nodded. “That hotel is fairly new, at the far end of the strip. Will take about fifteen minutes to get there.”

JC pushed back her chair. “I’m going to get ready,” she said.

Charity stood up, too. “I’m going down to the pool.”

She smiled at the young woman. “Great. Have a good afternoon. Let’s plan to eat dinner together at seven.”

* * *

He knew there really was no reason that Charity couldn’t use the hotel services. While they’d arrived back at the hotel together, it was still unlikely that anyone would readily connect her to Jules. And, even if scumbag Bobby had somehow already wrangled a way out of jail, he wouldn’t know to come to the Periwinkle.

Besides, it wasn’t his job to protect Charity.

But for whatever reason, it seemed as if Charity was important to Jules, and that quite frankly made her important to Royce. Even if she was uneducated, unemployed and not terribly concerned about either.

Not in school, not working. Not impressive. If she intended to shake down Jules for money, he hoped Jules was smarter than that.

While Jules got ready for her meeting and Charity got ready for the pool, Royce made phone calls. The first one was to a trusted contact within the Vegas police department. After their brief conversation, Royce was satisfied that he’d know about Bobby’s release before Bobby would.

The man had had his hands around Jules’s neck. That vision was going to linger in Royce’s brain for a while and it put Bobby on the list of people to watch.

Next he started a background search on Charity. Jules seemed satisfied that their mothers had been friends, so that automatically made Charity a friend. Royce wasn’t so easily convinced. He suspected Jules would be irritated that he’d initiated the background search, but that wasn’t his concern right now.

He was focused on keeping her alive.

When Jules came out of her bedroom, she’d changed out of her casual sweater, skirt and boots to a sapphire-blue suit with a white blouse. She looked crisp and professional, and he knew that when she walked into a room, both the women and the men there would take notice. The women would be a little jealous, secretly wishing they could pull off the same look.

The men—well, that was simple. They’d all want to have her in their beds.

It had gotten him in trouble once before.