“Right. Sorry. I guess I forgot about my carrot.” He paused. “And now I’m really, really sorry I just said that…”

The sportsbook who had taken Hal Kanamu’s long-shot props bet was located in the Las Vegas Golden Sapphire Casino. There were over one hundred and fifty legal sportsbook operations in the U.S., and every one of them was run out of a Nevada casino. The Diamond had a reputation for taking some of the more outrageous or unusual props bets, especially ones dealing with Hollywood or music celebrities; Catherine remembered reading that the sportsbook gave odds last year on which female celebrity would be the next to have a photo published displaying a personal disdain for wearing underwear in public.

The room the sportsbook was based in was high-ceilinged and resembled a NASA control room; panels of high-definition monitors gridded one wall, while row after ro w of computers were lined up facing them. The computers were for online betting, while the TV screens showed everything from horse races to hockey. Betting windows lined one wall, and computerized odds boards another. A lounge with comfortable chairs took up one corner.

Catherine stood in the doorway and looked around for a moment before going in. She smiled, then dug a tissue out of her pocket and wiped her eyes. Places like this might look like they were getting ready for a shuttle launch, but that wasn’t what they made her think of.

She found the man she’d come to see at one of the tables in the lounge area. He was a stocky man with curly blond hair, dressed in gray sweatpants and a New York Yankees jersey, watching one of the games playing out on the wall of screens. It was hard to tell which one; his eyes kept shifting from one side to the other, his head tilting first up then down.

“Come on, come on,” he muttered. “No, don’t put him in, that’s suicide-shoot! Shoot, damn it! No, don’t throw it to him, are you nuts?”

“Excuse me,” said Catherine.

His glance flickered to her for all of half a second, then back to the screens. “What can I do for you? Go, baby, go! Yeah!”

“How about giving me your undivided attention for a minute?” she said, and waved her badge in front of his eyes like a dog owner dangling a treat.

It worked. He looked over s harply, seemed to really see her for the first time, and gave her a cheerful, disarming smile. “Right! Sorry, I’m at work; it can get a little hectic here in the office.”

She smiled back. “I’ll bet.”

“Yeah? How much, and on what?”

“You’re Frankie Thermopolis, right?”

“Hey, that’s a gimme. No odds on that one, except maybe the exact day my heart gives out. Give you five to one it’s on a weekend-even money if we’re on a date.”

She laughed. “That your idea of romantic, Frankie? Offering odds on expiring while you’re getting busy?”

Frankie grinned. “It makes ’em try harder. Now-what can I do for Las Vegas ’s finest?”

“I was wondering about a props bet you took-guy named Hal Kanamu.”

Frankie’s eyes rolled up in anguish. “Ah! The Hawaiian hophead. I couldn’t believe that one, I really couldn’t. Thought it was an easy thousand bucks and I wound up paying out seven hundred and fifty grand. I’m still in pain.”

Catherine frowned. “I thought you gave him five hundred to one. Should have been an easy fifteen hundred, no?”

“Hey, you think I don’t know about due diligence? Any time someone tries to blindside me with a bet like that, I make sure it’s on the up-and-up first. Got a PI that checks things out fo r me, makes sure the guy placing the bet doesn’t have some inside information.”

“You must have been pretty sure.”

Frankie shrugged. “I’ve used this guy before; he’s really good. What he told me was the guy was a flake-a meth head who was trying to get clean, worked as a busboy. I thought hey, maybe he overheard something at his restaurant, almost didn’t take the bet. But Hardesty-that’s the PI-tells me that he looked into Kendall Marigold, and she’s about as clean as Snow White in a nunnery. She’s eighteen, she’s not dating, she’s never even set foot in Vegas. Plus, he knows someone on her security team, and his contact says her parents guard her so close she’s practically under house arrest.”

“Yeah, teenagers will always surprise you.”

Frankie shook his head in sorrow. “Putting a dent in the family car, sure. But announcing she’s having a secret affair with her yoga instructor on Oprah? I’m surprised her dad didn’t just stroke out right there in the green room.”

“So you paid out.”

“Not right away. I threw a few more grand at Hardesty, hoping he could find something, anything to link Kanamu to the yoga instructor or one of his friends. Nada. And before you ask, yes, I trust Hardesty. He’s looked into bigger payoffs than this one, and no one’s ever been able to buy him. Much as I hated to do it, I had to give Kanamu his money. If he scammed me, I couldn’t prove it.”

Frankie’s eyes were already flicking back to the monitors. Catherine moved between them and him. “Where can I find this Hardesty?”

“He’s in the book-HardLook Investigations.”

“One more thing, Frankie, and then I’ll let you get back to work. How did Kanamu justify making the bet in the first place?”

He snorted. “Said he had a dream. Kendall Marigold being thrown into a volcano, then getting spat back out because she wasn’t ‘pure.’ And that the whole thing was part of an episode of Dog the Bounty Hunter, which I guess is a show Kanamu watches a lot.”

“Watched. He’s dead.”

Frankie’s eyebrows went up. “Hey, you don’t think I had something to do with it, do you? I may hate losing, but whacking the winners is bad for business.”

She shook her head. “Relax. I checked with casino security before I came here-you were right here all night long.”

“Yeah, office hours are a pain.” He chuckled. “But hey, it’s what I do, right? Couldn’t quit if I tried…”

After she’d said good-bye and walked away, Catherine paused again at the threshold and looked back. Warrick Brown had loved to gamble, loved it a little too much. But there was one time-years ago, before it became obvious he had a problem-that she’d met Warrick for a drink at a sportsbook. He’d put so me money on a football game, and she’d watched the last quarter with him. What she’d seen then wasn’t the desperation or fervor of an addict, but the engagement of someone enjoying himself. Laughing, joking, watching every play intently while still talking to her, explaining why he thought a particular play had been chosen over another. He’d been animated, lively, just a little more pumped up than Warrick’s usual laid-back manner. She’d found it incredibly appealing, an intriguing counterpoint to a man she already considered attractive.

Even when he lost, Warrick hadn’t seemed to mind; he’d just laughed and said there was always tomorrow.

She’d thought about initiating something that night. Thought about it carefully, weighing the pros and cons, and eventually decided against it. She wasn’t willing to take the gamble.

Thinking back on it, she was pretty sure that Warrick would have.

But she’d never know. Warrick’s tomorrows had run out.

HardLook Investigations was located above a pawnshop. Despite that, it didn’t have the rundown, film noir look of a hard-boiled detective’s office-in fact, it was bright and sunny, with several ferns in the reception area, a skylight, and posters of McGruff the Crime Dog on the walls. The receptionist was a friendly, chubby black woman with tinted glasses who told Catherine to take a seat-Mr. Hardes ty was with a client but should be done shortly.

Catherine could almost have imagined she was at the dentist’s if it weren’t for the magazines in the waiting area-PI Chronicle, Detective Magazine, a newsletter from the International Bodyguard Alliance. She was halfway through an article on body armor when the door into the other office opened and a woman clutching a manila envelope in one hand and a handkerchief in the other walked out. She strode right past, her face angry and her eyes blinking back tears, and slammed the door behind her.