Read Online Sleepless in Las Vegas by Colleen Collins - Free Book Online

reaction showed the depth of his paranoia. He was afraid Drake might have documented something incriminating. Something the police would find of interest.
    Drake had a good idea what had happened tonight. Before setting the fire, Yuri, and probably one or two of his boys, had ransacked the office, snatching cameras, the laptop, recorders. Hearsay, hackles bristling, had barked at the intruders. But it hadn’t taken long for the dog’s street smarts to kick in, sense that retreat meant survival, so he’d withdrawn to his spot under the kitchen table.
    The men hadn’t bothered with the dog after that—they had work to do.
    Yuri and his stupid cretins. No concept that images could be saved in places other than physical devices. Idiots probably thought “the cloud” was something in the sky, not a remote storage option.
    After gathering equipment, they’d drenched his office in gasoline. Considering how rapidly the fire spread through that part of the house, they must have also splashed gasoline down the hall and into the bedroom, too. Then torched the place.
    With the dog still inside.
    His fingers dug into the steering wheel. That son of a bitch would pay dearly for what he did tonight. And Drake would do it personally, not hand over the meting of justice to some arson investigator.
    Sure, he could have leaked Yuri’s name to Tony Cordova, who would have tracked the bastard down tonight for an interview. The Russian would have had an alibi, of course, along with a string of witnesses who’d back up his story. Plus, with Drake siccing government dogs on him, Yuri would go into hiding, and Drake’s personal investigation would grind to a halt. Any hopes of digging for more dirt, or ever getting back the ring, would be crushed.
    Then there was Brax.
    His brother felt above the law, but arson? He wasn’t that dirty. But if Drake offered up Yuri to arson investigators, trails could lead to his brother. And if they didn’t, Yuri would ensure sure they did.
    A form materialized in Drake’s mind. That woman. Who Dat. Had she been a player in this arson? Paid to keep Drake busy, give Yuri and his goons time to do their job? His gut said yes. Just like the Mississippi River that ran through her city of New Orleans, she was twisting, swift and treacherous.
    She had never been to Dino’s, a dive bar in a lousy neighborhood, yet she showed up tonight, out of the blue. Made a straight line for him, too, and even after he’d shunned her, she didn’t budge. Stayed perched on that stool like some kind of tufted bird of prey, waiting for an opportunity to sink in her talons.
    He’d walked out of that bar knowing she was trouble, but had given in to the night, the heat.
    He clenched his teeth. And for those few hot, heady minutes, his home had been destroyed. Hearsay nearly killed.
    Just as Yuri would pay for what he had done tonight, so would she.
    By morning, he would know her name, age, address, where she hung out, where she worked. And he would pay her a visit.
    The kind of visit a person remembered for the rest of her life.
    * * *
    A T TEN-FORTY , Val walked through the door of her second cousins’ Char and Del Jackson’s home, carrying a paper bag from Aloha Kitchen.
    Their home was a hodgepodge of secondhand furniture, along with some everyday objects Char, with Del’s handyman help, had remade into furnishings. Stacked crates had become a bookcase in the living room, and a polished wooden wire spool now served as a small table on the patio. Val’s favorite was an old trunk they had recycled into a wine rack. “It’s not about what God took away,” Char liked to say, “but what we do with what’s left.”
    To Val, that said everything about their being survivors of Katrina. Char and Del had visited her and Nanny, Del’s cousin, several times when Val was a child, but they had lost touch over the years. Right before Katrina, they had moved to Gulfport, Mississippi, an area also ravaged during the storm, during