Travis reached down for the pile of clothes. He pushed aside his jeans and smiled when he saw Christine’s bra had somehow gotten tangled up with the legs. He grabbed his jacket and retrieved his phone from the pocket. “Hello?” he said, his voice husky from sleep.
“Travis?” Aaron’s loud voice pierced through his fog. “I’ve been trying to reach you. Where have you been?”
“I was asleep. How did the game go?”
“I won big,” Aaron said triumphantly. “Was there any doubt?”
“Never,” Travis lied. One of these days his friend was going to lose badly. Maybe lose the emerald that symbolized his good fortune.
“You should have seen Hoffmann when I won. The guy tried to cheat but he still lost. He really wants that emerald back.”
“And I can’t wait to get rid of this stone. Pitts and Underwood followed us everywhere.”
“Us?” Aaron’s voice squeaked. “The hot chick has been with you all this time?”
“Was there any doubt?” Travis teased as he went through the jacket pocket looking for the emerald. He must have moved it to his shirt pocket. “She just left for the airport. Where do you want to meet? We need to be careful because I don’t think they’ve given up on the emerald just yet.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve been careful since I realized they searched my room,” Aaron said. “I won’t let my guard down.”
“I can’t wait to see the state of my hotel room,” he muttered. Travis froze as alarm shot through him while he stared at the pile of clothes. Where was his shirt?
“How should I know?”
Travis winced. Did he say that out loud? “Sorry, just talking to myself,” he said in a rush. “Let me call you back. I just got up.” He disconnected the call before Aaron could reply.
Travis dropped to his knees and went through the pile of clothes again. His shirt was gone. There was no emerald. Travis searched around the floor. He spotted his wallet and quickly went through it. As far as he could tell, nothing was touched.
He tossed his wallet back onto the floor and tried to breathe as dread twisted inside him. This wasn’t happening. What had happened to the emerald? Did Pitts and Underwood get it when they bumped into Christine? No, that couldn’t have happened. He had checked and still had the emerald at the time. So who took it?
Something silky and delicate slithered through his fingers. He looked down with a frown as he saw the white bra in his hands.
Christine.
No. Travis immediately rejected that idea. Christine was a sweet and shy small-town girl looking for a wild weekend. She was not a jewel thief. She didn’t have it in her to be a criminal mastermind.
Or had it all been pretend?
He tossed the bra to the ground and jumped to his feet. He needed to review the facts, Travis decided as he began to pace the small room. He was the one who had approached her. He was the one who’d made the first move.
And she was the one who took him to her hotel room and seduced him.
Seduced him? Travis rolled his eyes in self-disgust. She did more than that. She toyed with his emotions and made love to him. She knew what he had secretly craved. Her gentleness. Her sweetness. He hadn’t considered that it was fake.
She was good. She disarmed him. Stripped him bare. Played him for a fool.
Travis strode to the window and pushed the curtains open. He stared unseeingly at the Las Vegas Strip as he considered the possibilities. Did she work with Pitts and Underwood? Or did she work alone?
All he knew was that Christine Pearson wasn’t real. If that was even her real name. Anger burned inside him at the thought. Whoever she was, he wasn’t going to let her get the best of him.
He was going to hunt her down, get back his friend’s lucky charm and make her regret tangling with Travis Cain.
7
CHRISTINE WALKED UP to the front of her best friend’s store in the center of Cedar Valley. The warm yellow wood siding and colorful hanging flowers were a welcome sight in the face of the incoming rain clouds. It had been only one day and Christine already missed Las Vegas.