"Jodie, I'm…," she started but didn't finish. In that moment she decided this was not the right time. The child was already confused and scared. "Jodie, my name is Cassie and I'm going to take you out of here. Did that man hurt you?"
"He made me – "
Cassie quickly put her finger across Jodie's lips to remind her to whisper. The girl then started over.
"He made me go in the car with him. He said he was a magician and that my daddy was having a party here for my mom."
"Well, he's a liar, Jodie. I am going to get you away from him and out of here. But we have to be very – "
Cassie stopped when she heard a sound from the doors.
Karch unwrapped the telephone line from the knobs and opened the bedroom doors. He stepped in and looked at the girl lying on the bed, her face propped in her hands. He stepped further in and surveyed the room and saw nothing amiss.
"Loud enough for you?" he asked.
"What?"
"I said, 'Loud – ' "
He stopped when he saw her smile, realizing the joke. He pointed a warning finger at her and stepped over to the curtains. He opened them, revealing another floor-to-ceiling wall of glass. He stepped close enough that he could see his breath on the glass and looked down. He could see through the atrium below to the crowded gaming tables.
"They're all suckers," he said. "Nobody beats the house."
"What?" Jodie said from behind him.
He turned and looked at her. Then his eyes moved to the room service cart and her untouched plate of pasta.
"I said you better eat your dinner, kid. You won't be getting another."
"I'll eat when my daddy comes."
"Have it your way."
He stepped through the door, closed it and this time decided the telephone wire wasn't necessary.
"Where's she gonna go?" he said to himself as he returned to his steak.
After she heard the bedroom doors close Cassie closed her Swiss Army knife and got down off the toilet, where she had been poised to jump and attack if Karch had come in to search the bathroom. She went out to the bedroom and whispered into Jodie's ear that she had done a fantastic job in handling his visit to the room.
"Now, I have to go back into the bathroom, close the door and make a phone call. This time I want you to come with me. This way if he comes back you can say you're going to the bathroom and that he can't come in."
"I don't have to go to the bathroom."
"I know, sweetie, but you can tell him that."
"Okay."
"Good girl."
Cassie kissed the top of her head and realized that the last time she had done that had been in the hospital ward at High Desert. A nurse was standing impatiently next to her bed, waiting for the baby with her arms outstretched.
Jodie's hair smelled like Johnson's baby shampoo and for some reason Cassie's identification of it served to remind her of all she had missed. She faltered for a moment while leaning over her child and the bed.
"Are you okay?" Jodie whispered.
Cassie smiled and nodded that she was. She then led the girl to the bathroom and quietly closed and locked the door. She took one of the bath towels off a shelf over the bathtub, put it on the floor and pressed it against the bottom crack of the door.
"My daddy does that when he smokes in the bathroom," Jodie whispered.
Cassie looked up at her and nodded.
"Mommy doesn't like him to do it because it smells funny."
Cassie got up and picked Jodie up and sat her on the closed toilet. The black gym bag was on the tank behind her.
"Now if he tries the door or knocks, you tell him he can't come in because you're going to the bathroom. Then flush the toilet and go on out, okay? But remember, before you go out take that towel from the door and throw it into the bathtub so he doesn't see it, all right?"
"Okay."
"Good girl. You stay here. I'm going to go into the shower stall to make the phone call."
"Are you calling my daddy?"
Cassie smiled sadly.
"No, baby, not yet."
"I'm not a baby."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"He called me that."
"Who did?"
"The magician. He said I was a baby."
"He was wrong. You're a big girl."
She left her there, grabbed the gym bag and another towel and went into the shower stall. She carefully and quietly closed the door and then got her cell phone out of her pocket and unfolded it. She had a page of blank note paper she had torn from a hotel pad in the bedroom. The toll-free number for the Cleopatra was printed on the bottom. She pulled the towel over her head to further deaden the transmission of sound out to Karch and punched in the number. In a low voice she asked the operator for Vincent Grimaldi. The call was transferred and picked up by someone who was not Grimaldi. He told Cassie that Mr. Grimaldi was too busy to take a call at the moment and that he would be happy to take a message.
"He'll want to talk to me."
"How so, ma'am?"
"Just tell him there are two-and-a-half million reasons to talk to me."
"Hold, please."
She waited a nervous minute, wondering how long it would be before Karch checked on Jodie again, saw the bed empty and came to the bathroom door. Finally, another voice came on the line. It was calm and smooth and deep.
"Who is this?"
"Mr. Grimaldi? Vincent Grimaldi?"
"Yes, who is this?"
"I just wanted to thank you."
"For what, I don't know what you're talking about. Two-and-a-half million reasons? What two-and-a-half million reasons?"
"Then I guess Jack hasn't gotten it to you yet."
This was met with a long silence. Cassie lifted the towel and looked out through the glass door of the shower stall. Jodie was where she had left her. She was rolling the toilet paper into a pile on the tile floor.
"You say Jack Karch has this money?"
Cassie dropped the towel back down. She noted Grimaldi's use of the word money for the first time in the conversation. Also the name Karch. He was getting hooked in.
"Well, yeah, I gave it to him like we agreed. I was calling just to thank you. He told me it was you who okayed the trade."
Grimaldi's voice took on an urgent tone now. Cassie was getting juiced because she thought it was working.
"I'm not clear on what you are – could you speak up? I can hardly hear you."
"I'm sorry. I'm in the car on the cell phone and my daughter's sleeping. I don't want to wake her. Plus out here in the desert, I think I'm losing reception."
"What exactly did Karch say I okayed? What trade?"
"You know, the trade. My daughter and me for the money. I told him, we didn't know about the payoff or Miami or any of that. We didn't want to be greedy. As soon as we opened the case and saw all that money we knew we'd made a mistake. We wanted to give back the money. I'm just glad we were able to – "
"You're saying Karch has the money now?"
Cassie closed her eyes. She had him.
"Well, I think he was going to bring it down to you. But he had some arrangements to make first, he said. He was on the phone when we left. He was – "
The line went dead. Grimaldi had hung up.
Cassie closed the phone and slid it into her pocket. She dropped the towel and came out of the shower. She went right to Jodie and knelt down in front of her. She started untying the girl's sneakers.
"We're going to go now, Jodie. We have to take these off so we don't make any noise."
"How come?"
"Because we're going to climb up into the wall and crawl through a tunnel that will take us out to the elevator."
"I'm afraid of tunnels."
"You don't have to be afraid, Jodie. I'll be right behind you the whole time. I promise."
"No, I don't want to do it."
The girl looked down at her hands, which were in her lap. She looked as if she might be about to start to cry. Cassie reached a finger under her chin and tilted it up.
"Jodie, it's all right. There won't be anything to be afraid of."
"No…"
She shook her head. Cassie didn't know how to budge her. If she threatened her she would only scare her. And she didn't want to lie to her, either.