High Stakes and Hazelnut Cupcakes in Las Vegas Read online

  High Stakes and Hazelnut Cupcakes in Las Vegas

  By

  A. R. Winters

  High Stakes and Hazelnut Cupcakes in Las Vegas

  Copyright 2017 by A. R. Winters

  www.arwinters.com

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  ***

  High Stakes and Hazelnut Cupcakes in Las Vegas: A Tiffany Black Mystery

  ***

  A CEO, a nurse and a housekeeper: the one thing they have in common is murder victim, April Wilkins.

  When cupcake-loving croupier Tiffany Black delves into the mysterious circumstances surrounding April’s death, she uncovers a world of deceit and high stakes… stakes high enough that the killer decides to target Tiffany next.

  Meanwhile, Tiffany learns about her friend Stone’s past, Tiffany’s mother insists on introducing yet another persistent, bad date, and Nanna tries to “help” out on the case…

  Table of Contents

  High Stakes and Hazelnut Cupcakes in Las Vegas

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 1

  Another loud cheer erupted at the craps table.

  I glanced over for a second: the table was packed four deep. Tourists and locals alike were attracted by the winning streak of the two gamblers who were taking turns rolling the dice. The happy cheers had been going on for the past hour or so, and anyone who was gambling at the table must’ve made a small fortune by now.

  When it heats up, the craps table is one of the most popular tables in any casino. Working as a dealer, I see winning streaks quite often, but a long winning streak like the one at the table tonight isn’t so common.

  I knew that someone from casino management must’ve already comped the gamblers their stay at the Treasury. People who win are almost as important to the casino as those who lose.

  I looked over at my pit boss, who pointed to his watch and nodded. I clapped out my hands at the blackjack table where I was stationed and smiled at the four gamblers sitting in front of me.

  “It’s time for me to head off,” I told them, “but Nancy’ll take good care of you.”

  The gamblers nodded and said their goodbyes in a half-daze. I smiled at Nancy, my replacement dealer, and began to thread my way out of the pit.

  Although it was six o’clock in the morning, the energy of the pit was nowhere near subsiding.

  It had been one exciting thing after the other since my shift had started at midnight—first there was the elderly woman from Tennessee who’d won the million-dollar jackpot at one of the special slot machines. Then there was the massive brawl that had broken out between ten boxing fans: as far as I could tell, the wrong person had won, or perhaps it was the right person, but each of the overweight frat-boy-aged boxing fans wanted to prove their mettle on the casino floor. The fight had gone on for much longer than most casino fights before they were finally removed from the premises, and soon after, one of the gamblers at my blackjack table was asked to leave because of card counting.

  There were no windows in the pit, no way to detect a whiff of the outside world. Management had created the perfect closed environment for gamblers: no clocks, no visible signs of anything outside the casino. The garish carpets, bright lights, and constant flux of activity served to keep the gamblers’ energy levels high, and fresh, mildly-citrus-scented oxygen was constantly piped in through the air vents.

  The continuous jingles of slot machines and whoops of winning gamblers were reminders to everyone in the pit that they too could be a winner, if only they played for a bit longer. And a bit longer. And a bit longer.

  The casino has been my second home for a while now. There was a time when I hated the job, but these days, I appreciate it for what it is—a relatively easy paycheck, and a sharp contrast to my other job, that of being a private investigator.

  A few minutes later, I was stepping out of the climate-controlled casino and into the cool early-morning breeze of Las Vegas.

  I’d made a quick pit stop at one of the employee restrooms and changed out of my bright-red-and-black dealer’s uniform into jeans and a cozy cardigan. My outfit kept me warm despite the unexpectedly cool morning breeze, unlike the group of tourists who were just stepping out of a cab, dressed in shorts and Hawaiian shirts.

  As I walked past them, one of the Treasury doormen held the cab door open, said something funny, and pocketed what must’ve been a generous tip. I heard the door slam shut and then, before I knew it, the doorman had rushed forward till he was standing next to me.

  “Tiffany Black?” he said.

  I looked at him, one of my eyebrows rising up of its own accord. I’d never noticed this doorman before—he seemed about five foot ten, slightly on the skinny side, with dark brown hair that was receding at the temples. His auburn eyes held a mixture of hope and worry, and there was a tautness to his face that made me frown.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “I don’t remember your name…”

  He smiled and shook his head. “We’ve never been introduced,” he said, his words coming out in an apologetic rush. “I’ve heard about you. I heard you do some PI work on the side, and that you’re really good at it.”

  I wondered which gossiping coworker had told him all that and noticed that his name tag said Dave. “I guess it’s nice to meet you, Dave.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean to keep you or anything,” Dave said, still sounding apologetic. “It’s just that”—he glanced back toward the entrance of the Treasury Casino, where he was supposed to be at work, being charming to visitors and earning hefty tips—“I’m in a bit of a pickle, and I think an investigator could help me out.”

  “I’ve never worked for anyone in the casino before,” I said hesitantly. “I don’t want to get into trouble at work or something.”

  Dave shook his head. “I promise, I’ll make sure nobody else at the Treasury finds out, and you won’t get into trouble. Please. I need to get back to work now, but I really need your help. If you could just…”

  Something about the man made me feel sorry for him. “Why don’t I give you my number,” I said kindly, “and when your shift’s over, you can come by my place to chat with me.”

  Chapter 2

  It was ten o’clock the next morning and my neighbor Ian had come over to my apartment with some hazelnut cupcakes and his kitten, Snowflake.

  Snowflake is a little bundle of white fluff with bright blue eyes. Ian and I rescued her from a horrible woman, and now Ian keeps her safely in his apartment. She has a unique combination of apathy and curiosity and will pretend to be asleep whenever she doesn’t want to interact with the humans. Today, however, she butted her head against my ankles and demanded some snuggles.

  As I petted her, Ian placed a big Tupperware container on my kitchen countertop and filled the kettle with water.

  Ian lives a few doors down the hallway from me, and despite our
differences, we’ve managed to become good friends. He’s only a few years younger than me, but while I’m cynical and realistic, Ian is naive and constantly hopeful. He has a shock of curly red hair, optimistic green eyes, and the ability to constantly say the wrong thing.

  When I first met Ian, I found him annoying and overly enthusiastic about everything. But as time went by, I came to appreciate his loyalty and unique perspective on life. In many ways, he’s like the younger brother I never had.

  Ian dropped out of college when a start-up that he and his friends had founded made them all multimillionaires after its IPO; his money is now tied up in a trust fund that his parents and lawyer control. Which means that thankfully he can’t spend everything all at once, or get taken for a ride by the many gold-diggers he meets.

  However, the existence of his trust fund does mean that Ian never has to work, especially since he doesn’t have very many expenses. He still lives like a college student, in his cheap apartment with cheap takeout. But he’s always wanted to do something more “meaningful” with his life, so when he found out that I was a private investigator, he managed to convince me to let him tag along on most of my cases.

  “Glenn brought these over last night while you were still at work,” said Ian, nodding at the container and mentioning another neighbor, a retired baker who lives downstairs. “I wanted to have one right away, but I remembered how you said you wouldn’t let me help out on any of your cases if I ate Glenn’s cupcakes without you.”

  I looked at Ian seriously and nodded. “I’ve missed Glenn’s baking—we haven’t had a chance to see him much, and now his girlfriend wants him to do more healthy baking instead of cupcakes.”

  “Maybe she’ll change her mind,” said Ian hopefully. “And then Glenn can go back to baking cupcakes every day, like he used to.”

  Ian is an eternal optimist, but I wasn’t sure too sure. I shook my head. “I don’t know. We really should get back to practicing baking cupcakes, but I don’t have time these days; I keep getting busy with cases, and there’s my work with the casino, and I’ll need to help Stone out soon…”

  I handed Snowflake over to Ian, made two mugs of steaming-hot instant coffee, and set out cupcakes for the both of us.

  As we settled down on the sofa and dug into the delicious sweet-hazelnut flavors of the cupcakes, I filled Ian in on Dave. “He’s supposed to come over within fifteen minutes,” I said, “and then we’ll find out what’s going on.”

  “But you don’t know anything about what he wants?”

  I shook my head. “He was busy with work, and we couldn’t really talk.”

  Ian and I chewed our cupcakes thoughtfully while Snowflake watched us carefully from her spot on Ian’s lap, probably wondering if she should try to lick some of that icing the humans seemed to enjoy.

  “Have you heard from Stone recently?” Ian asked suddenly.

  I looked at him and nodded.

  Stone is an ex-CIA operative, a friend who’d helped me out on my first cases. At one point, I’d started to wonder if we were going to be more than friends. And then, one night, we shared a kiss that I still can’t forget.

  Unfortunately, the next day, two men in dark suits showed up looking for Stone, claiming he’d been involved in all kinds of crimes. Stone went into hiding after that, and I only managed to track him down through his former CIA mentor, an elderly man who went by the name of Johnson.

  I said, “Someone from Stone’s past—another former CIA guy, Eli Cohen—is supposed to be arriving in Vegas tomorrow. Johnson and I are going to follow him around, see what we can learn about what’s going on.”

  “But you still don’t know what really happened in Stone’s past?”

  “No. I think Johnson’s going to tell me tomorrow morning, while we wait for Eli’s plane to land.”

  “And this Eli guy holds the key to Stone being able to come out of hiding?”

  I shrugged. “I’m completely in the dark, but apparently it could help. And you know I’d do anything to help Stone out.”

  Ian nodded. “I wish you’d let me help out too.”

  “I know, but this is something I have to do myself. It’s too risky, and I probably shouldn’t even be talking about Stone with you. I don’t know what kind of trouble he’s in, but I’m going to make sure he’ll be okay.”

  ***

  Just as Ian and I finished our cupcakes, there was a knock on the door, and I opened it to invite Dave in. He’d changed out of his doorman’s uniform and into jeans and a button-down shirt, but he still had that haunted look in his eyes.

  He waved away my offer for anything to drink and sat down on a chair opposite the sofa. “Thanks for agreeing to talk to me. I really need your help—I need to know what happened to my sister.”

  “I can’t promise anything,” I said evenly. “I’m not sure what kind of work you’d like me to do, but I’ve already agreed to a job that starts tomorrow morning and might go on for a day or two. Obviously, I won’t be able to work on your case during that time.”

  “That’s okay,” said Dave. “I don’t have anywhere else to turn, and the police are being particularly incompetent.”

  Ian and I exchanged a glance. “There are always other private investigators,” I said lightly. “Just in case I can’t do the work for you…”

  “But of course we’d like to,” said Ian quickly, before Dave could look any more disappointed. “Why don’t you tell us what’s going on?”

  Dave nodded and gulped.

  “My sister April died,” he started hesitantly. “It’s been three weeks now. She was killed by someone—and the cops don’t know who did it. I know that in a few days, the case might get closed and marked unsolved, and I can’t let that happen. She’s my only family. I need to know what happened—I can’t just have the person who killed her walking around enjoying their life, while my sister’s not here anymore.”

  So far, no good.

  I didn’t like the sound of things—the cops in Vegas can be overworked, and there are a few who aren’t particularly good at their jobs. But if they couldn’t find out who killed his sister, I wasn’t sure that I would be able to either. I didn’t say all that, and instead watched as Dave ran his hands through his hair. He was obviously making an effort to seem organized and calm about the whole thing, but the despair in his eyes was crystal clear, as was the fear that he would never find out the truth.

  I took a sip of my coffee and said, “How exactly did she die?”

  “Someone stabbed her in the stomach,” said Dave, shuddering and narrowing his eyes. “She was found out in the desert, a couple of miles away. The cops say—and this seems pretty obvious to me—that someone must’ve killed her and then dumped her out there to cover their tracks.”

  “Unless she went out there to meet someone,” said Ian.

  “No, it was too far out, and my sister’s not the kind of person who would go and meet people in the desert.”

  “What kind of person was she?” I said gently.

  “She was young,” said Dave. He pulled out his phone, found some photos, and handed the phone over to me.

  As I scrolled through the photos, looking at the pretty, fresh-skinned brunette with shoulder-length curly hair, Dave went on, “She was smart, and pretty ambitious. She was only twenty, but she wanted to do something with her life—she just didn’t know what. She was going to college in the East, but she dropped out after two years to figure out what she wanted to do. She’d planned to study science, but she said there weren’t enough jobs, and she wanted something that was meaningful, but still provided a good paycheck. That’s why she moved out to Vegas—we were going to spend some time together, and she’d take a break to see what kinds of things she liked.”

  “How long had she been staying here?”

  “About seven months,” said Dave. “She’s been—she was living in an apartment near the hospital and working at a café during the day.”

  “Was she living by herself? Or did sh
e have a boyfriend?”

  “She had a roommate,” said Dave. “Ruby Williams, a nurse at the hospital. They were good friends.”

  “And what about your family?” I said, remembering Dave’s earlier comment that April was his only family.

  Dave shook his head. “Our parents both died a few years back—Dad had cancer, and Mom died from a heart attack. They used to live out in Maryland. We don’t have any other brothers or sisters—it was just me and April.”

  “Any uncles or aunts?”

  “We have an uncle and aunt on my mother’s side, and three cousins; all of them live in Maryland. My dad has a brother, and he’s got two sons, who live in Illinois.”

  I was trying to think of how to phrase the issue of money delicately, but Ian beat me to the punch. “So it’s not like there’s anyone who’s going to inherit a bunch of money from your sister’s death.”

  Dave shook his head. “My parents weren’t well off, and by the time we paid for all the funeral expenses and paid off all their debts, there was very little left over. We don’t have any money issues, which I guess is an advantage of not having very much money to start with.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Ian. “Having too much money can lead to all kinds of problems.”

  Before Ian could start talking about his trust fund woes and all the people who’d tried to swindle him, I said, “And what about any boyfriends? Was your sister seeing anyone?”

  Dave nodded. “I love my sister, but she’s young, and she’d never been too mature about her relationships. As far as I knew, she was dating Richard Hennessy.”

  The name meant nothing to me, but Ian’s eyebrows shot up. “The CEO of InvenTech?”

  Dave nodded. “Yep.”

  I bit my lower lip thoughtfully. “How did they meet? I don’t want to seem rude, but a rich CEO probably had lots of women chasing after him. Maybe their involvement had something to do with April’s death.”

  Dave shook his head. “It was a very low-key relationship. April met Richard through her roommate Ruby, and I think Ruby and Richard are old friends. I’m not sure if Richard has lots of women chasing after him or not, but it’s not something April ever complained about. But that’s part of the reason why I’m here—Richard is actually the main suspect, and I think the police aren’t going after him hard enough, because of all his money.”