the Second Horseman (2006) by Kyle Mills Page B

said laying his cards on the table to a chorus of frowns from the other players. Not Elvis, though. He just smiled.
    "Three sevens."
    Brandon looked around at the carefully created chaos in the casino while the dealer gathered the cards. Above him, people were floating by in fake hot-air balloons and model ships, tossing stuff to the crowd. Music blared, vividly costumed performers danced, tourists smoked and fed coins to the slots. As far as he was concerned, the Rio was the best of the bigger casinos to get lost in.
    A quick glance at his new hand revealed that it was crap, and he laid it back down on the table, trying to decide what to do.
    Elvis's eyebrows came up slightly, and the chunky lady next to him let her cigarette quiver perceptibly between her gloss - smeared lips. Brandon had been playing for nearly two days straight and had thirteen hundred dollars in his pocket -- more than enough for a fake mustache, a cowboy hat, and a rusted-out truck that could make it to Salt Lake.
    "I'm out," he said, sliding a couple of chips to the dealer and taking the rest for himself. "Hey. Do you have a business center?"
    "Susan Fallow, please," Brandon said into the phone as he sat down in a small booth neatly arranged with office supplies. There was an audible click and then the cheerful voice of his private dick.
    "This is Susan."
    "Hey, it's Brandon. Do you have anything for me?"
    "Yup. You got a fax?"
    He gave her the number and a moment later the printer next to him began spitting out pages.
    "The house you wanted to know about is owned by an elderly couple who've retired to Arizona," she said. "They rented it about a month ago and got all the money up front--in cash, apparently. I talked to the wife. Nice lady. Chatty. The lease was signed by a Ray Bradburn. I've checked the name, but come up with zip so far. Do you want me to --"
    "Nah, it's fake."
    "Seems likely based on the cash thing."
    "What about the plane?"
    "I managed to narrow it down to three possibilities based on your description and the general flight plan. The first is owned by a private individual named Robert Palmer--like the singer. He's a retired real estate developer. I forwarded you some newspaper clippings on him."
    Brandon retrieved the pages from the printer and shuffled through them, finding a carefully posed photo of Palmer smiling out from beneath a hard hat.
    "Ring any bells?"
    "Nope," Brandon said. "Never seen him before in my life."
    "I don't know exactly what you're looking for, but this guy seems pretty much on the up-and-up. Well known in the community, gives a lot of money to charities, lives in a modest house . . ."
    "Next," Brandon prompted.
    "The second is owned by a New York law firm."
    Brandon perked up a bit. Interesting in a John Grisham kind of way.
    "There are about a hundred attorneys working there. The link to their Web site is on one of the pages I sent you. Do you see it?"
    "Uh-huh," Brandon said, typing the address into the computer on the desk. A stuffy home page with limited information appeared.
    "You can get into individual profiles on all their people through that site. It also talks a bit about some of their bigger clients. They do mostly corporate work."
    He clicked through a few profiles, examining the serious, smartly coiffed headshots. It would be interesting to see if he could find Catherine's beautiful face in there anywhere. Advertising had been his first-blush reaction, but he could see lawyer, too.
    "Is any of this exciting you?" Susan said.
    "I'm not getting sweaty or anything, but I kinda like this one."
    Maybe someone he knew had told his lawyer about the job Brandon had been planning before he got busted. Then that lawyer got to thinking about it and figured it sounded pretty profitable.
    "The third is owned by a corporation: American Security Holdings, Inc. It's som e k ind of government contractor, but I can't figure out exactly what they do. They're privately held, so the information isn't just floating