Smoke and Mirrors

97

Alexa watched Styer clipping his fingernails over an ashtray. The tape on her mouth prevented her from saying anything.

“Now,” Styer told Alexa as he dropped a final clipping into the glass bowl. “If you want to save the Gardners, and I assume you do, you and I are going to walk out of this casino together. While Mrs. Gardner and Massey and others, I presume, are conducting their business here with Mr. Klein, we will go to the Gardners’ home. I will collect the explosives I put there during the funeral of the unfortunate young lady with the ruined cranium. After that, I will leave Massey a note and you and I will take a ride in the country. Winter will come alone to rescue you, and he and I will have our reckoning. It will be a fair fight and I will kill him. If you try anything now, I will explode the device, and whoever is in the house will be vaporized. Do you understand?”

Alexa nodded.

“If you scream, I will set off the device, stroll up to Massey and Mrs. Gardner, which we both know I can do, and kill them inside this establishment. On all of this, and I mean every bit of it, you have my word. Please tell me you understand.”

Alexa nodded again.

“Oh, and there’s one other thing you should see. Just in case you don’t grasp the entire situation.”

Styer stood and went into the bedroom. When he came back, he was not alone. Cynthia Gardner’s eyes were wild, her hands behind her back, her mouth covered with tape. Around her waist was a belt containing a brick of explosives with a detonator and a receiver attached to it. Styer pushed her roughly onto the couch and she blinked rapidly, looking from Alexa to Styer, confusion and fear clouding her features.

Styer came around the table and jerked the tape from Alexa’s mouth. “Alexa, do you know Cynthia Gardner? I told you she was all right. Cynthia, meet FBI Agent Alexa Keen. She’s an abduction specialist who has found you against all odds.”

Cynthia turned toward Alexa, alert and terrified.

“So you didn’t know I had her?” Styer said. “You being the world’s leading abduction expert?”

Styer picked up Alexa’s purse, took out her Glock, removed the magazine, jacked the receiver, and caught the round in the air. He slowly thumbed each of the rounds from the magazine into the bowl along with his nail clippings. That done, he slammed the empty magazine into the gun’s handle, tossed the other loaded magazines on the couch, and put the Glock back into her purse.

“I won’t hesitate to kill her. You believe me, I hope. Cyn’s explosive is rigged to the same signal and will go off in sync with the one in her home. Double jeopardy, you see. I think I’ve covered all my bases.”

Lifting his cell phone, he checked the readout, and put it into his left hand, thumb on the SEND button. “One queer move and I’ll press it.”

“Okay,” Alexa said.

“I know you may think I’m bluffing so I want to show you something.” He reached into his jacket pocket and showed her a Polaroid of him holding a bomb made of eight blocks of explosive in the foyer of the Gardner house.

“I’m pretty photogenic, don’t you think?” he said.

“Jesus,” Alexa said.

“Do as I say and you will live. I want your word.”

“It’s your game,” Alexa said.

Styer cut the cable ties on Alexa’s ankles and unlocked her handcuffs. She sat up, rubbing her wrists slowly.

Cynthia was sobbing hysterically.

“It’s okay, Cynthia. He won’t do anything if we do as he says.”

“Now, Cynthia,” Styer said. “You are going to make a call. If you say exactly what I tell you, you’ll be fine. If you screw this up, you are going to be very dead.”

Cynthia nodded slowly as she locked eyes with Alexa. “Cynthia, do exactly what he says,” Alexa told the girl.