Blackjack Conspiracy

Part One 1 The Present, July 11, 2:30 a.m.Galveston Island, Texas Alex rarely slept well these days, and when the phone rang she was only dozing, halfway between asleep and awake. Her mind floated in a thin mist, thinking of the soft sands beside the Gulf of Mexico, a few hundred yards away; of the rolling Oklahoma prairie she'd left behind; and thinking that if she'd really embezzled all those hundreds of thousands of dollars, she wouldn't have stayed in this budget motel, but in one of the big beachside condominiums. The first thing she did when the phone rang was to reach beside her in the bed, instinctively feeling for what wasn't there. When her hand touched only the cool sheets, she slowly balled it into a fist. Gary was gone. Her husband wasn't coming back. It was almost as if he'd left her twice -- the first time, the day after she found out about the baby, waking up to his note taped to her guitar case, filled with phrases like too needful and dependent and can't envision having a child with you. The second time, a month later, it was the strange voice on the telephone: "Detective Ford from the St. Louis Police Department...shooting in the Central West End...he was dead at the scene...involved in drugs...very sorry..." She was alone. Of course, she'd felt alone for most of her life, but somehow her brief time with Gary had churned up her expectations, like a handful of pebbles tossed into a pond. She'd had to reacquaint herself with the aloneness. She unclenched her fist and rolled toward the phone beside the bed. "Alex Bridge?" said a man's voice. "Don't answer me. Don't speak at all. This is Wells." "I -- " "I said don't speak! After I hang up, stay where you are for fifteen minutes, then come and meet me. I'm on the beach across the street, just off Thirty-ninth. I'll be under the last beach umbrella before the rock jetty at Thirty-ninth. I've found something that will help you clear your name." Alex sat perfectly still. "I'm hanging up now. Fifteen minutes, Ms. Bridge." She lay back in bed, breathing quietly. She ran a hand down across her stomach, felt the swelling. She did it these days without even noticing that she was doing it. She let herself think of Gary's note, scribbled on a piece of yellow legal paper, and then the other note, this one on official company stationery from Cross Current Media: TO: Alex Bridge, Traffic and Billing Dept.FR: Edward Mullaney, Vice President for Administration & Human Resources You are being placed on immediate administrative leave from your position, pending the outcome of the investigation into the $498,207.33 missing from corporate accounts as of today's date. Officers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation will be contacting you. You are to cooperate fully. In keeping with company policy, this leave will be without pay. She thought of the first call from Wells, three days ago. "Galveston, Texas. Find a hotel along the Seawall. That's where the final truth is. Meet me there...." "I've found something that will help you clear your name," Wells had said just now. She watched the clock, the red digital numbers floating beside the hotel bed. Ten minutes slipped by. She got out of bed and stood beside it, barefoot, her long maternity nightshirt falling past her knees. This is crazy, she thought. FBI agents don't ask for late-night meetings on secluded beaches. "I've found something that will help you clear your name." She stumbled into the bathroom and squinted at herself in the harsh light above the mirror. Twenty-nine weeks along, people liked to tell her about the pregnancy "glow" she had. It was absurdly true: she often had high color in her cheeks these days, contrasting deeply with her dark skiKent, David is the author of 'Blackjack Conspiracy ', published 2005 under ISBN 9780743497510 and ISBN 0743497511.