Two men entered behind them. One was shorter and a little round, the other was tall and lean. They almost looked like Laurel and Hardy. Now that he’d seen it, he’d never unsee it.

  “Hello, my name is Emett Bagger, and this is Russ Thomas.”

  Greg held out his hand. Emett took it, but the shake was lackluster. They didn’t want the PAU there anymore than they wanted to be there.

  Interesting.

  Greg dropped his hand to his side before gesturing to the others. “Nice to meet you. I’m Sergeant Greg Kane. This is Detective Ericka Stone across from me. Agent Quinn Miller to my left and Agent Maggie Hart to the right of Detective Stone.”

  “Welcome, welcome. We are happy to have you.” Bagger took a seat at the head of the table and Thomas sat next to Ericka.

  Happy?

  Greg wasn’t so sure about that.

  Russ Thomas was tall and fit. He adjusted his jacket and smiled broadly at Ericka as he settled in the chair. Greg tapped down his jealousy. He was being silly anyway. He’d be the one kissing Ericka later, not this gangly fellow.

  If he could slap himself without looking stupid, he would.

  Bagger laid thick files on the table. “Let’s get started. We’ve been working on this case for a few months now. We’ve had people infiltrate the games, but they still can’t figure out how the one running the illegal poker games is cheating.”

  Maggie blinked. “Why don’t you arrest him for running the illegal game? Does it matter how he is cheating?”

  “Of course it matters! We know that he’s trying to sell this technology to others. We figure there are bigger fish in the pond, and we want them all, not just the plankton.”

  Fish metaphors.

  Fantastic.

  “All right, case one, find out how he’s cheating. What else?”

  “Well, we think we have a mobster in town.”

  “A monster?” Quinn leaned in.

  “No, a mobster, boy. Can’t you understand me?”

  Quinn lifted his brows and leaned his head back like a turtle. He must be struggling with the accent. Greg had more practice. But even he would admit that Bagger’s thick accent was difficult to catch.

  “So, a mobster?”

  “Yes. He and his family moved in about a year ago and opened a dry-cleaning business. Something ain’t right with that place.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, I don’t know. It’s just not right and they look all dark haired and stuff.”

  “I see.” Greg sensed some profiling, but maybe they were right. Sometimes intuition was correct.

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, one more. Probably the biggest thing.” Bagger nodded his head at Thomas.

  “Oh, yes, um, well it’s our baseball team.”

  “Baseball team?”

  “Yeah. We’re a few players short.”

  “You want us here to play on your baseball team?” Maggie sounded the most shocked.

  “You make it sound dirty? You’re here anyway and,” he placed his hand to the side of his mouth and lowered his voice, “there ain’t that much to do in this town. You might want the extra activity.”

  Greg could think of plenty to do. More to do if he could convince Ericka to have a quick wedding.

  “I’ll play.” Ericka spoke first. “Tell me where to sign up.”

  “You any good?”

  “Is that a qualifier?” Maggie leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Well, no, but it might not hurt. We haven’t beaten the other towns in some time, and I’d like a chance this year. It’s embarrassing.”

  “Maggie, leave them alone. We’re here anyway.” Quinn finally added to the conversation.

  Greg looked at Ericka. The words uttered by Bagger about whether she was any good echoed in his ears. He smiled. “She’s good at everything she does.”

  She cocked her brow but didn’t reply.

  Thomas clapped his hands. “I guess that seals the deal then. We’ve got a team.”

  ****

  On the topnotch camera, Tyson watched the skinny cop wiggle and worm outside the door. Tyson tapped his foot on the tiled floor and counted to thirty. He wanted the boy to be good and stirred up before he came in.

  Finally, Tyson rose from his chair and walked toward the front room. He slowly turned the deadbolt. Before he could open the glass door, the boy was pushing it and rushing in.

  “You shouldn’t make me wait outside so long, I might get caught.”

  “Who’s going to catch you this late in the hour, hmm?”

  “Look, it doesn’t matter. I have the team. They’re good. I promise. Just bet on us, and you’ll win every time.”

  Tyson held his hands together in front of him in tight fists. He wanted to make sure that Thomas saw how big they were. He could easily snap the boy’s neck if he wanted to. But he wouldn’t. He needed him. At least for now.

  “You’re sure? You’ve seen them play?”

  “Well, no, b-but they’re from New York! And they said they were good.”

  “I see.” Tyson walked behind the counter and leaned his elbows on the glass. “Why don’t I reserve judgement until after the first practice?”

  “What about my debt? I promised a team and I delivered.”

  “Hmm, not yet you haven’t. First practice.”

  “First practice.” Russ Thomas was backing up and out of the store.

  Tyson drummed his fingers on the glass counter. Then he rolled his shoulders a few times. Landing in this dump selling comic books had not been his first choice of career. Pro baseball. That had been what he’d wanted to do. Then that stupid cop, Emett Bagger, had taken him down. He’d torn his rotator cuff, and Tyson had never been the same. Now Tyson was going to dismantle his organization from the inside, piece by piece.

  The first thing had been hooking his lowly underling. That had taken one poker game. The next was taking away his precious baseball team. After Tyson made some money, of course. He had his own debt to consider.

  Now he just needed to find that practice schedule. Once he bet and they won, then his life could finally start over.

  Chapter Four

  They walked the few blocks back to the office. Ericka opened the door and let out a gasp. The office smelled like lemon pine and shone like a freshly waxed car.

  “Who did they hire?” Maggie was doing a full circle with no sneezes. She looked like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music, minus the mountain and the dress.

  “Wizards and witches, that’s who they hired.” Quinn swiped his finger along one of the shiny desks leaving no trail of dust or streaks.

  Greg seemed impressed, but he also seemed focused. “It’s clean. That’s great. Now pick a desk and let’s get to work.”

  There were two desks sitting on opposite sides and facing each other. Maggie sat on the side with Greg putting Ericka on the side with Quinn but facing Greg. In fact, she looked right at him. She wasn’t sure that was the best idea, but there they were.

  Greg opened the file of the small-time gambler on his desk. “Who can play poker?”

  Ericka raised her hand. She hadn’t wanted to, but she could play so she had to say so.

  Maggie leaned back in her chair and threw her arm over the back. “Seriously? Is there anything you can’t do?”

  “I bet she learned that in the military, right?” Quinn seemed to want to know, but he might have been trying to give Greg the opportunity to say he had skills.

  “No, I learned it in my days of foster care.” She leaned forward and whispered. “It’s where I learned most of my tricks.”

  Greg snickered. “Okay, Ericka, you’ll infiltrate the poker game. See if you can figure out how Tyson Grunley is cheating. Next.”

  He opened the next file. Every time he rolled his eyes or sighed. She admitted that compared to the other cases they’d worked, these seemed small time. But one thing she’d learned, there were no small cases.

  “Who wants to go to the dry cleaners and check out the mobster?”

  “I’ve already been doing some digging, and the entire business is odd. They haven’t been there for more than a year and I can’t find where they ran the business before. It’s just like they appeared out of nowhere.”

  Maggie walked round and sat on the edge of her desk. “What about a search on the business owner’s name?”

  “Looked that up too. Doyle Mahon, thirty-one, dark brown eyes and hair. That’s about all I can find on him.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing else.”

  The entire thing sounded odd to her, but then again, the locals thought the guy was a mob boss. It was supposed to be a little odd.

  “Maybe we should do some dry cleaning?”

  Greg replied, “Sounds like a plan. You two go pick out something and make it super dirty and difficult to clean. We need to pick a fight with the owners. Ericka and I will find a way into the poker game.”

  Ericka almost balked at the suggestion. Them being alone and working together didn’t seem like the best idea. But she didn’t have to say a word.

  “Boss?” Quinn spoke up from behind his computer.

  “Hmm?”

  “I think I should help Ericka.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, I won a couple of poker championships in college.”

  “You did?” All three of them said it at the same time.

  “Well, don’t act so surprised. It was one way I paid for school.”

  “Well, then. I guess you should go with Ericka. Come on, Maggie let’s go get something dirty.” Greg pushed out his chair and rose to his feet.

  “I’m with you, boss.”

  Maggie and Greg left the office, the bell dinged above the door as they exited. Ericka immediately turned her attention to Quinn.

  “You did not win any tournaments in college.”

  Quinn shrugged. “Who said?”

  “I said. You don’t have a poker face. In fact, you can’t hide your guilt when you finish off the cereal box. What gives?”

  “He doesn’t need to be alone with you right now. You know it, I know it. Besides,” he shrugged, “I have you. You can play poker and I’ll be your bodyguard. You are the ace in the hole.”

  Yeah, the ace in the hole. She was getting fed up with that role. Despite their thoughts, she wasn’t good at everything. Most days she felt terribly inadequate.

  Quinn shut down his computer and stood. “Let’s go get some fancy clothes and rent a hot car. I have the perfect idea for getting you into that game.”

  “I can’t wait to hear it.”

  ****

  Greg knew that Quinn hadn’t won a single game of poker in his life. He’d just been trying to keep Ericka and him apart. Maybe it was for the best. He’d been trying to get them together and look how it was working out.

  “Stop moping.”

  “I’m not moping.”

  “You so are. I know you would rather have been with Ericka.”

  “Can we drop it?”

  “What for? Don’t you think we all want to be, I mean be, with our partners? We just also want to wait that’s all.”

  He wanted to wait too. That’s why he was already planning the wedding. It didn’t have to be anything big or elaborate. They could do that later. Maybe Quinn could get his license on the internet to marry them now…

  “Get your mind off it. There isn’t a rush. Just get to know each other first.”

  He’d known Ericka for a long time. They could clearly skip that part. But Maggie was right. The anticipation was going to drive him crazy, and he was going to make a mistake. One that might make them break up before they even had a chance to realize their relationship potential.

  “You’re right.”

  “I know. I always am. I keep telling everyone that.”

  Greg laughed under his breath.

  “So, do you have a plan other than something dirty and a fight with the owner?”

  “Not really. Although this will be a multi-step process. Today we take in the clothes. Tomorrow or whenever, we pick them up. Then we find the owner. Then we fight.”

  “You don’t think the owner will be working the store? Most of these places aren’t very big.”

  “Maybe. But if they really are a mobster, why would they want to be seen?”

  “Or maybe because they are a mobster they want to be seen.”

  Maggie had a point.

  Greg pulled up to a secondhand shop. They entered and a woman looked up over the rim of cat eyeglasses before returning her attention to her paper.

  Maggie cocked her brow, but immediately went to a beaded gown she saw hanging on the wall. “This would be dry-clean only.”

  “True, but I was thinking of something more like a suit. Beaded gowns might be rejected because of the beading. If it has been drycleaned before they might not do it because it can melt the beading.”

  “You know a lot about this.”

  He shrugged. “My sister, Susan, wore my mother’s wedding gown when she got married. Mom had had her dress preserved. It was a problem getting it cleaned before the wedding.”

  “I see.” She paused. “So, a suit?”

  “Works for me.”

  They went to the suit section. They picked a pair of black pants with a white jacket and black bow tie and took it to the counter.

  “Nice choice. This just came in. It was used one too many times at the funeral home.”

  Maggie reached for hand sanitizer on the counter, squirted it, and rubbed her hands vigorously.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Oh, when someone doesn’t have an outfit for their loved one the funeral home lets them borrow one. It’s all very polite. Although they do charge for the service. But afterward they can’t just give the suit away, so they take it off and bury the individual in their own clothes. The suits are worn four or five times before they donate them here. The dry cleaner on Main Street services them before they come in.”

  Maggie breathed a sigh of relief.

  “So, this one has already been cleaned?”

  “Yup.”

  Greg almost put it back, but he decided against it. If they’d already cleaned it, they would have no qualms doing it again. Plus, they were going to get it dirty. That would be the fun part.

  The lady wrapped the suit in plastic and handed it over the counter. “Hope you enjoy it.”

  Greg knew that wouldn’t be a problem.

  Once outside, Maggie looked at the bag. “Do I have to ride in the car with that?”

  “Afraid so. And I was thinking we’d play baseball.”

  “Baseball?”

  “Yup, I’ll put it on and slide in the dirt a couple of times.”

  “You’re going to wear that?”

  “It was cleaned.”

  “Only a man.” She shook her head, sending strands of her hair around her face.

  Greg wasn’t offended. They had a job to do, and he would do it. The quicker they did the work the sooner they might get to move somewhere else. He’d not spoken to the other groups, but surely, they had been given better jobs. The cases Bagger forked over could easily have been conducted by local law enforcement. He felt like they were being punished. For what he wasn’t sure.

  They drove to the baseball field. There was a team there warming up. It was a team of older guys. Probably one of the teams they had agreed to play against. He didn’t know and didn’t care.

  He stepped from the car and grabbed the jacket. He laid it across his arm before grabbing a bat from the backseat.

  “What are we going to do now? The field is taken.”

  He looked around. There was a playground nearby. Rain had created several puddles.

  “Puddle jumping?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  He put the bat back in the car before pulling the pants from the plastic and pulling them on over his clothes. When he got back to the office he would be taking a serious shower. How clean could mobsters really get one’s clothes?

  Was there a school for that? Mobsters come here and we’ll train you to clean clothes! For some reason he had his doubts.

  He pulled off his shoes and grabbed some old shoes he kept in the trunk. At the playground he drew in a deep breath and jumped. Water and mud splashed all over his pant legs.

  He turned around to ask Maggie how it looked, but she had a mudball in her hand. She threw it at his chest and then placed her hands over her mouth as a giggle threatened to escape.

  “Can I do it again?”

  The mudball slipped off the jacket and fell to the ground with a thud.

  “Go for it.”

  Over and over, she slapped the white jacket with mud. Several kids joined her in the fun before they’d finished. Once the jacket and pants were completely covered, he stepped from the water and slogged bowlegged back to the car. Removing the wet items wasn’t as easy as he’d thought it would be. Once they were shed, he was still wet. He grabbed towels from the trunk and dabbed the damp areas.

  “Do you have everything back there?”

  “I travel prepared.”

  “I can tell.”

  He covered the seat before he climbed in. Fortunately, the office wasn’t that far away. Once he was clean, they could go to the cleaners. He chuckled under his breath at the thought.

  ****

  Tyson studied his books as the bell above the door rang. The numbers weren’t adding up, but he’d have to study them more later.

  He closed the book and shoved it under the counter. Before he looked up, he plastered a fake smile on his face. “Hello, how may I help you?”

  A woman in a tight white dress with a white fur wrapped around her neck snapped her fingers. A gentleman behind her removed the fur. She then pushed sunglasses on top of her head. Next, she removed white gloves and slapped them against one free hand.

  She lifted her chin high. “My name is Nova. I’m here for your poker game.”

  Her voice was smooth and sent chills along Tyson’s spine. He coughed a couple of times. This woman clearly had money. The car she’d pulled up in was a Mercedes with tinted windows. That did not take into account her clothing and the bodyguard/driver she was hauling around.