Double Strike (A Davis Way Crime Caper Book 3) by Gretchen Archer Read Free Book Online

horrible scenario imaginable, all involving sirens.
    “Davis.”
    He sounded perfectly and completely defeated.
    “Are you okay, Bradley? What’s wrong?”
    I waved a concerned passerby off and ducked into a restroom. Which turned out to be a men’s room.
    “You need to sit down. I have some news.”
    I had three sit-down options. I stood.
    “Say something.” I could hear him breathing. “Just tell me.”
    “I stopped by the court clerk’s office to pick up our marriage license.”
    “And?” My brain flew to court-house shootings. Killer bees. Volcanoes.
    “It was denied.”
    I sat down.
    “Davis, you’re still married to Eddie.”

FOUR

      
    Bradley Cole grew up in Texas. His Texas heritage was never more on display than during football season, when his weekend wardrobe either said Hook ‘em Horns or Go Cowboys. And Bradley Cole looked like a Texan—broad shouldered, sun-bronzed, sandy-blond. If he wore a Stetson with his lawyer suits, you’d swear he was an oil baron who’d just climbed off his Appaloosa after checking the rigs on the north forty. His real Texas tell was the hot sauce; Bradley doused chocolate cake with Texas Pete hot sauce.
    Smart guy that he is, Bradley’s final year of law school had him twiddling his thumbs. He was down to two required courses to finish his law degree, so he filled his schedule with bar-exam prep things and electives. He took a Taxation of Financial Derivatives class, which turned out to be a hard look at how the gaming industry wove in and out of the overall body of tax law, and how gaming corporations capitalized on mark-to-market, constructive sale, straddle, wash sale, and short-sale rules to their bottom-line benefits. Included in the course syllabus was a trip to Las Vegas, where he spent four days at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas in the Konami Gaming Lab, just a few miles off the Strip, and four nights at the Grand Palace, where his law professor had arranged a meet-a-casino-mogul reception. The president of the casino, a Dallas Mavericks fan, took the empty seat next to Bradley. One drink turned into two, then four, and when twenty-four-year-old Bradley left Las Vegas, he’d signed up for more school and had a job. Upon completing his law degree, Bradley moved to Las Vegas to get a quickie degree in Gaming Management from UNLV during the day while working the casino trenches at night. After obtaining the additional degree and passing the bar, Bradley joined the Grand’s legal team. Two years later, when Grand Palace Biloxi opened its doors, Bradley Cole, lead attorney, was one of the ribbon cutters.
    None of this sat too well with his mother, who’d wanted him to move back to Texas, hang his shingle a block from the house he’d grown up in, practice family law, marry a nice Texas girl, give her grandbabies, and so forth and so on. How she managed to blame me for this dream not coming true was a puzzle. I didn’t have a thing to do with it, because Bradley and I met three years ago. And in those three years, my ex-ex-husband has caused us immeasurable grief. He just wouldn’t go away. And I’m still married to him? How? Why?
    We couldn’t talk at home because his mother was there. Bradley had no desire to leave the casino where he worked to meet me at the casino where I worked, nor did I, so we split the difference and met in the middle.
    He was waiting for me in the Lucky Lady bar at the Belle of Biloxi Casino, built out like a riverboat, with a Scotch neat and a water back, at a small round table in a dark corner. He looked up, and stunned, when I walked in the door. A Keno runner girl almost knocked me down with her tray of tickets and mini pencils as I made my way to him. “No, thanks. I don’t understand Keno.” (True.) My purse thumped to the floor; I fell into a chair. I held out my hand, he passed me the envelope.
    It was arbitrarily rubber stamped near the middle, with the word DENIED. Beneath it, the second item on the list had a