Las Vegas: Scandals. Nina Bruhns

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       Chapter 2

      Defense attorney Darius “Conner” Rothchild couldn’t believe his luck.

      What were the chances he’d go out on a little fishing expedition for the Parker case and end up running into Darla St. Giles, the very woman he’d been trying to track down for two weeks? At a strip joint, of all places…called, of all things, the Diamond Lounge.

      The superb irony of the name did not escape him. Nor did the amazing coincidence of running into her there. Normally, Conner didn’t believe in coincidences. But this just might be the genuine article.

      Peeling a twenty from the roll of various bills he always carried in his pants pocket, he paid for another beer and scanned the dark club again.

      Talk about two birds with one stone.

      Being a Rothchild, a full partner in the family law firm of Rothchild, Rothchild and Bennigan, and independently wealthy, all allowed him to take on a number of pro bono cases in between his paying clients. The Suzie Parker case was one of his current charity projects—a sordid affair concerning organized prostitution, unlawful coercion and sexual harassment. Several club managers on the Strip had gotten it into their minds to make their more desperate dancers attend infamous “gentlemen’s house parties.” Nothing more than sex parties. The girls were made to do disgusting things, often against their will, according to Suzie Parker. Unfortunately, the same reasons that led them into the coercion kept them from talking to Conner. And if he couldn’t prove Suzie was telling the truth, she’d go to jail for prostitution, and her abusers would go scot-free.

      But Darla St. Giles had nothing to do with the Parker case.

      No. She was going to tell him what had happened to the missing Rothchild family heirloom, the Tears of the Quetzal, a unique chameleon diamond ring worth millions. She’d tell him, or he’d personally wring her spoiled-little-rich-girl neck. Or better yet, have her tossed into jail where she belonged.

      He just had to find her first. Where had she disappeared to?

      As Conner made a second circuit of the club looking for her, his mind raced over the facts of this case. Going into the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department headquarters last week, he’d literally run into Darla, one of two heirs to Maximillian St. Giles’s billion-dollar fortune. Though they’d met many times socially because their families ran in the same lofty circles, Darla hadn’t given Conner a second glance. She’d been too busy arguing with a cop on the sidewalk across the street from Metro headquarters. The pair of them had sounded like they were furious at each other, lost to the world in the throes of their disagreement. There’d also been something about the cop, Conner remembered thinking, something that didn’t quite fit—other than his disgusting cheap cologne—although Conner hadn’t been able to put his finger on it.

      At the time he’d dismissed the incident as one of Darla’s notorious public tantrums and continued on the errand his uncle Harold had sent him on: attempting to retrieve the Tears of the Quetzal diamond from police custody. The priceless ring was being held by LVMPD as material evidence in a high-profile murder trial—the victim being Conner’s own cousin Candace Rothchild.

      Her murder had hit the whole family hard, especially Conner’s uncle. Hard enough to make Harold set aside a lifelong animosity and deliberate distancing of himself from all things connected with his rival brother—including his two nephews—in order to beg Conner for a favor. Get back the ring, or Harold was absolutely convinced terrible things would befall everyone in the family, due to some ancient curse connected with the ring. His daughter Candace had apparently been killed when she, against her father’s strict orders, had “borrowed” the ring and worn it to a star-studded charity function at one of the big new casinos. She was just the first to die, Harold had warned. The man seemed genuinely terrified, convinced the so-called curse was real. He had become obsessed over retrieving the ring…especially after the near-fatal accident that befell his other daughter, Conner’s cousin Silver, a few weeks back. An accident her new fiancé, AD, now suspected was a murder attempt.

      Conner didn’t believe in curses, but he did believe in family. He had a good relationship with his own parents and brother, but relations with Harold and his various offspring, Conner’s cousins, had been more than strained for as long as he could remember.

      Growing up, the deceased Candace and her coven of siblings and half siblings—Natalie, Candace’s twin, who was now a Metro detective; Silver, the former pop star who’d recently made a stunning comeback; Jenna, the Vegas event planner; and the newest addition, Ricky, the devil child—every one of them used to bait him mercilessly about being born into the “wrong” side of the Rothchild family. Conner’s highly respected attorney father, Michael Rothchild, was worth millions, but not billions like casino magnate Uncle Harold. Of course, that side of the family didn’t even get along with each other, especially tabloid-diva Candace. Things had only gotten worse when she’d married and divorced a drunken loser drummer in a would-be rock band, leaving two beautiful but very neglected children in the constant care of nannies.

      Wasn’t family wonderful.

      But to everyone’s credit, things had changed dramatically after Candace’s murder. Olive branches had been extended. Although, to be honest, he’d been reconciled with his cousins Natalie and Silver for a while now. They’d actually become good friends over the past few years…much to the chagrin of Uncle Harold. But he had changed now. And this was Conner’s big chance to help bring the whole Rothchild family—imper-fect as it was—back together. He did not intend to blow it.

      Which was why he’d agreed to try to retrieve the ring from the police. Technically, the Tears of the Quetzal belonged to the entire family, having been unearthed in the Rothchild’s Mexican diamond mine by his grandfather over five decades ago. But Uncle Harold had always been the ring’s caretaker. And now with the ring’s disappearance, he was obsessively worried it would bring danger to the family.

      Although Conner still dismissed the ridiculous notion of curses, he did agree the diamond was not secure, even surrounded by hundreds of cops. As a lawyer, Conner knew firsthand that evidence disappeared from police custody all the time. Lost. Tampered with. Deliberately “misplaced.”