Oaths and Miracles Chapter Two    Robert Cavanaugh, FBI Criminal Investigative Division, Organized Crimes and Racketeering Section, looked at the girl seated in front of him and fought off irritation. It wasn't her fault that he hated interrogating adolescent girls. And that's what thi s one was, no matter what her driver's license said. She was twenty-one like he was an Arab terrorist. The casinos didn't care. Not as long as they could prove it was the girl lying about her age and not them knowingly hiring children to pose half-naked a t 2:00 A.M. for vacationing out-of-towners who thought they were living the glamorous high life.    "Let's go over it one more time, Miss Cassidy."    "Ms.," the female LVDP uniform murmured behind him. Cavanaugh ignored her. Her presence was an obligatory; her political correctness was not. And as far as Cavanaugh was concerned, this witness was a little girl.    You're only twenty-nine yourself, he heard Marcy, his soon-to-be-ex-wife, say inside his head. Cavanaugh ignored Marcy, who was thirty-five. She was good at logic, even better at external images, but bad at tuition. She was a great success in co rporate marketing.    "I told you everything I can," Jeanne Cassidy said.    "I know. But I want to be sure I have it all."    "I'm so tired," the girl said, which Cavanaugh believed. She looked tired, under the garish showgirl makeup, or what was left of it after her crying. She looked tired and stunned and miserable, all of which was expected after seeing her best girlfriend killed by what the LVPD had logged as a hit-and-run. Jeanne Cassidy's weary stunned misery didn't interest Cavanaugh. But she also looked scared. That did interest him.    "You and Miss Jefferson do the midnight show. Miss Jefferson collapses halfway down the onstage staircase because she hasn't eaten anything all day."    "That's what she told me," Jeanne Cassidy said, and it was lie number one. Cavanuagh had a nose for lies. And this exhausted girl wasn't any good at it. However, there was something odd about her, something different from the usual gorgeous-but-not-to- bright kids who strutted their stuff in Vegas, mostly turning after a year or two to drugs or prostitution or dubious boyfriends. Sometimes all three. This girl was subtly different, but Cavanaugh hadn't yet put his finger on how.    "So Miss Jefferson collapses --"    "Ms.," the uniform said, more insistently.    "-- and you finished the number. The stage manager tells you he's upset with Miss Jefferson and the show's star is going to be even more upset. Then you go find your friend in the ladies' room --"    "Women's room --"    "-- and she says she has to go home to her cousin's house in Austin right away. Why was that again?"    "She didn't say," Jeanne Cassidy said, and it was lie number two.    "So the two of you rush out of Caesars right there and drive to the airport, without Miss Jefferson packing any begs or anything. Didn't that seem odd to you?"    "Yes."    "Did you ask Miss Jefferson why she had to leave in such a rush?"    "Of course I did!" the girl snapped. Cavanaugh poured another cup of coffee, to give her time. He didn't want her hysterical. He held the paper cup out to her but she shook her head.    "And when you asked Miss Jefferson why she has to go to her cousin's so quickly, she doesn't give you a straight answer. She just keeps repeating 'I have to go home.' Nothing more."    "Yes," Jeanne Cassidy said, and that was the big one, lie number three. But she had stuck to it for an hour now, which also interested Cavanaugh. She didn't look like she had that kind of tenacity. Unless it had been fused into her, and that took somet hing extremely hot.    "So the two of you are running toward the airport terminal, and this big black care comes racing out of nowhere, hits Miss Jefferson while you've gone back to your car for a feminine necessity, and disappears. You never get so much as a glimpse of the driver, the license plate, the make of car, or anything else significant."    "No."    Cavanaugh drank the coffee himself. It was probably terrible, but he couldn't tell. He never could. Coffee was coffee. He drank it for the caffeine, and to give a weight pause to what came next.    "Miss Cassidy, did Miss Jefferson have a steady boyfriend?"    "Yes," Jeanne Cassidy said, and she didn't even try to look surprised.    "Who was it?"    "Carlo Gigliotti."    "Did Miss Jefferson ever mention to you that Carlos Gigliotti might have connections to organized crime?"    "No," Jeanne said. Lie number four.    "Never, not even as a suspicion?"    "Never."    You couldn't call her cool, she looked to frazzed and weary and scared for that. So call her stubborn. But something else was there, too, the quality Cavanaugh still couldn't put a name to.    He said, in a harsher voice. "Did Miss Jefferson tell you last night that Carlo Gigliotti is dead?"    She didn't try to fake shock. Instead she just looked at him and said in that same exhausted, stubborn, something-else voice, "No."    "He's dead, Miss Cassidy. The body was found yesterday afternoon, with marks of what is almost certainly a professional job. And there's been no retaliatory activity -- that's the kind of think we watch for -- which means his own organization probably disposed of him. It's no surprising -- Gigliotti was a loud-mouthed stupid braggart who had his position because he was family to some very powerful people. They gave him minimal trust, and he blew that minimum, and they killed him and then his girlfriend too. The only reason they'd do that, Miss Cassidy, is if they suspected Carlo had told her something, probably to impress her, that he shouldn't have. And it's possible they will reason that she might have told you as well, which could put you in conside rable danger. We can help protect you against that danger. Now think again, Miss Cassidy -- is there anything you want to tell me that you haven't said yet?"

Copyright ©1999 Nancy Kress