Cheater's Game

  CHEATER’S GAME

  Paul Levine

  BOOKS BY PAUL LEVINE

  JAKE LASSITER SERIES

  “Jake Lassiter is great fun.” – New York Times

  “Lassiter is attractive, funny, savvy and brave.” – Chicago Tribune

  “Take one part John Grisham, two parts Carl Hiaasen, throw in a dash of John D. MacDonald, and voila! You’ve got Jake Lassiter.” – Tulsa World

  TO SPEAK FOR THE DEAD: Linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter begins to believe that his surgeon client is innocent of malpractice…but guilty of murder. An Amazon Number One Bestselling Legal Thriller.

  NIGHT VISION: After several women are killed by an Internet stalker, Jake is appointed a special prosecutor, and follows a trail of evidence from Miami to London and the very streets where Jack the Ripper once roamed. An Amazon Number One Bestseller in both the Serial Killer and International Crime categories.

  FALSE DAWN: After his client confesses to a murder he didn't commit, Jake follows a bloody trail from Miami to Havana to discover the truth.

  MORTAL SIN: Talk about conflicts of interest! Jake is sleeping with Gina Florio and defending her mob-connected husband in court. Then the hubby gets homicidal. Winner of the John D. MacDonald Fiction Award and an Amazon Number One Bestseller in Mysteries.

  RIPTIDE: Jake Lassiter chases a beautiful woman and stolen bonds from Miami to Maui.

  FOOL ME TWICE: To clear his name in a murder investigation, Jake follows a trail of evidence that leads from Miami to buried treasure in the abandoned silver mines of Aspen, Colorado. An Amazon Number One Bestselling Legal Thriller.

  FLESH & BONES: Jake falls for his beautiful client even though he doubts her story. She claims to have recovered "repressed memories" of abuse…just before gunning down her father

  LASSITER: Jake retraces the steps of a model who went missing 18 years earlier…after his one-night stand with her.

  LAST CHANCE LASSITER: In this prequel novella, young Jake Lassiter has an impossible case: he represents Cadillac Johnson, an aging rhythm and blues musician who claims his greatest song was stolen by a top-of-the-charts hip-hop artist.

  STATE vs. LASSITER: This time, Jake is on the wrong side of the bar. He’s charged with murder! The victim? His girlfriend and banker, Pamela Baylins, who was about to report him to the authorities for allegedly stealing from clients. Nominated for the Shamus Award and an Amazon Number One Bestselling Mystery.

  BUM RAP: Lassiter defends Steve Solomon in a murder case…and tries not to fall for Victoria Lord. An Amazon Number One Overall Bestseller and Number One Bestseller in Legal Thrillers.

  BUM LUCK: After clearing a guilty client, a despondent Lassiter threatens to kill the man. Did Jake suffer one too many concussions playing football? All signs point to the fatal disease CTE.

  BUM DEAL: With his CTE symptoms growing worse, Lassiter switches teams and prosecutes a murder case. There’s just one problem…or maybe three: no evidence, no witness, and no body.

  CHEATER’S GAME: Lassiter matches wits with the mastermind behind the college admissions scandal in a longshot effort to keep his nephew Kip out of prison.

  SOLOMON vs. LORD SERIES

  Nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller, and James Thurber awards.

  "Remarkably fresh and original with characters you can't help loving and sparkling dialogue that echoes the Hepburn-Tracy screwball comedies. A hilarious, touching and entertaining twist on the legal thriller." - Chicago Sun-Times

  SOLOMON vs. LORD: Trial lawyer Victoria Lord, who follows every rule, and Steve Solomon, who makes up his own, bicker and banter as they defend a beautiful young woman, accused of killing her wealthy, older husband. An Amazon Number One Bestselling Legal Thriller. Nominated for the Macavity Mystery Award and James Thurber Humor Prize.

  THE DEEP BLUE ALIBI: Solomon and Lord come together – and fly apart – defending Victoria’s “Uncle Grif” on charges he killed a man with a speargun. It’s a case set in the Florida Keys with side trips to coral reefs and a nudist colony where all is more –and less – than it seems. Nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award and an Amazon Number One Bestseller in Mysteries.

  KILL ALL THE LAWYERS: Just what did Steve Solomon do to infuriate ex-client and ex-con “Dr. Bill?” Did Solomon try to lose the case in which the TV shrink was charged in the death of a woman patient? An Amazon Number One Bestselling Mystery and nominated for the International Thriller Writers Award.

  HABEAS PORPOISE: It starts with the kidnapping of a pair of trained dolphins and turns into a murder trial with Solomon and Lord on opposite sides after Victoria is appointed a special prosecutor, and fireworks follow!

  STAND-ALONE THRILLERS

  IMPACT: A commercial jet crashes in the Everglades. Is it negligence or terrorism? When the legal case gets to the Supreme Court, the defense has a unique strategy: Kill anyone, even a Supreme Court Justice, to win the case. An Amazon Number One Bestseller in Hard-Boiled Mysteries.

  BALLISTIC: A nuclear missile, a band of terrorists, and only two people who can prevent Armageddon. A “loose nukes” thriller for the 21st Century.

  ILLEGAL: Down-and-out lawyer Jimmy (Royal) Payne tries to re-unite a Mexican boy with his missing mother and becomes enmeshed in the world of human trafficking and sex slavery. An Amazon Number One Bestseller in Legal Thrillers.

  PAYDIRT: Bobby Gallagher had it all and lost it. Now, assisted by his 12-year-old brainiac son, he tries to rig the Super Bowl, win a huge bet…and avoid getting killed. An Amazon Number One Bestseller in Sports Fiction and Organized Crime Thrillers.

  For more information and to purchase Paul Levine’s novels, please visit his AUTHOR PAGE.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  BOOKS BY PAUL LEVINE

  DEDICATION

  CHEATER'S GAME

  EXCERPT FROM “BUM LUCK”

  EXCERPT FROM “BUM RAP”

  EXCERPT FROM “SOLOMON vs. LORD”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  For Sue and Joe Paterno, compassionate mentors, loyal friends and tireless educators

  PROLOGUE

  Road Fury

  With the recklessness of a 20-year-old who had not yet been scorched by life’s wildfires, Kip Lassiter floored the Tesla X, which whooshed along the narrow road, splashing through potholes barely two feet from a murky Everglades canal.

  Kip opened the windows, and a humid blast enveloped him. It had been a great morning. Twenty-five thousand in cash under the back seat. No invoice, no receipt, no howdy-do from the IRS.

  Twenty-five grand for four hours’ work!

  And it was more fun than work. Taking the risk and getting away with it. What a rush, like being the last person standing in Fortnite.

  Slowing down to navigate a buckled stretch of asphalt, Kip heard a discordant sound and glanced at his rearview mirror. A metallic blue Maserati, a growling beast, appeared in the mist a hundred yards behind. In seconds, the sports car closed the distance and pulled alongside, exhausts throbbing like symphonic horns. Kip glanced left, but the Maserati’s windows were tinted a bottomless black, the driver a phantom.

  Kip sped up and the Maserati kept pace, hanging there.

  What? You want to race? That’s cool.

  His mind flashed to a video game he had played as a kid. Road Fury. Two cars zipping along a highway filled with hairpin turns. The goal: make the other car crash through a guardrail and fly over a cliff.

  Kip punched the accelerator, and the Tesla shot ahead, but the Maserati quickly caught up. Hurtling neck and neck, the two vehicles flew past low-slung gumbo limbo trees that crowded the scarred roadway.

  The Maserati’s windows rolled down, and Kip immediatel
y recognized the driver and passenger. Niles and Teague, rich-prick twins from Palm Beach, whose combined IQ wouldn’t equal his.

  Okay, so I punked Niles on his SAT exam. But playing chicken at high speed? Seriously?

  Niles, or maybe Teague, lunged halfway out the window and shouted, "Keep your mouth shut, Lassiter!"

  Oh. That's it? As if I would talk to the feds.

  The Maserati moved closer, claiming the center of the narrow road. Inches apart now, the Tesla’s collision warning bleated like a frightened goat. Kip's eyes darted to the road ahead. Something moving, just a low silhouette against the glare. Closer now, Kip made out a Florida panther, the color of sun-bleached saw grass.

  The Maserati braked hard and fishtailed, sideswiping the Tesla. Kip fought the steering wheel, but his tires skidded off the road and chewed through a patch of swamp lilies. Out of control, the Tesla slid down the embankment and splashed into the canal.

  The airbag deployed like a boxer punching Kip in the face, pinning him against his seat. Water poured through the open windows. Through the windshield, he saw fish the size of fingernails scattering in the brackish water.

  Kip tasted blood and thought he heard the Tesla’s horn wailing, but as the water reached his chest, he realized it was his own scream.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Just Who Is This Boy?

  “Mr. Lassiter! Jake Lassiter!”

  Milagros Soto, a court bailiff, called out to me, her voice echoing down the courthouse corridor. More urgent than necessary, I thought, for my being three minutes late for a hearing.

  “Hey, Millie. Tell the judge I’ll be right there.”

  “Hearing’s cancelled. Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

  “I turn it off when I’m in the courthouse.”

  True enough. When I took the job with the Florida Bar, I started following rules I had always ignored.

  “Get over to Jackson Memorial right away,” she said. “It’s your nephew.”

  I froze, my chest crushed by dread, as if my lungs had suddenly filled with mud. “What’s hap . . .?” I couldn’t get the words out.

  “I don’t know, Jake. Just get to the trauma center, now.”

  Oh, Kip! Just when you’d turned your life around. Now what?

  ***

  Fifteen minutes later, I was double-timing through the maze of Jackson Memorial, as Gloria Sanchez, a deputy administrator, filled me in. “I don’t know why, Jake, but your nephew told me not to contact you. He said you weren’t related.”

  “Aw, jeez. I thought the kid had outgrown that.”

  I’d known Gloria for twenty years, and she routinely gave me access to the inner sanctum of the trauma center so I could visit clients and witnesses, circumventing the rules. A while back, when her son was a junior at Coral Gables High, I got his marijuana possession charge dismissed. Pro bono, of course.

  A sturdy woman in her fifties, Gloria kept pace, quick on her feet. She had probably traveled the circumference of the earth on the rock-hard tile of these chilly corridors.

  “When EMS brought him in, I saw the name, ‘Chester Lassiter.’ I remember years ago you showed me photos of the boy. So proud of how smart the little fellow was. You raised Chester, right?”

  I nodded. “He goes by ‘Kip.’ My half-sister named him ‘Chester’ after her dad. She was too busy jumping bail to catch the name of the kid’s father.”

  Gloria led me into a room where Kip lay on his back, eyes closed, cervical collar around his neck, oxygen clips in his nose, tubes and wires sprouting from his arms and chest. Crimson scratches ran down both cheeks and across his forehead, and two black eyes gave him a raccoon look. A nearby monitor blinked with his respiration, pulse rate, and blood pressure.

  In her professional tone tempered with motherly compassion, Gloria told me that Kip was in intensive care because that’s what they do with head trauma. The brain scan appeared normal, but that didn’t rule out a moderate concussion and a whiplash injury.

  The headline: Kip had driven his car into a canal, and it was difficult to tell how long he’d struggled to get out of the shoulder harness and claw his way through a window. The trauma crew had pumped a small amount of slimy water out of his stomach. No water down his airway thanks to laryngospasms, the throat sealing the trachea. Good thing because water in the lungs can lead to pneumonia.

  I walked to the bed and clasped Kip’s hand. Hundreds of times, I’d held him, hugged him, tousled his hair. I’d watched him grow. Taught him values. I’d marveled at his achievements and suffered at his stumbles. And now here he was, as helpless as the day he arrived at my home, my worthless half-sister shoving him out of the car. All his belongings—two filthy changes of clothes—stuffed into a Mickey Mouse backpack that looked as if Pluto had taken a dump in it.

  Not a toy. Not a single toy.

  He was nine with broomstick limbs, and no one had taught him how to throw or catch a ball, so we invented a game called “Ten.” I’d toss him a rubber ball. If he caught it ten times in a row, he’d get a prize. A milkshake or a comic book or a pack of baseball cards. Soon he could catch it twenty or thirty times without a miss, but we still called the game Ten.

  When I’d come home from court, as soon as I walked in, Kip would say, “Let’s play Ten.” And by then, the phrase had taken on a meaning of its own. “Let’s hang out” or “Let’s watch a game” or “Let’s talk.” Our own private code.

  Now, I squeezed his hand and whispered, “Hey little guy. I’m here.”

  Kip didn’t respond.

  “Give him a couple hours for the sedatives to wear off,” Gloria said.

  Kip stirred and grunted in his sleep.

  “Where exactly did the car go into the water?” I asked, thinking that Miami-Dade had hundreds of miles of waterways, a few not far from the hospital.

  “In the Everglades,” Gloria said. “Just this side of Ochopee on a Water District road north of the Trail.”

  That stopped me. “Way the hell out there? Who called 911?”

  Gloria sighed. “I knew you’d ask, so I called the county. Male voice, a little agitated but not hysterical. Wouldn’t leave a name but gave a precise description of the location. GPS coordinates. They don’t get that very often.”

  “Did the county pick up a tower location or the caller's number?”

  She shook her head. “Call was too quick. When your nephew’s awake, I’m sure he’ll tell you everything.”

  I wasn't so sure.

  Kip stirred again, his eyes blinking, but he didn’t awaken.

  “Did the paramedics recover anything from the car?” I asked.

  “One of them dived in, but just to make sure no one was in the vehicle. All we’ve got now is what Kip had in his pockets.”

  My look asked her a silent question, and her answer was to lead me to a room with two dozen small lockers. She used a master key to open one and handed me a plastic pouch containing a wallet and a passport, both still wet.

  “Don’t let anyone see you and put everything back.” Gloria studied me a moment and asked, “Are you okay, Jake? I read in the paper that you’re in that concussion study. I hope everything works out for you.”

  I mumbled my thanks, and she smiled at me. "You look like you could still play linebacker.”

  “Ha! I still weigh 235, but it’s repositioned itself.”

  She said goodbye and left, and I opened the passport and looked at the photo. Issued eleven months ago, a sly smile on Kip’s face.

  But what’s this?

  Five trips out of the country, five stamps, each with a little green turtle.

  Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory.

  All short trips, two to four days, including one last week.

  What the hell!

  Kip had never mentioned his travels.

  I closed the passport and opened the wallet, which contained nine hundred eighty-seven dollars. Okay, that’s more than I carry around, but so what? Kip had a small business tutoring
high school students for the ACT and SAT exams.

  I then pulled out a Florida vehicle registration certificate, expecting to find the paperwork for his ten-year-old Toyota Camry. Gloria hadn't mentioned the make of Kip's car, and I just assumed it was his old clunker. What I found was the registration for a brand-new Tesla S.U.V., Model X with a personalized license plate, “EZ-1600.”

  I drive a 1984 Cadillac Eldorado ragtop, so I’m a little behind the times. But just how the hell did Kip afford this high-tech, space-age vehicle? The Tesla title was folded inside the wallet, too. No lienholder, meaning no loan. He owned the damn thing free and clear.

  As for the license plate, I knew the meaning of “1600.” That had been Kip’s score—perfection—on the SAT exam. So much promise. But then came the disaster his freshman year in college. An arrest, expulsion, and a humiliating trip home. And now what? The vehicle registration date was three months ago. I’d seen Kip several times since then. He had an apartment on Brickell, and on his occasional trips to my Coconut Grove house, he always was at the wheel of that old Toyota.

  So, the kid who used to tell me everything now secretly buys a luxury vehicle with cash and goes to pains to make sure I don’t know.

  I pulled Kip’s driver’s license out of its slot and studied the photo. Sixteen when it had been taken, and he looked about twelve. Straw-blonde hair falling into his eyes, a look of innocence, totally lacking in guile. I knew everything about him then. We had no secrets. So, was that him in the hospital bed or had space aliens taken over his body? Maybe all parents ponder that question one time or another.