Magpie Maggie Hits the Jackpot: Longhorn Trucking Mysteries Book 4 by Brown Katherine H

Author:Brown, Katherine H.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

We had to navigate around a clown doing balloon animals in the lobby and a caricaturist with a huge line at the entrance of the casino before I finally spotted our new security guard friend.

“Bruce,” I tapped the large man on the back when we reached him. “Hey, sorry to keep you waiting.”

He turned around and gave us a giant-sized grin. Okay maybe the grin only looked giant because he towered over us by almost a foot. Still, I relaxed just a little at the sight of such contagious happiness after our encounter with the crusty Officer Thibodeaux.

“You said you had a buddy who could pull tapes and help us find my puppy Desiree, right?” I asked him. “I still can’t believe housekeeping let her escape the suite!”

“I did but I don’t think we’re going to need the tapes after all.”

My gut clenched. Had Desiree been found and hauled off? Escaped outside and hurt by a car? Injured in an elevator door accident? With my mind spinning so many worst-case scenarios, I barely squeaked out, “Oh, why is that?”

Bruce pointed at a large crowd of people in the corner then walked in that direction. “Follow me.”

Trudy and I exchanged confused looks and hurried after the large man, almost having to take three steps for every one of his long strides. I honestly don’t know what I expected to find when we got to the corner of the casino.

The Halloween-themed slot machine was definitely far down the list. Ancient-looking, they had clearly been relegated to the corner so that newer, flashier machines could have the center of the casino floor.

But not on the list of expectations or even possibilities at all was the sight that met my eyes.

Desiree Grace leapt excitedly toward the rib bones of the skeleton prominently displayed on the slot machine. However, since she was a tiny runt of a thing, she couldn’t reach the bones. Instead, with each attempted jump her front paws knocked against the button panel and the reels spun wildly.

Shock stunned me, freezing me in my spot for a moment but it quickly gave way to a wave of relief. Desiree was fine and healthy and if I grabbed her quickly neither of us would be in trouble for her escape into the hotel casino unleashed.

Politely as possible, I pushed my way to the front of the crowd of people, ignoring the fifteen or twenty cell phones videoing and possibly even live-streaming my puppy’s antics.

“Desiree!” I chided her as I reached the slot machine and scooped up the little cocker spaniel troublemaker.

The crowd of people started hollering ‘boooo’ and making rude comments that I stopped her from pushing or pulling on anything else. Thank goodness Bruce came to the rescue.

He pulled out his badge from the pockets of his off-duty clothes and waved it a few times. “Nothing to see, folks. Go watch your videos and leave the lady alone,” he said as he shooed away the crowd of onlookers.

Trudy and Bruce joined me once everyone dispersed.

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