Ms America and the Villainy in Vegas (Beauty Queen Mysteries No. 2) by Diana Dempsey Page B

plan to call him as well.
    As planned, Cassidy meets me outside the Las Vegas Convention Center, which is immense. “One of my rolls told me it’s like three million square feet,” she says.
    I wonder how many of these “rolls” Cassidy has to her name.
    “Did you bring it?” I ask her.
    She dips into the same handbag she was toting twelve hours before and extracts a lovely crystal bowl adorned with etchings of ocean creatures like sea horses and starfish.
    “Wow. This is beautiful.” I don’t ask where Cassidy got it. So long as it didn’t originate with Samantha St. James, it will serve the purpose for which I intend it. Since I had the forethought to carry my patent leather shopper with goldtone hardware, the bowl fits comfortably inside.
    “I bet you haven’t called your reality-show contact yet,” Cassidy says. It’s fair to describe her tone as snide.
    “For your information, I checked in with her Sunday night.” As I say this, the soulful brown eyes of one Mario Suave come to mind. I decide it’s a victory of sorts that I didn’t think about him even once yesterday. “Why do you want to be on a reality show so much anyway?”
    She looks at me like I’m crazy. “Fame! Cash! I want my fifteen minutes and my million bucks.”
    “Okay. I’ll call her today. I promise.”
    Cassidy harrumphs. “I’d lay odds that the person you call is that detective.”
    “Not if I get what I want from you this morning.”
    My goal is to have Cassidy point Hans out to me. I want to investigate him. I figure if he was angry enough to give Danny a black eye Saturday morning, he might have been angry enough to put a bullet in him Saturday afternoon. To my mind, it’s a theory worth pursuing.
    But Cassidy and I have a problem. There are a gazillion conventioneers roaming the grounds. How is Cassidy going to find Hans among them?
    I’m feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of people until I spy a digital billboard listing the conventions. Maybe Cassidy and I can narrow our search to a specific hall or meeting room. “Do any of these conventions ring a bell?” I ask her.
    She squints at the list. Then, “N. A. B.”
    “N. A. B. Great.” That one takes up two halls in the south building. We head in that direction.
    I cannot tell whether Cassidy has taken my wardrobe instructions to heart. I asked her to dress in a low-key manner so we could improve our chances of Hans not noticing her. Maybe this outfit does represent low-key for Cassidy. She’s wearing a black Henley mini dress, with the classic U neck and button placket. But it’s tighter than a bikini on pageant night and she’s left three of the six buttons undone to reveal more than a hint of cleavage.
    Even though I don’t like using sex appeal to achieve my goals, I know it can be awfully effective. So today I deliberately dressed to seduce. I’m in a slim-fitting coral-colored mini halter dress that normally I restrict to the pool or beach, where lots of skin is being flashed.
    The bottom line is that Cassidy and I do not blend into this crowd. We get a leer from the left, then a leer from the right. As we approach the south building, I tell Cassidy that we need to separate. Hans won’t have a thing to do with me if he knows I’m linked to the woman who trick rolled him. Nor do I have any desire to make like Danny Richter and get a shiner.
    Or take a bullet.
    “If you see him, call my cell,” I instruct Cassidy. “Make sure he doesn’t see you. I’ll be on the other side of the hall.”
    Time passes slowly in situations like these. I pretend to be engrossed in a pamphlet describing the convention center’s many appealing features and am delving into the wheelchair accessibility information when at last my cell phone rings.
    “That’s him,” Cassidy says, “in the black pants and white shirt.”
    “You need to be more specific. That describes half the men here. And where is he exactly?”
    “By the big windows, by that thing with the