“I will find another. I have a few million in bank accounts worldwide. And it would be against my religion to kill.”

“That does not mean you didn’t do it. You had the opportunity.” 

“We all did!” shouted Mo, no longer calm about the situation. Unhappy with being accused, he stood in the small room, his arms outstretched, his tendons visible from the tension. Detective Garcia stood up slowly and led Mo toward the door. 

“Then let us return to the casino. But we play things my way. We don’t leave things to chance, like in poker.” 

*

Carlos’ face was reddening with every card. His flush had come in on the turn, but all-in, Miguel had called with two pair and there was still one card to come. Sam watched as impassively as he could while Carlos fought to double up. There was no love lost between him and Miguel. 

Maria went forward to the rail, supporting Miguel. Carlos glared at her. Antonio reached into his pocket to make a call. 

The dealer burned one and dealt the river. Miguel hit the boat and Carlos was eliminated.

“How!?” Carlos erupted. “You are unbelievable,” he shouted, almost jumping out of his seat. 

Antonio dialed and was almost immediately connected. 

“It’s nearly time. Have you got it?” 

The answer from the other end of the line was a simple ‘yes’. 

“You better get over here soon. I’ve a feeling we’re about to get our confession.” 

Miguel stacked Carlos’ chips, adding them to his own pile which gave him a healthy chip lead for heads-up. And unfortunately, Sam was a little distracted. Not because he didn’t care about winning, or more importantly, the exit of Carlos in third place even with the tension that had been building between Carlos and Miguel. The distraction wasn’t even about the events from the previous night. 

Sam had spent most of the last few orbits re-reading the news article about the business deal gone wrong and considering the impact it would have had on Mo. He’d taken in every word this time, something he clearly hadn’t done the first time he read it. It wasn’t so much about the words that had made it to print, but the person who had written them. There were a lot of questions that Michael Smith was going to have to answer. 

Heads-up began with Miguel holding the chip lead, but Sam’s experience drew them level after a series of small pots. Both men had roughly the same number of chips when Miguel raised pre-flop with pocket queens. Sam didn’t hesitate in re-raising with ace-king of diamonds. Miguel called. 

The flop came with the queen and jack of diamonds and the three of spades. Miguel continued to bet, and Sam thought about calling. He stared at the cards, trying to make it look like he was weighing up his options, but suddenly, the numbers started to mean something different to him. Three cards on the flop, two in his hand. In poker, they worked together to build a five-card hand. But there were also five suspects in the room. Sam suddenly realized, two of them had been working against the other three all along. 

And he knew which two.  

“I’m all-in,” said Sam. 

“I call!” yelled Miguel, turning over his pair of queens showing top set. 

Sam knew then that he was a 2:1 dog in the hand. Two times out of three, Miguel would win and even if Sam had more chips, it was by so insignificant an amount that this would be the decisive hand of the tournament.