Chapter Three

Lucky wakes alone in a Bellagio suite, hungover and disoriented, with Cary missing despite their plan to catch a pre-dawn flight. She recalls Cary whispering for her to go upstairs after he met a man in the lobby and told her to wait for him.

When calls to Cary go straight to voicemail, Lucky turns on the news and sees both their faces broadcast as fugitives for fraud, embezzlement, and alleged racketeering tied to scams in Boise. The report frames their victims as seniors, contradicting what Lucky believed about their targets, and she suspects Cary’s deeper involvement.

Checking the safe, Lucky finds Cary’s passport still there and deduces he had other identities prepared and had planned to abandon her. Recalling her father’s lessons about trust and cons, she recognizes she has been conned by Cary.

Determined to evade arrest, Lucky chooses a new identity: Bonnie Skinner, a freelance writer from Phoenix, cribbed from a magazine masthead. She cuts off her distinctive red hair, dyes it brown, and gathers essentials—cash, change, and the lottery ticket she’d bought the previous day.

Lucky hides the cut hair, their passports, and her phone in a pillowcase, packs a backpack, and leaves a cash tip for the maid, mindful of the mess and potential questioning. She exits the suite, abandoning her old identity and fleeing the hotel to survive on her own.