Sterling Frost Jr.

**Sterling Frost Jr.** runs the high-end Frost Casino and is desperate to prove himself to his infamous father. His attempts to conceal a dark crime creates a domino effect that even his wealth can't stop.

## Series

### Season 1

In "*Dead Man's Hand*", Sterling is working when Natalie Hill arrives at his door with his head of security, Cliff LeGrand. They show him the photo she took of a guests laptop. Sterling is in shock since it’s the Caine suite, though Natalie is sure of what she saw and knows this is a big deal. Sterling adds this isn’t just beyond moral revulsion but illegal, so now they’re going to do what they have to do. She worries about her cart and checking out, but Sterling tells her not to clock out as they’ll handle all of it. They’ll be there for her, making sure she feels safe going home to her husband. He discreetly deletes the photo from her phone, instructing her not to tell anyone about this until they contact the FBI. When Natalie leaves, Sterling decides to handle it without his father. He gives Cliff orders, and later that night, Cliff calls to tell Sterling it's done.

A day before the event, Sterling calls one of his casino workers Charlie Cale up to see him. Sterling opens the doors to his office and invites her inside, offering a seat and a drink. She thinks she knows what this is and he should just do it. His dad gave him the casino about three months ago, though Sterling corrects that he just manages it. Charlie figures that’s how long it took for him to tell Sterling about her. He confirms that’s true. She thinks now that he knows about her whole thing he’ll do the smart thing and fire it. She never understood why he kept her around. Sterling thinks his dad liked her, but that’s not the story she knows. He decides to start there, telling a once upon-a-time-in-Denver story about when a milquetoast collection of the best poker players in central Colorado met at a Fairfield Inn suite off I-25 for a mid-stakes ring game. A young woman from out of town was at the table. She had plenty of cash so they let her play. Three hours later, she mopped the floor with each and every one of them, which wasn’t anything special. But this had been happening in Cheyenne, in Rapid City. The same young woman cutting a haphazard path across the middle of the country. Never in any big games, never in corporate-owned casinos, but always the same result. She didn't lose and word spread quickly because, as Charlie knows, gamblers talk. But as far as anyone could tell, she was playing straight, yet she played with almost supernatural infallibility. As if she was seeing through the cards. So when she showed up at the Frost Casino and snuck into a tournament, his father Sterling Frost Sr. was interested. He secretly watched her play for two days, sitting in the crow’s nest ten hours a day by himself to study her. When his dad figured out what she was doing, he couldn’t believe it. It was impossible, insane, but there was no other explanation. Charlie, unphased, goes to the bar to get a drink while Sterling confirms the rumor is true. He also confirms she hasn’t gambled since, but she attributes that to his dad putting out the word that she played dirty. He said it himself, gamblers talk, and to this day, no podunk penny game in the country will take her by in. She’s blackballed. But, he didn’t break her fingers when he had her brought into that back room, noting that he’s a scary guy. He called her kid, told her it was “a real mess, kid”, and then gave her a job at the casino. Sterling believes he gave her a job to keep her in a cage. He thinks she has a gift that his dad made sure she’d never use again. He asks if she’s pissed, but she’s not. Hearing him tell this story, it’s as if she was the Cincinnati Kid, methodically fleecing her way across the country until her plan was thwarted. But she was a dumbass. She figured out she could do this thing, and it worked, so she did it for a while. She figured it wouldn’t last, and it didn’t. She’s doing fine now, she likes her life, and her job, and while she’s bummed he’s firing her, she’ll find another job and probably like that one, too. She’s still pretty much a dumbass but she’s doing just fine. He tests her quickly with a deck of cards, proving that it’s not a physical reaction giving him away, but that she can just tell something is off. He tries to test her ability to know his next move, but she laughs as she’s not a soothsayer. She can’t predict the future, there’s nothing mystical about it, just if someone is intentionally lying, she can tell. He’s not firing her, but instead, allowing her to work with him and use her gift to get very, very rich. He needs her answer by the end of the day tomorrow as it’s time sensitive. He answers a call from the lobby informing him about some dunk on the casino floor shouting for his wife. Charlie quickly asks who the man is shouting for.

Down in the casino, Jerry is shouting for Natalie and causing a scene. Cliff escorts him out of the casino with the other guards.

Later, Sterling and Charlie watch Caine, the Moby Dick of the Frost Casino whales, from the crow's nest. He asks if she can tell Caine’s bluffing from up there, and she correctly says he’s not. Sterling explains how Caine is doing private pickup games in his suite even though they comp everything for him at the casino. That’s why they’re going to fleece him. Back in Sterling’s office, they make a plan to set up cameras in Caine’s room with a shill inside. She thinks she can do her thing over video. The game is in 48 hours, but she wants to make sure that his dad okayed it. He insists it's his name on the door, but she doesn’t want to piss off his dad again. He answers a call from Ginger and asks for 20 minutes, sending her off on the private elevator. Once she’s gone, he opens the door and greets Cliff and Natalie who have something to show him.

Charlie wakes up the next morning to a headline - “LOCAL WOMAN SLAIN” - and a picture of Natalie attached. The article says it’s a murder-suicide committed by Jerry Hill. Once at work, she gets a text from Sterling that it’s time to get to work. Sterling didn’t realize they were close and she confides that Natalie called her last night. She spirals over why Natalie might have called her, but Sterling tells her not to blame herself. The room they’re in is identical to Caine’s. Charlie can’t shake why Natalie would leave at 8 instead of 9. Charlie already talked to her manager, Louis, and learned she never clocked out. Something happened that scared her enough to call Charlie for help and then basically run. Everyone is assuming Natalie’s husband called her, but Charlie knew Nat kept her phone off during her shift. Whatever spooked her wasn’t a call, and it wasn’t Jerry. Sterling sighs that her husband was an abusive lowlife, then clarifies they’re in a time-dependent operation and he needs her focused. They decide to put the cameras in the bases of the lamps to account for eye lines and angles.

That night, Charlie answers a call from Sterling. He heard from Sheriff Parker that he’s questioning everyone again, which isn’t good because they’re in the middle of an operation. She knows but explains that Jerry kept his gun in his inner right thigh, so he was left-handed and couldn’t have shot himself with his right hand. He told Parker that she was distraught and shouldn't spend more time on this. She’s surprised he just tells the cops what to do and they just do it, asking how that works, but he chuckles that he’ll see her in the morning.

Charlie finds the photo that Natalie took and drives to the casino to show it to Sterling and Cliff. She knows it’s Caine’s room because of the high ceilings. She thinks Caine had her killed and framed Jerry to do it. She wants to call the FBI to bust him, but Sterling wants to clean him out first to hit him where it hurts. With a guy like him, it’s the money. They just have to wait one more night while they rig the cameras.

That night, Charlie watches the video footage of Sterling and Cliff gambling, which confirms she can do her thing over video. He explains how everything will work that evening and the clicker she’ll use to indicate truth and bullshit. Cliff will swoop in if anything goes bad. She asks what his call was about when they were in the crow’s nest and he said everything was okay. That was a lie and she wants to know about the call. Sterling remembers the call and that it was Cliff on the line. He asks what she thinks it was about. She’s sure it was some random security thing, blaming her questions on being distraught and caffeinated. When she’s gone, Sterling closes the door to talk to Cliff about the situation. He compares her to Michael Weston from Burn Notice and that she won’t let it go. Sterling refuses to pull the plug on the operation and will deal with her and the photo no matter what it takes.

As they wait for things to fall into place, Sterling stands on the rooftop looking over the city. The gambling group waits for Caine in the lobby, but he’s a no-show. Cliff finds Sterling and they both worry about where Caine and Charlie are. Charlie shows up 20 minutes late, and Sterling is glad Caine had a late dinner. Cliff leaves to check on the rest of the players. Sterling explains how things will work but she’s quiet. She doesn’t have an elegant way to segue into the Natalie situation so she just does. Natalie did the right thing when she saw something awful, and Sterling had Cliff kill her for it. She tells him to look her in the eye and say bullshit if it isn’t true. When he doesn’t, she presses on. There’s only one reason she would take a picture of Caine’s laptop, and that’s to turn him in, to show someone, like the police. But she didn’t show the police, she tried to call Charlie but she missed it. So Charlie figured that Natalie came to him and Cliff that night. Sterling scoffs that’s a lot of accusation based on figures. Charlie, however, was figuring this morning when she saw the TV footage and now, she knows. Jerry had his stupid pearl-handled pistol when he came to the casino, but when he passes through the metal detector on the way out, it doesn’t go off. This means he didn’t have it when he left, and she already knows from Cliff that Jerry didn’t come back to the casino. Which means the night of the murder, was right here with Cliff. Sterling looks over to Cliff, who returns to the room. Sterling circles Charlie as he pokes holes in her story, making her appear unreliable with all her figuring and half-thinking. He has Cliff take her phone in case she’s recording to get a confession, but she wasn’t. He concocts a plan to paint her as a distraught, drunk, flakey employee that he had to let go. Before he could stop her, she took a flying leap off the balcony which is tragic. Cliff asks if she’s going to walk outside to make it easier, but she's not. Because she wasn’t recording their conversation just now, but she was this afternoon. Cliff, who still has her phone, plays a portion of their conversation to prove it. Sterling laughs as there’s nothing criminal about cheating in a private poker game. Even if there were, he owns the cops. Charlie isn’t trying to convict him because she’s not a cop. A wise man once told her that if you want to hurt someone, you hit ‘em where it hurts. She didn’t send the recording to the cops. Sterling realizes she sent it to Caine and the men run out to the Presidential Suite, which is vacant.

Charlie follows with a smirk. She sent it after the rehearsal and he’s in the air by now. Every one of his whales, every big roller in the world, all the medium ones, most of the small ones, they all know that Sterling Frost Casino plays dirty. He’s officially blackballed because gamblers talk. Cliff laughs as he takes a seat. Sterling sees a call from his dad that makes Cliff laugh even more. Sterling walks outside, onto the railing, and jumps off to his death.

She runs from Cliff and seeks refuge at a diner, where she answers a call from Mr. Frost. He tells her it’s a mess. There wasn’t enough of his son to even identify. It’s a fucking mess, kid. He let her off once and gave her a good life. She asks what happens now. He wants her to tell him where she is. She might as well because there’s not a corner in this country small enough for her to hide in. No off-the-grid's off-the-grid enough for her to hide from him. He’s a tough old bastard and he’s got some years left, and he’s gonna spend them finding her. He’s gonna hit her where it hurts. When he does kill her, finally, she can thank him. He asks her if he’s lying, and she hangs up.

## Trivia

* Sterling is directly responsible for the death of Frost Casino worker Natalie, having ordered her murder.