He was mulling over the information he had garnered when his cell phone rang. “Wolf here.”
“Mr. Wolf? It’s Rudy Yorba.”
“Hello. Did you think of something else?”
“Yeah, I did. I know the year of that limo. I just remembered it, cuz you got me thinking.”
“Oh?”
“It’s this year’s model. I know because of the design of the mirrors. After you left, some of us guys were talking about how things don’t really change much, that sometimes you can’t tell one year from the other, and then I thought about the mirrors. Maybe it’s nothing, but I thought you should know.”
“It’s definitely something. Thanks, Rudy, thanks a lot.”
He hung up and turned back to his computer. None of the rental agencies advertised the latest model, but two casinos did: the Sun, and the newest entry on the Strip—the Big Easy.
5
Rudy Yorba left work at two in the morning. Most of the time, things at the casino began to wind down around then. The partiers were drunk enough that, whether they thought it was time to go to bed or not, their eyes were closing as their alcohol-infused bodies longed for a bed.
Rock stars and their retinues had a tendency to come in late, of course, but there hadn’t been any rock stars that night. So though he often hung around until three or four in hopes of picking up a job, he was off that night by two.
He said goodbye to his friends and coworkers, and headed to the parking lot. Employees had to use the open-air top floor, but that was no big deal. He just took the service elevator and rode up to where his little Bug was waiting. He loved his car. In a world where gas prices kept skyrocketing, he could go forever on a single tank.
He paused and looked out at the night, the moon and stars hidden by thick cloud cover. Good God, it was black. He imagined that, out in the desert, beyond the neon lights, it would be darker than eternity. Dark as hell. And cold, too. Freezing. That was the desert for you. Hotter than hell by day, cold as a witch’s tit by night. And Vegas itself nothing but a pile of neon and money in the middle of that desert.
He hit the remote and heard the alarm chirp cheerfully. Friends made fun of him for his car, but he loved her. He called her Mary. Mary for both his mom and his daughter. His mother had been gone for years, and he pretty much never saw his daughter. She lived in New Hampshire with his ex. He got out there once a year if he was lucky, and Mary was allowed to spend two weeks with him in summer. He didn’t hate his ex-wife for that, and he didn’t resent her new husband, either.
When Mary had been born, he’d thought he was a hotshot. He’d been working on Wall Street, making big money, and he’d driven a Hummer.
Then he’d gotten hooked on cocaine and gone through everything he’d ever made—and nearly dropped Mary off the balcony of his high-priced condo when he was high out of his mind one night. Now he didn’t touch drugs or so much as a drop of alcohol, and he was making his way back to humanity. He knew he had to prove himself to his daughter, and he wasn’t sure that she loved him as much as she loved her stepfather or ever would, but he didn’t blame her.
As he headed toward the car, he saw someone heading away from it, making their way through the lot. He didn’t think anything of it. Employees came and went all night.
Then he heard footsteps behind him and swung around, inexplicably edgy.
“Hey, Rudy!” The woman who called out to him was Amber Olsen, a cocktail waitress.
“Hey, Amber. Quiet night, huh?”
“Yeah, too quiet. Nothing like a man dying to drive away business,” she told him.
“Hey, don’t sweat it. Maybe they’ll put us on the ghost tour.”
“Hope so,” Amber said, and waved as she headed down another aisle to her car.
Rudy reached his Bug and got inside, then thought to look in the backseat. He grinned ruefully to himself. It was empty. Of course.
It wasn’t until he was out on the highway and felt the first little chug of his engine that he frowned and looked at his instrument panel.
What the…? He was out of gas—which was impossible. He had filled the tank just that morning.
A moment’s uncertainty filled him. Had he had one of his little blackouts and only thought he’d filled his tank? No, he never blacked out in the car. Never. It only happened when he was standing around doing nothing while he was waiting for his turn to park a car or go retrieve one. He wouldn’t drive if he had any fear of blacking out when he was actually concentrating. He was trying to rebuild his life, not kill someone.
But that didn’t change the fact that he was out of gas. He knew he should have invested in an AAA membership, but it was one of those things he hadn’t gotten around to yet.
Swearing, he pulled over to the side of the road before the engine sputtered out completely. Luckily, he was only a couple of miles from the next exit and a gas station.
Dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb. He swore at himself as he got out of the car, careful to lock the door behind himself. He loved his Mary, and he didn’t want anyone stealing her.
He thought about hitchhiking, then decided he might as well just walk, seeing as there weren’t many other cars on the highway anyway. A quiet night all around, he supposed.
He walked for half a mile, humming to himself to keep from cursing aloud at his own stupidity.
There were lights behind him, but hell, this was a highway. He paused and turned, thinking about trying to flag down the driver and bum a ride after all.
He knew he was still on the shoulder, but it seemed as if the car was coming straight toward him. He raised his hands against the blinding glare, wondering what kind of idiot was driving.
The lights grew brighter as the car drew closer. It must have been doing at least eighty.
And it was coming right at him.
He never screamed.
And he never suffered.
He didn’t even have time for a dying thought.
Morning.
Light seeping into her bedroom woke Jessy, and she opened her eyes slowly, afraid of what she might see.
The clock ticked away time on the bedside table. The dream catcher that Timothy had bought her when she was a child, beautifully crafted and dotted with beads and crystals, hung from the dressing-table mirror, just catching the first glints of day.
She was alone.
And still…
It was eerie, waking up with the sensation of being observed.
“You are not being watched,” she told herself firmly. “You are in danger of becoming paranoid.”
She’d been dreaming, she knew, though she couldn’t remember the specifics. She did know that people had been watching her in the dream.
No, not people.
Tanner Green.
She needed to get a life and quit obsessing, she told herself. Sex. That was what Sandra would tell her she needed. A red-hot relationship with a real-life man. She actually laughed as she got out of bed, wondering if a bout of good old-fashioned sex could make her stop seeing a ghost.
If so, she might have to jump the first stranger she ran into on the street.
God, no, her situation wasn’t that bad, was it?
She was, she admitted, actually attracted, both physically and mentally, to Dillon Wolf. Maybe if she…
No, she would not go there. Eyes straight ahead, that was the ticket. No thoughts of Dillon Wolf—and no ghosts, either.
She got ready early and left the house, suddenly anxious to be around other people. Her first stop, as it almost always was, would be breakfast with Timothy.
He greeted her as if he was totally in control of all his faculties, which in fact he was at times. The news was on, and the anchor was talking about the murder at the Sun, then cut away to an interview with a couple who had been in the casino at the time. Jessy was surprised to see her favorite gambler on camera, Coot Calhoun, accompanied by his silver-haired wife, Minnie.
“It was like nothing I ever saw before,” Coot said, his Texas accent as broad as always. “Feller just plowed in out of nowhere and fell flat on the table, taking that pretty young thing down with him.”
“And you didn’t see where he came from?” the interviewer asked.
“No, ma’am. Nothing at all. Feller just plowed through the crowd and died right there on top of that poor girl.”
“Was she a friend of his? Maybe a girlfriend?” the interviewer pressed.
“Not that I know about,” Coot said.
“So you know the woman?”
Jessy felt her muscles tense, fear clamping around her throat. But Coot was a gentleman, to the bone.
“No, ma’am, I never met her before that night. I just told you how it happened, and that’s that. Came after one of the longest runs I’ve ever seen at a craps table, though.”
The interview ended there, and the anchor announced that she would return after the commercial break.
“Darnedest thing I ever did hear,” Timothy said, a teasing light entering his bright blue eyes. “I’ve heard of casinos sending in new folks, hoping to turn the tide when a winning streak goes on too long, but I can’t think of a casino out there that would stoop to killing a man just to stop the game.”
Jessy gasped. “That’s horrible. And the winning streak had already ended when it happened.”
Timothy’s eyes narrowed. “And how would you know that, young lady?”
She didn’t want him knowing that she had been desperately playing the last of her reserves to keep him here in the home. She pointed to the television. “That’s what he said. The man being interviewed.”
“It’s still odd as hell. A man with a knife in his back stumbles through a casino—and no one sees where he came from, not even the cameras. Like an inside job of some kind,” he said.
“Or coincidence,” Jessy suggested.
“Coincidence?” Timothy shook his head. “Somehow, it was all rigged. How or why, I don’t know.”
“The police will find the killer,” Jessy said with far more conviction than she felt. “Anyway, you’re looking great, Timothy.”
He smiled, pleased. “I feel great. We’ll go on an adventure soon, huh?”