Exhausted but too wired to sleep, Val lay in the dark, listening to voices passing in the hall and to the whir and bump of the elevators. Faintly, through the window, she could hear the sound of traffic. Vegas was known as Sin City. Once, two years that seemed like a lifetime ago, she’d fed off the energy and excitement that pulsed through the place. Now it only grated on her nerves. All she wanted was to be somewhere else.
Why had she agreed to come here? She could have stayed home, safe from the dangers of her past. Safe from Casey and the way he made her feel.
She’d promised herself that she wouldn’t think about him. But she couldn’t help recalling the physical jolt she’d felt when she’d first seen him, standing at the foot of the stairs in the arena. And afterward, in the truck—how her pulse had quickened when she’d sensed him looking at her. Even after so many years, the man could turn her on with a look or a touch.
But that was just one reason why she had to stay away from him.
Would she see him tomorrow morning? Not likely. He’d probably be working out at a gym somewhere. Lives depended on the bullfighters being in top condition. Casey wasn’t getting any younger, but she could imagine how his body must look without clothes—the sculpted shoulders and taut, narrow hips and flat belly; the crisp V of hair that traced a shadowy path down his muscular torso to . . .
Stop it!
Casey was the last man she should be fantasizing about. Being with him tonight had stirred feelings that she’d done her best to bury. But she would never act on those feelings. If he were to find out what she’d done and what she’d become, he would turn his face away and never look at her again.
Drifting now, she could feel the dream rising out of her memory like a poisonous tide. Helpless to resist, she was swept back eighteen months in time, to a one-room apartment on a seedy Vegas backstreet, in a neighborhood so rough that even the police tended to avoid it.
She kept to the shadows, the hood of her sweatshirt drawn tight around her face, hiding everything but her eyes. A mile distant, the hotels along the strip glittered like fantasy towers from another world—a world apart from this potholed street where homeless people camped on the sidewalks and whores came to crash after a night of working the tourist spots—a street where anything could be bought if you had the cash and knew where to look.
It was sometime after midnight, not a safe time for a woman to be alone on the street. But Lenny, who was in trouble with the boss, didn’t want to be seen. So when he’d needed a hit, he’d given her a wad of cash and sent her out to score some cocaine.
She already knew where to go, who to find, and how much to pay. The deal was done in a matter of minutes. With the packet of white powder tucked into the kangaroo pouch of her sweatshirt, she turned around and headed back down the block, to the entrance of the three-story apartment house.
The stairwell reeked of stale cigarette smoke and urine. But they wouldn’t be here long, Val reminded herself. Soon Lenny’s ’s luck at the gaming tables was bound to change. He’d get the cash to repay Lanzoni for the protection money he’d held back, and everything would be all right again.
The door to their room was on the second floor, next to a recess in the wall where a rusted, broken vending machine stood. Val was fumbling for the key she’d thrust into the pocket of her jeans when she heard voices from the room inside.
“No . . . Please, I’m sorry, so sorry . . .” The pleading voice was Lenny’s. “For God’s sake, Dimitri, tell Lanzoni I’ll make it up. He won’t get anything if I’m dead.”
“It’s a little late for that. Lanzoni won’t work with a man he doesn’t trust. You’ve crossed him one time too many.” Val recognized the chilling voice with its Slavic accent. “Here’s a present from the boss. Nice knowing you, Lenny.”
Val heard the muffled sound of a shot from Dimitri’s .38, equipped with a silencer. She ducked on the far side of the vending machine and squeezed against the wall, expecting him to come bursting into the hall. Instead, what she heard was the bathroom and closet doors slamming open, drawers being pulled out and thrown, and even the bed being moved. He would have seen her clothes in the room and her purse hanging on the bedpost. That meant, in order to finish the job, Dimitri would have to kill her, too.
Seconds later, having failed to find his quarry, he stepped out of the room, closed the door behind him, and stood looking up and down the stairwell. He was so close that Val could have reached out and touched his pantleg. She held her breath. Any second now, he would turn and see her, squeezed between the wall and the old vending machine.
Just then a gang of teenage boys came pouring inside from the street. Laughing and jostling each other, they pounded up the stairs and spilled into the hallway. With a muttered curse, Dimitri turned aside, headed down the stairs and out the door. As the boys disappeared into one of the rooms, Val heard the sound of a powerful car roaring away.
Minutes passed before she dared to squeeze out of her hiding place. What if Dimitri was tricking her? What if he planned to come back?
Val thrashed and twisted in the bed, struggling to wake from what she knew was coming—the part that would haunt her to the end of her days. But sleep held her captive, forcing her to go on.
Her first impulse was to flee to the roof, where she could hide and watch for Dimitri’s return. But what if Lenny was still alive? She couldn’t go without checking.
The door had locked when Dimitri closed it, but she still had her key. Hand shaking, she thrust it into the lock and turned the latch.
The room, lit by a guttering candle she’d left on the counter, was a wreck. Dimitri had destroyed the place looking for her—and probably for any hidden cash or drugs. Val had closed the door behind her when she saw the body sprawled facedown on the filthy carpet. No breath. No movement. Not much blood. Dimitri liked to kill with a single clean shot to the side of the head. Still, she needed to turn Lenny over and make sure she wouldn’t be leaving him alive.
Tugging and lifting, she managed to roll him onto his back. Only then did she force herself to look down at his lifeless face.
Val awoke with a violent jerk. Stifling a scream, she lay quivering in the dark as the dream dissolved around her. She could hear the faint rumble of cartwheels passing the door and the soft rush of her sister’s breathing in the next bed.
It had only been a bad dream—one she’d had so many times before that it had taken on the aspect of a stage play.
But this time, something about the dream had been different.
When she’d turned the dead man over, it hadn’t been Lenny Fortunato she’d seen.
It had been Casey.
CHAPTER SIX
WHEN VAL OPENED HER EYES AGAIN IT WAS ALMOST 8:00. MORNING light was streaming through the blinds, and Tess was gone.
With a groan, she sat up, flung back the covers, and swung her legs off the bed. Last night, after the awful dream, she’d tried for more than an hour to go back to sleep. Finally, she’d gone into the bathroom, found a bottle of over-the-counter sleeping tablets in Tess’s travel kit, and taken just one—or had it been two? Whatever she’d taken had knocked her out. She hadn’t even heard her sister get up and leave.