“Be right back.”

When Darrell returned with his coffee he sat down across from Dillon, glanced at his watch and said, “I’m good for nine more minutes.”

“That should do,” Dillon told him.

“You were there, too, so you would have seen everything I did. Although…” Darrell said, frowning with the memory. “Who left first, you or me? Me, I think. I remember the night pretty well. Coot, he’s a regular. There was a skinny woman there who looked like she was on her last legs. There was the drunk who didn’t know if he wanted his chips on or off the table. And…Jessy, of course. Jessy Sparhawk. You must know her—I saw a tape of the two of you leaving the casino together on TV.”

“I just met her that night,” Dillon said. “But you know her fairly well, I gather.”

Darrell shrugged, shaking his head. “Wish I did. She’s not a gambler. I did talk to her once after I’d seen her show. I want off the floor and into entertainment—everyone who knows me knows that—and I’d heard some of the brass talking about the pirate show at the Big Easy. They liked Jessy, so I figured if I could get her over here…well, that would look good for me.”

“Where did you go when you left the floor that night?” Dillon asked him.

“The employee cafeteria,” Darrell replied.

That would be easy enough to check out, Dillon thought.

“Why?” Darrell asked

“I was hoping maybe you’d stepped outside, maybe seen something you didn’t even know you’d seen. Something important,” Dillon said.

“I wish I could help you.”

“Me too. I did talk to some of the guys outside, at the door and at valet parking,” Dillon told him.

“Oh?”

Darrell Frye suddenly looked wary. His smile wavered for a moment, or at least it looked that way to Dillon. No matter how willing to help the man seemed to be, there was still something about him that seemed wrong. As if he was being too willing.

“Yeah,” Dillon said. “Anyway, one of the guys thought maybe he’d seen Tanner Green stumble out of a white super-stretch limo.”

“Really? Who?” Darrell Frye demanded. “Did you tell the cops?”

“Yeah, the cops know. But it won’t help them much.”

“Why not?”

“Because the guy I talked to is dead. It was Rudy Yorba.”

Frye let out a whistle. “Imagine that. The one person who actually sees something winds up dead in a hit-and-run.”

“Yeah, imagine.”

Frye glanced at his watch. “I gotta get back. But if I think of anything, I’ll call you. I promise.”

“Darrell, one more quick question. Does anyone at this casino have access to the security tapes? Other than security, obviously.”

“I thought the tapes went to the cops,” Frye said, frowning.

“Those were copies, right?”

“You’d have to ask security. I gotta go,” Darrell said. “But I’ll be happy to talk to you again, though. Anytime.”

“Thanks, Darrell. I appreciate that,” Dillon said.

“Sure.”

As soon as Frye left, Dillon got up to leave himself, wondering what the other man had been lying about. Because he had been lying. A thin sheen of nervous sweat had appeared on his upper lip, and his eyes had kept shifting toward the left.

The tourists turned en masse, heading down a wide one-way alley alongside one of the casinos to the parking area where buses dropped off and picked up their passengers.

But Jessy was so sure that she was being followed, she turned along with them.

Great, she thought. What the hell was she going to do? Board the bus?

She decided—too late—that she was probably making a big mistake. If she really was being followed by someone who meant to harm her, she should have stayed on the Strip and caught up with some other group to hide in.

Unable to think of anything else to do, she tried to board the bus, but the tour guide stopped her. “Miss, I’m sorry, you must be lost. This is a chartered bus.”

“I know. But I think I’m being followed.”

The young man looked around. There was no one around except the rest of the tour group—who were all wearing name tags, explaining how he had known she didn’t belong.

“Can I call someone for you?” he asked, looking at her as if she were an escapee from a lunatic asylum.

She had a phone, she realized. She could call someone herself. Like Dillon. Where the hell was he? Why hadn’t she heard from him yet?

“Miss, you’ll have to step aside. The people behind you need to get on.”

She stepped aside, hoping they boarded slowly, and dialed Dillon’s cell, praying that he would pick up.

He did.

“Jessy?”

The concern in his voice made her take a deep breath. She told herself she was being ridiculous.

“Where are you?” he asked her.

“About a block from the Rainbow. I’m walking over to meet Sandra. Where are you?”

“At the Sun. I never got any farther. I’ll come find you. Is Ringo around?”

“He was at the show, but I haven’t seen him since,” she said, amazed that she was talking so casually about seeing a ghost.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m sorry, I was a little nervous before, but…I’m okay now.” She had panicked, and she didn’t want him knowing just how afraid she had been. She absolutely couldn’t allow herself to become paralyzed by paranoia.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “How was the show?”

“It went fine, no problems.”

“Good. Okay, I’m on my way. Where are you?”

“About three blocks from the Big Easy.”

“I’m on foot,” he told her, “but I’m already on my way.”

She hung up. The last tourist was about to board the bus, and she needed to get moving.

She turned and started walking briskly. She heard the driver rev the engine and realized that the last tourist had gotten on and the door had closed.

The broad alley looked empty. All she had to do was walk quickly and she would be back on the Strip, surrounded by the crowd. It was insane to think that whoever had been following her—if anyone even had—was still out there.

She neared a clump of bushes the casino must have worked hard to maintain in this desert climate. She hadn’t even noticed it when she had passed it with the group.

She kept to the far side of the alley as she went by, thinking she was going crazy.

But she wasn’t.

As she walked by, she saw that the bushes started moving.

She swore and started walking more quickly.

She turned back and saw two men emerging from the cover of the bushes. Two men she would never recognize, because even in the warmth of a Vegas spring, they were wearing dark ski masks and were clad in black from head to toe.

She started to run.

She had to make it to the Strip before they caught up to her. Had to. If she could just get there, there was no way they could attack her without people noticing.

She heard footsteps coming up behind her.

They were moving like lightning, and she was wearing pumps. The heels weren’t high, but they were hardly running shoes.

She could feel the energy behind her, the force. A hot wind seemed to be reaching out for her as the footsteps drew closer.

“Help!” she screamed.

She could see the crowds just ahead, where the shadows of the alley ended.

“Help!” she screamed again.

And that was when she felt someone grab her arm. She screamed again, tearing at the gloved fingers that held her.

“Help!”

The second man reached her then, but she barely saw him because she realized that the first man had something in his hand and was pressing it to her face. A cloth. And it had a sickening-sweet smell. She felt dizziness rising and realized that the cloth was drugged.

“Help!” This time her scream was weaker.

There were people on the sidewalk just ahead.

Couldn’t they see her?

She started to fall….

And that was when something happened. When someone seemed to plow into the man holding her and wrench him from her.

“Run, Jessy, run!” someone yelled.

It was Dillon’s voice.

Run. She had to run.

But she could barely stumble.

She tried to move, but she had no strength and the night seemed so black.

The second man was reaching for her and she…

She was falling.

13

Dillon moved without thinking as he tackled the first man, ripping him away from Jessy. With the element of surprise in his favor, it was an easy feat to bring the man down hard enough to keep him there, fighting for breath. A right hook to the jaw bought him more time.

Dillon had been a punk as a kid. He’d gotten his eyes blackened a dozen times in idiotic fights he’d started himself, but in the end he’d learned how to take care of himself.

But though the first man had gone down without much effort, the other now had Jessy, who’d fallen limp to the ground, and was tossing her over his shoulder as easily as if she were a bag of feathers.

Where would could he be planning on taking her?

He couldn’t dwell on the question. He disentangled himself from the man on the ground and went straight for the second assailant, using all the force he could muster to chop the edge of his hand against the man’s nape.

The guy was a gorilla; a smaller man might have gone straight down, but the giant shuddered, then finally started to stumble to his knees, but at least he dropped Jessy, who landed directly between his feet. She roused, blinking rapidly as she tried to escape, but her movements were erratic, her limbs unable to obey the commands her brain was sending. Then her knee jerked hard and high as she flailed in her struggle to rise, and her assailant let out a bellow, rolling to his side and clutching his groin. Dillon dived after him.

“Jessy, get to the street!” Dillon ordered.