Dan nodded.
“It’s only three years until he’s eighteen, and then your life’s your own again,” she told him. “Three years isn’t that long a time—especially considering you’ll be away for a large portion of it.”
“So … Is that a no to marrying me?”
Jenn smiled at him through that tightness that just wouldn’t leave her chest. “It’s a no to being a part of your not-particularly-well-thought-out-but-very-gallant sacrifice. I mean, even if you had to leave the Navy, you and Ben could come to New York. You don’t have to marry me to do that.”
“I guess I was thinking, you know, if there’s a custody fight …?”
“From everything you told me, your mother adores you,” Jenn said. “She’s going to let Ben live with you. It’s hard to believe she won’t.”
“She does what Greg tells her to,” Dan said. “He might start a custody battle as a way to hit me up for more money.”
Jenn stood up. “I’m going to call Maria.” Her boss and best friend, a New York State assemblywoman, was also a lawyer. “See what she thinks.”
She started to dig in her purse for her cell phone, when Dan reached out and caught her by the belt loop on her jeans. He pulled her in and down so that she was sitting on the edge of his bed.
“I didn’t mean to come on too strong,” he told her. “I just thought—”
“That you didn’t have options,” Jenn finished for him. “But you do.
We’ll talk to Maria.”
But she could see both doubt and trepidation in Danny’s eyes, even as he tried to smile. “I could do three years,” he said. “For Ben’s sake. Provided you promise to spend every vacation with me—and invited me to crash at your place in New York anytime Eden drives me crazy. And provided you’re right and I don’t have to be married to get custody.”
She kissed him. “I’ll do better than that,” she said. “If I’m wrong about the custody thing, and it comes down to it? I’ll marry you. Because I could also do three years. And I could do it in San Diego, too.”
“I’d never ask you to do that,” he said again.
“I know,” Jenn told him, pushing his hair back from his face. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t offer.” She kissed him again, then reached for her phone. “Let me call Maria. Because I also need to tell her that I’m taking that extra week off.” Maria had told her to take as long as she needed, and Jenn definitely needed.
Because she and Dan were going to Vegas.
LAS VEGAS
TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2009
Neesha veered sharply left, into a clothing store where music played much too loudly, whether it was morning or evening. She went all the way to the rear of the store before she dared to glance back, out at the food court and …
The two men leaning against the wall hadn’t moved. They weren’t looking over here. Their body language hadn’t changed at all.
One was keeping an eye on the tables, the other was looking down at his cell phone.
They were standing in the very spot—more dimly lit than the rest of the mall—next to the barbecue counter, where she usually stopped and pretended to fix her shoe because from that vantage point, she could quickly scan the entire food court and make sure she saw no familiar faces—of Mr. Nelson or Todd or another of his goons—in the crowd.
She moved closer to the store’s entrance, wishing she had the confidence to pretend she was shopping—to grab some of the shiny hangers that held pretty, brightly colored clothing, and carry them around to the front of the store as she checked every single rack.
But she was terrified of being accused of stealing—shoplifting, it was called. And even though the store was filled with girls who were even younger than she was, they each had a mother with them, and the clerks didn’t look at them askance.
Still, the two men who were searching for someone—that much was clear—didn’t so much as glance in her direction, so she shifted closer, hoping for a better look at their faces.
Not that she knew each and every one of Mr. Nelson’s guards, but she did know quite a few.
Neesha moved behind a rack of dresses just to the left of the entrance and peeked out.
No, she didn’t think she knew them. They were both tall and broad—both with faces that were called white, even though they weren’t really. The one with the cell phone was bald, with a beard that decorated only part of his chin.
The other man wore a hat covering his hair despite the day’s heat, and sunglasses hiding his eyes despite the fact that the sun was long gone. It was hard to see his face, but he had a tattoo that came up out of his shirt collar, on his neck and even up onto part of his cheek.
She’d seen a lot of tattoos, and would have remembered seeing that one before.
Maybe they weren’t looking for her.
Still, she stayed where she was, watching them, even though her stomach rumbled with hunger, even though one of the suspicious clerks positioned herself nearby and folded shirts with barely concealed hostility.
And then it happened. The man with the sunglasses nudged the bald man with his elbow, and gestured across the food court with his chin.
The bald man pocketed his phone and led the way toward …
Ben.
At first glance, the boy looked a lot like him—tall and thin with dark hair and a pale face, black shirt, and jeans.
But it wasn’t Ben. This boy walked awkwardly, clumsily. Ben flowed when he moved. He had a grace to him that reminded Neesha of one of the dancers she’d watched on TV.
This boy also was part of a pack. He was with four other boys, although they all backed away when they realized the bald man and the sunglasses-wearer were heading directly toward him.
“You,” the bald man said as he pointed at the boy who looked like Ben, his voice carrying, even across the still-crowded food court. “Don’t move. Las Vegas police. We have some questions we want to ask you.”
Police? Could they really be police? Neesha watched, and sure enough, they both flashed what could have been badges, like the cops did on NYPD Blue.
She couldn’t hear any of the questions, all she could see was the boy’s fear as the bald man took him by the arm and pulled him ever farther from his friends, but closer to her. He kept shaking his head. No. Over and over again. Rapidly. Vehemently. No.
And then both men looked up, and Neesha saw, too—it was the security guard who’d approached her and Ben while he was being hassled by that teen pack, outside of the coffee shop. He was coming toward them now, and she could hear his words as he spoke. He had that kind of voice. Higher-pitched and easy to hear over the din of other conversations.
“That’s not him.”
The bald man let go of the boy, said something Neesha couldn’t hear, and the boy ran off.
“Don’t run in the mall,” the man in the guard uniform called after him, but the boy ignored him. In fact all five boys disappeared very quickly, heading for the main entrance. He laughed. “I guess you scared him.”
And now the bald man and the sunglasses man shook hands with the guard—as if they were introducing themselves. As if they hadn’t met before this.
In fact, Neesha heard the guard say, “Nice to meet you, Nathan. Jake.”
And the bald man—Jake—drew something from his jacket pocket. It was a piece of paper that he opened like a birthday card. He showed whatever was inside of it to the guard, who was nodding. Yes.
And his voice again carried to Neesha.
“That’s definitely the girl I saw here yesterday.”
CHAPTER
SEVEN
LAS VEGAS
WEDNESDAY, 6 MAY 2009
Closure. Maybe seeing Eden again would give him closure.
Izzy clung to that thought as he maneuvered his piece-of-shit rental car into the steady stream of traffic heading away from the airport and toward the glittering city of pipe dreams and false promises.
There were three kinds of people who made the pilgrimage to
Vegas: desperate souls searching for salvation and an easy fix to their financial woes, and desperate souls hell-bent on escaping their humdrum little lives and an easy fix to their financial woes.
Izzy had always taken the third approach, coming to the city with a limited amount of cash in his pocket, ready and willing and expecting to lose it all in exchange for some serious entertainment and a short respite from his responsibilities. He usually ended up bringing home more than he’d left with, even after staying in a nice hotel, eating some truly exceptional meals, and drinking copious amounts of beer. And he’d also usually always gotten laid in the process, sharing his happy-fun-time with some equally carefree young lady who’d been brainwashed into believing that hedonistic and incredibly inspired ad campaign—What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
Except the last time Izzy was here, he’d gotten married.
And maybe the slogan was true, because the relationship didn’t last long outside of the city limits. And here he was, not even a year later, back again, because his wife—soon-to-be-ex-wife—had come home.
She hadn’t returned to her literal home, as in the structure where her mother and evil stepfather still resided, and Izzy was grateful for that. If he had discovered from Eden’s father that she’d moved back into the house where he’d once found her locked in the bathroom by her stepfather Greg, with no food, trapped there for hours …
Izzy would’ve been driving a whole lot faster right now. That was for sure.
As it was, he took his time, because he still hadn’t figured out what he wanted to say to Eden when he saw her again. And Jenkins was right. He shouldn’t wing it. He should go in at least with the talking points highlighted in his mind.
Why did you leave like that, without saying good-bye? Do you have even the slightest clue what it felt like to walk into that apartment and find you gone? Erased from my life, vanished without a trace. And okay, I’ll cut you miles of slack on this one, because Pinkie’d died and you couldn’t have been thinking clearly in the days and weeks that followed.
But why did you refuse to see me in Germany, month after month after motherfrakking month? Didn’t I deserve at least a little respect and the common courtesy of the words I need more time alone coming directly from your mouth, instead of your friend Anya’s? At some point, the grieving process has to allow for at least occasional moments of rational thought over knee-jerk urges. And okay, I’ve never lost a baby, but I lost a good friend and I still miss him. I always will. His death changed me, irrevocably. But time heals all wounds is the cliché that it is because it’s true. And the pain changes into something that’s not so unbearable—a little at first, and then more and more, and yet you still made Anya send me away, and I don’t know why.
Did you ever think, even once, that maybe Pinkie’s dying might’ve hurt me, too? That I might’ve needed some help and comfort in dealing with the loss? That maybe we could have helped each other, held on to one another, gotten through it together …? And maybe the answer to this one is no, you didn’t think about me at all, because you never gave a shit about me. I was just some schmuck you took advantage of—a loser who gave you and your unborn child food and shelter and health care. And as soon as you didn’t need those things, you couldn’t get away from me fast enough, could you?
But if you hate me so much, or if there’s something about me that repulses you so completely, then why the hell did you try so hard to get with me during those weeks we were together? Because that is some seriously twisted shit, sweetheart. I made it clear that I wanted to keep sex separate from our matrimonial deal. I told you over and over that my help was not contingent on anyone going down on anyone else. But you worked it, overtime, to make our relationship be all about how badly we both wanted my dick inside of you, until it finally happened. And I just can’t wrap my brain or my ego around the idea that you didn’t honestly want it as much as I did.
Maybe I just want you to look me in the eye and tell me to my face that it was all a fucking lie. That there wasn’t a single real, honest moment between us …
Izzy’s cell phone had GPS, and he used it now to navigate his way to the apartment building where Eden was living. He drove around the block and then pulled to a stop slightly down the street so he could sit and look and not be noticed.
The building was pretty nice. It was a two-story complex with the apartment doors opening into a center courtyard with a lush garden. There were two entrances into the place—one from a parking lot that was off to one side, and the other from this street. There were probably sixty or seventy apartments or condos altogether.
Eden was in 214—up on that second floor.
Izzy scanned the second-floor windows that faced the street. All but one had blinds that were tightly closed. The one that was open had flowers—bright red—sitting on the sill. But really, 214 could have been around the other side, overlooking the parking lot.
It was stupid to sit here speculating whether that apartment was where Eden was living, when he could figure it out quickly enough by going into the courtyard and looking up at the layout of the second floor.
So he got out of the car, locking the doors behind him. And he approached the entrance to the courtyard on foot.
The early-morning sun was hot on the back of his neck—the day was looking to be a scorcher. Not a big surprise since the city was in the middle of the flipping desert.
There weren’t many other people out. A dark-haired girl sitting on a bus-stop bench, across the street. An old lady walking an equally ancient dog. A man in a suit in a hurry, talking on a cell phone.
This part of town wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t particularly great, either. Still, the building seemed much nicer than what he’d expected her to be able to afford and—Shit!
It was Eden. She was less than ten yards away from him, coming out of the complex’s entrance, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, sneakers on her feet, hair up in a ponytail, with a big, slouchy bag over her shoulder. She was moving fast, and she picked up her pace as she saw that a bus was coming, heading downtown along the busy street.
Izzy quickly turned away to hide his face, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t, because she was so totally focused on booking it to the bus stop on the corner.
He stood there, dumbstruck at the sight of her. She was solid and real and not just the figment of his overheated imagination, the focus of his dreams—both fantasy and nightmares. She looked healthy and trim—back to her pre-pregnancy weight—and dressed the way she was, she looked like a college student, rushing off to class.
It was only when the bus pulled away from the curb with a noisy squeal of air brakes that the spell was broken.
And Izzy ran for his car, determined to follow and find out where, exactly, Eden was in such a hurry to go this early in the morning.
Neesha watched from across the street as the very tall man with the shaggy hair, angular features, and very broad shoulders jumped into a tiny car and peeled out, following the bus.
Following Ben’s sister Eden.
He wasn’t one of the two men who’d been searching for her at the food court last night, but that didn’t mean he didn’t work for Mr. Nelson or Todd. The way he’d moved when Eden had come out of her apartment building had been pure subterfuge. He hadn’t wanted Eden to see him, to know he was there, and so she hadn’t.
Neesha sat on the bench, afraid to move, afraid that someone else was watching, even now.
She’d come here this morning to warn Ben—to tell him not to go back to the mall, to make sure he didn’t get hurt.
But now she didn’t dare climb the stairs to the second floor and knock on his door—or even use the key that he’d pulled out from beneath a potted plant in the courtyard downstairs. She didn’t dare to do anything—except dig out the last of the money Ben had given her and board the bus when it finally arrived, and ride it into the city, where she could lose herself in the crowds.
Wishing she were brave enough—and ashamed th
at she wasn’t.
And knowing with a growing sense of dread that she wouldn’t be safe until she got well out of town—and that she wouldn’t get out of town without a whole lot of cash.
Izzy pulled over to the curb in a loading zone, just down the street from D’Amato’s, where Eden had gone in the back door. It was, as the signage proclaimed, a GENTLEMAN’S CLUB where LIVE HOT GIRLS danced, i.e. stripped, 24/7!
It shouldn’t have surprised him. And on one level, it didn’t. There weren’t many jobs anywhere for someone with Eden’s lack of education to earn more than minimum wage. And there was no way she could have afforded an apartment in that relatively uncrappy part of town on even eighty hours a week of minimum wage.
At least not without her fucking some guy so he’d help pay the bills.
And okay, that was harsh, but true. Although the fact that she was working here probably meant that she hadn’t hooked up with anyone new—and yeah. That was just wishful thinking on his part.
Eden Gillman was not the kind of woman who went for very long without a man in her life, and Izzy well knew it. Maybe being reminded of that would help him find closure—his seeing the low-life scum that she let into her bed instead of him. Or maybe he didn’t need to see the guy. Maybe he just needed to know his name.
Izzy took a deep breath and then he took another, even as his mind continued to race.
Maybe she was a waitress here, because the signs also boasted GOOD FOOD, but no. A woman as beautiful as Eden didn’t work carrying trays in a place like this.
He knew he should drive away—just put the pedal to the metal of this rental car—all the way back to San Diego, where he could start the ball rolling on getting that divorce.
But he pulled the car into the club’s valet-only VIP parking lot instead, and tossed the attendant his keys, because he was hungry and he wanted breakfast and the freaking place allegedly had good food, so why the hell not?
Probably because he was feeling distinctly out-of-body as he walked around to the street-side entrance of the strip club. He’d found, from past experiences, that that was never a good sign. Still, his feet took him toward D’Amato’s heavy wooden door.
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