Roulette

by C. D. Bradley

  One of her neighbors was grilling on their balcony. The smell of steaks permeated the air and made her stomach growl. No time to think about food. For everyone else this was a typical Wednesday evening. While they passed the potatoes or did their laundry she was about to step through the looking glass to the dark secret world of Grace Wilson. If she did come back would she ever be the same?

  Olivia climbed into her Audi and backed out of her assigned space. As she pulled through the gate onto Duke Street, she saw the headlights turn on from a dark sedan in the space closest to the gate. The space belonged to Julie, who Olivia knew was away on a cruise. Game on. She didn’t know if it was one of Shaver’s cars or someone else, either way they were playing her game now. No more kid gloves. She reached the stoplight and the car stopped two behind her. There was no way to see who it was. She turned left and the car followed. She needed to stay in public areas in case this wasn’t a police tail. Whoever killed Gwen and Rebecca was here in Norfolk. She thought of the pin. Whoever it was sent her a message with that pin. Every turn she made they followed, always staying two car lengths or so behind her. Olivia felt like a new recruit marching off to war not knowing what to expect except the tall tales of the broken men who had returned home. Now she could hear and feel the battle up ahead. False hope and bravado gave way to fear and anticipation of the very real danger that lie just out of sight.

  Olivia drove casually to the third floor of the North Parking Deck of the MacArthur Center Mall and found a single space near a door. She smiled when she realized there were no other open spaces she could see in that area. She locked her cell inside the Audi and entered the mall. It would take her tail a few minutes to park and follow her in. If they came in at all. They might just park by her car and wait. Olivia walked quickly to the Sprint store on that level and bought a prepaid phone with cash and put the phone in her bag. She left and walked directly into Dillard’s. Olivia walked with purpose to the elevator and pushed the buttons for the second and first floor.

  As the doors closed she caught a glimpse of two men watching her as they walked down the aisle and pretended to look at housewares. They could be officers as they looked vaguely familiar but Olivia couldn’t tell for sure. Were they tailing her or were they after her? She wasn’t going to stick around to find out. Once the elevator began to move she let out a slow calming breath.

  And there she was. Why were elevators always mirrored? She looked at Grace. What the hell did you get yourself into? Olivia loved her sister and would have done anything for her. Whatever Grace had been involved in Olivia would have helped her or at least tried. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you trust me?

  She exited the elevator on the second floor of the department store and slipped into the bathroom of the Aveda Salon. She ditched the rain jacket and sandals in exchange for the heels and Gucci purse. Now what the hell was she going to do with the gym bag? She looked up at the ceiling tiles. Fuck it, she was not Jackie Chan. There was no way she was climbing on a toilet seat without falling in. She stuffed her bag in the large trash bin. She could buy another if she made it back.

  Olivia caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and Grace smiled approvingly. She took out the prepaid cell and made the call. “David, this is Grace.”

  “Grace.” He drew the word out as if the dark sweetness of its sound revived his soul. “It’s been far too long, love. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Did he really not know that Grace had died ten years ago? Every warning bell in her mind was going off like a six-alarm fire but she wasn’t turning back now. She stilled herself and took a deep breath. “I need you to pick me up.”

  “Just name the place.” He encouraged like a spider welcoming the fly.

  “Monticello entrance to MacArthur Place,” she answered in Grace’s short cool way. Olivia had watched her work every football player and businessman they had ever crossed paths with. Her heart was racing but she would not let it show. She had to be in control. One wrong move and she would end up buried next to her sister.

  “I’ll have a car there in fifteen. Welcome back, baby.” His smooth voice darkened like the sky before a storm.

  Olivia hung up and let out a long slow breath. She looked at herself in the mirror. Grace stared back determined. Her eyes were wild and alive. She was always so brave while all Olivia had ever felt was fear. You can do this. She had fifteen minutes to lose her followers and make it to the exit. Olivia reapplied her lipstick and let her dark hair fall down around her shoulders. Showtime.

  She glanced out of the bathroom and didn’t see anyone out of the ordinary. She walked calmly through the salon and followed a woman who had just had her hair done to the escalator. The dark haired woman was dressed to the nines in a slate gray dress and black heels. Olivia struck up a conversation with her on the way down. Lady luck was on her side, the woman was going to the same exit to meet her ride. As they walked the woman told her about her anniversary plans. Olivia listened while keeping an eye out for her tail. She hoped that this new look would throw them off. They were looking for one woman wearing casual clothes with a gym bag, not two women dressed for a black-tie affair. When they reached the first floor Olivia saw two uniformed officers standing at the entrance. Fuck! Where they there for her? She stiffened but kept moving. She was going to have to walk right by them. The little red purse almost slipped out of her hand as a fine sheen of sweat broke out. Each step led them closer to the two officers. Stay Calm. Olivia positioned herself so that the woman was between her and the officers. When they got close she kept her head down and slightly turned away like she was digging for something in her purse.

  “Hold on a sec,” one of the men said.

  Sweet Jesus. Olivia’s heart stopped. She kept her head turned away and gave a silent prayer. She could barely hear his next words over the pounding of her heart.

  “Ma’am, you dropped this,” he said bending over to pick something up.

  “Oh, thank you so much. You are too kind,” the woman replied. Olivia held her breath. Every second it took the woman to reach out and retrieve her fallen item felt like an hour in the rack. Her heart raced like a rocket toward the sun. At any moment they could see her and it would all be over.

  “No problem, ma’am,” he called and by some miracle they were walking again. Relief flooded her and her head swam from holding her breath. Once in the hall, Olivia never looked back. She walked in step with her unwitting conspirator toward the exit.

  “It was really nice to meet you, Grace. Have fun on your date night!” The woman said as they reached the glass doors.

  “Nice to meet you too, Stephanie. Happy anniversary,” Olivia replied as they parted ways. Once she set foot out those doors there was no going back. She took a breath and pressed the metal lever.

  The warm salty air enveloped her on contact. A black town car was sitting by the curb. The rabbit hole awaits, Alice. Despite the torturous sea of emotion that raged on the inside, Olivia walked toward her fate without hesitation. As she got close the tinted window rolled down a crack but not enough to see inside.

  “I’ve been expecting you.” The words crawled over Olivia with the familiarity of a recurrent nightmare and caused her body to freeze. Any pretense of calm she possessed melted like a popsicle in June. Before she could say or do anything the door opened.

  Turn back. Do not do this. Please for the love of God turn around. It took the power of a Greco-Roman wrestler to squash her inner voice and step into the car.

  “Venus,” Olivia breathed as she sat back in the dark leather seat and the car pulled away from the curb. She somehow remembered the silver haired woman. Images from a lifetime ago flooded her mind. She remembered being in a limo with this woman on the way to the casino. Two huge men that looked like gorillas in suits sat opposite them. Venus was laughing and Olivia knew she was about to die. There was no way out of the car . . . no way out.

  “Grace,” she began coldly and startled Olivia out of her episode, “I don�
�t know if you are brave or incredibly fucking stupid. Either way it won’t do you much good.” She slowly drummed long metallic purple nails on the leather armrest. Olivia stared at the black streak in her silver hair for a moment and imagined that the trunk must be full of dead Dalmatian puppies.

  Olivia’s mind raced. She was sure she had never met this woman before, yet she knew exactly who she was. Venus Murphy worked for Mr. Michaelson, she was in charge of the girls that worked on the flights. She had come up in part of their investigations but Olivia knew more than her name, it was like she actually remembered her. These are not real flashbacks she reminded herself. This was too important for her to let her overactive imagination and panic episodes take over. Before Olivia could answer Venus continued.

  “When David said he saw you at the restaurant I knew it was only a matter of time before you came crawling back. What happened? Did you run out of money?” Venus sneered and opened a silver compact. She took out a tube of deep crimson lipstick and started to apply it.

  “I need to get to Vegas,” Olivia replied. This was going to be fucking hard. She might look exactly like Grace but, unfortunately, she didn’t know anything about this part of her life. How the hell was she going to pull off being Grace when she had no fucking clue what was going on.

  “You’re crazier than I thought.” She laughed. “The plane is already waiting, David had them get it ready the moment you called, but if I were you I wouldn’t set foot in Vegas.” Venus narrowed her gazed and leaned in. “Did you really think you could steal from the devil without unleashing all the powers of hell?

  OLIVIA LOOKED OUT the window as the plane taxied the runway. Would she ever see Norfolk again? The more involved with this she became the less likely that seemed. Her sister’s secret world was a sadistic onion, each layer a little more fucked up than the last. The plane reached the end of the runway and the wheels lifted off the ground. The charter contained several high rollers all headed to Vegas on the plush plane to gamble away their lives. A short five-hour flight to paradise or hell depending on how you looked at it.

  Olivia’s body lurched into weightlessness briefly. She had an image of herself under the water, weightless, looking up. Someone was holding her under, their hands around her neck. Olivia struggled as she had so many times before. She fought back, desperate to get free. She cried out and water flooded her mouth and scorched her lungs.

  “Your chardonnay.” A young woman in a black stewardess uniform with a gold sash around her neck interrupted her thoughts. Olivia looked around the plane startled and unaware of how much time had passed. The episodes were becoming more frequent and intense. She had to get a hold of herself. Whatever was waiting for her in Vegas was going to require every ounce of concentration and luck she could get.

  “Thank you.” Olivia took the glass and held it. Venus said she had been expecting her. For the first time Olivia realized she may be walking into a trap. She looked at the other patrons on the plane. None of them looked familiar.

  Venus had brought her directly to the tarmac and dropped her off at the hangar. She cursed herself for leaving her phone behind. Maybe she should have called Dominic before she came out here. There was no going back now. Venus had made her hand over the prepaid phone in the car. Fuck that was stupid. She had jumped into the rabbit hole and was in free fall.

  “Can I get you anything else?” the young woman asked and Olivia noticed the gold pin over her left breast. Her blond hair was pulled back in a professional updo.

  “No, thank you,” Olivia said. Then nodded at her pin and asked, “Lambda Sigma Delta?”

  “Absolutely!” The perky naïve girl answered back with a smile her clueless parents had paid thousands for. How would they feel if they knew their princess was a paid escort running drugs for the fucking devil?

  “Nice,” Olivia replied. “My . . . er um . . . I, was a Lambda Sigma Delta at Brown.”

  “Get out!” She squealed. “I go to Brown! My name is Cammie I’m just down here for the summer. This job is too good to pass up, you know.”

  Just then the pilot announced that there would be some turbulence and everyone should remain seated with their seat belts fastened. The stewardess looked at her with wide eyes. “Do you mind if I sit in this seat?” She pointed at the empty one next to Olivia.

  “Sure why not,” Olivia said and downed her chardonnay. Cammie sat down and buckled her belt as tightly as possible. Maybe lady luck was on her side again. “I worked on this same crew ten years ago.” Olivia tested the water. Maybe Cammie could give her some insight on just what the fuck was going on.

  “Oh, wow. That’s about the time they started The Roulette Dolls isn’t it?” Cammie asked suddenly beaming. “Were you in one of the first groups?”

  Shit, Olivia didn’t fucking know. “Yeah, it was around that time. I’m sure things have gotten a lot more organized though. You girls probably have this down to a science by now.”

  The plane began to bounce around the sky like a five-year-old on a trampoline. The pilot’s voice came back over the speaker reassuring them that it was just turbulence and everything would be okay. Olivia looked at the couple across the aisle. The man seemed to be praying, his wife was taking a Xanax and swallowing it down with a martini. Cammie looked like she was about to cry. “Are you okay?” Olivia asked the young girl. “You look scared to death. You guys experience stuff like this all the time up here, right?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered her lip trembling. “This is only my second flight. The last one went really smooth. I just got recruited.”

  “I see. So how does the program work now?” Olivia tried again.

  “You know you hear rumors when you first go through selection but no one ever really talks about it. Then last month I was recruited by my big when she found out I didn’t have any plans for the summer. She said she thought I had what it took to become one of The Roulette Dolls.”

  A sudden image of fighting with Grace in a hotel room flooded her conscious. They were both yelling. Olivia called her a whore and a liar. Grace was screaming right back. The plane jerked hard to the right and Olivia caught her breath. She couldn’t ever remember fighting with her sister like that. What the hell was going on? Olivia hoped like hell she would be able to find out before it was too late.

  “So how do you like being a Doll so far?” she asked Cammie and forced a smile.

  “Other than this,” she motioned at the shaking plane, “it’s been great! I mean you party with college boys anyway for nothing other than maybe a few free drinks. With this we get paid to be stewardesses on the plane then when we get to Vegas we hang out with high rollers, get free food, drinks, and a room. We’re not hookers. You can do anything you want with whoever you want. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas and if one of the high rollers gives us money, it’s ours to keep. Then we are stewardesses again on the way home. Venus is amazing. She has a car waiting for us at the airport both ways. We don’t even have to mess with our own bags. They take care of everything.” She gushed and the plane settled back down.

  I bet they do, Olivia thought. She needed to let Shaver know about the luggage. These girls could be trafficking drugs and not even know it. “Sounds like The Dolls have come a long way,” Olivia observed as Cammie stood up to get back to work.

  Only an hour until she landed. Olivia needed a game plan. She had to play along until she found out who was involved with her sister’s murder and why. Had her sister found out what they were up to with the drugs? Maybe like Cammie her sister thought that this was just a fun innocent summer job and got caught up with the money. Olivia racked her brain with every possibility though she could hear the psychiatrist telling her the what if game brought on her episodes. She had to think about something else for the duration of this flight.

  Her thoughts drifted back to Dominic. Would she ever see him again? Olivia closed her eyes. She could taste his sweet cinnamon mouth. She wondered how he was doing on the lead he was following and how he wo
uld react when he found out she was gone?

  THE PLANE LANDED at McCarran International Airport at seven thirty Vegas time. Olivia had drifted off to sleep.

  “Grace . . . Grace.” Cammie shook her shoulder to wake her up.

  “Grace is dead,” Olivia mumbled and tried to go back to sleep. She pulled the small airline blanket up over her head.

  “Nice try, Grace, but we have to get off this plane. The driver is waiting to take us to the hotel,” Cammie urged a little louder.

  Olivia picked up her head suddenly aware of what she had just said. The plane was empty except for Cammie and another stewardess. They were both laughing.

  “I’m sorry,” Olivia said quickly. “I guess I fell asleep.”

  “Yeah, you did,” Cammie exclaimed laughing. “And did you know you talk in your sleep? I don’t know who Dominic is but I’d like to,” she said and raised her eyebrows.

  “Oh, jeez.” Olivia planted her face in her palm and hoped that’s all she talked about.

  “Come on, sleeping beauty, it’s time for a reunion Dolls style.” She giggled and escorted Olivia off the plane. A jet black limo party bus awaited them on the tarmac. They walked over and climbed inside the rolling club. Holy fuck. All the high rollers were already seated down the sides on plush black leather benches. The music was pumping and a third Doll was helping the bartender serve them drinks. The floor was illuminated fluorescent purple and the mirrored ceiling projected a light show. She counted twenty-three patrons not including the Dolls. Two couples but the rest were men. The Dolls started doing shots with the guys as they drove. Olivia could tell this was going to get out of hand quick but what the hell was she going to do?

  Cammie brought her a shot. “Here, Grace! Join the party!” She thrust the drink in Olivia’s hand. Shit. Olivia needed to stay focused.