by P. W. Child
"No bother. It's all going on the Daniels account."
"Oh, ok. In that case, let's make it Advil!"
They rolled into Vegas slightly ahead of schedule. Julia Rose's feet seemed to be getting heavier on the gas pedal as they got closer to their destination. Sam consulted his scribbled notes for the address of their hotel, the Verbena. It took only a moderate amount of circling and swearing at each other to find it, at which point life suddenly became considerably easier. Despite Julia Rose's protestations that no hotel in Vegas would valet park her car, she handed the keys to Sam and let him toss them to the attendant. If the attendant judged them for arriving in a rust bucket, he did not let it show on his face but accepted Sam's tip, slipped behind the wheel, and told them to contact the reception desk when they wanted the car again.
At the reception counter they completed name tags identifying them as part of the FireStorm group and were handed keys to rooms 1850 and 1851. "Dinner service just got finished," the receptionist informed them, her smile unwavering, "but we have an extensive room service menu, so if you see anything you like, we'll send it right up. Your rooms are on the eighteenth floor. Are you sure you don't want someone to show you the way? Ok! Well, turn right as you get out of the elevator."
The elevators, like the rest of the Verbena, were a confection of white plastic and highly polished chrome. There were even a couple of glass lifts, like little bubbles that faced both the interior and exterior of the building, offering guests the opportunity to ride in full view of the lobby and the Las Vegas skyline. Sam could see why Sara had chosen this place as a meeting point for the Silicon Valley delegates. It felt like the whole place had been built out of iPhones. Selecting a floor could be achieved with a mundane push of a button, but there was also the option of speaking your destination to a voice recognition system, which cheerfully repeated Sam's words back to him.
"I see that you have just checked in!" the elevator voice said. "Please don't forget to check out our in-house casino, our award-winning restaurant, our world-famous champagne bar, our state-of-the-art gymnasium and spa facility, or any of the other extraordinary features we offer here at the Verbena! If you require anything during your stay or wish to personalize your Verbena experience, just speak into the microphone beside your bed and a member of our team will be right with you!"
Sam bit his tongue. He promised himself he would get through this first night, at least, without swearing at the technology. He thought fondly of some of the run-down bed and breakfast places he had stayed at through the years, places run by surly old couples who viewed their guests with anything from suspicion to open hostility. It seemed friendlier, somehow, than this mechanized place that offered a "personalized experience" while being utterly clinical.
He stepped out into the hallway of the eighteenth floor, Julia Rose behind him, and turned right as they had been instructed. Just as they set off down the corridor, another elevator pinged behind them. Instinctively, Sam turned around and saw the doors open to let out a well-dressed couple. The man was tall and heron-like, wearing small glasses and expert tailored clothing. Sam recognized him at once as Dave Purdue, the same thrill-seeking billionaire who had dragged him and Jefferson all the way to Antarctica in search of lost Nazi treasures. The obsessed magnate who had plummeted him into the dangers of sneaking into Tibet and desecrating temples to acquire the location of a religious item that drove men mad in its pursuit.
And the woman beside him was none other than Nina.
☼
Chapter Six
The Verbena had nothing as low-tech as a normal alarm clock on its bedside tables. Instead, pale blue digits were projected onto the stark white walls. These read 03:07 when the faint tapping on the door began.
Sam was not asleep, of course. Even after a week in America, his sense of time was yet to catch up. He was sprawled diagonally across the vast bed, staring at the ceiling, half-listening to the news on the giant plasma TV, while he sucked despondently on the end of an electronic cigarette. Quietly, he rolled off the bed and crept across the floor. For all its gadgetry, the one thing the room did not have was a peephole in the door. He glanced around to see if there was something he should be pressing or whispering at to bring up information about who was on the other side of the door.
The tapping came again. It was soft, so soft that it would not have woken even the lightest of sleepers. Someone wanted to know whether he was awake. Sam wondered whether the person would be able to see light under the door or hear the sound of the TV. Then again, he thought, I could have fallen asleep with the TV on—and the lights too. It's no guarantee of anything. I could just—
"Sam? I would be surprised if you are not both in the room and currently awake. Please let me in."
Purdue. The voice on the other side of the door was Purdue. Sam pushed the button beside the door, making it slide open to let Purdue in.
"Thank you, Sam. I knew you would be up, I remember well your habits." He strolled into the room, examined the layout, then walked straight toward the far wall and pressed his palm against it. A panel swished out of sight, revealing the mini bar that Sam had searched for in vain a few hours earlier. Purdue took out two miniature bottles of vodka, complete with tiny chilled shot glasses placed over the top, and handed one to Sam. "Insomnia can be so useful when I am at home and have things I can work on. In a situation like this, I simply find my wakefulness incredibly tedious. Nina is no help at all. I have never known a woman to sleep as soundly as she does."
Purdue's words hit Sam like a sucker punch to the gut. Ever since he had run into them in the corridor, Sam had been trying hard not to think about why Nina was here. That Purdue was here for the Mind Meld was obvious—in fact, Sam was kicking himself for not figuring out sooner that Purdue was likely to be here. Nano-technology and software were two of the disciplines that had made Purdue so rich, and the world was small where such wealthy men were concerned. But Nina . . . Sam knew that she must either be working for him or sleeping with him, and deep down he knew that no personal assistant would have been so well-dressed for dinner with her boss.
Despite himself, his mind conjured up an image of Nina lying prone across one of these massive hotel beds, the tangle of sheets around her body, the pale white skin of her slim back, her dark hair fanning out over the pillow . . . He could imagine her breathing, heavy with slumber, exhausted after a long session of strenuous—
Enough of that, Sam told himself, none of my business. He popped the top off the vodka bottle and took a swig, not bothering to pour it into the little glass. He racked his brain for some suitable small talk, anything that would not lead back to a conversation about Nina.
"So, have you been in Vegas long?" Sam tried, then cursed within the confines of his head. How was that a question that would lead away from Nina?
"For six days," Purdue said, folding himself into one of the complicated seats by the coffee table. "I wanted to give myself time to acclimatize before the Mind Meld begins. I would hate to be at a disadvantage due to jet lag. Fortunately, Nina was available at short notice to accompany me. In that respect I am rather grateful to her department in the university. If the department head had been a little more appreciative of her talents, she might still be employed there and I might be here alone."
Sam thought that he was doing an admirable job of controlling his face, but Purdue must have picked up on something. "Am I being insensitive?" he asked. "I'm sorry. I hope you realize that I am not attempting to crow over you, Sam. I was aware of a previous attraction between you and Nina, but she assured me that there was nothing between you. I would be lying if I said to you that I would not have invited her here if there had been something between you, but knowing her as I do, I am sure it would have made a difference to her response."
"It's fine." Unwilling to risk the fancy half-kneeler, half-chairs, Sam perched on the edge of his bed. "There never was anything, really. I thought about asking her out once, but it never happened. So you and she are
. . . well, that's great. Good. I hope it's all going well."
While uttering the words, it did cross Sam's mind that Nina could not possibly have asked Sam to distance himself purely to be able to pursue Dave Purdue, even after all she and Sam had endured together. The Judas kiss of the whole affair burned in his chest and scorched his heart, but his face remained unhindered by the bite of it.
For a long moment Purdue stared quizzically at Sam, one eyebrow raised in disbelief. However, he did not push the matter any further. Instead, he relaxed in his chair and allowed Sam to draw him into a little inconsequential discussion of Las Vegas, the Verbena, and America in general. Purdue asked about Julia Rose, and Sam, remembering Purdue's sense of humor, told him the truth about how he had acquired his "intern."
They laughed together at the thought of Sam's mild abuse of FireStorm's hospitality, and as they worked their way through the contents of the mini bar, Sam remembered how entertaining Purdue's company could be. Yes, he was intense and a little crazy—but he had few boundaries, and he was exciting. An excellent drinking buddy—just the sort of man you could down vodka with until the first hints of daylight made their presence felt over the Nevada skyline.
"Now, god knows I'm not a man to stop anybody having a good time," Jefferson Daniels addressed the table, "but there has to be a few limits in place. I mean, shouldn't a man be able to take his family out for dinner without having to worry what his teenage daughter's going to see?"
A few seats away, Henley groaned and slumped across the table, picking at a bowl of granola. Despite his fuzzy head, Sam smiled. Jefferson had been holding forth for a good twenty minutes about the disreputable state in which he found Las Vegas.
The FireStorm delegates had been seated in a private dining room for breakfast, full of large round tables designed to encourage people to start mingling and "connecting. In practice, people had split into small groups where they already knew one another, so Sam, Nina, and Purdue were sitting with the Daniels family. Sam and Nina exchanged brief glances. He figured Purdue must have offered her some comfort, some nudge in her career, for her to have finally submitted to his advances. He wondered if it even bothered her a little that she did not have the courage to just say it to his face—Listen, Sam, you have been with me through so much, but unfortunately your friendship is not enough to buy me a private jet,—he imagined harshly.
Nina, always groggy until the second caffeine hit of the day kicked in, winced every time Jefferson resumed his monologue. By contrast, Paige sat at her husband's side looking perfectly groomed. Sam would not have been surprised to learn that she had already visited both the hotel's gym and its spa that morning.
At the far end of the room, Cody was beginning to work his way around the tables with a personal greeting for each delegate. In his carefully casual shorts and shirt, his ash blond hair in a long ponytail, he looked right at home among the Silicon Valley types currently sucking down cup after cup of strong coffee.
"What the fuck actually happened?" Nina muttered under her breath. She turned to Purdue. "Do you know? I missed the bit where he told us all what upset him so much."
"He took his wife and daughter out for dinner in Vegas and was surprised when there was a floor show," Sam leaned across Purdue to explain. "He thinks Henley might have been traumatized by the sight of pasties."
"Seriously?" Nina's face contorted with a contempt she could only manage first thing in the morning. "Did he think they call this place Sin City just for kicks?" She looked as if she was about to settle in for a rant, but then she had a moment of sudden realization that she was talking to Sam, whom she had made a personal mental note to keep as far at bay as possible, and she went quiet.
Jefferson was far from finished. He was now discussing how he had heard that Vegas had cleaned its act up and become family friendly. "If you ask me," he said, gesticulating with his fork as he worked his way through a plate of bacon and eggs, "it still has a long way to go. Paige, honey, I can't apologize enough. You know I'd never have chosen a place like that if I'd have known. Henley, I know you're a smart girl. I hope you'll remember that those young women are not role models. I'm not going to tell you that they're doing something wrong. Sometimes circumstances can drive a woman to do terrible things, and it's not for us to judge those who are less fortunate than us. But I hope you'll remember that you are more fortunate, and it falls to those of us who are to lead by example and turn our backs on places such as that."
It was clear that Jefferson had really hit his stride, and he was not planning to conclude for some time. Sam wondered whether he was practicing for his political career.
"Dad, stop," Henley raised her head, her eyes still streaked with the remnants of last night's eyeliner. "Seriously, this is so stupid. It doesn't matter, I've seen tits before."
"Henley Caroline Cassidy Daniels!" Paige shot to her feet. "How dare you! And in front of company! You apologize to these people this minute."
Dropping her head, Henley mumbled an apology. "But it's true," she grumbled, as her mother sat down. "Anyway, you can't police their bodies that way. They're adults. They can do what they want. And I don't see how it's any different to Dad taking guests to Sip 'n' Dip. Would it have been ok if those girls last night would have worn tails?"
Neither of Henley's parents replied, but Jefferson had the decency to look somewhat sheepish. Presently Henley rose, leaving her granola almost untouched, and disappeared upstairs.
"Where's the girl you were with last night?" The caffeine was clearly starting to work its magic. Nina had woken up enough for her voice to take on an acerbic quality as she spoke to Sam.
"Checking out the swimming pool, I think," Sam replied with a level of cheerfulness carefully calculated to irritate her. "That's Julia Rose, by the way. Julia Rose Gaultier. My, er . . . intern."
He could see the wheels turning behind her eyes as she tried to figure out to what extent he was serious and to what extent he was winding her up. There was residual annoyance, a little judgment building, in case Sam really was taking advantage of a keen young journalist, a slight amusement, a large amount of curiosity that she was trying to contain. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she watched him over the top of her coffee cup.
"Sam is provoking you, Nina," Purdue looked from one to the other with his usual cool, appraising gaze. "He told me about Julia Rose last night, and while it's an unusual story it does not appear to be a romantic or sexual one."
"Last night? When last night? I didn't notice you were gone."
"I had difficulty sleeping," Purdue said. "So I paid Sam a visit. I didn't want to wake you."
Sam fidgeted in his seat, battling the impulse to abandon breakfast and retreat to his room. Seeing Purdue and Nina discussing this little domestic detail was making him decidedly uncomfortable. When did this start? he wondered. That day when I went to interview Matlock, I thought . . . Maybe I was wrong. I could have been, I suppose. I thought that was water under the bridge. She never said anything during out last time together, which I might add, was extensive. Or maybe it was just after that, after almost getting crushed by the ocean in a small room just before being rescued? Her need to be away from it all, perhaps? Do they look like it's a new thing? I don't know. Would Nina go on a trip like this with someone she hadn't been seeing for long? She went to Antarctica on next to no notice . . . But that involved her work. Hunting tenure pushed her into the Tibetan trip. Maybe this does too? But how? She's a German history specialist; what would there be for her to do out here?
Fortunately he was spared any further discomfort—of that nature, at least—by Cody pausing in his greetings to address the whole room. He had noticed Henley's departure and decided to talk to everyone before they began to finish their breakfasts and scatter. In his confident, charismatic manner, he reminded them that they had a whole day to spend in Vegas before that night's welcome dinner, where most of them would connect with Sara Stromer in person for the first time. The following morning, as soon as breakfast wa
s done, transport would be waiting to take them to Parashant to begin their Vision Quest.
"So I would encourage everyone to make the most of the dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow," he beamed at them. "Because after that we'll be following the kind of diet that the Paleo-Indian might have enjoyed—and that means no microwaves or takeout places where we'll be going! I can't wait! Can you?"
Somewhere over to his left, Sam heard Nina mutter, "I bloody can."
☼
Chapter Seven
Sam did a quick spin around in front of Julia Rose. "Just about presentable?" he asked.
She looked appraisingly at him. "Black tie isn't really your scene, is it? Yeah, you'll be ok. You won't be the only guy in a room who clearly never wears a tux."
"What? What's wrong with my tuxedo, you cheeky thing?" Sam gave himself a quick once over in the mirror. The suit had seen better days, it was true. He had bought for his sister's wedding and only worn it a couple of times since then. It didn't have any holes in it, at least none that he was aware of, and it still fit. He had polished his shoes and had a proper shave especially for the occasion—not a hint of his usual five o'clock shadow. He had drawn the line, though, at trying to slick his hair. He had run a comb through it. That was surely good enough.
Julia Rose was looking stylish in a yellow Alexander McQueen dress that fell to her knees and was gathered by a gold belt at her waist. "Can you believe someone just left this here?" She clearly could not believe her luck. Earlier that day she had ventured down to the front desk and explained her situation to a sympathetic-looking young man, telling him how she had come to cover the Mind Meld but had never expected that a lowly intern would be invited to the black-tie welcome dinner. He had shown her a closet full of garments that had been forgotten by guests. These were the items that had been there for so long that they could reasonably be assumed to have been forgotten, but were also expensive enough that the hotel thought them worth hanging on to, just in case. As long as she was extremely careful, brought it back by morning and did not tell his boss, the young man had said, Julia Rose was welcome to borrow anything.