‘The Riverboat is private property,’ the boss woman warned as she planted a stiff, tearful Patrick on the floor. ‘If either of you return, we’ll call the cops.’
Charlie’s vision blurred as she looked around. Sister Miraculous remained a mystery, but their encounter with casino security gave them a common foe, and Charlie was reluctant to wander off because it was the kind of place where zombies lurked.
‘Are you OK?’ Charlie asked.
‘Monstrous thugs!’ the sister spat, pulling a prehistoric flip phone out of her cardigan. ‘But it’s my duty to protect. I beseech you to pray before using the one-one-seven.’
‘I don’t know if I’ll use it,’ Charlie said weakly. ‘Christmas stirs a ton of emotions.’
The sister spoke into her phone. ‘Teddy, they booted me out of the Riverboat again. Could you be a doll and pick me up in the van?’
Patrick was tearful and Charlie gave him a hug. ‘I’m sorry I took you here. When you get home, you can have a bubble bath and we’ll read a story together in bed.’
‘Casinos are dumb,’ Patrick fumed as he glowered towards the Riverboat’s flashy light job.
‘Well said, young fellow!’ Sister Miraculous said. ‘The van isn’t far away. I’d be happy to take you home, or back to The Strip.’
‘I’m not comfortable around here,’ Charlie admitted. ‘So what sort of nun gets called Sister Miraculous?’
‘I was part of a variety act,’ the sister admitted. ‘The Miraculous Five. Magic tricks, singing, comedy. The kind of Vegas show that went out of fashion before you were even born.’
‘Can you do magic tricks?’ Patrick asked.
‘I’m rusty,’ the sister admitted. ‘I didn’t catch your names?’
‘I’m Charlie, this is Patrick.’
The sister nodded. ‘If you don’t feel like going home, or you’d like to talk to someone, I volunteer at a drop-in centre close by. There’s always someone there who can talk. And I’m a nun, but don’t let that put you off. Terry, who’s coming with the van, is a stone-cold atheist.’
‘Why would I go there?’ Charlie asked.
‘The viruses have taken so many people,’ the sister explained. ‘Everyone has lost someone close. The drop-in centres help everyone, from showering zombies, to talking things through with people like you who are having a bad day.’
Charlie pointed to the leaflets. ‘What about God, Not Mods?’
‘That’s my personal crusade,’ Sister Miraculous said proudly as a tatty van came down the other side of the street and did a U-turn.
It was an old airport shuttle van, with a neon-pink paint job and Las Vegas Drop-in Centers stencilled down the side. When it pulled up, Charlie saw dents in the door and deep bands of rust around the wheel arches.
‘All aboard the Wes Express,’ the driver shouted as Sister Miraculous grappled with a sliding side door.
Wes was a large man with a wild ginger beard.
‘Our new pal Charlie is having a bad night,’ Sister Miraculous explained.
Charlie and Patrick slid on to the van’s tattered seats.
‘I’m good,’ Charlie said. ‘I can get a cab if you drop me on The Strip.’
‘You’ve drunk a lot,’ the sister said firmly. ‘I’d rather see you home safe.’
Wes adopted a ludicrous robot voice. ‘Please enter destination …’
‘Kuchler Motel,’ Charlie said, her vision blurring as the sister pulled the door closed from inside. ‘If you’re sure you don’t mind.’
73 SLEIGHT OF HAND
‘Snow’s building,’ Sister Miraculous said as the van crossed The Strip. ‘Report said it’ll be warmer tomorrow.’
Traffic was quiet and it took less than fifteen minutes to the Kuchler. As they rolled into the motel, Patrick saw a pair of radio-controlled cars racing across the near-empty lot. Ed and Rex sat on a kerb, wrapped up warm, each holding a control unit.
‘Charlie’s drunk as a skunk!’ Patrick announced to Ed, jumping out of the van and hurtling towards him. ‘Can I try? Please, please, please.’
‘Sure you can,’ Ed teased as he pulled his little car up in front of Patrick. ‘You can make an appointment for two weeks’ time?’
‘Don’t be mean,’ Patrick whined, then grinned as Rex handed him the controller for the other car.
‘Use the accelerator gently,’ Rex advised. ‘It’s sensitive.’
Charlie approached as Patrick’s car zipped away. She looked at Rex. ‘What happened to Georgia?’
Rex shook his head, and grinned like he always did. ‘By the time my tire showed, my load had been contracted out to another driver.’
‘This is sweet of you,’ Charlie said as Patrick banged his car into a kerb. ‘I can pay you for the cars.’
‘Don’t bust it, dumbass,’ Ed snapped at Patrick.
‘Happy to see my boys’ cars out of the box,’ Rex said. ‘Ed helped me oil them up and fix the steering on the black one.’
Charlie’s bladder was feeling the beers, shots and mulled wine. ‘I’ll come talk properly in a second, but I gotta pee.’
As Charlie turned around to head up the stairs to her suite, Sister Miraculous gripped her wrist.
‘I need to get back to the Riverboat,’ the sister said. ‘But, please, will you promise me you’ll come to the drop-in centre and talk to one of our therapists before you mod yourself?’
‘Oh my God, I flipped the car and it righted itself,’ Ed shouted. ‘Charlie, did you see that?’
But the cold was getting to Charlie and she’d have promised Sister Miraculous her right boob if it meant reaching the toilet faster.
‘I totally will,’ Charlie said, and she ripped her hand free and set a world record for the hundred-metre dash to the toilet.
She frantically jangled her key in the door of the suite, throwing her bag on the tiled floor, easing down her jeans and erupting a relieved gasp.
‘Sooooo good!’
As Charlie peed, she saw that her bag had spilled. The weird thing was she’d put the watch box with the three vials of fluid at the bottom of her bag. But the box had spilled first, as if it had been on top. And a piece of paper poked from the seam where the halves of the box joined.
Charlie kept peeing as she leaned forward and picked up the box. Inside, the three vials had vanished, and the thing sticking out was a tri-folded God, Not Mods leaflet with a message on the back.
You can pick them up at the drop-in centre if you really want to use them.
Come and see me after you’ve sobered up.
Sister M.
After the message was a cell number, and the address of the drop-in centre.
‘Sneaky old so-and-so …’ Charlie gasped, remembering that the sister had been part of a magic act.
Charlie wasn’t sure about using the mod, but she’d shelled out three hundred grand. She charged out of the bathroom with her jeans unbuttoned, leaned over the balcony and shook a fist at the neon van that was pulling off the motel lot.
‘Get back here, crazy woman!’
Ed and Rex looked baffled as they stared up at her. ‘What happened?’
‘I got robbed by a nun,’ Charlie said, seeing the funny side as her slurred words hit the rooms across the parking lot.
‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ Rex asked, holding up her bottle of rum.
Charlie knew she’d behaved stupidly, but seeing her boys having fun with the cars made her feel hopeful as she stumbled down to join them.
‘You can come to the Brazilian barbecue with us tomorrow, if you don’t want to spend Christmas alone in your room,’ she told Rex.
‘I don’t mind being alone,’ Rex said as Charlie stood next to Ed, buttoning her pants. ‘But I’ll come if you’d like me to.’
Rex doesn’t mind that his family died and is about to spend Christmas alone in a shabby motel room. I hate the way it hurts when I think about Harry, but I’d rather feel that than be dead inside.
‘Let’s try one of
these cars, then,’ Charlie said, rubbing cold hands.
‘It’s sluggish cos the battery only has a couple of minutes left,’ Ed said as he handed his sister the controller. ‘And some guy called Shane O’Donnell came by while you were out. He said he needs to see both of us. It’s something to do with Fawn.’
Charlie felt wary when she recognised the name from the business card Gwen had passed on earlier.
‘What else did he say?’ Charlie asked.
‘He wants to speak to you urgently. He said call any time, day or night.’
‘Weird,’ Charlie said, passing the controller back to Ed before she’d used it.
‘Charlie!’ Patrick moaned. ‘I wanted to race you.’
‘In a minute,’ Charlie said as she pulled the business card Gwen had given her from the front pocket of her jeans.
She typed the name on the card into Google Search.
‘You should have seen his car,’ Ed said. ‘Mercedes S-class, long wheelbase. The new model.’
‘Someone’s got friends in high places,’ Rex said, his constant smile needling Charlie as she scanned the search results.
The internet said Shane O’Donnell was the senior probate partner at one of Vegas’s biggest law firms. He was a handsome red-headed man, on the board of several local charities and tipped as a future mayor of Las Vegas.
• • •
Charlie realised her phone battery was on seventeen per cent, so she plugged it into the charger before clearing a bunch of Ed’s junk off the sofa, sitting down and dialling the number on the card.
She got a snotty secretary, but O’Donnell took the call, even though it was after seven on Christmas Eve.
‘The Nevada probate court has appointed me to administer the estate of Fawn Janssen,’ O’Donnell explained. ‘I’m assuming you’ve heard that your sister’s DNA was identified in remains found at UrbanScape.’
‘Sure.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss, Miss Croker.’
‘We weren’t close,’ Charlie told him.
‘Now that a death certificate has been issued, her estate can be distributed.’
‘Did she have much of her own?’ Charlie asked. ‘I know there was jewellery, but I’ve got no idea what the financial crash did to my brother’s trust fund.’
O’Donnell laughed. ‘When Jay Janssen died, his assets passed to his two sons. His older son was unmarried and died first, so everything he owned passed to JJ. And when JJ died it passed to his wife.’
‘I thought there were lots of Janssens,’ Charlie said. ‘Aunties and uncles and all sorts.’
‘Some shares are owned by other members of the Janssen family. But most of Janssen Corp belonged to Fawn at the time of her death. Fawn made no will. Her parents are both dead and she had no children, so under Nevada law her assets pass to her siblings.’
‘Hold it,’ Charlie said slowly. ‘You’re talking about Janssen Corp? Casinos, strip malls, private jets?’
‘Once I’ve compiled the register of assets I’ll be more than happy to send it across,’ O’Donnell said. ‘There will be a lot of issues to discuss with any estate of this magnitude. I’m spending tomorrow with my family, but the office will reopen the day after and I’d like to meet with yourself and Edward.’
Charlie laughed nervously. ‘I’m so wasted right now! When I wake up tomorrow, I won’t believe this call happened.’
Charlie let the lawyer get back to his family, then cracked a smile as she appreciated the irony that everything Fawn had fought, schemed and murdered for had wound up in the hands of the two people she’d hated most.
PART SIX
FIVE YEARS LATER
74 HARRY II
Vegas Local
* * *
HOTTEST 5 STORIES
1Markets fall sharply with fears that Pakistani Paralysing Bacteria (PPB) could reach the USA within days.
2First study shows driverless taxi fleet is popular with riders.
3Downtown traffic gridlock as 3,000 demonstrate Nevada State ban on genetically modified workers.
4Algarve Casino reopens north hotel, but other mega resorts face demolition after years of neglect.
5TOP VIDEO – Police hunt three high-schoolers with superhero mods after mall rampage leaves girl in critical condition.
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Charlie had been parked outside the quarantine station at McCarran airport for over an hour when Kirsten Channing stepped through a barred gate. She looked much younger than she used to, her slender figure clad in tight jeans and black cotton pumps and her sterilised belongings sealed in clear plastic bags.
‘Thank you so much for coming,’ Charlie said, cracking a broad smile. ‘I can’t believe I only got to meet you once before.’
‘The night you brought the Killer-T vaccine to my ex’s apartment,’ Kirsten nodded. ‘Which probably saved our lives, so I guess I owe you.’
‘How was quarantine?’
‘Food wasn’t great, but the room was perfectly pleasant,’ Kirsten said. ‘To think we used to complain when we had to queue for an hour at customs. Now it’s seven days’ quarantine, and another five when I land back in the UK.’
A stocky man in a dark suit opened the BMW’s rear doors before placing Kirsten’s luggage in the trunk.
‘This is my good friend and driver, Rex,’ Charlie explained, walking to the far side of the car as Kirsten slid into the plush leather interior and peered into a crib. ‘And the little guy in the middle is your great nephew, Harry.’
‘He’s so tiny,’ Kirsten cooed, taking a big sniff of baby smell. ‘How old is he now?’
‘Four months,’ Charlie said. ‘But he came out a few weeks early, so he’s extra small.’
‘Is he a clone of Harry?’ Kirsten asked.
Charlie shook her head. ‘Clones still have horrible health issues. The embryo was seventy per cent Harry’s DNA, thirty mine, plus seventeen mods. I only wanted him to have mods that would enhance his immune system, but the clinic persuaded me that you have to give a boy athletic and intelligence mods these days, or they’ll have a miserable time at school with kids that do.’
‘Did you carry him?’
Charlie shook her head. ‘I’ve been super busy, with college, coffee shops and the drop-in centres. I had to use a surrogate.’
‘And how old are the other two now?’ Kirsten asked.
‘Patrick’s ten next month,’ Charlie said as the BMW drove itself on to an airport access road. ‘He picked up a muscle-wasting disease from a tick bite last year. He’s fine now, but he missed eight months of school. I’ve had to get him a tutor to catch up, which isn’t the most popular decision I’ve ever made …
‘Ed’s twenty-two and doing great. He’s on a new medication for brain-injury patients. It has helped with his anxiety, and he hasn’t fitted in more than a year. He met a girl online and he still lives with me, but he has a self-contained apartment, and he drives to and from college and cooks most of his own meals.’
‘I look forward to meeting them both,’ Kirsten said.
‘How’s life across the pond?’ Charlie asked.
‘London was where Killer-T started, so it’s grim,’ Kirsten said. ‘The rest of the UK isn’t so bad. My father, Harry’s grandfather, passed last year. I’ve got a little restaurant in Devon. Only twenty-two seats. Lots of fish and locally grown produce. I enjoy the challenge of not being able to phone a supplier and get an ingredient flown from anywhere in the world.’
‘Didn’t Channing’s reopen at the Algarve?’ Charlie asked.
Kirsten nodded. ‘Clark Corporation has a licence to use my name for another twenty years. But Kent Clark’s wife has run the casinos since he died. She doesn’t want me involved, but I still get paid licensing fees, and I’m so done with TV appearances and recipe books.’
‘The fancy opening of the new drop-in centre is
tomorrow, with the press and my foster parents, and the mayor and all of our big donors,’ Charlie said. ‘But we’ll be passing by shortly if you’d like a tour. Or not, if you want to go back to my house and relax.’
‘Tour please,’ Kirsten cried, laughing. ‘I’ve been stuck in a quarantine room for a week. I could sprint up Red Rock mountain with the energy I need to burn.’
Kirsten felt strange as she stared out of the car at barren strip malls, an unfinished football stadium and the weathered hulks of dead gambling resorts along The Strip.
‘Ed and I used to own that one,’ Charlie noted, pointing at the grubby towers of Janssen Riverboat.
‘You sold your shares in Janssen Corp?’ Kirsten asked.
Charlie nodded. ‘I invested money in my coffee-shop business. Ed has enough to pay for his medical expenses and any future needs. But we transferred most of the Janssen money into a charitable trust that runs mental-health drop-in centres.’
‘I loathed Vegas when I first came here with Harry,’ Kirsten admitted. ‘But I made some good friends and it’s sad seeing it so run down.’
As Kirsten said this, baby Harry sneezed.
‘Hey, buddy,’ Charlie said, and she grabbed a bottle of milk out of her bag. Then to Kirsten, ‘He’ll want feeding in a bit, but this formula is cold.’
Charlie picked Harry out of his car seat as the BMW rolled into a parking lot, its freshly painted markings spoiled by muddy tracks from construction traffic.
The land had once housed Janssen’s Cowboy Club, a small casino favoured by bikers that was grotty even by Janssen standards. The Club’s replacement was a clinically white three-storey building with a sign over the door that read Harry Smirnov Center – 24-hour Drop-in.
Charlie gently rocked baby Harry as she led Kirsten through its automatic doors.
‘This is our eighth centre in Vegas,’ Charlie said, pulling a hood over Harry’s eyes as she stepped into a quarantine box. ‘This centre is our biggest yet. There will be therapists and doctors on hand all day. So many people’s lives have been destroyed these past few years. A lot of the time, clients just want someone to talk to. Then we have counselling sessions for reversed zombies. There will also be addiction and eating-disorder clinics, and stress-relief activities, like meditation and yoga.
KILLER T Page 36