But only for the barest fraction of a second. Then the young woman’s eyes continued their ceaseless roving, scanning the crowd restlessly before darting back to the entrance, even as her fingers danced over the keys.
The big room was jumping and the club was crowded, but within seconds of Jack taking a seat—the small table he had used last night was unattended, so he took it again—his waitress hurried to take his order. She materialized out of the crowd, moving with easy agility, and Jack smiled at her when he recognized the young woman who had served him last night.
“Nice to see you again, Brandy,” he said as she slapped a cocktail napkin down on the table.
She returned his smile, shaking her head as she did. “Well, if it isn’t our very own miracle man! You gotta share your secret.”
“What secret is that?” Jack said playfully, although he knew exactly what she was getting at.
“Give it up, mister! Just how in the world did you manage to convince our little Victoria to spend time with you when so many other guys have gone down in flames?”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
Brandy shook her head. “I think there’s more to it than that. But I gotta admit, it’s good to see that sweet little thing finally coming out of her shell, even if it’s just a bit.”
“I agree, she sure does seem sweet. But what’s her deal, Brandy? She’s obviously terrified. What’s she so afraid of?”
“Ya got me. She blew into town months ago and hasn’t opened up to a single soul that I’m aware of. When she got here she was wound up tight as a drum. Over time she seemed to relax a bit, but all of a sudden now she seems as upset as ever. No idea why, though.”
Jack gazed thoughtfully across the room at the piano player, then back into Brandy’s eyes. “I guess I’ll just have to ask her myself. In the meantime, I’ll take another one of those burgers I had last night and a beer. Oh, and would you be so kind as to bring our favorite musician a screwdriver, too?”
Brandy blinked in astonishment. Her expression of surprise was so extreme Jack laughed out loud.
“Are you kidding?” she said after a delay. “Vodka? Save your money my misguided friend, she’ll never accept a drink with alcohol in it!”
Jack glanced once more at the piano and found Victoria staring back at him, looking straight into his eyes. He gave her a wink before her restless gaze moved on and her lips twitched in a vague approximation of a smile. He said, “Let’s just wait and see, shall we?”
A few minutes later Brandy returned with his order. He thanked her and then passed the time waiting for Victoria’s break by studying the redhead as she played. Again she seemed nervous and preoccupied. If anything, she struck him as even more tightly wound than she had been last night, and that was something he wouldn’t have believed possible.
Twenty minutes later, Victoria pushed her bench away from the piano and wound her way through the big room toward his table, half-empty drink in hand. The raucous crowd seemed to part before her and, as was the case last night, practically every head turned to follow her progress. She didn’t seem to notice.
She flashed Jack a nervous smile as she sat. Even distracted and clearly upset, she had the ability to light up the room with her smile.
Jack shook his head and said, “You have these people eating out of your hands. How do you do it?”
She wrinkled her forehead and swished her drink. Picked up a french fry distractedly, popping it into her mouth. “What do you mean?”
“You didn’t notice this rowdy bunch making like peasants before the queen? I’m surprised they didn’t bow as you walked past!”
Victoria shrugged and shook her head. She seemed genuinely mystified and Jack chuckled. “Anyway,” he said, changing the subject, “I seem to recall you were going to tell me a story tonight.”
She trained her gaze on Jack. Dark circles surrounded her eyes and she appeared haunted. Exhausted. “What’s the point? I’ve been running for years now and talking about it isn’t going to change anything.”
Her forearms were resting on the scarred wooden table and Jack reached out, taking one of her small hands gently into both of his larger ones. She stiffened immediately. He kept his grip loose, giving her the option of pulling away, but to his surprise she didn’t.
She had lowered her eyes to the table and Jack said nothing until she lifted her head and looked back up at him.
Then he said, “Listen to me, Victoria. It’s obvious you’re in some kind of serious trouble. Now, I’m not saying there’s anything I can do to help you, but any idiot can see you need to talk to someone, if only to unburden yourself of your fear. You look like you’re about to have a nervous breakdown. Who better to talk to than an anonymous stranger you’ll never have to see again?”
The bright blue eyes filled with tears and after a moment the young woman started talking. She told him about New York.
She told him about Joel Stark.
She told him everything.
***
By the time Victoria finished speaking, nearly thirty minutes had elapsed. Jack listened quietly, interrupting only occasionally to ask a question or clarify some point. Mostly, though, he let her purge herself of her demons.
When she had finished the story, Jack stared into her beautiful, haunted eyes. “Are you telling me this slimeball got off because he shares DNA? How is that even possible?”]
Victoria shrugged. She still hadn’t removed her hand from Jack’s. She seemed to be drawing strength from him, looking more composed already than at any time since Jack had first seen her. “That was my exact question to the prosecutor. Nobody could ever answer it to my satisfaction, certainly nobody in the DA’s office.”
“And now he’s following you around the country? For what purpose?”
“I don’t know. I can only assume he wants to finish what he started. To be honest, Harry, I haven’t waited to find out. Whenever I see him I move on, like I should have done already this time. But . . . I don’t know . . . I like it here in Vegas, and I’m just so tired of running . . .” She shook her head bleakly, the rich red mane of curls framing her pale but pretty face. “I just don’t know what to do.”
Victoria’s break time had long since ended. A man Jack pegged as the club’s manager watched them from behind the bar, clearly unhappy his entertainer had stopped entertaining. Jack gave her hand an encouraging squeeze and her face lit up in a brief, trembling smile. Then it was gone.
She took a deep breath and said, “I think I’d better get back to work before I lose my job. I’ll be leaving soon enough anyway, but I’ve never been fired in my life and I’m not going to start now.”
Jack gave her hand one final squeeze and then released it. “You go make some musical magic, and for now at least, you can stop worrying. I’m not going anywhere yet and I promise you Joel Stark won’t get near you while I’m here.”
“Thank you,” she said simply. She stood and turned back toward the piano. Jack watched her as she walked. She was still checking the bar for strangers but not, he thought, with the manic intensity she had displayed before. She glanced back once, almost as if to convince herself he was still there, and then sat and began to play.
Jack considered her story in amazement, He had seen and heard a lot in his thirty-six years, but this young woman’s story beat them all. In spite of her apparent fragility and obvious fear, Victoria was one tough cookie to have survived as long as she had after being abandoned by the very justice system that was supposed to protect her.
He wondered how she was able to change gears so quickly. She went from pouring her heart out about rape and brutality and injustice to playing a light, bouncy jazz tune that had everyone inside Tequila Mockingbird clapping along and stomping their feet in a matter of seconds.
He couldn’t believe the absurdity of her situation, but he had already decided to help her.
Who else would?
21
The crowd had thinned considerably by the two a.m. closin
g time. There were still a few hardy souls left inside Tequila Mockingbird, but most of the exuberant partiers had gone home. The people left at this time of night were the hard-core drinkers, the ones whose focus mostly seemed to be inside themselves.
Victoria understood that. She spent a lot of time inside herself, too.
There was one notable exception, though. True to his word, her new friend Harry Carson had stuck around all night. He sat quietly at his small table, drinking coffee after finishing his one beer, and watching out for her. He had bought her a second drink an hour or so after she finished the first one, and she had surprised herself again by accepting it.
Now the faintest remnant of the pleasant vodka buzz remained. Her face was flushed slightly from the alcohol, she could feel it, but she didn’t care. The drinks hadn’t interfered with her work. She was far too talented a musician to be affected in a negative way by two screwdrivers, even though she couldn’t remember the last time she had had so much as a sip of alcohol.
What the drinks had helped her do, though, was relax and unburden herself to Harry over the course of two more short breaks. She didn’t know what to think about the fact that she had spilled her guts to a total stranger, but the fact of the matter was she felt better over the last couple of hours than she had at any time since seeing Joel Stark again.
But now, as she closed the piano cover over the keyboard and stood, Victoria felt the familiar sense of depression and fear begin to rise in the pit of her stomach. Tonight had been wonderful, something she desperately needed, but it was nothing more than a temporary interlude. The reality was simple: Stark was out there somewhere and he was closing in. His history suggested he was not going to track her all the way to Vegas and then just sit around.
He would act soon. Maybe very soon.
So, while Harry was incredibly sweet, drinking his coffee and watching over her, listening patiently to her sob story, the fact of the matter was she was no better off now than she had been before he showed up. He couldn’t watch over her forever, and when he walked out of here tonight, she would be just as alone as she had ever been, and in just as much danger.
She trudged across the nearly empty club and flashed Harry a tired, crooked smile. “I can’t believe you’re still here.”
“I told you I would be, didn’t I?”
Victoria was amazed. The man didn’t appear tired at all. He looked fresh and alert, like he had just arisen from a good night’s sleep, not spent the past several hours inside a hot, crowded bar.
There were plenty of things she didn’t understand about this mysterious stranger. How had he been able to deduce so easily that she was on the run? How was he able to see inside her and to make her feel so damned safe and protected?
He claimed to be an ordinary businessman on a routine business trip, but he was clearly much more than that. Whatever, he had given her a valuable gift the last two nights, the gift of peace of mind, however fleeting it may have been.
“I usually ask one of the bouncers to walk me to my car after work . . .”
Harry smiled. “Well, there’s not much point in that, is there? It just so happens that I’m on my way out also.”
They turned toward the door and Victoria said, “Thanks again for the drinks, and for being such a great listener and for . . . well . . . for everything, I guess.”
The stranger chuckled as they walked into the cooling desert night. Victoria shivered, partly from the abrupt change in temperature and partly from something else. “Believe me,” he said. “Thanks are totally unnecessary. It wasn’t much of a sacrifice to spend the evening in the company of a beautiful woman, listening to the best jazz piano I’ve ever heard.”
They reached a dark-colored Chevy Caprice and Harry said, “This is my rental. Where’s your car?” He seemed entirely unsurprised when she nodded at the little Pontiac Sunbird right next to the Chevy.
“Well,” she said, feeling herself tensing, her stomach muscles beginning to clench in fear as it became clear they were about to part ways, “I know you said I shouldn’t thank you, but I have to. You have no idea how much it means to me to experience at least a little taste of normalcy, even if it was for only a few hours. It was a precious gift and something I won’t soon forget.”
“About that,” Harry replied, turning to face Victoria. He took her right hand in both of his, as he had done earlier. She felt herself tense up involuntarily but forced herself not to pull away.
He waited, saying nothing, until she looked up into his eyes. The moon was behind him, his face indistinct in the shadows. “Listen to me for a minute,” he said, “and don’t answer until I’ve finished.”
Victoria cocked her head, confused. “Um . . . okay.”
“You said you saw Stark here in Vegas a couple of days ago. The fact that he’s here means he probably knows specifically where you live, and if he doesn’t already, he’ll find out soon enough. You’re apartment is where he’ll make a move for you when he decides it’s time. His obsession is telling him to relive that night in Manhattan, meaning your home is where you’re most vulnerable.”
Victoria’s knees weakened. She felt her mouth go dry. She pictured Joel Stark waiting for her in her parking lot at the Royal Flush.
Harry reached out and took her other hand, enfolding both of hers inside his. “I’m not trying to frighten you, but I want you to know you have an option. My motel is just a short distance from here. I know we just met, but I want to help you, and the fact is you desperately need someone’s help. I understand you have no reason to trust me, but I’m asking you to do just that. Stay in my motel room tonight. Stark will have no clue where you are, and you’ll get some much-needed rest.”
Victoria hesitated, wanting badly to be able to trust this man who made her feel so safe. It had been so long since she had put her trust in anyone besides herself that she wasn’t sure she even knew how, but the thought of disappearing, even for one night, to a hideaway off Joel Stark’s radar was incredibly tempting.
“I’ll bring you there and get you settled in,” Harry continued, “and then I need to go out for a little while. You’ll have the place all to yourself. It’ll be cozy and quiet and safe, and when I come back I’ll sack out on the floor. Then, in the morning, when you’re fresh and rested, we’ll sit down over a cup of coffee and take another look at your situation. Maybe things won’t seem quite so hopeless after a good night’s sleep.”
Victoria envisioned her poorly lit parking lot, deserted at this time of the night. She considered what Harry said about Stark planning to attack her there. It made sense when he said it.
But what finally made her mind up for her was the sudden realization that if this man, Harry Carson, meant her harm, he could easily have forced her into his car and driven off ten times in the last ten minutes. No one would ever have known.
She took a deep breath and jumped off the cliff. “A good night’s sleep sounds wonderful. I sort of remember what that’s like and I wouldn’t mind reliving it, even if it’s only for one night.”
Harry opened the passenger door and ushered her inside, then circled around the front of the car. Victoria could see him scanning the mostly empty lot as he walked. It didn’t look to her like any of the cars were occupied, but the night was so dark and the shadows so complete under the sodium arc lamps that it was impossible to tell.
When he opened the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel, Victoria asked, “You have to go out? At two o’clock in the morning? What could you possibly be doing at this time of night, even in Vegas?”
Harry grinned at her and she decided it made him look ten years younger. “Vegas never sleeps, right? That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.”
He took in the expression on her face and laughed softly. “I’ve just got a few errands to run, and it’s a lot easier to do while everyone else is sleeping off their margaritas and cosmopolitans and dreaming about winning their money back than it is when they’re driving around, clogging up my streets.”
>
The Chevy pulled smoothly out of the lot and Victoria leaned against the door. She wanted to make conversation, if only to be polite to this man who was being so kind to her, but the stress of the last few days was catching up with her. She was exhausted.
She struggled to keep her eyes open as Harry drove. He had said his motel was right down the road, but he seemed to be making random turns, even backtracking once or twice. She realized he was being careful, making sure they weren’t being followed.
Then her eyes closed and she was out.
***
Jack nosed the Caprice into the spot directly in front of his room and killed the engine. His passenger must be even more tired than he had thought, because she didn’t awaken when he opened his door and the Caprice’s interior lights came on.
He crossed to the other side of the vehicle and eased the passenger door open, reaching to support her as she began to slide out of the car. The sudden motion awoke her, and she blinked and shook her head, gasping in a burst of initial panic before looking up and recognizing Jack.
“Easy,” he said softly. “We’re at my motel. Let’s get you inside so you can sleep.”
He helped her into his room and moved to the small dresser while she sat on the bed, clearly uncomfortable with the situation. He hadn’t brought much extra clothing, but pulled out a pair of shorts he had slept in last night and a clean T-shirt, tossing them to the beautiful musician. “It’s not much,” he said with a smile, “but it’s better than sleeping in a tux.”
“Thank you,” she murmured after a yawn. Then she disappeared into the bathroom to change. When she emerged a couple of minutes later, she looked tiny in Jack’s clothes, despite being quite tall.
While she was changing clothes, Jack had pulled down the bedcovers. “I promise no one will bother you here,” he said. “Get some rest, and I’ll be back before you know it. I’ll try to be quiet when I return, and when you wake up, I’ll be sleeping right in front of the door.”
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