Levitating Las Vegas (7 page)

Talking to his mom and watched closely by his best friend, Elijah had never felt so alone.

Holly dove through the open door of the limo and yelled, “Go!” as if Rob were in hot pursuit. She braced herself against the seat, anticipating that the limo would screech into motion. Any second now.

The limo stayed put. Kaylee, on the backward seat facing Holly, typed on a laptop balanced across her knees. Though it was 11 p.m., she still wore the stylish dark suit she’d slipped on early that morning before leaving their apartment for work, just a shadow of cleavage peeking from beneath her gold silk blouse. Even her white-blond hair maintained its stylish fringe. With a calm glance up at Holly, she reached over to tug the heavy door shut, then knocked behind her on the glass pane separating them from the chauffeur. Obediently the limo eased down the street.

“So, did you make another date with Rob?” she asked.

With a sigh, Holly flopped over and stretched out on her seat. “Ha-ha. Do you think I overreacted?”

“What exactly did he do?”

Staring up at the dome light, and bracing herself again as the limo gently swayed around a corner, Holly recounted Rob’s quick descent into creepy.

“He did
what
?” Kaylee exclaimed when Holly got to the part where Rob shot a hole in the ceiling. “A trained cop made that mistake? Now I’m paranoid.” Kaylee pulled her own pistol from the holster on her hip, popped the clip out, and examined it with one eye shut.

“Put that thing away,” Holly said quickly. “It was an accident. He wasn’t violent, just rude. Jumping out the bathroom window probably wasn’t the best decision. I think I’m paranoid because of my . . . you know.”

Kaylee glanced around at the chauffeur behind glass, then asked softly, “MAD?”

Holly cringed at the acronym. Her mom had done an excellent job impressing upon her the absolute necessity of secrecy when it came to her mental illness. But as head of security at the casino, Kaylee knew anyway. The casino employed Holly and tolerated her, but they considered her a threat. Her parents had said they were letting her move into the apartment with Kaylee because Kaylee would protect her from fans, but Holly suspected it was really so Kaylee could keep tabs on her.

“Yeah,” Kaylee said thoughtfully, “I think you might overreact sometimes because you’re hyperaware of your own problem, and you’re terrified of what you might do if you got in a sticky situation.”

“I meant that maybe my Mentafixol doesn’t take care of all my symptoms.” Speaking of which, it was that time of night. Holly fished in her purse for the bottle of Mentafixol, shook a pill into her hand, and rattled the three pretty gold pills left in the bottle. She would need to get a refill from the casino pharmacy in a few days. Then she reached beneath her, opened the refrigerated compartment built into the base of the seat, and felt around for a bottle of water.

“I haven’t seen you staring holes in people like you were trying to lift them with your mind,” Kaylee pointed out. “So you’re probably okay.” Typing on her keyboard, she said, “Tell me about Rob’s cute roommates.”

Holly sat up on the seat, popped a Mentafixol onto her tongue, and chased it with water. The cold liquid shot down her esophagus and seemed to tear her body in two. She coughed, “One of them was Elijah Brown.”

“Elijah Brown!” Kaylee exclaimed, hands on her thighs, blue eyes wide.

“Yeah,” Holly said. Maybe her parents still didn’t want her to see him, and they’d conveyed this to the casino and Kaylee. Holly bridled at the thought that they were conspiring behind her back. “What’s wrong with Elijah Brown?”

“Nothing.” Kaylee put her hands up. “Isn’t he a carpenter for the casino? His mom is Jasmine, the head dealer? You said his name like he’s a movie star.”

Relieved that Kaylee hadn’t been given special instructions to keep her away from Elijah, Holly let herself smile in reverie. “I knew him in high school. He was adorable back then. But
now
.” She crossed her arms and rubbed her hands on her biceps. She wouldn’t be able to explain to Kaylee she was enthralled by more than Elijah’s muscles. It was the way those big muscles half hid beneath the sleeves of his T-shirt. It was the fact that they belonged to Elijah, who was sweet and funny and forbidden—at least, he
had
been forbidden, seven years ago. It was the fact that she associated him with a time in her life right before she was diagnosed with MAD, when she didn’t worry about her brain or her future, only her hair, and cute boys. What if Elijah
didn’t
think Holly was insane for jumping out his bathroom window, and she found a way to reconnect with him? She shivered with anticipated pleasure.

“That good, huh?”

“Yeah.” Letting Kaylee get back to work, Holly stared out at the Strip. The signs blinked pink and green against the black sky. Neon lights reflected in the faces of the tourists, ecstatic with escape.

Since that day in ninth grade, Holly had felt like a small gray blob surrounded by this ecstasy and color. The very idea of getting together with Elijah had lit her up again. She should back away now, retreat into her blob, forget Elijah. But blue and purple lights chased each other in circles around the thought of Elijah like a beautiful promise, and she just couldn’t let that fantasy go.

Rob’s bedroom door burst open. He stomped into the living room.

“Find your magician waiting in your bed, Rob?” Shane asked.

“Fuck you, Sligh,” Rob shot back. “Mom, when’s dinner?” he called loudly, though Elijah stood only five feet from him, behind the kitchen counter. “Chop chop. I’m meeting my brothers for a drink. And go easy on the salt this time, would ya, Dangermouse?”

“Almost done.” Elijah tried to say it lightly rather than resentfully as he removed the lid from the skillet, stirred, and put the lid back on to simmer for another minute. He hated himself for seeming to kowtow to Rob. Fear of MAD made him overcompensate—especially now that it was breathing down his neck. The last thing he needed was for Rob, in law enforcement, and an asshole as it turned out, to discover Elijah’s mental illness and his missing medication.

Rob stared at him through the steam with his fists on his hips, like a superhero there to save the day and protect Las Vegas from the psycho. He looked from Elijah to Shane and back to Elijah. “What happened?” he asked suspiciously.

“Nothing,” Elijah and Shane said in unison. Inside his mind, Elijah felt Shane wince, the mental equivalent of grunting
doh!

Rob nodded to the counter. “What’s with all the knives?”

“They’re for the Tuna Helper,” Elijah said. “The formula’s changed. It’s not as helpful as it used to be.”

Rob stepped closer to Elijah and looked him straight in the eye. Of course Elijah was imagining his own mind-reading capabilities. But they seemed so
real
. And right now, he almost believed he was inside Rob’s mind as Rob positioned his forearm across Holly’s slender neck and bore his weight down on her throat. She put both hands around his arm and tried to push him away, but he was too strong and heavy. She gasped hoarsely.

Elijah blinked. He was out of Rob’s head again, staring into Rob’s brown eyes, and the hair on Elijah’s arms was standing on end. Had Rob already done this to Holly? Surely not—Elijah would have sensed her terror tonight. Was it something Rob planned to do in the future?

Swallowing with difficulty, Elijah raked the knives back into the drawer and opened a drawer full of scoops and outsized spoons.

“You searched that one already,” Shane called, eyes on his guitar strings.

Had he? Elijah glanced around at the kitchen. He knew he’d intended to search each drawer and cabinet because this was where he’d taken his pill every night he’d lived here. But MAD had him frazzled. It would be like him to search the same couple of drawers over and over while the pill waited undiscovered on the shelf above the sink.

Rob watched Elijah, but his thoughts weren’t on knives or spoons or even Tuna Helper. Inside his mind, he slapped Holly. Falling, she tried to regain her balance and flipped backward over a guardrail at Hoover Dam. Her body sailed downward, glittering and dark against the background of white concrete.

Elijah held on to the counter with both hands.

Without another word, Rob crossed the room, snagged his loaded holster from the coat rack, and slammed the front door behind him.

“Good riddance,” Shane said. “More Tuna Helper for us.” He paused. “Hey, man, you’re looking awfully white again. You okay?”

That’s when Elijah knew he had to get that Mentafixol, no matter what the price. It wasn’t just a matter of living free or being committed to a mental hospital anymore. It was a matter of life and death. He imagined Rob wanted to hurt Holly. In turn, Elijah wanted to hurt Rob. And if he didn’t get back on his medication soon, he just might do it.

5

Kaylee power-walked across the casino floor in her power suit and power heels, feeling oddly powerless. After dropping Holly off at their apartment the previous night, Kaylee had returned to work, had finally crawled into bed at two, and was back at the casino by eight in the morning. Normally this schedule didn’t faze her, nor did handling security at one of the Strip’s largest and most profitable casinos, or defending Holly from everyday stalkers like Rob the Cop. But the additional responsibilities of protecting the casino from the Res and withdrawing two people from Mentafixol at one time, all while keeping Mr. Diamond’s death a secret, might be the death of her, too.

As she walked, the lights and bells of the slot machines tickled her ears, but she focused on the blackjack table directly in front of her. Tia, a dealer and one of the weak mind readers Kaylee relied on so heavily, glanced at the punk with a green Mohawk on the left end of the table, then the little old lady on the right, indicating to Kaylee that this was the unlikely pair counting cards. It was a good thing Kaylee had Tia, because the security team without powers watching these two on camera hadn’t reported anything suspicious.

Kaylee stopped at the last slot machine on the row, unlocked it with a key from the ring on her belt (unfashionable and dowdy in comparison with her power heels, but a necessity of the job), and opened the front. Fingering the mechanisms inside—gears, chutes, wheels printed with cartoon diamonds—she looked over her shoulder and shot a command at the punk:
Counting cards at this casino is not a good idea
. Her fingers flattened inside the machine as she used her power. Delicious prickles rushed through her.

The punk, seemingly deep in concentration on his cards, looked up at Tia in surprise and shifted back from the table. He couldn’t leave in the middle of the hand for fear of looking suspicious, but clearly he was headed in that direction.

Kaylee turned to her attention the little old lady and thought,
Counting cards at this casino is not a good idea
. She was vaguely aware that she gripped the gears inside the machine hard enough to make impressions in her fingertips, but she was trying to keep herself upright against the onslaught of prickles.

The hand at the blackjack table ended. The punk jumped up. The little old lady was so discombobulated that she couldn’t help glancing at the punk: her first tell. She backed her motorized scooter away from the table. The dangling balls on her long earrings swung furiously.

After sharing a final look with Tia, Kaylee locked up the slot machine. Job well done. Kaylee wasn’t head of security for nothing. Without calling the police or resorting to violence, which would draw attention to the casino and the people with power seeking refuge there, she’d gotten rid of the cheaters. Let Treasure Island deal with them. She headed for the high-rollers section, where another of her weak mind readers thought she’d sensed someone from the Res walking by—again.

Kaylee’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen. Elijah Brown’s mom was calling, despite the fact that Kaylee had sent her and three of her closest friends on vacation to Key West. This Mentafixol business
would
be the death of Kaylee. She clicked the phone on and said brightly, “Hi, Jasmine! Enjoying the Keys?”

“The pharmacy called me last night to make sure Elijah was okay,” Jasmine whispered. “I’m trying to play it cool like you told me, but . . . I don’t know, Kaylee. It’s different when it’s your own son.”

“The pharmacy doesn’t know anything,” Kaylee assured her. “They think he’s really crazy. You should be glad they followed up with you. It means we have an excellent company health plan.”

“Kaylee Michaels, you cut the crap with me.”

“Hold on, Jasmine.” Kaylee’s phone was beeping. She looked at the screen, then returned it to her ear. “Elijah’s calling the number the casino gave him for Dr. Gray.”

“Is that guy going to pick up?” Jasmine asked. “What is he going to say?”

“Elijah will hear a message that the number’s been disconnected,” Kaylee said. “The man who played Dr. Gray turned up dead a while ago.”

Jasmine gasped. “Did the Res kill him?”

Kaylee honestly didn’t know. She had her suspicions. But all she said was, “We never have proof.”

“Kaylee,” Jasmine said, “I’m coming home.”

“No!” Kaylee stopped at the end of the long row of slot machines and slowly turned all the way around, making sure no one sat at a machine within fifteen feet of her, the range of the strongest mind readers. The Res infiltrating her casino made her very nervous.

Then she whispered into the phone, “You can’t come home. Elijah will be a much stronger mind reader than you are. You won’t be able to block him. He’ll know instantly we’ve been manipulating him. He might wig out and run straight to the Res. Is that what you want?”

“No, that’s not what I want,” Jasmine said indignantly. “Just . . . Kaylee, can I please talk to Mr. Diamond? If he thinks Elijah needs to be pulled off Mentafixol to help protect the casino, I trust him. If he’s put you in charge of it, I trust you too. But this is the first withdrawal you’ve handled by yourself. It’s my son. And you’re withdrawing Holly at the same time.”

So you
don’t
trust me,
Kaylee could have pointed out. But that would diminish her facade as a calm, cool, and collected head of security whose feelings couldn’t be hurt. Besides, truth be told, she didn’t trust herself.

“I’m sorry.” Kaylee adopted a distant tone, her last resort when people at the casino demanded more than she was willing to give. “Mr. Diamond is unavailable for discussion. He gave me no choice in the matter.”

“I know,” Jasmine wailed. “I just—”

“Look, you’re coming back in four days,” Kaylee said. “Elijah will be almost a week off Mentafixol at that point, and everything will be over.” Everything for him, at least. Holly would be only two days off Mentafixol. Kaylee had scheduled Holly’s withdrawal to coincide with Peter Starr’s impossible feat of physical stamina. She’d advertised his performance all over the city so he couldn’t change the date, to keep him occupied and out of the way. He was a weak levitator anyway, and his power had faded too much with age for him to be much help. Kaylee would follow Holly around town herself, bribing people Holly injured, changing the minds of everyone at the jail to bail Holly out. People coming off the drug were predictable in their unpredictability. They were understandably angry that they’d been robbed of their powers and told they were crazy since they were teenagers. The first people they went after were often their parents.

“I do trust you, honey. I do trust you,” Jasmine was repeating, as if trying to convince herself.

“Good,” Kaylee said. Across the floor, framed by the flashing lights of the machines, Shane Sligh slipped out of the Peacock Room. He was deep in conversation with the casino’s transvestite Marilyn Monroe impersonator—some heady theoretical conversation about music, Kaylee assumed from eavesdropping on Shane many times—but the instant he spotted Kaylee, his eyes locked with hers.

“Jasmine, minor security crisis, gotta go, okay? See you Monday.” Kaylee pocketed her phone and walked straight toward Shane.

His blue eyes lit up, which broke her heart every time. Shane, in costume for his dad’s Frank Sinatra band, was hard to take seriously at first glance. But his black tux fit him
really
well. His quick, dry wit and the knowing look in his eyes told her if any guy without power could empathize with what she’d been through, it would be him. That’s what made him so tempting, and that’s what made him trouble. She couldn’t afford to get tangled in a relationship right now, maybe not ever—for her sake, and for his.

As she came within range, he made one more comment to Marilyn Monroe. Then he turned back to Kaylee, beamed at her, and took one step toward her.

She threw as hard as she could at him,
Asking Kaylee out is not a good idea,
and watched him step back to the wall again. Exquisite prickles rushed across her skin. She’d changed Shane’s mind so many times in the year they’d both worked at the casino that she’d almost begun to look forward to the encounter. If she wasn’t careful, she’d associate the sight of him with the pleasure of her power, like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

Still power-walking across the crazy pattern in the carpet, she stole a glance back at him. He’d folded one arm across his tux and propped the other fist against his chin, hiding his mouth. But he leaned forward just enough that he could see her beyond Marilyn Monroe. He followed Kaylee with his eyes.

This time the prickles Kaylee felt didn’t come from her power at all.

Only four more nights, Holly assured herself. Tonight, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. She and her parents took Monday night off. Tuesday her dad would perform his impossible feat of physical stamina. And then he would tell her his secrets, surely. She had to get through only four more nights as a brainless sex object onstage in a spangled bikini.

Her mom took care of the complicated parts of the magic trick, like yanking the red velvet curtain closed behind herself and balling her body into the tiny compartment underneath the rolling box to make it look as if she’d disappeared. Holly’s dad did all the acting. He adopted a pained expression as if he were focusing on the box through the wisps of dry-ice smoke and willing Holly’s mom to disappear. Holly’s job was to stand smiling at the packed auditorium and make presentation motions with her fingers gracefully extended and her careful manicure on display. No concentration required.

Until a light flashed in her eyes. Cameras weren’t allowed in the auditorium because the flash was blinding from the dark audience. She stood paralyzed, staring at bright spots marching across her field of view. She knew better than to take a step across the slick wooden stage in her high-heeled sandals until her vision cleared.

The prerecorded music over the speakers swelled to a dramatic climax, signaling that her dad had jerked open the curtain on the box to reveal—gasp—an empty space where her mom had been! This trick actually did cause Holly some anxiety. Her mom was getting older, and though she still rocked the stage in her own spangled bikini and high heels, her back had begun to bother her when she curled up in the bottom of the box, in a space so impossibly small that the audience believed she was gone. Flexible by comparison, Holly was the logical one to put herself through the most physically difficult part of the act.

Yet no one ever mentioned this possibility. Holly suspected her parents didn’t quite trust her. She was a beloved dog, generally sweet-natured, that had once bitten its master. If they put Holly in the box, one missed cue would ruin the trick, exposing her dad for the fraud he and all magicians really were. Everyone
knew
magicians were frauds, of course, but no one wanted to
see
it.

In fact, Holly currently was missing a cue, and she hadn’t even suffered a mental breakdown this time. She tried to blink the flashing spots away, unable to move on the stage. If she explained to her mom in the dressing room later that she’d been blinded and feared for her safety on high heels, her mom would one-up her with a story of a too-discerning crowd or a broken prop she’d faked her way through at some point in her many years as a Vegas magician’s assistant. Holly stayed where she was and made presentation hands in the general direction of the velvet box she assumed to be empty.

Holly waited a few seconds until her dad swept across the stage, cape billowing behind him. She couldn’t see the cape. She’d simply memorized the routine after endless rehearsals and performances. But now her vision had recovered to the point that she could step carefully to the box and twirl it on its casters, showing the crowd that indeed, her mom was gone in the front, her mom was gone in the back. The fact that her mom had stuffed herself underneath seemed so obvious to Holly. She could only assume that either the crowd honestly wanted to be fooled, or they were unable to complain about her dad’s hokey tricks because Holly didn’t pass around suggestion cards.

She’d just completed her second rotation with the box when the same flash blinded her, from the same place in the audience. Now she was supposed to take several steps away from the box so the spectators didn’t suspect her of engineering the trick through some mechanism on the box itself. Yet with one hand she clung to the side of the box and what was left of her sense of balance. With the other hand, she made the presentation gesture.

Her dad brushed past her, elbowing her to wake her up. Obediently Holly took a few shaky steps away from the box. Luckily, for the next minute, no tasks needed her concentration. She simply stood by and grinned blindly at the audience while her dad lit the box on fire. She painted it anew every afternoon with nitrocellulose, which produced an impressive flame, convincing the crowd that her mom couldn’t possibly survive unscathed if she were somehow hidden inside—her dad’s banal twist on an old standby in every magician’s arsenal.

Blinking through the spots before her eyes, Holly took the opportunity to scan the crowd for the source of the flash that had blinded her twice. She might not have as many years of experience in this business as her mom, but she had almost eight, and she knew the flash of a camera when she saw one. This had been no camera flash. The source was bigger. Wearing her pasted-on grin, she panned slowly across the seats, letting her eyes linger on the spot where she thought the flash had originated, even as her head moved away.