After he paid for his beer, he returned to the table where he’d left her, but she wasn’t there. Where was she? He surveyed the casino floor adjacent to their table. Nothing, but he didn’t expect to see her playing the slots or joining the crowd gathered around the craps table. She hated gambling. That’s why he questioned why she’d moved to Vegas in the first place.
He spotted her hurrying toward the casino exit leading to the parking garage. He called out her name, but she didn’t turn around. Instead, she kept going. He caught up with her near the top of the escalator.
“Angie,” he said, tapping her on the shoulder. She whirled around, and began to lose her balance. He grabbed her arm before she tumbled down the escalator. When he pulled her aside, panic edged her face.
“What’s wrong?”
”I need to get out of here.” She yanked her arm free. Weaving through the crowd, she sprinted down the escalator.
He caught up with her again at the bottom of the stairs, but she refused to stop. Instead, she fled down the corridor leading to the parking garage elevator. People coming from the other direction were forced to step aside to avoid slamming into her. What was she doing? Did she once more sense the kidnapper’s evil presence and want to run?
“Angie, please wait up,” he called out arriving at the elevator behind her. She frantically pushed the button. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he spun her around. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
The elevator door dinged open and she attempted to pull free, but he kept a firm hold on her.
“It’s all your fault,” she spat out. “You and that damn article.”
He groaned and let her go. “Not that again. I apologize for your name appearing in the story. It wasn’t supposed to.”
“Well, sorry isn’t going to cut it. Because of you, he’s here.”
“Who?” He didn’t think she referred to the kidnapper, but who else would generate the panic filling her brown eyes?
“Do you know how hard I’ve tried to escape him? When the restraining orders didn’t work, I left everything I knew in San Francisco to get away from him. Then that damn article of yours came out in San Diego and I fled again knowing he’d eventually see it. I’m so tired of running.”
The elevator car arrived again and the car’s passengers swirled around them. She eyed the open elevator door, but he kept hold of her. She wasn’t going anywhere without a further explanation.
“Who are you running from and why?” The pain now reflected on her face made his heart ache. “Who? Please tell me?”
“My ex-husband,” she shouted, sucking in a breath.
“Ex-husband? You were married? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“People don’t like to talk about their mistakes,” she said, her lower lip trembling.
Who harbored secrets now? Married and she’d never said anything to him. Wait a minute. Did she say restraining order? Had the ex roughed her up? Is that what she meant by a mistake? He couldn’t stomach any man laying a violent hand on a woman. The fact that it might be her made him very angry. “Did he hit you, beat you?”
“Not physically.” In halting words she told him the story of her marriage and the physical threats when she left Tony Martinelli and was forced to change her name.
“And you think you saw him here?” After what she’d told him, he wanted to beat the shit out of the bastard.
“Yes. If he’s come to Vegas looking for me, it’s because of your damn article.”
“How the hell did he see my article?”
“I’ve heard he’s hired a clipping service to keep track of me.”
And there was the Internet, he thought. A computer search engine could look for key words like Angie’s name. Understanding hit him smack between the eyes. “So that’s why you didn’t want me to write about you?”
She nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It wouldn’t do any good,” she replied, glaring at him. “You would have written the story anyway.”
The truth of her words hurt. He thought about the article he’d written that morning. He glanced at his watch. Was it too late to pull it? For the kidnapped child’s sake, he couldn’t. Besides if her ex-husband was already in town, the damage was done.
He was once more stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard spot. Did he tell Angie now or wait until the article came out and she saw it for herself? Either way she’d be angry. Weighing the pros and cons, he decided it should come from him. His cell phone rang. Shit, perfect timing.
He answered, groaning when he heard the kidnapper’s familiar disguised voice.
“Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How you wonder where she is?” His diabolical laugh followed the botched nursery rhyme. Then the phone went dead. Brian’s caller I.D. didn’t work, so he had no phone number. Not that it mattered. Dunning already said the man used throwaway cell phones.
“Is it him?” she asked.
He nodded, repeating the latest clue. Discussions of ex-husbands and articles written could wait. “He’s still playing the game. Polly’s still alive. Have you experienced any visions that might help with this one?”
She thought for a minute. “Maybe. My dream last night featured crazy strobe lights and loud music. Does that help?”
He rubbed his chin, then snapped his fingers and smiled. “Yes, that’s it. Strobe lights, loud music, and twinkling stars. It’s the Fremont Street Experience.”
She nodded.
“We’ll take my car.”
“But what about my car?”
“We’ll come back for it later.”
****
When they entered the four-block mall area known as the Fremont Street Experience, a cigar-smoking neon cowboy sporting a red bandana and ten-gallon hat greeted them with a friendly mechanical wave. Across the way, a scantily clad neon cowgirl kicked up her heels. A multitude of casinos stood shoulder to shoulder along the length of the mall, their many neon lights turning night into day.
Bartenders at an outdoor bar near the center of the mall dispensed a variety of alcoholic beverages from bottled beer to tropical drinks in tall glasses. At the doorway to one casino, female greeters handed out beaded necklaces to passersby. Nearby, a crowd gathered around a man playing a saxophone, his music enhanced by large stereo speakers mounted in the bed of his truck.
Other people milled around outdoor booths featuring vendors selling everything from sunglasses to watches. Attire ran the gamut from shorts, T-shirts, and sandals to low-cut cocktail dresses and stiletto heels. One woman wore her wedding dress, and her new husband sported a tuxedo shirt and black trousers.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“It certainly says Las Vegas in capital letters!”
“They don’t call it Glitter Gulch for nothing. This is where the city’s gambling industry began. When the new, fancier casinos sprung up along the Strip, this area began to decline.”
“I can see why,” she said, staring down the crowded mall. “The casinos here are strictly places to gamble. There aren’t any roller coasters, erupting volcanoes, or other diversions.”
Brian nodded. “To compete with the Strip, promoters came up with the idea of an overhead sound and light extravaganza. The four-block arched canopy boasts two million light bulbs powered by computers that create a show that lights up the sky several times nightly.”
As if on cue, a man announced that the event was about to begin. Casinos dimmed their exterior lights and the ceiling canopy sprang to life in a blaze of colored motion that kept time to the music.
“This is your idea of ‘twinkle, twinkle,’” she said, closing her eyes and wishing for ear plugs. Her head throbbed to the hard driving beat of the music.
“Yeah, why not?”
“So what are we looking for? Do you think the kidnapper is going to write his message in the canopy?” she asked, gazing at a Volkswagen bus zooming across the electronic sky.
“I doubt it, but you never know.” He grinned.
“Great.” She tore her eyes away from the ceiling show and looked at him. “We never know what we’re looking for, do we? That’s the problem. He leads us on a merry chase and we blindly follow him into a maze of dead ends.”
He studied her. “We can’t give up.”
“I know, I know,” she replied, her frustration obvious.
Several college guys carrying beer bottles brushed past her and she looked nervously around.
“You’re not thinking about the kidnapper right now are you? You’re thinking about your ex-husband.”
She didn’t answer.
“But you’re not even sure it was him. Maybe it wasn’t. Besides, I’m here now. I won’t let him get near you.”
“That’s big of you,” she said, rejecting the arm he started to wrap around her shoulders. “After all, you’re the one who led him to my doorstep.”
“From what you’ve told me, I suspect his threats were designed to scare you. Make you return to him so he could once more control you. I don’t think he’d hurt you.”
“You didn’t see the intense anger in his eyes when he showed up at my San Francisco apartment after I left him. Because of him, I’ve had to keep moving. I guess he still does control me, doesn’t he?”
“Angie, it’s time you stopped running. You’re no longer the submissive woman he enjoyed controlling. He needs to know that.”
“I never want to deal with him again. Can we go now? I’ve soaked up enough sound and lights for one evening.”
“Okay, but let’s walk a little further along the mall before we turn back. Something could develop. I’m not sure why the kidnapper wanted us here.”
“If here is where we’re supposed to be,” she muttered, stopping to stare in a window advertising souvenirs, gifts, and T-shirts. “Tacky stuff. Why do people buy it?”
“To remember their trip to Vegas later.”
“Why do that?” Something in the window’s reflection caught her eye and she sucked in a breath. Was her ex-husband examining a pair of sunglasses at a nearby vendor’s booth? No, she told herself. She must be imagining things. However, she wasn’t imagining the clown’s reflection.
He was about to tap her on the shoulder when she spun around. His red, painted mouth bowed into a grin, but she didn’t return the smile. As a little girl, clowns always made her uneasy. Someone once said that clowns laughed on the outside while they cried on the inside. Maybe she’d always picked up on that sorrow.
This clown was particularly disturbing, but she couldn’t figure out why. He wore traditional clown attire—grease-painted face, a wig of red curly hair, a silly looking hat, polka-dotted suit with large white collar, and oversized floppy shoes.
He tipped his hat with a great flourish and produced a bouquet of silky, orange flowers from his sleeve. He handed them to her, then bowed and toddled off. He turned once to wave at her with a white-gloved hand before disappearing into the crowd. Not wanting the fake flowers, she shoved them at Brian.
“What’s with you?” he said, taking them. “A clown saw a pretty lady and wished to honor her with flowers. What’s wrong with that?”
“I don’t know. He gave me the creeps.” The strobe lights increased in intensity, as did the music wrapping up in a grand finale of sound and colored lights.
She covered her ears. “I need to sit down.”
He guided her to a nearby bench. Sudden dizziness overtook her. “I can’t breathe,” she gulped. “I’m drowning. There’s so much water.”
“Angie, what’s wrong?” He put his arm around her waist. That’s all she remembered before the blackness and evil closed in. She gasped for air, but none came.
****
He stared out the condo’s window. Below, the lights of Vegas stretched out to the horizon but he wasn’t seeing them. Instead, he thought about Angie, worry gnawing at him. Did he push her too hard because he was so intent on saving Polly? He’d never want anything bad to happen to her. He was falling for Angie Martin. That knowledge blew him away because he’d let no one near him since his divorce.
When she’d slipped into that trance at the Fremont Street Experience and collapsed against him, she’d scared the shit out of him for a second time. With eyes tightly shut, she kept muttering something about drowning. He didn’t like what her visions did to her. They were far more intense than the ones she’d experienced in San Diego.
When she’d surfaced from the trance, she’d remained shaken, pale, and exhausted. He refused to let her drive back to her apartment, and he wasn’t going to leave her alone. She hadn’t argued this time when he’d taken her back to his place. In fact, she’d immediately fallen asleep on his bed. It was after two A.M. and she continued sleeping.
Guilt ate at him, and he continued to question if he’d asked too much of her. When the vision overtook her, she’d disappeared into another world. When he spoke to her and she didn’t answer, it frightened him. He’d lost so much in his life; he didn’t want to lose her. For the first time in a long while he looked to the future with hope rather than with the dreaded despair existing since his son’s death.
He pulled his wallet out of his pants pocket and opened it to Jason’s photo. He always carried it with him, but he didn’t look at it often because of the pain and guilt that stabbed at him when he did. People told him the heartache lessened with time, but he wondered if it ever would.
Was she right? Was he trying to make up for Jason’s abduction and death by pursuing every kidnap story in hopes another victim wouldn’t suffer the same fate as his son? Was he trying to make right a wrong he never could?
Although late, he knew sleep wouldn’t come, so he walked over to the table by the window and sat down at his computer. He wanted to learn more about her ex-husband. He’d told her the man didn’t pose a threat, but was it true? He needed to find out.