Sarah looked at Josh who stood up and walked to the door. Not a single part of him was worried that it might be Dale on the other side with a knife, ready to plunge it into his chest and then rape and murder her, and that let her know loudly and clearly that he didn’t believe her at all. He had already made up his mind that it was all in her head. Sarah kept her hand on the gun in her purse and tried her best not to feel resentful.
It was the same waiter from the night before. He smiled politely and then looked down at her hand, which had slipped inside her purse and was clutching the Sig Sauer. Her finger was a fraction of an inch from the trigger. The butt of the gun had been sticking out of the purse and she slid it back in when she saw him looking. He looked up at her eyes and then managed a weak smile. Josh followed the waiter’s eyes down to her purse and then he let out a sigh, scribbling a tip and a signature on the receipt and ushering the waiter out the door. Sarah could tell that Josh wanted to say something about the gun but with it still clutched in her hand he obviously thought better of it. Sarah let go of the Sig Sauer and joined Josh by the bed. The silence was back and it coated them like a blanket all through breakfast. Sarah didn’t mind it though. The food was too good for her to even think about having a conversation unless it was about what she was putting into her mouth at that moment.
The French toast was fluffy and covered in powdered sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, syrup, and whipped cream. Truly decadent. Sarah began shoveling the toast into her mouth like she were a fat kid at a pie-eating contest. Like it or not, she was going to have to hit the treadmill tonight after Josh left to start his
shift. It was either that or get curves in places she didn’t want them.
The bagels were covered in cream cheese that had been whipped until it was as light as Cool Whip. They were piled with smoked salmon, slices of beefsteak tomatoes, red onions, and capers. Sarah showed them no more mercy than she had shown the French toast.
She looked over at Josh who was patiently cutting his steak into little cubes and dipping each individual piece in A1 sauce before putting it in his mouth. He’d eaten his eggs and hash browns first, everything in order, and had just begun on his steak. Sometimes she even had a bigger appetite than he did and she had to remind herself of the number of calories she burned doing cardio to keep from feeling like an absolute cow. Making love to her was about all the cardio Josh ever got. Still, she was going to have to start cutting back. Her metabolism was bound to slow down and when it did she’d be 300 pounds if she continued to eat like this. But that was something she would hopefully not have to worry about for a long time and in the meantime there was so much good food to eat in Vegas. She was happiest of all that Las Vegas had given up on trying to be a family destination and had begun going after the highend crowd with fancy restaurants and designer boutiques. Today, she intended to sample her fair share of both. She had already decided on Spago for lunch at Caesars and then dinner at Fleur de Lis at the Mandalay Bay where she was going to force Josh to try caviar for the first time. After that, they’d go to Joël Robuchon at the MGM Grand for dessert. It was a good thing she’d won all that money playing the slot machines. If she had it her way, she was going to need it.
Sarah finished eating, then slipped into a pair of jeans and a baby T-shirt as she waited for Josh to finish eating his steak.
“Hurry up. I want to hit every roller coaster on the strip before lunchtime.”
Dale was afraid that he was going to be discovered. Ever since the woman across the street had shot at him he’d been waiting for the police to come and arrest him. He had been certain that one of the neighbors must have heard the gunshot and called the police but, after he’d stabbed her and left her bleeding on the floor, he could not stand the idea of wasting the opportunity. If he was going to go to prison, he wanted this to be his last memory of the outside world. He wanted to fuck that beautiful whore one last time.
He’d pulled off her clothes and raped her there on the floor. Then he’d dragged her onto the bed and sodomized her while her body continued to exsanguinate, cumming inside her sweet little ass as she’d bled to death. The very next day, she’d knocked on his door and he’d been certain that one of the neighbors had seen him fleeing the house. As he’d opened the door he had begun going through the details of the previous evening, trying to remember if he’d done anything to give himself away, left any evidence that might lead back to him, and simultaneously composing lies to explain them away.
But Dale had been careful. He was sure of it. He was always careful. He had scrubbed the blood out of the carpet using bleach and detergent. He’d stripped
the bed and changed the sheets, then washed the sheets in the laundry. He’d even dragged her body into the bathroom and washed the blood from her skin before putting her back into bed. There should have been no evidence that he’d ever been there. So why was she standing outside his door?
Her husband had been with her and the look in his eyes, embarrassed, uncertain, rather than vengeful and enraged, let him know that whatever they thought they’d found was not conclusive. Her husband was still not convinced. Her eyes, on the other hand, were full of fury. Even still, he’d been surprised when she had slapped him. It was something new, something different. None of the others had slapped him. None of the others, as far as Dale knew or cared, had the slightest clue that anything had ever happened to them, except maybe for Dorothy Madigan. He’d heard that she’d killed herself just like his mother had, burned herself alive. But this woman knew, or thought she knew something. She had slapped him. She had been ready to beat the hell out of him when her husband had dragged her away, apologizing for her behavior…and now she was gone. She had not been home all night. It was driving Dale crazy.
He’d broken into her house again last night and it had been empty. Her toothbrush and makeup case were gone along with some clothes. They had packed in a hurry and fled. That left Dale without a playmate.
He imagined that she was at the police station giving a statement and that soon the police would come and take him away or else her gigantic ape of a husband would beat him to death. Dale paced the floor nervously, wondering what to do. He needed something to calm his nerves. Usually, that meant raping and killing
someone but the only person he wanted to fuck, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen let alone actually had sex with, was missing and he didn’t know where she was or what to do about it.
It wasn’t fair. He wasn’t hurting anyone. There was no way she could remember what he’d done to her and besides, he always brought her back. He’d always brought them back.
Thou Shalt Not Kill.
All except Grandma, but that hadn’t been his fault. She’d died of natural causes. And his mother had still blamed him for her death. She’d punched and slapped him because he wouldn’t bring her back. But he had never liked Grandma and without her around he had his mother all to himself. Right up until she’d set herself on fire and tried to take him with her.
Why? Why didn’t she love me? Why doesn’t anyone understand me?
Dale knew he was not an attractive man. He had never filled out. He looked like he were on chemotherapy. His childhood acne had never fully gone away and had left his complexion scarred and pitted. His posture was bowed with narrow shoulders that rolled inward making him look almost hunchbacked. He looked like Gollum from
The Hobbit
. No way he could have ever gotten a real girlfriend. No way he could have ever gotten anyone as beautiful as Sarah Lincoln. She belonged to her idiot husband with his big chest and thick, hairy arms. He got to fuck Sarah every night and what was he? A fucking blackjack dealer! What made him so much better than Dale? That’s why Dale had taken so much joy in killing him.
Sarah’s husband was the same type of guy who’d teased Dale all of his life, the high school jock who got to fuck the homecoming queen in the back of his dad
dy’s car. Dale could never have gotten a woman like that to give him the time of day. That’s why God had given him this gift. It evened everything out. It allowed him to have things he wouldn’t normally be able to touch, things like Sarah Lincoln.
Where the fuck was she?
Sarah and Josh were at the top of the Stratosphere hotel, the tallest building in the city, strapped into a thrill ride a hundred stories, 1,081 feet, above the strip, prepared to be rocketed to the very top of the tower at forty-five miles per hour and then dropped 160 feet. She could see all the way up Las Vegas Boulevard from Sahara to St. Rose.
“I am scared to fucking death!” Sarah called out to Josh.
“Me too!”
The air jets went off, propelling Sarah and her husband straight up, the sky rushing toward her, the wind whipping tears from her eyes and splaying them across her face. Sarah screamed, then laughed when she realized that Josh was screaming too. The ride paused at the top. Weightlessness. Then it began a vertical free fall almost more terrifying than the ascent. It felt as if they were falling all 1,081 feet rather than 160. The street below rushed up toward them and Sarah felt as if they would just keep falling all the way down to Las Vegas Boulevard.
She could imagine herself and her husband shattered on the concrete and asphalt, their bones and organs spilling out from the broken sacks of flesh that
had contained them and intermingling in a bloody collage of mangled meat. The ride slowed and when it neared the bottom it bounced back up. Then weightlessness again, then another bounce before it came to a halt.
Her heart felt as if it had risen into her throat and then collapsed down into her stomach. Josh looked like he was going to throw up.
“Oh shit.”
It was all either of them could say.
They left the Stratosphere and went to the Sahara to ride Speed, another air-propulsion ride that traveled at incredibly fast speeds and left her feeling as if her stomach had leaped up into her chest. From there they walked up the strip to Circus Circus. Las Vegas Boulevard was packed. Tourists were walking by staring at the hotels and not paying attention to where they were going. One of them bumped into her and Josh started to go after him. The guy began stammering out a hurried apology as Josh lunged for him.
“It’s okay. He said he was sorry.”
Josh relaxed slightly and they continued walking again but this time Josh walked slightly ahead of her, holding Sarah’s hand and pushing anyone out of the way who looked like they were about to bump into her. He almost knocked one kid into the street and Sarah had to restrain Josh again when the guy called him a dick.
“Well, you were being a dick. Now, relax. I can take care of myself. It’s so crowded down here that you can’t really expect no one to bump into me and you can’t kick everyone’s ass. I don’t want you to get shot over something stupid.” Josh considered it and tried to
relax. He still walked the rest of the way with one arm around Sarah’s waist and the other hand in front of them, deflecting pedestrians.
They finally made it to Circus Circus and Sarah headed straight for the Canyon Blaster, an indoor roller coaster that was just a bit of a disappointment after riding the Big Shot and Speed but was fun nonetheless. Then they went on to ride the big roller coaster at New York-New York. Sarah’s pulse felt as if she’d just run a 10k at full sprint.
“You ready for lunch now?”
Sarah nodded.
“I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t eat first.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“It’s either Spago or Little Buddha’s.”
“Mmmm! Sushi.”
“Little Buddha’s it is.”
They made their way to the parking garage. Sarah felt so happy she was almost giddy. The past few nights had been so terrible, so unbelievably horrific, that riding roller coasters and heading over to the Palms hotel to eat sushi in a four-star restaurant felt surreal. This day felt far more dreamlike than the nightmares she’d been having.
Little Buddha’s was a Japanese restaurant that had one of the most romantic atmospheres of any restaurant in Las Vegas. The décor was black and red with a twenty-foot bronze Buddha overlooking the dining area. Sarah and Josh were seated at a booth opposite the bar, which was already crammed with yuppies, models, and young club-hopping tourists as well as a few highend call girls. Even among this gathering of Las Vegas’s most beautiful, Sarah stood out.
Wearing only a T-shirt and jeans and with her hair
pulled back in an unruly ponytail, she easily shamed the heavily made-up, surgically enhanced twentysomethings in their designer dresses and their hundred-dollar hairdos. Josh was staring at her with those love-struck puppy-dog eyes that made her melt inside. He reached out and took her hand. Sarah smiled and the candlelight twinkled off the tears in her eyes.
“I love you, Sarah.”
“I love you too, Josh.”
The waiter came by and took their wine order, then whisked away and came back almost instantly with a bottle of Riesling. Josh loved sweet wines and, though she loved to tease him about it, secretly, so did Sarah. They went down the sushi menu, ordering only the fanciest rolls. Josh was allergic to shellfish but in these small quantities it was relatively harmless. Between the two of them they ordered seven rolls.
“You should have brought Benadryl with you. I ordered a bunch of rolls that have shrimp in them.”
“Mmmm. I love tempura shrimp rolls. Besides, I have an early warning system. My lips will swell long before my throat does. As soon as I feel my lips start tingling I just back off the shrimp and start drinking a bunch of water.”
“Well that sounds sexy. I always wanted to kiss Dizzy Gillespie.”
“What if I told you that I looked more like Steven Tyler when I go anaphylactic?”
“Steven Tyler in the seventies or now?”
“Hmmm? I’m not sure. You’ll just have to let me know.”