Raising The Stakes

Gray stepped down hard on the gas. Soon, very soon, he’d be able to put this entire incident behind him and get on with his own life.

CHAPTER FOUR (#u6b9ce48b-5da7-5796-9234-127ffc740302)

Las Vegas, Nevada

DAWN’S alarm was set for six but when she opened her eyes, the bright green numbers on the clock’s face read 5:03.

Her heart pounded as she sat up and looked around her tiny bedroom. What had awakened her? Footsteps? A voice? The sound of someone outside the window? She held her breath and listened but she couldn’t hear anything. Nothing but silence.

She exhaled and fell back against the pillows with relief. That was what had awakened her. Not a noise. The silence. The AC had shut off. The unit was old and noisy. It died with startling regularity and when it did, the lack of sound was like an assault on her eardrums.

Even after four years, she still couldn’t decide what was better, noises that startled you or silence that shook you. No, that wasn’t true. You could get accustomed to noise. Silence was different. If it was too quiet, you started to hear things. A creak that might be a footstep. A tap that might mean someone was at the window. A whisper that could be a voice you prayed you’d never hear again…

“Stop it,” she said, and she sat up and tossed the covers aside.

The creaks were from the floorboards. Her apartment had been carved out of the first floor parlor and maid’s room of an old house, old by Vegas standards, anyway. The only thing tapping at the window was the branch of the indigo bush. She probably should have lopped the branch off when it first started growing toward the house, just as Cassie had suggested, but she was happy letting the Indigo go its own way.

She’d had to plead with the landlord to let her plant it. The woman had looked at her as if she was crazy but she’d finally said yeah, okay, you want an indigo bush? You buy it, plant it, take care of it, you can have it. Dawn had done all that and provided the tough little shrub with the nurturing it needed to gain a foothold, and it had thrived.

The Indigo had the right to grow in any direction it wanted. So did every living thing on the planet.

As for hearing that voice, Harman’s voice, well, it was better to be alert than complacent. Every now and then, she’d see some half-buried item in the paper about a woman who had run from a husband or a boyfriend, been found by him and beaten senseless. Or killed. And even as she’d feel pain for that poor, faceless woman, Dawn would know that what she’d just read was a reminder. She’d have to spend the rest of her life being careful, never letting down her guard, never forgetting that Harman was still out there, hating her because she’d done the unthinkable.

She’d defied him. Worse, she’d left him. That was the worst sin of all.

Her husband had owned a dog when she’d married him, a scared, skinny hound that made the mistake of creeping to her for comfort one day after Harman kicked it. Enraged, he’d beaten the poor thing half-senseless and when it ran away, he’d gone after it, dragged it back to the mountain and shot it.

“Bad enough it weren’t loyal to me,” he’d said, while she’d sobbed and begged him to spare the dog’s life. “What’s mine stays mine till I say otherwise. You got that, bitch?”

She should have left him then, but where would she have gone? She had no money, no job skills. Her mother was dead and even if she’d been alive, Orianna had never been able to help herself when a man abused her. How would she have helped her daughter?

Dawn swung her feet to the floor. What was wrong with her this morning? She hadn’t wasted this much time thinking about Harman in months. It was one thing to be cautious, another thing to be paranoid. Besides, thinking about him, worrying about what he might or might not do, only gave back some of the power he’d once wielded over her. She’d learned that sitting through some counseling sessions at the women’s shelter in Phoenix, the second stop in her flight four years back.

“Remember,” the counselor had said, “the best way to break with the past is to take control of your life. Educate yourself. Make plans. Learn to be independent. You are a whole person, no matter what your abuser wants you to think.”

Dawn had done all that. The proof was in what was going to happen today, her very first day on her own at her new job. That’s what she’d think about, not Harman.

The new job was going to be a challenge, but she was up to it. Keir thought so. Cassie did, too. Even Mary O’Connell had given her a wink a couple of days ago, when she’d breezed past the Special Services office where Dawn was standing at Jean’s shoulder, listening while she phoned to arrange for the Desert Song’s private jet to pick up a VIP and fly him from Boston to Vegas.

“Good luck,” Mrs. O’Connell had said softly, which had to mean that even the Duchess was aware she’d taken a more responsible position but then, not much that went on at the Song escaped the Duchess’s attention, even during the months she’d been ill.

“Thank you,” Dawn had replied, and the Duchess had smiled in that way of hers that made you feel as if she really cared about you.

Dawn laid out her clothes for the day. She ran her hand lightly over the blue jacket and beige skirt she’d bought with part of the clothing allowance that went with her new position. She just hoped she’d live up to everybody’s expectations.

“You’re going to be great at this,” Cassie kept saying. Keir had pretty much told her the same thing when he’d interviewed her. By then, she’d already passed the other hurdles: a clean employment record at the Song, votes of approval from Becky, who headed up Special Services, but Keir had the final say and what he’d said was, yes, the job was hers.

“You’re good with people,” he’d told her. “I think you’re going to be an excellent addition to the Special Services staff.”

Remembering, Dawn let out a breath. She hoped he was right. She really, really wanted this job. Better pay, which she sorely needed. Better hours, which she needed, too, and a bonus she’d never mentioned to anyone but Cassie.

She’d never really liked dealing cards, even though she’d been good at it. She had quick hands, she didn’t get ruffled. It was just that it always felt, well, wrong to be part of a process that separated people from their money, even in the classy area where she’d worked, the casino-within-a-casino at Desert Song, the high stakes tables where most of the players could easily lose tens of thousands of dollars without blinking.

“It’s just wrong,” she’d told Cassie one night over takeout Chinese.

Cassie put down her chopsticks and stared at her. “What’s wrong about it?”

“I don’t know. It just is.”

“That’s nuts,” Cassie replied bluntly. “What, are you gonna worry about jerks who have money to throw away?”

“I know,” Dawn said, “but—”

“But you grew up poor, like me.”

“Well, yes. But that’s not all of it. I mean, I know it’s their money. It’s just that it seems so—so—”

“Wong,” Cassie said, so deadpan that Dawn couldn’t help laughing. Cassie had sighed, then dug back into her shrimp with lobster sauce. “You are such a Goody Two-Shoes. Sometimes I wonder what you’re doing in Sin City.”

Hiding, that was what. Of course, Cassie didn’t know that. Nobody did.

Dawn stepped into the shower and lifted her face to the spray. She turned around slowly, let the water beat down on her hair, then worked in a dollop of shampoo.

Hiding right out in the open, because this was the perfect place for it. Las Vegas was always crowded. Phoenix hadn’t been this jammed with people, or even Los Angeles, and certainly not Santa Fe. Heaven knew she’d been in all of them in the days when Orianna bounced from town to town. She’d never seen streets more packed than the Vegas Strip or crowds any more dense than the ones that jammed the casinos. And there was a bonus. Harman wouldn’t come here. Calling Las Vegas “Sin City” was Cassie’s idea of a joke, but her husband would surely believe the devil walked these streets. He’d never come here unless he somehow learned where she was…

“Oh, for goodness’ sakes,” Dawn said briskly, and shut off the water.

Why waste any part of this exciting morning on a part of her life that was over and done with? She had to dry her hair, put on makeup, dress…but first, she’d begin her day the way she always did, with a call to the Rocking Horse Ranch so she could say good morning to her baby. Her son. The love of her life, the one good thing, the only good thing, Harman had ever given her.

Dawn reached for the telephone. And when, a few minutes later, she heard Tommy say, “Hello, Mama,” in his sweet, eager voice, she made the same silent vow she made each morning. Someday, she’d find a way to keep her child safe without having to be separated from him, without having to keep him a secret…

“Hello, sweetheart,” she said, and her heart almost overflowed with love.

* * *

By the time she left for work, the temperature had already climbed into the nineties.

She was in luck. Her cranky old car started up right away.

Nothing stirred in the arid brown and beige land that ringed the city. The creatures of the desert took to their nests and burrows during the day, waiting for nightfall and the coolness it would bring, but humans weren’t that sensible. The roads and streets grew more crowded as she got closer to the city’s heart, the area known as the Strip, which was already thronged with people.

Dawn parked in the employees’ lot behind the Desert Song. The security guard at the back entrance touched the brim of his cap as she walked toward him.

“Mornin’, Miss Carter.”

She’d plucked the name from a display of baby clothes in a store. It had taken her months to grow accustomed to it. Now, the name felt as if it had always been hers.

“Morning, Howard.” She smiled at the burly man. “I missed you yesterday. Everything all right?”