Levitating Las Vegas(19)
Author: Jennifer Echols

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.