Levitating Las Vegas(65)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“We can’t worry about her right now,” Kaylee said, “not while we’re in public. She’ll just make another mess. We need to get the casino reopened before the news crews get out here. Besides, I know where she’s going.”

“To Elijah’s house,” Jasmine said slowly. “You’ll post a couple of guards on the street to alert you if the Res comes by, so you’ll know she’s safe. Once you get things cleaned up at the casino, you’ll go there yourself and take both of them into custody. Indefinitely.”

Kaylee was shocked that Jasmine had been able to lift this from her. She’d thought she was keeping a tight lid on her plans. She must be stressed and tired and losing her edge.

She shifted her attention from her own shortcomings to damage control. “No, of course not.” She put a hand on the shoulder of Jasmine’s dealer uniform jacket. “That’s your fear talking.”

Jasmine didn’t buy it. “I agreed to let Mr. Diamond put Elijah on Mentafixol to protect him from himself. I never agreed to let you or anybody lock him up. You can’t do that, Kaylee! I won’t let you!”

Kaylee changed Jasmine’s mind.

Then she pointed to a couple of guards with half power and motioned them over. With one hand on Jasmine’s back, she said, “This is delicate.”

The guards nodded.

“Be nice, but lock her up just in case. Don’t let her out until you hear from me. And for God’s sake don’t let her talk you out of it.”

As they walked away, Jasmine looked over her shoulder at Kaylee, tears in her eyes. This was the awful thing about changing the mind of a mind reader. Other people with power might guess, but Jasmine knew exactly what Kaylee had done to her.

Suddenly Kaylee sensed a tall presence inches from her shoulder. She glanced up into Shane’s blue eyes. Her heart thumped beneath her silk blouse. She’d never let him get this close to her. The mess with Jasmine had distracted her, damn it!

Shane set down his guitar case on the sidewalk and gazed up at Holly, who had made it down to the thirty-fifth floor or so. She faked losing her grip on the “rope,” and the crowd gasped underneath her.

“She’s good,” Shane drawled. “I can’t see the safety cables at all. It looks like she’s really doing something dangerous. But—is that Kleenex?” He glanced down at Kaylee again.

Kaylee had a hard afternoon ahead of her, and her head felt heavy with responsibility. But for a split second, she indulged in the fantasy that this man cared about her. They were both young, about the same age, running loose in Vegas. Between her clout and her power, she could get them into the best clubs any time she chose. They could have a terrific fling together. She could feel, for the first time, like she was twenty-two.

When she pictured fingering the slicked-back strands of his blond hair, she almost thought she saw his pupils dilate in the bright sunlight. This was her imagination. She was losing it.

He smiled. “You look tired. Rough day at the casino? Maybe I can help.”

She laughed at the idea. “When I need your help, Mr. Sligh, I’ll ask for it.”

He opened his mouth to say something else.

She changed his mind.

He closed his mouth. But he continued to stare at her, a knowing look that intensified the euphoric prickling sensation racing through her.

Without another word to him, she turned away and headed back inside. She had a lot of phone calls to make. Rounding up Elijah and Holly would take every available hand—including Peter Starr.

17

Elijah was checking the chicken in the oven when the hair on his arms stood up. He jerked backward, thinking he’d set himself on fire. Only then did he begin to sense Holly’s desperation and her hope that Shane’s car parked in the driveway meant Elijah was home.

He slammed the oven door shut, dashed across the kitchen, rounded the counter into the living room, leaped over the sofa, tripped, sprawled on the floor, picked himself up, and jerked open the front door just as she was raising her finger to ring the bell.

He registered only a fleeting glimpse of her, long hair tangled, green glittering eye makeup eerily smeared to her hairline, before he backed her against the stucco wall of the porch and kissed her.

Her mouth yielded for his. He dipped his tongue deep inside. Cradling the back of her head with one hand to protect her from the stucco, he put his other hand on her bare flat stomach. Her skin jumped under his touch. She moved her head to one side, trying to break the kiss. She needed to tell him everything that had happened to her at the casino, everything she’d found out from Kaylee—and it all came at him in a rush of images.

He didn’t want this information from Holly right now, no matter how important. He held her head more firmly and kissed her more deeply.

“Mm,” she groaned against his lips. She needed to tell him they were in danger. They needed to leave town right now. They could kiss later.

This time he broke the kiss and looked into her dark eyes full of worry and pain, framed by false lashes. “That just doesn’t make sense, Holly,” he said gently. “My mom wouldn’t let the casino lock me up.”

“I know what I know,” Holly breathed. “Come on. Let’s go. We’ll figure it out later.” She grasped his hand on her belly and stepped toward the sidewalk, pulling him along—pushing him from behind with her power too, already so accustomed to having it that she only half realized she was using it.

“Holly,” he said with enough force that she stopped and looked back at him. “My mom said it wasn’t safe to leave.”

Holly gazed pleadingly up at him, her face drawn and waiflike under the heavy makeup and grime. She wanted to believe him. She needed him to know what to do, because she sure didn’t. But Kaylee had told her that mind readers would say anything to get their way.

He put both hands over her lips, then on her cheeks, then on either side of her jaw, framing her face. “You have to believe me.” He felt guilty for lying about lying, or at least for leaving out a pertinent piece of information—that his mom had said it wasn’t safe for Holly to leave, but that Elijah himself should book it. He wasn’t a manipulative ass of a mind reader if it was for Holly’s own good. Was he?

“I believe you.” She didn’t believe him, not completely. Everything else Kaylee had told her made too much sense for her description of mind readers to be inaccurate. But Holly desperately wanted to believe him. “We both have a lot of anger. That anger has to go somewhere. We can’t use it against each other. We’re too powerful for that, and we can do a lot of damage.”