Levitating Las Vegas(73)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“Rob,” Elijah said.

Kaylee jumped, startled at his voice, and could have kicked herself for jumping. “Yeah,” she said. “I didn’t see that coming.”

“How could you miss it?” Elijah didn’t hide his exasperation with her.

“I’m a mind changer, not a mind reader,” she defended herself. “But he must be a mind reader.” She huffed out a sigh. “When I first met him a couple of weeks ago, I thought he was perfect for Holly. I really liked him. He said all the right things. Of course he’s a mind reader. I can’t believe I didn’t see it.” Darkness was falling fast, but she gazed out the window at the inky mountains as if there were still a view.

“My mom said people with power don’t drink,” Elijah said. “Rob is a lush.”

“A lot of us pretend to drink,” Kaylee said, “because it gives us an excuse for bad behavior. We have a hard time blending in with regular people.” She shook her head. “It all makes sense now. His first date with Holly, he brings her over to your house, right?”

“Right.”

“Then he acts all weird, makes lewd comments, shoots a hole in your ceiling, scares her so bad that she jumps out the bathroom window.”

“Right.”

“The next night, you ask her to meet you at Glitterati, and there’s Rob. You know what he did to her in the parking lot, right?”

“Right,” Elijah said, feeling sick.

“Every bit of that was a ploy to get a reaction from you and a reaction from her. That’s what mind readers do. They mess with people so that their minds start spinning, which unlocks their secrets. That way he could read you, learn about your relationship, and use it against both of you. I hate mind readers.” She shuddered and folded her arms as if the eighty-degree evening had made her cold.

Elijah nodded, but he could hardly see the road anymore. His mind was too full of Kaylee’s terror and the horrible explanation of what Rob had been up to. Rob had insulted Holly repeatedly, even attacked her in his mind, just to read where Elijah’s thoughts went in response. Undoubtedly he’d seen how strong Elijah’s feelings were for her.

Then Rob had attacked her physically. But Elijah didn’t agree with Kaylee that Rob had been trolling Holly for information at that point. He knew Elijah like the back of his hand after a week of living with him, and in attacking Holly, he’d upped the ante with Elijah. Now Rob must understand with the certainty of sunny weather in a Nevada summer that if he captured Holly, Elijah would come.

“But what is Rob doing this for?” Elijah asked.

“Isaac and I used to talk about his diabolical plans to take over the casino from Mr. Diamond.” Kaylee’s tone was sarcastic, but her fear of Isaac made Elijah grip the steering wheel harder. “He said nobody knows where powers come from. We’re all so terrified of being discovered and jailed or killed that we don’t dare investigate our origins with too much enthusiasm. But the families with powers who end up in Vegas are originally from all over the place, which suggests that there are a lot more of us scattered around the country, even the world.

“Isaac said if he watched the news carefully, he bet he could pick out the mind readers and mind changers and levitators. And those are just the powers we know about. There might be more. Whatever powers people had, these folks would try to blend into society, but sooner or later they’d get themselves in trouble in a spectacular way, and the event would get written up in the news.”

“And he could go recruit them?” Elijah asked.

“Exactly. Imagine how easy that would be, if Rob was isolated in Chicago without knowing anybody else with power, or even knowing that a group of us existed, and Isaac came to him and said, ‘I can do what you can do. You’re in trouble, but my friends and I can get you out. Come with me and we’ll be millionaires.’ ”

“But what kind of trouble?”

“That’s just it. When Holly first introduced me to Rob and said she wanted to go out with him, I researched him. He did graduate from high school and the police academy in Chicago, and he did work for a short time as a Chicago cop. He does work for the Clark County Sheriff, and he hasn’t gotten in any trouble that I could find.”

“Google ‘Chicago subway station bomb.’ ”

“Okay,” she said dubiously, her fingers flying across her laptop keyboard again. “You think he blew up a Chicago subway station?”

“I think he saved a Chicago subway station. The police caught the terrorist. The terrorist wouldn’t tell them where the bomb was. Rob read his mind.”

She whacked a key with finality. “Oh, shit, you’re right. See?” She turned the keyboard toward Elijah so he could view the screen, which was difficult while he was negotiating the winding road up the mountain. “No, wait.” Disgusted with herself all over again, she remembered that his brain registered whatever she was reading.

She scanned the online news article about a bomb that had been set by terrorists to go off during rush hour in a crowded downtown station. An unnamed police officer had saved countless commuters by locating the bomb at the last minute, as if by magic. At the time of publication, the police department had no coherent information about how the police officer had made this discovery.

“I’ll bet his bosses started to get suspicious,” Kaylee said out loud to Elijah. “They had no evidence to tie Rob to the terrorists, but he couldn’t tell them how he’d known where the bomb was. Just when they started to turn up the heat on him, Isaac appeared to save him from himself. Isaac and the rest of the Res banded together to help get Rob a job as a sheriff’s deputy down here, despite his being blackballed in Chicago. That was smart, because we all assumed he was a good guy until it was too late, and cops naturally have access to all sorts of information that the rest of us don’t.

“Then Isaac sent Rob into the casino to snoop. He heard us thinking about taking you and Holly off Mentafixol. He found ways to get close to both of you. He moved in with you, and he asked Holly out.”

Elijah set his jaw. “That won’t work anymore, though. He can only use our minds against us if we let him.”

“There is no ‘let’ at the Res,” Kaylee said. “Put you and Holly together at the Res, with those bullies egging you on, and you won’t stand a chance. I’ve seen that happen so many times there. Couples fall in love. Then they hurt each other. I mean physically and mentally and emotionally hurt each other as badly as a person can be hurt. That’s why we’re not going after her. I can’t risk losing both of you to the Res and making things worse for Holly there.”