Raising the Stakes

At 1:00 a.m., with the slot machines and the tables still busy, he went to his room, stripped down and collapsed on the bed, tired by the endless day and his lack of success. He lay on his back, arms folded beneath his head, staring up at the silk canopy and wondering how in hell the fool who had designed the place thought a person would be able to sleep under a goddamn parachute without feeling claustrophobic.

After a while, he sat up and rubbed his hands over his face.

There was nothing wrong with the canopy and hell, he’d never been claustrophobic in his life. It was just that the silken tent was soft and sensual. It made him think about what it would be like to have a woman in bed with him, the draped silk enclosing them both in a world made up of whispers, tastes and touches. He closed his eyes and saw the woman, a redhead whose eyes were still a mystery, whose name he didn’t know, who had made it clear she wasn’t interested in him, and got a hard-on that sent him into the shower again.

Afterward, Gray wrapped a towel around his hips, opened the minibar and took out one of those ridiculously small bottles of scotch he’d always figured were made for Lilliputians. He thought about swigging the stuff straight from the bottle, decided he wasn’t that bad off yet and poured it into a glass. He drank it while he stared out the window at the pool and at the sky that glittered with galaxies of neon, and told himself to get his head on straight.

Forget the mystery woman. She wasn’t worth thinking about. As for Dawn… He’d find her. He wasn’t an impatient man. He liked things done on schedule, yes, but his profession—hell, his life—had taught him that sometimes the best thing was to wait. So what if he hadn’t located her right away? She was here; that was the bottom line. The probability was she worked a different shift, or maybe this was her day off. He’d figured five days. So what if one was already shot to hell? There were four yet to come.

What was so bad about that? Nothing, he’d told himself, and hit the minibar again…and felt at least one of his promises fly out the window.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the woman he’d helped.

He knew there was no reason for it. Yes, she was good-looking. At least, what he’d seen of her was good-looking, but so what? Actually she wasn’t even his type. He liked small, curvy brunettes; she was a tall, slender redhead. Still, there were things about her that were memorable. Great legs. A nice ass. Breasts that made his palms ache to cup them. A pink, soft-looking mouth.

Just thinking about how she’d touched her sharp-little teeth to that tender flesh was making him hard again.

Gray opened another scotch and polished it off. He was reaching for number four when he caught himself, took a mineral water instead and slid open the door that led to the balcony. The night was warm and sultry, like a woman’s caress. He closed his eyes and thought he could almost smell the desert and the distant mountains.

He wished he’d been able to see more of the woman’s face. What little he’d seen haunted him. Her mouth. Her nose. Her small, resolute chin. Sort of like Nora Lincoln’s, or her granddaughter’s. Once or twice, she’d even lifted it in that same gesture of defiance. Maybe it was a female thing, that tilt of the chin. Something else he’d never noticed about women, some of the ladies who had swept through his life would probably have said.

He wondered about her eyes. What color were they? Blue, he decided. Blue would suit the color of her hair and the creaminess of her skin. Would her eyes be filled with laughter? He doubted it. Coaxing a smile from her hadn’t been easy. He hoped her eyes didn’t hold the same shadowed sadness as he’d seen in…

“For God’s sake,” he said with disgust.

What the hell was with him? The lady had made it clear that she wasn’t interested. Was that the reason she was lodged inside his head? Or was it her seeming complexity that had piqued his interest? He’d sensed that a man would have to go through layers and layers to get to the truth of who she was, what she was; that she’d never fully revealed herself and the man who broke through the barriers would find something special…

That had done it. “Baron,” Gray had said out loud, “you are on overload, man.”

He’d put on sweats and sought out the hotel’s exercise room. Seven miles on a stationary bike followed by some fancy footwork with the body bag and he’d returned to his room a mental zero, finally ready to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. Unfortunately three hours wasn’t enough. That was why he’d awakened in such a foul mood, and with somebody playing the maracas in his skull.

Gray turned away from the window. The coffee had done its job. He felt almost human. He shaved, slipped his feet into a pair of moccasins, scooped up his wallet and room card from the dresser, and went in search of the elusive Dawn Lincoln Kitteridge Carter.

* * *

Five fifty-nine, Dawn thought groggily, eyeing her alarm clock with distaste. Did she really have to get up at six? What was the harm in closing her eyes for five more minutes…

There was no such thing as only five more minutes. “Up and at ‘em,” she muttered. She shut off the alarm before it could ring and stretched her arms high overhead. She hadn’t gotten enough sleep. Her own fault, really. It was the price you paid for eating pizza just before bedtime.

She’d had bad dreams all night. Every now and then she’d dozed off, only to awaken abruptly in the darkness, heart pounding for no good reason at all, skin slick with sweat.

It had to be the pizza. Either that, or she was back to where she’d been after she’d first moved in here, scared of each creak of the floorboards, shocked into wakefulness whenever the light from a passing car hit the curtained window.

Her apartment was on the first floor. That had been enough to make her think twice about signing the lease. While the realtor talked about high ceilings and affordable rent, Dawn stared at the windows and their low-to-the-ground sills.

“Great cross-ventilation from those windows,” the realtor finally said, and she knew he’d picked up on the way she kept looking at them.

Great access to the street, Dawn had thought, but she’d kept the words to herself and pretended she was concerned about noise because the apartment was on the ground level.

“Oh,” the realtor said, waving his hand as if to erase any concerns she might have, “that’s not a problem. This street’s a dead end. No through traffic.”

She’d nodded, as if her real concern wasn’t that an intruder could break a window and climb into the apartment before anyone noticed. Something must have shown in her expression, though, because the realtor assured her that if she was worried about security, it wasn’t necessary.

“Safest street in Las Vegas,” he’d said, with a little smile. “Hasn’t been a burglary in this area in five years.”

Lying awake now, while 6:59 became seven and seven became 7:01, Dawn remembered how close she’d been to telling him it wasn’t burglars she was worried about. She was only worried about Harman, and looking up to see him coming through a window, his eyes black with hate, a little smile on his lips in anticipation of what he was going to do to her, but there was no point in dwelling on such things. The apartment was perfect. It was an easy drive to work. The neighborhood was quiet and safe. The rent was as reasonable as she could find.

Right now, anyway, life was good. Harman was always there, but buried in her mind. Thoughts of him were sort of like the red-and-white hair ribbon she’d stolen from Ellen-Sue Bannister’s desk in third grade. Dawn took the ribbon because it was pretty and she’d wanted something pretty with all her heart, but once the ribbon was hers, she hadn’t wanted it anymore. Just looking at it made her feel sick, but she was stuck with it. She couldn’t give it back; she couldn’t make it disappear. So she’d wrapped the ribbon in a piece of old wrapping paper and buried it in the bottom of a