Private Vegas (Private 9)

She said, “You bet,” and filled me in.

“Lester Olsen and Barbie Cooper were about to kill Bryce Cooper with an injection of potassium chloride. That would have been fatal in a couple of seconds, but Scotty was waiting for them. He shot Olsen twice. Not fatally.”

“Damn. That’s a damned shame,” I said. “How did Scotty miss?”

“Jack.” She laughed some more. “Anyway, Olsen is hospitalized under guard. Barbie is in lockup. Scotty was released after the APD questioned him. He said—” Justine cracked up again. She was a little manic, but still, she was enjoying herself.

“Scotty said to me, ‘I don’t know if Bryce Cooper is going to press charges against me for breaking and entering or if he’s going to throw me a parade.’”

I laughed with her, then shared my salty snacks as we talked about Olsen, that psycho with the twenty-four-karat-gold balls. Scotty hadn’t known about Val’s encounters with Olsen, but we were sure that before Olsen flew to Aspen, he had tried to kill her.

He’d almost done it.

How had Val survived?

I desperately wanted to know.

Chapter 112

BY EIGHT IN the morning, Val had a room of her own, and Justine and I had seats on either side of her bed. Val looked like she’d done time inside a cement mixer.

The left side of her face was bruised and she had a line of stitches and sutures over her left eyebrow. Both of her wrists were bandaged, and leads went from her body to an array of beeping machines around her.

She looked small and very frail.

It broke my fucking heart.

I touched her arm above the bandages, and Val opened her eyes and looked at me. Recognition spread across her face and she lit up with such happiness, my feelings of remorse and guilt almost dropped me to the floor.

I said, “Val. How are you? How do you feel?”

“I feel like the world’s biggest jerk, since you ask.” Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. I was so relieved that she knew me, that she was lucid, speaking in complete sentences, for God’s sake. It was as if sunshine had flooded the hospital room. I squeezed her arm and said, “I’m so glad you’re back.”

“I really blew it,” she said, squinting her bloodshot eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

Justine said, “Val, you were heroic. That’s the truth.”

Val turned and saw Justine gripping the bed rail, looking like she was going to bawl. Val reached out with both arms and Justine hugged her. I found a box of tissues, handed them around, took some for myself.

There was some crying, and then Val collected herself and got very serious. “We have to find Lester Olsen,” she said. “He tried to kill me.”

Justine quickly sketched in the story of Scotty’s night in Aspen, then said, “Olsen and Barbie are guests of the Aspen PD, and Scotty is in a first-class hotel without a scratch on him.”

“That’s the best news I’ve ever heard,” Val said.

I said, “If you’re up to it, Val, what the hell happened?”

“Oh God.” Val sighed. “Yeste

rday, I think it was yesterday, I went to Lester’s office to pick out my so-called future husband.”

Val told us about the error that gave her away, about Olsen’s stuffing her into his trunk at gunpoint, about the car going into the water, and about the moment when she realized she was going down.

“I couldn’t get my hands free of the zip ties.”

Her voice broke. She looked at her bandaged wrists.

“I kicked through the divider, and then I kind of rolled into the backseat.