Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 68831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
No. She’d watched her too many times. Memorized every expression she carried, the gracious way she dipped her head, how she navigated easily in heels, each moment fluid and graceful. She’d spent hours in her room, practicing, striving for the seductive yet classy gait that Gwen so effortlessly pulled off.
This woman … well, she’d been in tennis shoes. Claudia struggled to remember the last time she’d seen Gwen in anything other than heels. Once, on her way to the plane, heading for the ranch. She’d worn tennis shoes then—but she’d been carrying coffee and wearing a long coat, aviators covering half her face. To compare her gait with the woman from the room…
She closed her eyes tightly, her mind bombarded with images. The woman—Bell—slumping to the floor, her hair a mess of gore and brains. Bell. It had to be Bell. The awkward sprawl of her limbs. A twitch of her leg. Blood, a pool of it spreading.
She’d seen death before. First as a terrified observer, starving and handcuffed, on the hard concrete floor of a cell. Then, as Robert Hawk’s right hand.
But causing death had been a different experience, one that had given her such a dizzying sense of power, of self-pride, of accomplishment. She’d stood over that body and anticipated Robert’s reaction, had anticipated sitting across from Gwen and bonding with her.
All those thoughts, those possibilities… she had taken them from herself. Taken Robert’s daughter away from him. Left them both alone.
He would be… her mind stalled. Furious was not strong enough of a word. There was no word for the pain that he would feel. The fury. The reaction. She could feel a twist of all of it in herself, the self-hatred that burned through her chest.
Had she actually killed Gwen?
She dropped her head back and, in the middle of the crowded store, screamed.
DARIO
Dario rubbed his wrists and scowled at the man. “You were a bit rough with the cuffs.”
“Hey. Had to make it look authentic.” The detective, one of the few clean cops in the department, and one who’d known Dario since his first year in Vegas, leaned forward. “I’ve got a cell in solitary confinement for you. You want out for a night, you let me know. But I can’t have that pretty mug being photographed while you’re supposed to be locked up. So be smart and camp out in there as long as you can.”
He pushed the open folder across the desk. “This is what we got so far. Eight missing girls. They’ve disappeared over twenty years, so it hasn’t been very high on our radar. I swear, he waits until we’re in the middle of a management turnover to take them.”
Dario looked at the first page, the girl smiling out from a photo at the upper corner. He recognized the setting. It was an employment photo, the sort The Majestic’s HR department took on a new hire’s first day, the casino’s uniform still stiff, the makeup subdued, the image printed on a shiny card with a barcode and access stamp.
He flipped to the second set of clipped pages. This one was a blonde. Another employee photo, from one of their smaller casinos, Jahar.
Both girls had favored each other. Both pretty. Both young. Both beautiful. Both… just like Bell. The thought made him queasy. He looked back at the photo, sensing a more probable connection. Both girls looked like younger versions of Gwen. And just like Gwen, they were dead. He voiced his thoughts, and the detective shifted in his desk chair.
“Well, now. We don’t know that they’re dead.”
Dario lifted his head, breaking eye contact with the third woman’s photo. “Excuse me?”
“That one right there?” The man leaned forward, his finger moving to and tapping on another beautiful young girl’s photo. “That’s Claudia Vorherz. She disappeared two years ago. We thought, her family thought, hell—everybody thought she was a goner, just like the rest of them. Same MO to the tee.”
He started to check off the items on his short, thick fingers.
“Hawk casino employee.”
“Single.”
“No family close by.”
“Disappeared without any cell phone usage, credit card spending, or packed bags.”
The suspense was painful. Dario gave a curt nod. “And?”
“And … then she showed up eight months ago. Alive, fit as a fucking fiddle, not a scratch on her—at least, not anywhere her mother could see.”
This hadn’t hit the news. He pinned the man with a hard look. “And why the fuck have you not shared this with me before?”
Each girl that went missing had produced massive media coverage, police investigations, the questioning of employees … and each one had been hell on Gwen. With each disappearance, she’d spent weeks in alcohol and medication-fueled depressions, the downturns only cured by time and—eventually—trips to the ranch. Solo trips that brought her back with flushed cheeks, glowing skin, and peace in her eyes.