The hot asphalt seared my cheek as I regained consciousness. All I saw was gray. My eyes gradually focused on concrete and I realized that I had landed inches away from the cement highway divider.
I had been thrown clear of the RV.
I remained still for a few seconds, stunned. Thankfully nothing was broken, just a lot of painful road rash. I rose to a sitting position, alarmed to find myself in the middle of a four-lane highway. A pickup truck roared by and narrowly missed me as I crawled to the roadside.
“What happened?” The RV lay on its side, partially rolled into a ditch on the opposite side of the highway. It had somehow flipped over the median. The side that faced me was crumpled and dented like it had rolled multiple times.
No one answered.
“Mom? Aunt Pearl?” My heart pounded as I scanned the road for any sign of them or Wilt. I spotted Mom and Aunt Pearl crouched over an unconscious Wilt about fifty yards ahead of the RV. Relief flooded over me as I rose to a standing position. My whole body ached. I took stock of my bruises as I limped over to them.
“This is just one disaster after another,” I muttered to myself. Then I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. At first, I thought the RV was moving, but it wasn’t. It was slowly turning transparent. Proof positive that the RV was more witchery conjured up by Aunt Pearl.
Her lottery ticket had to be fake too. All I was sure about was Carla Racatelli’s funeral. I doubted even Aunt Pearl would lie about her best friend’s death. I just hoped we made it to the funeral in one piece.
I was within a few feet, close enough to hear Mom and Aunt Pearl arguing.
“Don’t be silly, it’s easy to fix,” Aunt Pearl said. “I just didn’t make the spell long enough.”
“You shouldn’t be risking our lives like that, Pearl. Don’t do it again.”
“Stop being such a killjoy and have some fun for a change.” Aunt Pearl’s eyes locked on mine. “Oh good, I was wondering where you went.”
I opened my mouth to answer but Mom shook her head at me. “Help me with Wilt.”
Mom shook Wilt’s shoulders and his eyes flickered open. “What happened? I don’t remember a thing.”
“It’s all right. We hit a deer.”
Wilt rubbed his eyes and rose to a sitting position. “I don’t remember that, or rolling the RV.”
“You’re still groggy. It will come back to you,” Mom said.
Wilt slowly stood and scanned the highway. “I don’t see the deer.”
“He got away.” I hated covering for my family, but I felt bad for Wilt. “Let’s call someone to tow the RV. Then we can head back home.”
Aunt Pearl muttered something in a low voice and the RV gradually solidified. The dents were gone. “Nope. We’re road worthy again.”
Wilt did a double take. “But I thought—”
“You’ve had a knock to the head and you’re not thinking clearly,” Mom said. “Or seeing straight.”
“Ruby’s right,” Aunt Pearl said. “I’ll take over the driving for now.”
“I am not getting in that thing,” I protested. “It’s not safe.” With Aunt Pearl at the helm, we were headed for trouble and there was no turning back.
“You have to. Everything depends on you, Cen.”
“Why me? That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense, Cen. You’re about to find your calling.” Aunt Pearl wrapped her arm around me and gave me a hug.
It was the first hug I remembered from my tough-as-nails aunt in all of my twenty-four years. It should have felt good, but it held a whiff of desperation. Something was up, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.
We arrived at the Hotel Babylon Las Vegas in the early morning, eighteen hours after leaving Westwick Corners. We had driven through the night, stopping only for gas. I was battered, bruised, and broken from the RV crash and Wilt and Aunt Pearl’s crazy driving.
And my dress still reeked of gas.
“Cen, just look at this place!” Mom pointed to the expansive marble columns that bordered the lobby and pointed skyward to a multi-story atrium. “This is the Racatelli hotel and casino.”
“They own this hotel?” Their reversal of fortune was a far cry from the rented two-bedroom shack and failing scrap metal business they had abandoned in Westwick Corners years earlier.
I had always suspected that the scrap business was a front for Tommy Racatelli’s underworld activities. The sudden wealth seemed to prove that the hotel was bought with ill-gotten gains. Unless, like Aunt Pearl, they had gotten an incredibly good stroke of luck.
Whatever the case, Lady Luck had apparently run out. First for Tommy and now Carla. Rocco was probably next. I just hoped he wasn’t part of whatever secret mission we were on. He had always taunted me in school, and the more I remembered my annoying classmate, the less I wanted to see him again.
I studied my surroundings while Mom and Aunt Pearl checked us in. The opulent hotel was modeled after a Roman villa, complete with a massive courtyard filled with fountains and hanging gardens. Each floor overlooked the courtyard lobby. Being Vegas, the courtyard wasn’t open-air. Thirty-two stories above the courtyard was a glass dome that refracted the sunlight outside. The scenery was meant to keep you inside, not outside.
I shivered in the sterile, air-conditioned lobby as I shuffled past a few bleary-eyed gamblers.
I still had no further details on why we were here. All I was clear on was that I was stuck in Vegas, at least temporarily. I was also hot, hungry and exhausted, and in desperate need of some shut eye. I planned to immediately call Tyler once we had checked in and apologize for standing him up. Then I’d get a few hours’ sleep and figure out how to get home, with or without Mom and Aunt Pearl.