Another Friday night at Guido’s. The place was beginning to seem like home. Good food. Friends. A sense of belonging.
Even if—except for the food—it was all make-believe.
“I miss having you near me.” Carl brought her first margarita over as soon as she arrived—half an hour before the rest of the young people would start wandering in. Dinner with Luke had made her much later the night before.
“I miss it, too,” she told him. There was truth in the statement. She wanted Carl’s friendship.
But she didn’t have room for the complications.
“Thanks for this.” She held her glass, took a long drag on the straw. The first was always loaded. The rest would be virgin.
“No problem. You gonna hang around as usual tonight?” Just as she arrived before the rest of her new “friends,” Francesca always stayed until after they’d all gone home. To talk to Carl.
“Sure.”
He nodded, the crease in his brow fading.
“You think the others are getting curious about the personal service?” he asked, waving his drink tray.
She shrugged. “They don’t say.”
“Do you mind? Just seemed the easiest way to make sure no one knows there’s nothing in them.”
She smiled up at him. It felt comforting to be pro tected. “Mind?” she said. “On the contrary, I’m grateful. I don’t know how I’m ever going to repay you for all of this.”
“I think I’d be content if I’ve taught you that you don’t have to repay friendship. It just is.”
He left before she could respond. But his words rang in Francesca’s heart long into the night.
Was that what she thought? That she had to pay for, earn, something as natural and vital as human companionship?
God, she hoped not.
“I’m leaving.”
Everyone at the two tables quieted as Chancey made her announcement sometime around ten on Fri day night. Francesca, sitting at the same table, had lost count of the number of beers the girl had con sumed.
“So soon?” asked Lynn, the athletic girl who’d originally invited Francesca to join them.
“You’ve got another job already?”
“Are you sure?”
“I’d say no.”
The responses came in quick succession. After al most a week with these girls, Francesca was used to the casual references that told her nothing. And growing more frustrated by the hour. When were they going to trust her enough to tell her something real?
Invite her to apply for a job herself?
And what about the few young men who came and went in this group? They seemed to be friends with many of the girls, but special to no one in particular. What part did they play?
“No,” Chancey said, her words slurred and loud enough to be heard by anyone in the vicinity. “I mean I’m leaving for good. Leaving Vegas. Everything.”
A heavy silence fell. Francesca could feel the tension building—around her and within herself. What was going on?
A couple of girls who’d gone over to shoot pool set down their cues, wandered over.
“I wouldn’t do that.” Lynn’s words dropped into the middle of the suddenly worried-looking group.
“Why not? This is a free country.”
“It’s not that easy,” Wanda said. She was the first girl who’d spoken to Francesca. Not as friendly as the rest, more selfish maybe, or just detached, Francesca wasn’t sure which, but she liked her.
“So you’re planning to be here forever?” Chancey challenged, her face red with anger where others were lined with concern.
“Don’t talk like this, Chance.” Leila, a tall skinny blonde who was there almost every night, seemed downright scared. Francesca generally found the girl’s comments to be off the mark, as though the physical gifts Leila had been given had come at the cost of some intellectual capacity. Tonight her fear seemed to find its target among many of the other girls.
Of course, fear bred fear. It might be nothing more than that.
“I don’t plan to be here forever,” Lynn told the group. They’d all gathered around, pulling their chairs closer, each looking around the circle to assess the others’ reactions.
Had she been at another table, Francesca would probably have been left out. Because she was sitting by Chancey, she was right in the middle.
She glanced around, from face to face, eye to eye, knowing that the key to finding Autumn was hidden there. She thought about her camera. It would capture those faces, those expressions. Allow her to view them, again and again, until she figured out what messages they were hiding.
“But we have to leave when it’s mutually beneficial,” Lynn continued. She was the leader of the group. They all listened to her.
And in the week Francesca had been among them, she’d never once seen Lynn misuse the power that gave her.
What kept these girls sitting, night after night, in an out-of-the-way Italian bar in Las Vegas, talking about dreams and aspirations and gynecologists? Not daring to leave this town?
“Look,” Wanda said, scooting her chair closer, “we have to tell her.”
“Tell me what?” Chancey asked, the muscles in her face going from tight to sunken.
“It has nothing to do with us.” Lynn sat back, picked up her beer, drank as though she was in a guzzling contest.
“I know it doesn’t.” Wanda didn’t so much as blink. “But she’s relatively new to town. She doesn’t know what it’s like here.”
“Oh, I gotta differ with you there,” Chancey said with a bitter chuckle completely lacking in humor.
“No, you really don’t know,” Lynn agreed. The other six or seven girls nodded. Francesca knew a couple of them.
“A few years ago there was this girl,” Wanda said. Everyone else sat forward, gazes on the self-contained young woman. Their faces reminded Francesca of a bunch of kids around a campfire, listening to a ghost story with a mixture of curiosity and horror. “She made the headlines all over the state.”
“Why?”
“What was her name?” Francesca hadn’t meant to speak and, when the girls all looked at her, wished she hadn’t. She’d realized from the beginning that names weren’t a big deal around here. But having this girl’s name would sure make looking up the articles a bit easier.
“She was found out in the desert, and at first the paper said that she’d gone for a hike, gotten lost, died of dehydration….”
Lynn took over the story. “Then it comes out that she’d been dead about a day and there was no sign of dehydration. It looked like she might’ve been murdered. They said it was likely a drug deal gone bad.”
“Yeah,” Leila said, the story gaining momentum with each teller. “And then you hear that there was no evidence of drug use in or on her body, or anywhere near her.”
“Next thing they say is that she was hiking, and fell and hit her head on a rock and that’s what killed her.” This was Wanda again.
“Some papers said that there were traces of alcohol in her body,” Leila said. “Others said there was none.”
Francesca stared from one girl to the next as they unveiled fact after fact.
“So then it comes out—some hospital employee leaked it and then later lost her job—that she’d been raped,” Lynn said.
“Yeah, but there was no semen.”
“About a week after the girl turned up, every single one of the papers ran the same story,” Wanda told them. “The girl’s body had been covered with blood, but not her own as they originally thought. It was cow’s blood. And there were traces of raw meat on and around what was left of her.”
“What was left of her?” It was the first time Chancey had spoken.
“She’d been partially eaten by coyotes,” Lynn explained. “They figure whoever did her put the blood and meat on her so she’d be consumed before she was ever found.”
“Gone without a trace,” Leila said in somber tones.
“So then what?” The question was from a black girl Francesca had never met.
“Nothing.” Lynn’s voice sounded hollow. “None of the clues added up. There wasn’t anything more about it in the papers or on the news. No one was ever charged. The whole thing disappeared just as quickly as she did.”
“Was she from around here?” Francesca asked. She’d already done the math. There was no way this could be Autumn.
But could there be others like her?
Girls who hadn’t been found before the desert animals carried them off?
“Not originally,” Wanda said. “But she’d been around for a while.” She paused, stared vacantly at a spot in the middle of the table, seemingly oblivious to the sounds of the bar around them, the pool balls clacking, darts being thrown.
When Wanda looked up, Francesca was shocked by the tears in the girl’s eyes. “She was a friend of mine.”
Luke was waiting for Arnold to finish closing his table just after midnight on Friday night when he saw Francesca walking toward him. She seemed about twenty in her full Guido garb. Tight denim skirt, black spaghetti-strap top and her black ankle boots. It should be illegal to look that sexy.
“Oh, good.” She was talking before he could even say hello. “You said you and your friend Arnold meet for drinks after his shift sometimes and I was hoping tonight might be one of those nights. I wouldn’t normally do this, but do you mind if I invite myself along? If you’re going, that is. I could really use a drink. And some company.”
Her agitation woke his investigative instincts. Something had happened. Something that upset her. A lot.
“If that’s okay,” she said.
“Of course it’s okay.” He waited for her to say more.
“Good.” She nodded, hugging her black leather bag to her side as though afraid for its safety.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Yeah.” She didn’t seem able to meet his eyes, or to focus on much of anything. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just…been a long night.”
“Liar.”
Nodding again, she glanced his way and then around the tables. “Which one is Arnold?”
Luke pointed to the gray-haired man standing with the floor person across the aisle.
“He looks nice.”
“Did you hear something about Autumn?” Something she couldn’t bring herself to talk about?
“No.”
“The bartender guy. Carl, wasn’t it?”
He waited for her nod, mostly to keep her engaged in the conversation as she tapped her foot and continued to study the casino, her eyes darting quickly around.
“He didn’t do anything out of line, did he?” Luke would deal with the guy himself if he had. Francesca was a decent woman and this town had damn well better treat her that way.
“What?” She glanced at him only briefly. “No, of course not. Carl’s a nice man. He’s been a good friend.”
Oh. Great.
“Is he more than a good friend?” He asked for informational purposes only.
“No.” Her gaze slowed, settled on him. “I told you, Luke, I’m only in town long enough to find Autumn. I’m not going to get involved with anyone.”
Luke nodded, strangely satisfied.
Although she’d said she was hungover that first night he had drinks with her, Luke had never seen Francesca drink much.
Sitting with her and Arnold in the mostly deserted casino lounge, he saw two things he hadn’t noticed before. She ordered two screwdrivers in twenty minutes. And visibly charmed the pants off the older man, putting on a show that was smooth enough to be considered art.
He almost cheered when Arnold, who was drinking beers as fast as Francesca was downing vodka, excused himself to go to the men’s room.
“What gives?” He peered unrelentingly at her as she tried to elude him.
She shrugged. “Nothing. Really.”
As she took another large sip from her glass, her hand movements so deliberate they were more jerky than natural, Luke watched through narrowed eyes. Something was wrong.
“You aren’t ready to talk about it.”
She shook her head. As much of an admission as he needed.
Nursing his first beer, he decided to make it his last. Whatever was going on, he was glad she’d come to him.
“So, Arnold, what do you like to do in your spare time?”
The older man had been back for fifteen minutes and Francesca knew more about his life story than most of the people who’d been working with him for years. Luke had known of the older man’s divorce, but not that his ex-wife had been the one to leave.
He watched his friend as Arnold considered the question. The older man was engaged in a way he’d never seen. More alive and relaxed.
“These days not as much as I’d like to.” When Arnold finally replied he gave the kind of nonanswer Luke was used to hearing. “But when I get a chance I still go out for a jump now and then.”
Luke started. “A jump?”
“Hey, man, I might be old, but I’m not dead and it doesn’t take much to throw yourself out of a plane.”
Tell me about it. “You never told me you jump!”
“You never asked.”
Well, no, he hadn’t, but… “Did you know I—”
“—hold every record in the state? Yeah, I knew.”
Luke wasn’t often nonplussed.
“You both jump from planes?” Francesca looked from one to the other, eyes troubled, though whether from the current conversation, too much drink or the thoughts she was keeping to herself, he didn’t know. “Why would you want to do that? There are any number of perfectly reasonable things you can do right here on earth to get yourselves killed.”
“You’d have to—”
“Little lady, until you’ve…”
He and Arnold spent the next ten minutes tripping over each other as they extolled the virtues of a passion Luke hadn’t even known they shared. They might as well have kept still for all the effect on Francesca.
“So, why didn’t you say something?” Luke asked his friend. “We can go up together sometime.”
Arnold shrugged in that noncommittal way he had. “I’m nowhere near as good as you, for one thing. My longest free fall is probably about half of what you do on a bad day.”
“And for another thing?”
“You’re management, Luke. Having drinks now and then is one thing, but I wouldn’t presume to impinge upon your life away from here.”
“Crap. How’s next Saturday sound?”
Arnold opened his mouth to reply, glancing over at Francesca. When no sound came out of the other man’s mouth, Luke’s gaze followed his.
Francesca had tears streaming slowly down her face.
“You ready to tell me what’s wrong?” he asked, forgetting for that second that Arnold was sitting there.
He’d only ever seen her cry once. The night they’d checked out the escort Web sites. She’d made it through every single site, forcing herself to look at things that must have been ripping her up inside, and when they were done, when they turned off the computer having seen no sign of her sister, she’d cried just like that.
And refused the comfort he’d needed to offer.
Francesca Witting was one tough bird.
And a beautiful one.
“Nothing,” she said again. And added, “I mean it,” when his look obviously conveyed his disbelief. “I heard a story at the bar tonight and I can’t seem to get it out of my head. I’m overreacting, and I hate that.”
She didn’t wipe away the tears as she had the other night. Because she’d had too much to drink and the alcohol had made her sloppy? Somehow Luke didn’t think so.
“Tell us about it.” Arnold leaned forward, his eyes filled with more emotion than Luke had ever seen before.
The glance she sent Luke seemed to be looking for something, although he wasn’t sure what.
“What did you hear?” he asked.
Luke remembered every detail of the story that had been in all the Nevada papers a few years before as she related them.
“Your source was certainly accurate,” he told her when her voice fell silent, leaving so much unspoken pain in their midst.
She nodded. “I met a friend of hers tonight.”
Arnold coughed—and then started to choke. “Went…down…the…wrong…way,” he muttered, pushing back from the table to go to the bar for some water.
Luke watched him go, sorrow in his heart for the older man. Not many people knew it, but Arnold had lost a daughter many years before. Back in Phoenix. Luke didn’t know the details, but from what Arnold had told him one night after he and Luke had finished an entire bottle of whiskey between them, the girl had been killed in some kind of hit-and-run accident and left for dead.
That was the night Luke had confided in Arnold about his desire for a family—and the mother who had him chained to her side.
Neither man had mentioned the indiscretions since.
“I know that the girl’s death has absolutely nothing to do with Autumn, but I just can’t seem to get rid of the feeling that it could just as easily have been my little sister out there in the desert,” Francesca told Luke later that night as he walked her home.
He would’ve taken her in the Jag, but she’d needed some air—even hot Vegas air—to clear her head.
“It’s understandable,” he told her, having to make a conscious effort to keep his hands in his pockets so that his arm didn’t slide around her shoulders as he wanted it to. “I can only imagine how terrifying it is having a young woman you love unprotected in this city.”
They’d left the Strip behind on the first side street they’d come to and were walking slowly among two-bit motels, brightly lit massage parlors, an off-the-beaten-track discount wedding chapel or two and restaurants offering lobster and steak dinners for $9.95.
Her arm brushed his as she looked up at him. “Why do you stay here if you hate this city so much?”
“I don’t hate it.”
“You sure don’t like it.”
The night was calm, few cars driving anywhere but on the Strip at that early hour, but if there were stars, they were lost among the glittering lights.
“There are things about it that I like.”
“Such as?”
“I like the energy. No matter what time of day or night, you can always find life and excitement.”
“You hate gambling and gambling’s what generates the excitement.”
Maybe. Probably.
“I like that all different kinds of people live together here, for the most part peaceably. There are very few other places in the world that can boast the same.”
“Okay.”
They crossed a street. He could see the Lucky Seven sign two blocks ahead.
“And I like the old people.” He had no idea where that had come from.
“The tourists, you mean?”
He nodded. “They’re by far my favorite guests.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. Didn’t answer. Didn’t think he had an answer. He hadn’t even realized he’d noticed the old people, so vulnerable in their hopefulness. And comforting in their acceptance.
“So why do you stay?” Her soft question caught him unawares. As did his sudden desire not to lie to her.
“I can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
They were a block away from her temporary home. A place that wasn’t anywhere near worthy of this remarkable woman.
And somehow half an hour had passed, and they were standing at the steps that led to her motel door, his hands still in his pockets, and she knew about his mother. It hadn’t been as hard telling her as it had been with Melissa. Because things got easier the more you did them?
Not something he was planning to find out.
“I’d like to meet her.” Her bag on her shoulder, she had yet to reach for her key.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “She sounds interesting. Or maybe just because she’s your mother.”
Luke hadn’t taken a friend to his home since high school. But then, he’d never had a friend quite like her. Or one so temporary…
“You want to come to dinner on Sunday?” he heard himself ask. And then remembered. “Sorry, the phone booth. For a second there, I forgot.”
She laughed softly, although there was no humor in the sound. “Yeah, believe it or not, so did I. But I think I’d like to come, anyway. Looks like I might be at this longer than I’d figured and a few hours away might give me the ability to sit there an extra week or two.”
Always practical. Always focused on her goal. It impressed him—and made the woman safe.
“Can I pick you up at one?”
She nodded. Said she’d like that.
And Luke left her there. Wondering why the hell he’d just done that.
She needed a friend. His mother needed a friend. He wanted to be a friend. But there was no future in it. For any of them.
And maybe that was his answer right there.