Sleepless in Las Vegas Read Online Free PDF Page B

skull, you have no right pretending to know Benedict Morgan.”
    His brother had his issues, but Brax would never stoop so low as to fabricate a story involving their father. This evening was getting weirder by the minute. Time to go home, grab some shut-eye before his three a.m. return to Topaz.
    He stood, retrieved his wallet from his pocket.
    “Please, sir,” she whispered, “it was just a…funny coincidence.”
    He turned away as he leafed through the money in his billfold. At least with his back to her, she’d get the hint their exchange was over.
    “You got me wrong,” she continued.
    So much for that theory.
    “I sat next to you because I liked you. I walked in here and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s one good-looking guy. Sharp dresser, too.’ Maybe we could talk, get to know each other, but then your phone dropped…”
    He turned so abruptly she jumped. “Let’s end this nonsense now,” he said in a low rumble. “You claim nobody sent you, fine. You call that…other part…a funny coincidence, okay. I halfway believe you because nobody in their right mind would hire a flake to put some mental muscle on me. But you can’t fool me about the rest of your performance. I’m not buying, sister, so sell it elsewhere.”
    “Sell?” She actually looked affronted. “You think I’m…a hooker? ”
    “I’m giving you two pieces of advice. That ingenue act might work on out-of-towners who’ve never been to the big city, but don’t test-drive it on the locals, baby. And the next time somebody asks your name, don’t pick one off a bottle, Remy. ” He snorted a laugh. “I suppose your last name’s Martin.”
    Another guilty look. “F’true, you got me there. But you’re wrong about the rest. I’m not selling anything.”
    “Right,” he muttered, “and I’m Mickey Mouse.”
    Sally appeared, set the cola in front of the girl.
    He tugged loose a five and handed it to Sally. “Keep the change.”
    “Going home?” She slipped the bill into the tip jar.
    He nodded. “Time to take my dog for a walk.”
    “Don’t be a stranger.” She pulled out her cell phone and headed down the bar.
    He didn’t look at “Remy” as he plucked his jacket off the high back of the stool. Folding it over his arm, he headed to the door as the music swelled and Frank warbled a long, long note that faded to nothing.
    Drake stepped outside, and the heat hit him like a blast furnace. He wondered when he’d last taken a breath that didn’t smell like exhaust and warm asphalt.
    Looking up at the night sky, he picked out the Big Dipper. When he was a kid, the skies had been cleaner, the stars brighter. But like everything else in life, things changed.
    He was tired of change. It demanded too much and left too little. Never understood why people liked to say “embrace change,” as though it was fun, like wrapping your arms around the waist of some hot babe on a Harley, the two of you streaking toward some exhilarating destination. Change was more like sitting in the back of a taxi with some hard-nosed cabbie who drove recklessly, padded the fare and dumped you at the wrong address.
    That was the problem with being a practical man. You knew life was no easy ride.
    Sometimes, though, he envied the dreamers of the world, wondered what it was like to hope. To believe without the benefit of physical evidence. Staring at the stars again, he wished he could trust that something lay beyond life’s closed door, because he sure as hell couldn’t find the answers here.
    He walked across the parking lot to the darkened kiosk, brushed off the seat of an abandoned stool and laid his jacket neatly over it. Rolling up a shirt sleeve, he watched the traffic along Las Vegas Boulevard. Cars, trucks and those life-changing taxis streamed past, filling the night with scraps of laughter, music and the occasional horn blast.
    He scanned Topaz’s parking lot. No yellow Porsche parked in its regular spot. No black Mercedes, either, but it could