The Sarah Roberts Series Vol. 4-6 Read online

  He had a lovely wife and child. No amount of fooling around was ever worth losing that.

  But here he was, in Vegas, about to meet the girl that he not only cheated on his wife with, but impregnated.

  So who was the text from and why did they send it?

  He decided to reply. He sent a text asking the person to identity themselves.

  After hitting send, he realized that it might be the girl he was about to meet. Maybe she had a change of heart and didn’t want the abortion after all. It had to be her because the two of them were the only ones who knew about their little meeting tonight. If she told someone close to her, they wouldn’t be sending this text. They would want her to snatch the ten grand from the unsuspecting idiot from Phoenix.

  “Shit,” he mumbled under his breath.

  He moved off the aisle between card tables and sat on a chair at a closed roulette table.

  Then he typed in another text.

  Why don’t you want the money? It could really help your situation. It’s yours—no strings attached. Make the payment and save your life. You don’t want the alternative.

  He hit send.

  It was time to meet with the girl, providing she showed up. After the text that she probably sent him, she might not.

  He walked briskly to the escalators as they filled with people. Unless he took the stairs on the left, he would have to stand and wait until he got to the top. He decided on the escalator.

  Halfway up, his cell phone chirped again. Then it vibrated.

  Someone’s calling.

  He yanked it out and checked call display. It was his brother, Bruce. He wondered how Bruce knew to call him. Jake had just arrived in Vegas. Could he have talked to Lana back in Phoenix?

  There was no way he could pick up the phone. Not this close to the meeting with the girl, whose name he had forgotten. He put his phone away and decided to call Bruce back after he got upstairs and was relaxing in his hotel room. It would be easier to talk to him when all this shit was done. He would have to call Lana back too as she had tried to reach him several times.

  At the top of the escalator, he turned right. His phone rang again as he passed the Houdini store but he didn’t pull it out or look at it. Probably his brother. He knew he’d get lectured for not letting him know sooner that he was coming to Vegas, but he would deal with that when the time came. Right now he needed to pay off the girl and get her out of his life. This needed to end. Tonight.

  The door to the bar, Cowboy Ugly, was just ahead. A small line of people waited to get in. For a brief moment he wondered if he was doing the right thing. He rationalized that even if she wasn’t pregnant, she could call back and tell his wife all sorts of stories and his marriage would fall apart anyway. Or they’d stay together and he would spend the next dozen years repairing the damage caused. And forget about ever coming to Vegas for conventions again. That would be the end.

  The girl had had the conference dates right, even the mole on his stomach that he had meant to get removed. He remembered her from that night, so if Lana were ever to ask about the pregnant girl in Vegas there would be no way he could lie to her face without her seeing through it.

  He hoped the girl would go away after this and leave him and his family alone.

  He got in line behind five girls. They were giggling while discussing a guy named Steve who was less than ample in his size.

  Oh to be young …

  It didn’t take long to get inside. His wait was less than five minutes. Once inside, he headed for the bar where women in cowboy boots danced on the countertop. The music was so loud, he couldn’t imagine for a second how the two of them, once they met up, would be able to talk. He certainly wouldn’t be able to hear his phone ring if his brother or Lana called him again. The excuse he had prepared was the three-card poker table—his favorite game. While sitting at the table, playing poker, you can’t be on a cell phone. Since he was on a winning streak, he had to wait to call them back. They’d buy the excuse. It had happened before.

  He ordered a double Southern Comfort and shot it back to help calm his nerves. He ordered another that he would sip while looking for the girl.

  The girl on the bar was finishing her dance, the song coming to an end. People cheered, clapped and went crazy as she finished with an exaggerated shake of her ass. His high school testosterone kicked in, but warred with his committed adult married man side, which won out. He turned away, unable to visually take in the pleasure of a youthful leer.

  Someone grabbed his arm. He almost jumped a foot and spilled his beverage over the top of his glass.

  The girl. The pregnant girl. She was dressed in black, with heels. Her hair looked great and her makeup had been applied just right.

  What is this, a date?

  His stomach felt like a brick resided there.

  She shouted something, but he couldn’t hear it. Then she gestured with a nod of her head for him to follow her and started walking toward the door.

  He set his glass down on the bar and followed her. For the first time since he got the call a few days ago, he started to feel this was a shakedown. She said five months pregnant, yet there was no baby bump. In that tight black dress, he should be able to see it.

  She led him out of the bar and past the line of people wanting inside.

  “We won’t be able to hear ourselves think in there,” she said, then snorted as she giggled. The snort was more juvenile sounding than an adult mistake.

  Being this close to her bothered him. It was all wrong. He had to watch that he didn’t view her through a filter—one that made him see everything she did as suspect and conniving. If he did, he might say or do the wrong thing. This meeting had to end with him walking away clean.

  “Come on, we can talk outside,” she said.

  They walked through the double doors, outside to the walkway that led over to the Excalibur Hotel. Chain-link fences had been erected on each side of the railing to stop suicidal jumpers.

  Out here, they could talk in private with the noise of the traffic below, but also have people around as dozens traversed the walkway going back and forth between the two casinos.

  “Where do we begin?” Jake asked.

  “One sec,” she said as she fidgeted in her purse.

  He stepped back and kept a safe distance. He didn’t know if she was about to pull mace out of her purse and blind him. Or worse, acid.

  A pack of cigarettes popped up out of the purse, her hand clutching them as if it were a gold bar.

  “Should you be doing that?” Jake asked. “You know, considering …”

  She stopped what she was doing, the cigarette already in her mouth, the lighter halfway to her lips.

  “You serious?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “I’m aborting, aren’t I?”

  “Of course, I mean, that’s the idea. I guess I just thought …” He let the words die as she brought the lighter to a flame and puffed on her cancer stick.

  He still couldn’t remember her name, or maybe he refused to. Spending too much time out here on the walkway wasn’t what he had in mind. The odds that his brother would walk by and see him were low, but there was still that chance.

  She turned to the fence and stared down at the vehicles passing below while puffing on her cigarette.

  “So how do you want to do this?” he asked.

  She looked at him, her eyes a slit through the smoke leaving her mouth.

  “I never wanted this to happen,” she said.

  “Me either.”

  That was a relief. They were starting out on the right foot. Maybe this would go smooth and not be so bad after all. He could lose the ten grand if that meant closing this chapter of his life. In fact, he wouldn’t even miss the money. He’d consider it well spent.

  As she pulled on the cigarette, her hands shook. “When I found out,” she said, “I didn’t know what to do.”

  “I can understand that.”

  She dropped her half-smo
ked cigarette and stomped on it. Then she turned to face him.

  “I’m serious. This could really fuck up my life right now. It’s hard enough to get jobs in Vegas. Imagine a pregnant waitress. Doesn’t happen. This is the city of sex. Walking around showing that I’ve had some doesn’t allow the customers to have the fantasies employers want.”

  “Yeah, I understand.”

  He had no idea where she was going with her rant. If she was saying that a baby bump ruined male fantasies at the workplace, Jake wondered what had happened to society. Or was it just this girl and her whacked out theories?

  “Anyway,” she continued. “I want this done. Over. After looking into what I had to do, I decided to call you because I didn’t have that kind of money.”

  “Fair enough. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Take this.” She reached out, offering his business card to him. “I won’t be needing your contact information anymore.” Then she pulled it back out of reach. “Providing you’re going ahead with our plan. You are, aren’t you?”

  Jake nodded. “Of course. I think what you’re doing is the right thing for all of us.” When he took the card, his hand shook as bad as hers. He felt sorry for her, trying to make in Vegas, then getting pregnant and having to have an abortion. All he did was remove ten thousand from an account that had hundreds of thousands in it and fly to his favorite city. Although after this, he would be a lot more careful in Vegas.

  He stashed his card in beside his wallet, remembering which pocket it was in this time.

  “So, we agree?” she asked. “I get,” she stopped and looked around conspiratorially, “money and an abortion and you walk away, out of my life forever?”

  “That was the agreement. I just hope you’ll be okay.”

  “I will. Don’t worry about that.”

  She fished in her purse again, then pulled out a stick of gum. Without offering him any, she tossed it in her mouth and started chewing. Her nervousness was catching.

  “Well, did you bring it?” she asked.

  “Right here.” He padded his jacket.

  “Is there anything else to say?” she asked.

  “No. Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Then why are you waiting?” She held her hand out.

  No one paid any attention. The public walked by, oblivious of their meeting. His moist fingers touched the envelope. He pulled it out and placed it gently in her hand. It wasn’t the money itself that bothered him; it was what the money was for, what it represented.

  She jammed it into the bottom of her purse, zipped the top shut, and secured the purse under her arm, the strap linked around her shoulder.

  “This means it ends here,” Jake said, more a statement than a question.

  She smiled, a devilish smile, like her and Satan had a secret. The devious smile spoke volumes on what she was thinking. His stomach did flip flops. He wanted to back away and run, but was held by her gaze.

  “If you touch me, I’ll scream rape,” she whispered.

  He put both hands up in defense. “I’m not going to touch you.”

  “If you shout at me, I will scream rape. Anything you do that I don’t like, I’ll have you in a Las Vegas jail before you can say whore. I’m seconds away from calling the cops right now. Are we clear?”

  He backed away two steps. “Absolutely.” He wanted to run, but was held by what she needed to say. “But why? What have I done? You have your money.” He feared if he didn’t hear her out, he would get a call in Phoenix when he got home. Not only would he be out ten grand, he would lose his marriage, too.

  “I need another forty thousand.” She shrugged. “Consider it silence money.”

  He shook his head. “No way. Too much. I can’t do that kind of money.”

  She stepped toward him to close the distance he had created.

  “You can and you will or your pretty little wife will hear all the sordid details. I will tell her about how you slipped inside me and fucked me all night. You fucked me so hard I couldn’t walk right for a couple days. It even hurt to pee. Now I’m pregnant and wanted her to know that your son will have a little brother soon. How would you like that?”

  Fear turned to rage. His sweaty hands clenched uncontrollably. Suddenly he wanted to break her face. That would solve the problem. Put her in the hospital and threaten to do it again if she ever mentioned his name. Maybe that was what this little puke needed.

  Somebody yelled behind him. Revelers walked by, greeting everyone they passed. It broke Jake’s moment of focused rage. He came back to the here and now and started to rationalize forty more thousand.

  “I will leave you alone after that. One-hundred percent. You have my guarantee, once I have the whole fifty. Anything less, your life becomes hell. This isn’t empty threats. This is just the way it is.” She spit on the ground. He realized that she had just spit her gum out. “You fucked me and got me pregnant. Now you pay for that. Too bad. That’s life.”

  “Okay, okay, keep your voice down.”

  “Meet me back here tomorrow, same time. Bring the money or face the consequences. Do we have a deal?”

  He nodded. There was no time to think, nothing else he could do. He had to agree or this woman could walk away and use a cell phone to call his wife, virtually ending his life as he knew it. Sure she handed his business card back, but she would’ve recorded the information on it somewhere. Stunned, shocked, and with a dry bitterness in his mouth, he stood speechless.

  “Good,” she said. “Now, hug me.”

  “What?”

  “Hug me. My boyfriend is watching. When you hug me, it signals him that we have a deal. If you walk away, he calls your wife. So I advise you hug me and make it look real. Make it look like we are fuck buddies. I want a close, intimate hug.”

  He stepped in, wondering what he had gotten himself into. She moved into him and wrapped her arms inside his jacket, resting her head on his chest. For all intents and purposes, they looked like a couple who just resolved a conflict and were ready to head back up to their room.

  He felt the warmth of her body against his and instantly thought of Lana. It saddened him to think that she was home with Michael and he was in Vegas hugging a pretty blonde that he’d had sex with. He felt three inches tall and wanted to crawl into a smaller hole.

  He made to pull away. She threw her arms out and then wrapped them tighter around his waist.

  “No. Longer. We have to make sure he doesn’t call your wife. If he does, we both lose. Just another few seconds.”

  He hugged her and waited.

  Then she pulled away fast, like he’d bitten her. She swung around quickly, her purse arcing on its strap, and walked away.

  “Same time, same place,” she said over her shoulder. “Tomorrow night. Be there or lose your wife, lose your life.”

  He stood in her wake, dumbfounded. The seriousness of the situation spilled over him and he almost crumbled to the ground. He turned around in a daze and entered the New York, New York’s Casino doors and started back to the escalators.

  He could talk to Lana, save them forty grand. What would she say, what would she do? Maybe he could convince her that he was being scammed? Although, if she believed that, she would recommend they bring Bruce in on it and have the girl arrested. No, that wouldn’t work.

  He ruffled his hair and loosened his shirt a button. It had gotten very hot in the casino. At the bottom of the escalator, he wended his way toward the elevators by Gallagher’s Steakhouse that would take him up to his room.

  He would take the night to think about it. Sleep on it. Maybe he’d have whiskey brought up to the room.

  At the casino’s cashier, he could do a debit withdrawal for the amount of money the girl was looking for. They did it all the time for high rollers. He just needed to think about it.

  Near the elevators, he removed his jacket. Sweat had marked his white shirt under his arms, but he didn’t care who saw it. It was just too damn hot.

  Something was
wrong with his jacket. It felt lighter. He pushed the button for the elevator to come down and patted his jacket. It was lighter because the money was gone. Then he realized what the problem was.

  His wallet was gone, too.

  Frantically, he reached inside his breast pocket. The wallet was gone as was the business card she had given him back that he had placed beside the wallet. Only his cell phone remained in his smaller cell phone pocket.

  “For fuck’s sake.” He slammed a foot on the floor. “Now what?”