Chapter 13
Rowan stood next to Cath’s chair, arms crossed, playing the disapproving best friend.
“You’re going to waste it,” she said, loud enough for the man fiddling in the back to hear.
They’d been taken to this plush, soulless private office on the fifth floor to cash out the chips—and probably so Security could get a good eyeful.
It wasn’t every day two women walked in off the street and won two hundred thousand dollars at the roulette table after winning in another casino, too.
They’d cleaned up just under a hundred thou at the Venetian and made it out safely.
But hey, this was Vegas. The house always won, and if the women weren’t on blacklists or doing anything illegal they would be encouraged to blow their gambling gains on the high-roller nonsense.
If not, the casino would make it back within minutes with other poor suckers.
Someone had to win occasionally, even if the house always got you in the end.
It was, Rowan reflected, the perfect scam.
The identities Yoshi had crafted were holding up, and due to Rowan’s deft mental pressure they were about to take a duffel bag of cash instead of a cashier’s check up to a “courtesy” suite.
If all went well, in half an hour Cath and Rowan could be out of here with enough of a stake to clean up nicely at the races tomorrow, then head home with a cool quad of hundred thousands to keep the Society going until Henderson could get more legitimate funding up and running.
So close. So why did Rowan’s head suddenly hurt, little crystal needles driving into her temples? Was it the strain of keeping a shield of illusion tight and seamless so nobody noticed she was armed?
No, that’s pretty easy. Nobody expects to see a mousy brunette with a sidearm in a casino. Their eyes want to be fooled, even this man’s. I shouldn’t be feeling like this.
But she was.
“I am not going to waste it.” Cath played the whiny winner so perfectly Rowan was hard put not to laugh. She also did a dead-on nasal Eastern seaboard twang, a whole new unsuspected talent. “I just don’t see why I should cash out if I’m on a winning streak.”
“Trust me,” Rowan said dryly. “Haven’t I been right about everything else?”
“Shut up.” Cath shot her a murderous look, blue-violet eyes flashing, and the urge to giggle rose again.
The man appeared, with the bag. “We’ll count it in front of you,” he said, pleasantly enough.
He was one of the casino’s security officers, a heavyset man with a sharp Armani suit and a diamond stud winking in his left ear.
He’d also smoked a full bowl of pot this morning.
Rowan could smell it on him, though it wasn’t an aroma any deadhead would notice.
It was more like a psychic color, the mellowness of the depressant closing him to random brushes against his mind.
She actually had to work to press him into doing what she wanted.
Which was an unexpected relief, even if it meant more effort.
“Anyway,” Rowan remembered her part with a small mental struggle, “I doubt you’ll do anything smart with it, like put it into investments.
Sure, you can count it. Though I’m sure it’s all there.
” She restrained the urge to bat her eyelashes, and the man preened.
He must have been used to women flirting with him.
His job handled a lot of things gold-diggers would be interested in.
He actually blushed, setting the bag on his desk. “Well, it’s policy. There will be a lot of people wanting to shake your hand, Miss Ernhardt. Luck makes you a lot of friends out here in Vegas. Where did you say you were from?”
It was the second time he’d asked. Trying to trip them up? Suspicious? Or just making conversation, forgetting what he’d already said?
Cath rose to the occasion, her eyes twinkling with what anyone else would have called flirtatiousness but Rowan recognized as sheer sarcastic glee.
“Rhode Island. But they don’t have anything like this out there.
My husband’s going to freak.” She looked too young to have a husband, but that wasn’t anybody’s business.
Not in Vegas.
Rowan was about to give the next line, a comment about the husband, when a familiar touch blazed through her mind like a star, contact sparking every nerve in her body. Training took over, clamped down on reaction. She didn’t stumble or sway.
Yet Cath glanced at her nervously, eyes suspiciously wide, lips parting. If the man behind the desk had been even the slightest bit sensitive, he would have caught her unease.
Lucky for us we get a casino employee with a head made of brick and dulled with marijuana. It was a snide thought, gone in a flash, that Rowan wouldn’t have recognized before as her own. She’d grown sarcastic, it seemed.
Then again, being chased down and hunted like an animal would make even Pollyanna a cynic.
Rowan juggled the touch, trying to remember what her goddamn line. “Sandy’s a good man,” she heard herself say frostily, the words arriving out of nowhere. That’s right. I’m supposed to be her sister-in-law. “He’ll be very happy. Might even want to build a rec room onto the house.”
Justin? Hoping, praying. She would know that touch anywhere.
A flood of urgency in return, tinted red with concentration. Something was dreadfully wrong, and he was nearby. So close she restrained the urge to look over her shoulder.
Cath slanted her another nervous glance, and Rowan moved. Not physically—her body did not so much as flicker an eyelash. But she suddenly strained, stretching in two directions—toward the man with the bag full of cash, and toward the aching call tugging at her mind.
The heavyset man with the diamond earring stopped dead.
She tied off the strands deftly. The man stood behind his desk, eyes half-lidded, a virtual zombie until Rowan released him or the push faded.
“He’ll remember counting it for us,” she said hoarsely.
“We’ve got to move, Cath.” Justin? Talk to me, dammit! Justin?
I’m here, angel. A flood of reassurance. He sounded like himself again, instantly recognizable, and this time she did stagger. The relief of feeling him in her head again was too intense. She grabbed the back of Cath’s chair, steadying herself.
He was here. She’d been right.
Cath bounced out of the plush cushions and to her feet in one elastic motion. “I’m shorting the cameras,” she said, the Rhode Island accent gone without a trace. “Goddammit, what is it now?”
What’s happening? She sent a wordless flood of relief, hoped she wasn’t distracting him. Talk to me.
There are four full Sig teams on the bottom floor. They’re working through the pit. Get out. Get out of here as fast as you can. She felt his concentration, and a sudden burning.
She’d felt that before. Oh, God. Please, no. This thought she kept to herself. “Four Sig teams, down on the ground floor. Cath, Justin’s here.”
“I don’t want to hear that shit,” Cath hissed. “Keep your mind on business and get us the hell out of here!”
Two guards outside. The men were waiting to escort the big winners to their courtesy suite. Rowan would have to deal with them. Cath would have her hands full stretching her moderate telekinetic ability to keep them from electronic eyes.
Justin had closed himself off, fiercely and definitely. She caught a sense of movement—he was doing something, but what? A plan. He had some sort of plan, one he wasn’t letting her see.
Then, to add insult to injury, a wild braying split the air. Cath flinched; Rowan let out a sharp yelp of surprise and grabbed her arm.
“Come on!” she yelled over the noise. Thank you, bless you for triggering that.
He didn’t reply. He probably had his hands full.
No time for subtlety, Rowan pushed as she hit the door. The two beefy men dressed in ostentatious casino security uniforms, dropped; and Rowan’s head throbbed in earnest. She hated knocking people out. It felt… well, rude.
The old Rowan wouldn’t have done something so drastic without a good bit of guilt and dithering.
She stepped over one, having to stretch; he was so tubby he’d probably look rectangular from the back.
She felt a wild hideous laugh welling up inside her at the thought of this lardass protecting anyone.
Then again, if someone went after his potato salad I bet there’d be a war to end all wars. She just missed the other man’s hand with a skipping movement almost tipping her into the wall. Not very graceful, but it got the job done.
Cath was right behind her. The hall was long, lit with fluorescents, and seemingly endless. But under a flashing Exit sign was a door that probably gave onto the stairwell. We’re on the fifth floor, she told him, heading for the fire escapes. Where are you? What can we do to help?
Just get the hell out of here, angel. Hard and clipped, and there was another drumroll of pain against his nerves. They haven’t ID’d me yet, but if I hook up with you down here—oh, shit. Get out, Rowan. Get out as fast as you can and run. Don’t wait for me.
Rowan set her jaw, her hand finding Cath’s arm. “Split up,” she yelled. “I’ll draw them off.”
“No way!” Cath yelled back over the fire alarm.
It was eerie, the way no other door in this hallway opened, even under the sonic wail.
Little lights in the walls flashing, and Rowan glanced nervously at the ceiling.
If the sprinklers went off this could turn into a right royal mess. “We’re supposed to stay together!”
Losing patience, Rowan shoved the girl. Cath stumbled, her other arm weighed with the duffel bag of cash.
“Go!” Then, to show she was serious, Rowan’s right hand blurred for her sidearm.
Cath ran, sleek dark head bobbing as she bolted for the stairwell. Rowan didn’t waste time, just turned on her heel and lunged for the second hallway branching from this one. Hang on. I’m coming.
No! Sheer refusal. Get out. Get your backup out. Go now!