3 Sin City Hunter (9 page)

I walked
out onto the b
ridge again
and
stood
facing Lake Mead
. I pulled out my phone and contemplated calling Mick. He would be skiing with Alex, so I knew this wouldn’t be a good time to call. Besides, what could I say to him? “
Hi, honey. If you see pictures of me and another man in s
ome compromising positions,
ignore them.
T
hey don’t mean anything
.” No. I had to tell him about this in person. It would have to wait until he arrived on Fri
day, and I could only hope
he wouldn’t see or hear about it in the meantime.

I glanced
at my watch. Only ten minutes had elapsed since Darby and my parents left for their tour. This was going to take longer than I thought. I decided to look through the gift shop. If
I considered every single item, my browsing
would kill some time.

I turned to walk toward the parking garage
where the gift shop was located,
an
d stopped in my tracks. N
ot fifty feet from me, was Dudley, and he wasn’t tipping his hat to me, he was glaring at me.

There was absolutely no way I was going to put up with someone following me. I was already irritated, and I was going to nip this in the bud right now.

I marched up to Dudley, poked in him the chest with my fi
nger and said, “Enough is enough
! Why are you following me?”

He jerked his head back
while stepping out of reach of my finger
. His hands showed his nervousness as he attempted to straighten his tie. “Lady,” he said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t even know you were here.
The sun was in my eyes.
”

“You were look
ing right at me!” I
shrieked at him. “I see you wherever I go, and you’re always looking at me.”

“Oh, for the love of Pete,” he said with
annoyance
. “Lady, I’m on vacation.
I assume yo
u are, too. I can’t help it if
we’re both in the same hotel and ending up in the same places at the same time. I’m sure when I leave here, I’ll see you back in Vegas.”

“No,” I told him while shaking my head. “No. It’s too much of a coincidence. Something’s going on here.”

“Lady, I gotta go,” he said while starting to move away from me and
glancing
toward an open parking area. “I’m not following you. I go where my wife tells me to go. This is more her vacation than mine, and she’s over there
waving
to me, so I know she’s ready to leave. I’m sorry if I alarmed you.” He turned and walked away before I could respond.

A wife? I hadn’t seen him with a woman, and I certainly didn’t see one over by the vehicles. I didn’t believe what he was telling me, and I still didn’t know if he posed a threat or not.

I made my way to the gift shop.
I needed to compartmentalize all of this frustration and
start
enjoy
ing
the day. I had always told the girls at the Slimmers center to put their problems in a box and leave it outside the door when they came to work; they could pick it up again when they left. It was a good mental exercise for all of us, and I think keeping personal drama out of our workday helped tremendously in keeping our center
at
number one in our
division
.

My stomach did a little flutter at the thought of going to the Slimmers Corporate O
ffices on Tuesday. I was
looking forward to meeting the people I had only heard about or talked
with
over the telephone
for the past few years
.
It
would be fun to finally meet them.

I
entered
the gift shop and
had to stifle a laugh
. A
bin of rocks for sale
was
just inside the door
.
They were p
robably from the same bunch of loose rocks I had wanted
to pick up and throw at Dudley.

The shop was filled with typical gift store fodder - books, postcards, greeting cards, t-shirts, coasters,
and
puzzles
.
The dam statues made me laugh. Did people really buy these? I came across
a display
of shot glasses and
picked one up to purchase
.
Whenever Darby and I traveled together, I always bought a shot glass, usually from the airport gift shop
, and we actually used them. I chose an embossed glass for our little collection. After Mick and I were married, I
probably
wouldn’t be
traveling
with Darby anymore, and Mick and I would have to start our own little collection of something.

After
double-checking to be sure
I had looked
over
all of the merchandise
in the shop, I figure
d I had killed enough time, and
the tour would be over
. I paid for my glass and left the shop.

As I
headed
back toward the bridge, I saw the three of them coming
toward me
. Dad and Darby were both wearing Hoover Dam hats, and Mom was carrying a bag of souvenirs. They were laughing
,
and
it was obvious
they’d
had a good time together.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“It’s
beautiful on you,” the salesgirl said to me as I did a bit of a twirl in the dress.

I had decided to soothe my rattled nerves by doing some shopping. Mick would be coming in on Friday, and our big evening out would be on Saturday. We were dining at Joel Robuchon, followed by a gondola ride at The Venetian. Afterward, we would be catching up with Mom, Dad, Darby, and Nate at the Paris Hotel to see Barry Manilow.

I was in the Paris Hotel trying on an
antique white, Hepburn-esque dress. It was made of duchess satin with a soft
organza overlay. The skirt had a
touch of fullness. The satin created a straight-cut
,
strapless silhouette
,
with the
organza creating the
sleeveless, see-through look with a Sabrina neckline. White was in this w
inter, and the dress was
really pretty
.
It was sexy and had a flirty look about it.
Mick would love it, and so did I.

“
I love it
, but I want a dress for Saturday night, and it’ll be too cold to go sleeveless. I don’t think my trench coat will do it justice,” I told the salesgirl with a little laugh.

“Juste une minute, s’il vous plait,” she said as she
rushed to another display on the floor
.

She returned a
few moments
later with a short, black, bolero-style sweater in cashmere. The long sleeves were fitted, and the sweater had an open front which showed off the dress
beautifully. It was
perfect and would provide the warmth I would need for any cool night air we might encounter.

“I wish I could wear th
e
dress as you do,” she s
aid with a sigh.

“You’re very kind,” I told her with a smile. I turned several more times
,
lookin
g the dres
s over in the mirror. I let out a little squeal as I
said, “I’ll take it.”

After changing back into my clothes,
the salesgirl carefu
lly folded and boxed the
dress and sweater. She expertly tied the box with string to make it easier for me to carry. It
was an amazing feeling
to reach into my purse and pull out several hundred dollar bills rather than a credit card. Thank you, craps table. I left the shop and started the short walk back to the MGM.

My disposition had completely changed. Spending the afternoon downtown had been fun.
Mom and Darby were
inseparable and had gone down th
e zip line three times
. You could hear
M
om laughing from beginning to end. They then
dashed
off together to check out all of the casinos downtown in search of a
loose
slot machine. Dad and I
spent our time in the Golden Nugget playing poker. By the time Mom and Darby came back for us, Dad and I were both up a couple hundred dollars, while they had lost more than that on Cash Wizard slot machines.

We weren’t meeting again for the evening until 6:30, so I had slipped out to the Paris Hotel to look for a dress. I couldn’t wait to wear it for Mick, and the entire experience had lifted my spirits. I wasn’t going to worry about the newspapers, Carl, or Dudley any more.

Darby was
in the
shower when I returned to the hot
el room. He quickly finished
in the bathroom and emerged in a pair of khaki shorts. “Hi, Sunshine. Where’ve you been?” he asked.

“I’ve been spending some of my winnings at the Paris Hotel,” I told him excitedly as I
untied
the string on the box and
opened it to show him
. I held
the dress
up to myself and moved back and forth a bit.

“Wow, Susan, that’s
one sexy dress,” he said in appreciation as he reached out to touch the luxurious satin and soft organza. “It looks like s
omething Audrey Hepburn would have
worn.”

“That’s what I thought!” I told him. I
slipped
the dress on
to
a hanger and hung it in the closet. I want to wear it for my
date
with Mick on Saturday night, so I had to get something to keep me warm, too.” I pulled out the black cashmere sweater to show him.

“O
oh, you know how much I love cashmere,” he said as he lightly rubbed the soft sweater against his ch
eek. “This will be perfect, and
I love simple black and white together.”

“What are you wearing tonight?” I asked him as I
folded t
he sweater
and put it
away. “Are we still dressing casually?”

“Yep
,” he said. “
Dad has tickets for a magic act at 7:00 in the small theater, and then we’re going to eat at Emeril’s here in the hotel. We might run down to see the fountains at the Bell
agio, but Mom said we can see them
another night if we
just
want to
stay in the casino tonight.”

I smiled. I loved it that Mom and Dad liked Darby so much
, and
he was comfortable to call them Mom and Dad to me. They would like Mick, too, but it would probably be different. Mick was five years older than Darby and was part owner of a construction company. Darby worked at home as a freelance web and marketing writer. Having been married before
,
and with a teenage son, Mick was more gr
ounded than Darby and not
so quick to jump into whatever good time was being had by all.

I was going to have to try and find a middle ground somewhere. My friends from the racquetball club were a lot of fun, and we all had a good time
together
, but we d
id some
crazy things
which
usually involv
ed
drinking
.
I didn’t want to
put myself in
situations where I would embarrass or upset Mick
-
like with Dell Grady
–
so I was going to have to find a happy medium.

“Ok,” I told Darby. “I’m going to grab a quick shower and change. I won’t be too long. Are you going downstairs?”

“No,” he said. “
I think I’ll
crash on the bed and surf for cooking shows until you’re ready.” He picked up the remote, flopped on the bed, and turned on the television. Darby and I watched a lot of cooking shows when we were together at home, and we were frequently in my kitchen trying out new recipes.
He
kept a box in his apartment with all of
the
keeper
recipes we had tried and
given a thumbs-up to.

After a lightning-
fast shower,
I
blow
dried my hair, and changed into dark navy jeans tucked into black suede knee boots. I finished the outfit with a red
,
v-neck
,
cropped cardigan with long sleeves. I buttoned up the four buttons, quickly applied my makeup, and I was ready to go.