Part 6 (2/2)

Rowan stood next to Cath's chair, her 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 of them. 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 had 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 more gambling or the high-roller nonsense. If not, the casino would make it back within minutes with other poor suckers.

Someone had to win, even if the house always got you in the end.

It was, Rowan reflected, the perfect scam.

The ident.i.ties Yos.h.i.+ 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 cas.h.i.+er'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, and 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 start to hurt, like little crystal needles driving into her temples? Was it the strain of keeping the s.h.i.+eld of illusion tight and seamless so none of the people looking at her noticed she was wearing a gun?

No, that's pretty easy. n.o.body expects to see a mousy brunette with a sidearm in a casino. It goes against expectations. 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 tw.a.n.g, something Rowan had no idea she could do. ”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 flas.h.i.+ng, and the urge to giggle rose again.

The man came out with the bag. ”We'll count it in front of you,” he said pleasantly. He was one of the casino's security officers, a nice heavyset man with a sharp Armani suit and a diamond stud winking in his left ear. He'd smoked a full bowl of pot this morning. Rowan could smell it on him, though it wasn't a smell any deadhead would notice. It was more like a psychic color, the mellowness of the depressant closing him off to her random brushes against his mind. She actually had to work to press him into doing what she wanted. It was an unexpected relief, even if it meant more effort. Her head was really starting to pound.

”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 at him, 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 a little, 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 that. Trying to trip them up? Suspicious? Or just making conversation and forgetting what he'd already asked?

Cath rose to the occasion, her eyes twinkling with what anyone else would have called flirtatiousness but Rowan recognized as 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 here in Vegas.

Rowan was about to give her next line, a comment about the husband, when a familiar touch blazed through her mind like a star, its contact sliding against every nerve in her body. Training took over and clamped down on her reaction. She didn't stumble or sway. Yet Cath glanced at her nervously, her eyes suspiciously wide and her 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, there and gone in a flash, a thought 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 she was supposed to say. ”Sandy's a nice man,” she heard herself say frostily, the words coming 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? She sent out the ”call,” hoping, praying. It was him. She would know that touch anywhere.

There was a flood of urgency in return, tinted red with concentration. Something was dreadfully wrong, and he was close. So close she restrained the urge to look back 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 as Rowan's mental push unbalanced him. She tied off the strands deftly. The man suddenly 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 hoa.r.s.ely.

”We've got to move, Cath. Something's wrong.” Justin? Talk to me, dammit! Justin?

I'm here, angel. A flood of rea.s.surance. 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. He was here. She'd been right.

Cath bounced out of the plush cus.h.i.+oned chair and to her feet in one elastic motion. ”I'm shorting the cameras,” she said, the Rhode Island accent gone as soon as it had arrived. ”G.o.ddammit, what is it now?”

What's happening? She sent a wordless flood of relief and hoped she wasn't distracting him. Justin?

Talk to me?

There are four full Sig teams down here on the bottom floor. They're working through the pit. Getout. Get out of here as fast as you can. She felt his concentration, and a sudden burning swept through her, making her flinch.

She'd felt that before. Oh, G.o.d. Please, no. This thought she kept to herself. To Cath, she said, ”Four Sig teams, down on the ground floor. Cath, Justin's here.”

”I don't want to hear that s.h.i.+t,” Cath hissed. ”Keep your mind on business and get us the h.e.l.l 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 from her, fiercely and definitely. She caught a sense of movement-he was moving, 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, and Rowan let out a sharp yelp of surprise and grabbed her arm. ”Fire alarm!” she yelled over the noise. ”Come on!” Thank you, bless you, thank you- 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 in the hall, and Rowan's head began to pound 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 of them, 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 larda.s.s protecting anyone.

Then again, if someone went after his potato salad I bet there'd be a battle to end all battles, she thought, just missing the other man's hand with a skipping movement that almost tipped her into the wall.

Not very graceful, but it got the job done.

Cath was right behind her. The hall was long, lit with fluorescent lights, and seemingly endless. But at the end, under a flas.h.i.+ng Exit sign, was a door that probably gave onto the stairwell. We're on the fifth floor, she ”told” Justin, heading for the fire escapes. Where are you? What can we do to help you?

Just get the h.e.l.l out of here, angel. The words were 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, s.h.i.+t.

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. ”Get out of here,” she yelled. ”Split up, I'll draw them off!”

”No way!” Cath yelled back over the a.s.sault of 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 were flas.h.i.+ng, and Rowan glanced nervously up 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 down with the duffel bag of cash. ”Go!” Then, to show she was serious, her right hand reached for her gun.

Cath ran. Her short black hair bobbed as she bolted for the stairwell. Rowan didn't waste time, just turned on her heel and lunged for the second hall branching off from this one. Hang on, Justin. I'mcoming.

No! Sheer refusal. Get out. Get your backup out. Go now!

How had they found her? Well, where else could the Society replenish their coffers in short order? Go where the money is, that was a standard law. Maybe they'd just been waiting around for someone to make a run, or maybe her codestringing with Yos.h.i.+ this morning had tripped an alarm.

I'm coming, she told him, stubbornly. I haven't gone through the past three months to lose you now.

Another stairwell, as she'd predicted. Know your exits. She could still hear Justin's voice in the long, dim, faraway region of time that had been her training. Knowing your exits will get you out of any number of tight spots.

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