a camera. The flash blinded me for a second, giving me a panic attack as I thought about the flashes that had gone off the night before when I was out with Harry. If they were taking pictures, would those end up on a blog, too?
Jeff touched my arm. “It’s okay, Kavanaugh. It’s just a bunch of kids,” he said softly.
I’d tried not to react outwardly, but I guess I was more jumpy than I’d thought.
“It’s her!” This shout came from another one of the kids, a pimply, white teenager who was dressed like a wannabe rapper, like the kid on the monorail earlier.
What did he mean: It’s her?
I had a bad feeling about this.
“You killed her!”
Every muscle in my body was so tight I felt like I would snap in half. They’d seen the blog. Or blogs. The ones that had me pinned as Daisy’s murderer.
The limo door started to open now, and I saw a foot clad in a black patent leather shoe emerge.
“I thought you looked familiar,” the limo driver said as his whole body materialized. He was tall, muscular, his fists clenched in tight balls, his jaw set firmly as his eyes narrowed at me.
I glanced around for an escape, but there didn’t seem to be one. That chain-link fence surrounded us, no discernible exit. The door to the arena was still shut and locked. The fence provided a barrier between us and those kids, but this limo driver looked like he wanted a piece of me.
Jeff got in between us, shielding me.
“She’s not who you think she is,” he tried.
The limo driver was not to be deterred. “That’s her,” he said, taking another step toward us.
The kids began to chant, “Get her, get her, get her.”
My heart began to pound so loudly, their voices faded. I felt dizzy, and I reached out toward Jeff to balance myself, but he brushed me off and took a step toward the limo driver, who took a swing at him.
Before I could blink, Jeff had slung the guy over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes and slammed him into the hard pavement.
The guy landed with a thud, the wind knocked out of him, his eyes circling the sky as if they didn’t have a place to land.
I suppressed an urge to give Jeff a high five. He was looking down at the guy, whose feet were twitching, and then he looked up at me. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, his tone urgent. His eyes moved toward the fence.
The kids were scaling it, screaming now that we were murderers. They clearly hadn’t heard that the police had arrested Sherman Potter, and with this limo driver limp on the ground, they probably thought we were serial killers.
Weren’t there any security guards around here? I mean, it was the MGM’s arena. You’d think there would be some sort of security. I guess they figured they wouldn’t need it because the door was locked and the celebrities were inside.
Sadly, though, I had become a celebrity, too, it seemed. But for the wrong reasons.
“Come on, Kavanaugh!” Jeff yanked open the door to the limo. The driver was starting to get up.
I ran around the front of the limo and opened the passenger side. I knew what Jeff was going to do, and while I wasn’t sure I liked it, I didn’t think we had much choice. The first kid had already landed on this side of the fence, and he was waving a pink flamingo. The one with the tiara. The kid behind him had a broken beer bottle.
Okay, time to leave.
Jeff turned over the engine and put his foot to the accelerator.
“Strap yourself in!” he shouted.
I struggled for a second with the seat belt as I watched the fence come up fast. I’d just latched the belt when I felt the impact of the Hummer against the fence. But because of its size, the limo sailed right through.
Jeff drove the Hummer along the long driveway that spit us out onto Koval Lane at Tropicana. His hands relaxed on the steering wheel as we sat at the light.
“You do know that we stick out like a sore thumb?” I asked. “Hummer limo carjacked by tattooed killer. It’ll be all over the papers tomorrow. While we’re sitting in jail.”
“You’re so pessimistic, Kavanaugh,” Jeff said, and the way he said it meant he had a plan.
When the light changed, the Hummer veered right. That’s when I heard the sirens.
“How are we going to dump this thing and not be seen?” I asked.
It seemed like a logical question, but Jeff just grunted something that vaguely sounded like “Trust me.”
The Hummer went through the next set of lights and we turned left. And into the driveway at Excalibur.
Excalibur is one of the Strip’s oldest resort casinos, built like a castle, but a really fake one. It didn’t even pretend to look like a real one, just a cartoon version of a castle, the kind of castle Ace would paint. It was a place to go if you wanted a cheap room or if you had a family, because kids loved the place.
“Get out,” Jeff said when the valet came over. Jeff shoved the keys in the guy’s hand, came around to my side, and shuffled me off into the resort.
“You’re just leaving it here?” I asked.
“Why not?”
We went up the escalator to the next level. It was more fake castle in here, with fake stonework and fake balconies. A kiosk selling kitschy souvenirs was at the top of the escalators. They had a restaurant here that was supposed to be like Henry VIII’s court, where you ate big turkey legs and pounded on the table for more mead. I hoped Jeff didn’t want to have dinner. I didn’t think I could deal with that right now.
Instead, however, he was leading me outside and toward the monorail that ran between Excalibur, the Luxor, which was shaped like an Egyptian pyramid, and Mandalay Bay, whose gold tower shimmered over the Strip. I hoped we weren’t going to the Luxor, because that place creeped me out even more than Excalibur. It was way too dark inside.
“Where are we going?” I asked when the monorail began to move.
Jeff wasn’t paying attention. He was leaning over me, looking down at the Hummer in the driveway at the Excalibur. It was surrounded by three police cars.
“They’re going to know it was us,” I said. “I mean, those kids can identify me. So can the driver. We might as well give ourselves up.” Easy to say when we were gliding along the rail, passing the Luxor-much to my relief-and on toward Mandalay Bay.
“When we’re having dinner, you can call your brother,” Jeff said. “Explain.”
I frowned. Dinner?
“I’m hungry, and I’m glad we’re not at that concert.” Jeff stood up as the monorail slid into the station.
The doors opened, and I followed Jeff out.
We walked down the stairs and toward the casino. As we turned another corner, a glassed-in shop distracted us. It was a tattoo shop.
“Do you know them?” I asked Jeff. I had met the owner once.
Jeff nodded, then put his arm around me to steer me away. “We don’t have time to stop in.”
I hadn’t really wanted to “stop in.” If we did, we’d have to pretend that we were out like everyone else, that we hadn’t stolen a Hummer limo and abandoned it in front of Excalibur. We’d have to make small talk-oh, yes, business is quite good, how’s yours-and it would be way too much effort.
No, it was better we were winding our way through the casino toward the restaurants and shops.
Jeff stopped at one of the restaurant entrances, but when I looked into yet another dark hallway, I pulled back and shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Trust me,” he said for the second time that night and led me to a staircase leading down.
We were pretty high up, and to our right was what looked like a wine cellar encased in glass that stretched from the high ceiling down two stories to the bottom floor. A woman who looked remarkably like a Bond girl,
