him for her death. She’d punched and slapped him because he wouldn’t bring her back. But he had never liked Grandma and without her around he had his mother all to himself. Right up until she’d set herself on fire and tried to take him with her.
Dale knew he was not an attractive man. He had never filled out. He looked like he were on chemotherapy. His childhood acne had never fully gone away and had left his complexion scarred and pitted. His posture was bowed with narrow shoulders that rolled inward making him look almost hunchbacked. He looked like Gollum from
Sarah’s husband was the same type of guy who’d teased Dale all of his life, the high school jock who got to fuck the homecoming queen in the back of his daddy’s car. Dale could never have gotten a woman like that to give him the time of day. That’s why God had given him this gift. It evened everything out. It allowed him to have things he wouldn’t normally be able to touch, things like Sarah Lincoln.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sarah and Josh were at the top of the Stratosphere hotel, the tallest building in the city, strapped into a thrill ride a hundred stories, 1,081 feet, above the strip, prepared to be rocketed to the very top of the tower at forty-five miles per hour and then dropped 160 feet. She could see all the way up Las Vegas Boulevard from Sahara to St. Rose.
“I am scared to fucking death!” Sarah called out to Josh.
“Me too!”
The air jets went off, propelling Sarah and her husband straight up, the sky rushing toward her, the wind whipping tears from her eyes and splaying them across her face. Sarah screamed, then laughed when she realized that Josh was screaming too. The ride paused at the top. Weightlessness. Then it began a vertical free fall almost more terrifying than the ascent. It felt as if they were falling all 1,081 feet rather than 160. The street below rushed up toward them and Sarah felt as if they would just keep falling all the way down to Las Vegas Boulevard.
She could imagine herself and her husband shattered on the concrete and asphalt, their bones and organs spilling out from the broken sacks of flesh that had contained them and intermingling in a bloody collage of mangled meat. The ride slowed and when it neared the bottom it bounced back up. Then weightlessness again, then another bounce before it came to a halt.
Her heart felt as if it had risen into her throat and then collapsed down into her stomach. Josh looked like he was going to throw up.
“Oh shit.”
It was all either of them could say.
They left the Stratosphere and went to the Sahara to ride Speed, another air-propulsion ride that traveled at incredibly fast speeds and left her feeling as if her stomach had leaped up into her chest. From there they walked up the strip to Circus Circus. Las Vegas Boulevard was packed. Tourists were walking by staring at the hotels and not paying attention to where they were going. One of them bumped into her and Josh started to go after him. The guy began stammering out a hurried apology as Josh lunged for him.
“It’s okay. He said he was sorry.”
Josh relaxed slightly and they continued walking again but this time Josh walked slightly ahead of her, holding Sarah’s hand and pushing anyone out of the way who looked like they were about to bump into her. He almost knocked one kid into the street and Sarah had to restrain Josh again when the guy called him a dick.
“Well, you were being a dick. Now, relax. I can take care of myself. It’s so crowded down here that you can’t really expect no one to bump into me and you can’t kick everyone’s ass. I don’t want you to get shot over something stupid.” Josh considered it and tried to relax. He still walked the rest of the way with one arm around Sarah’s waist and the other hand in front of them, deflecting pedestrians.
They finally made it to Circus Circus and Sarah headed straight for the Canyon Blaster, an indoor roller coaster that was just a bit of a disappointment after riding the Big Shot and Speed but was fun nonetheless. Then they went on to ride the big roller coaster at New York-New York. Sarah’s pulse felt as if she’d just run a 10k at full sprint.
“You ready for lunch now?”
Sarah nodded.
“I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t eat first.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“It’s either Spago or Little Buddha’s.”
“Mmmm! Sushi.”
“Little Buddha’s it is.”
They made their way to the parking garage. Sarah felt so happy she was almost giddy. The past few nights had been so terrible, so unbelievably horrific, that riding roller coasters and heading over to the Palms hotel to eat sushi in a four-star restaurant felt surreal. This day felt far more dreamlike than the nightmares she’d been having.
Little Buddha’s was a Japanese restaurant that had one of the most romantic atmospheres of any restaurant in Las Vegas. The decor was black and red with a twenty-foot bronze Buddha overlooking the dining area. Sarah and Josh were seated at a booth opposite the bar, which was already crammed with yuppies, models, and young club- hopping tourists as well as a few highend call girls. Even among this gathering of Las Vegas’s most beautiful, Sarah stood out.
Wearing only a T-shirt and jeans and with her hair pulled back in an unruly ponytail, she easily shamed the heavily made-up, surgically enhanced twentysomethings in their designer dresses and their hundred-dollar hairdos. Josh was staring at her with those love-struck puppy-dog eyes that made her melt inside. He reached out and took her hand. Sarah smiled and the candlelight twinkled off the tears in her eyes.
“I love you, Sarah.”
“I love you too, Josh.”
The waiter came by and took their wine order, then whisked away and came back almost instantly with a bottle of Riesling. Josh loved sweet wines and, though she loved to tease him about it, secretly, so did Sarah. They went down the sushi menu, ordering only the fanciest rolls. Josh was allergic to shellfish but in these small quantities it was relatively harmless. Between the two of them they ordered seven rolls.
“You should have brought Benadryl with you. I ordered a bunch of rolls that have shrimp in them.”
“Mmmm. I love tempura shrimp rolls. Besides, I have an early warning system. My lips will swell long before my throat does. As soon as I feel my lips start tingling I just back off the shrimp and start drinking a bunch of water.”
“Well that sounds sexy. I always wanted to kiss Dizzy Gillespie.”
“What if I told you that I looked more like Steven Tyler when I go anaphylactic?”
“Steven Tyler in the seventies or now?”
“Hmmm? I’m not sure. You’ll just have to let me know.”
The first few rolls arrived and Josh went straight for the tempura shrimp roll wrapped in eel.
As fast as the rolls came Sarah and Josh cleaned them from their plates. When they were finished they both felt as if they would burst. Sarah’s tongue still burned from the wasabi. She doused her taste buds with the last of the wine, reducing the fire in her mouth to a pleasant sting.
The rest of the day was spent sightseeing, window-shopping, and eating. They wandered through the Forum shops at Caesar’s Palace, pausing to watch the talking Greek statues do their once-an-hour show, before wandering through Hugo Boss, Versace, and Calvin Klein. They crossed the street to the Bellagio and wandered through the Prada store and Sarah almost succeeded in talking Josh into a $900 handbag. Hours later, hungry again, they wound up at Fleur de Lis where, just as she’d promised, Sarah got Josh to try caviar for the first time.
She ordered a two-ounce tin of beluga caviar that came with chopped shallots, egg whites, and sour
