LITMIR.BIZ

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her voice to a whisper. “He worked for our boss, you know. Emil Landon, the guy who owns this place. So in a way, it was a coworker who was killed. He died right on top of some poor woman.” She looked more closely at Jessy and gasped. “What’s wrong? You’re white as a ghost. Hadn’t you heard about it?”

      “No, I knew about it.”

      “I’m sure it has nothing to do with us. It was probably someone he used to know before he took up the bodyguard business. Still, I guess none of us should go walking to our cars alone these days. Vegas has never been number one in the low-crime sweepstakes.”

      “No,” Jessy agreed.

      “You’re not walking to your car alone now, are you?” April asked her, concerned.

      “No, I’m meeting—I’m going to the Strip. You have someone to walk you to your car, right?”

      “I’m going to the Strip, too. Now get out of here. I’ll be right behind you!”

      Jessy left the dressing room, unnerved. As she closed the door behind her, she guiltily hoped she was shutting “Mr. Creepy” in with April. She hurried past the empty theater, anxious to get to the casino floor, where there would be bells, lights and lots of people.

      

      Dillon wondered if she was really going to show, or if she would find a way to avoid him.

      But it was almost exactly half an hour from the time she had left him that she walked through the front door of Chen’s.

      Vegas was filled with beautiful women. Most of them not only had killer bodies but glorious faces and legs that went on forever. And in this city, where a good showgirl was pretty much guaranteed a high-paying job, most of them came with enhanced breasts, as well.

      As he watched Jessy Sparhawk come through the door and pause to look around the restaurant, he tried to analyze her appeal. Long sleek hair cascaded like a sunset down her back. Her eyes were large and expressive. Her figure was perfectly curved, but natural in every way. Her legs seemed long enough to stretch to China, and the symmetry of her features made her look simultaneously elegant, confident—and sweetly vulnerable. Nothing about her had grown hard yet, as so often happened to women out here.

      He tried to figure out what made her so special, but an answer escaped him. It might have been her voice, the way she could speak so quietly yet be heard so clearly.

      Hell, it might have been her ears or her kneecaps, for God’s sake. It was impossible to fathom what made her so appealing. She just was.

      She was casual now. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup, and she had donned a cobalt-blue dress that echoed the color of her eyes. There was nothing showy about the way it fell to her knees and bared her arms, but when she moved, the outfit became a thing of beauty.

      Ringo gave a low whistle.

      Ignoring him, Dillon stood as she approached the booth and extended a hand. She accepted and sat, though she was actually perching on the edge of the seat, rather than actually sitting.

      “Miss Jessy,” their waitress said, hurrying over before Dillon could say anything. Evidently Jessy had chosen a place she frequented. Was that a good sign? Or just the first thing that had come to her mind?

      “Hi, Mai,” Jessy said, smiling broadly at the pretty, young Chinese woman. “How are you?”

      “Good, good, I bring Michael on Saturday?” Mai asked anxiously.

      “Please do. I promise we’ll see that he has a great time,” Jessy assured her.

      “Thank you. I pour your tea,” Mai told her, suiting her action to her words and picking up the pot of tea in front of Dillon. He’d been pleased to discover that they brewed some of the most delicious green tea he’d ever tasted.

      “So our waitress is Mai and she has a son?” Dillon said after Mai left them to decide on their order.

      “She and her husband own the restaurant,” Jessy said. “And they have a four-year-old. He’s the cutest little thing I’ve ever seen.”

      “If the food is as good as the tea, this is going to be a great dinner.”

      She cocked her head toward him and almost smiled. Apparently she appreciated a man who knew good tea, he thought.

      But not that much, he added silently as she spoke.

      “I don’t understand what you want. I don’t understand what you think I can tell you. You were there last night. I never saw that man before he died on top of me,” she said, cutting to the chase.

      “I just thought that, if we spent a little time talking, something might occur to you,” he said, watching her eyes.

      She stared across the table at him and shook her head. “You work for Emil Landon.”

      “Actually, you’ve worked for him longer than I have. I’ve only just been hired by the man.”

      “Because he thinks he’s in danger,” Jessy said flatly.

      “Yes.”

      “What do you think?”

      “I don’t know what to think yet,” Dillon told her truthfully. “I’m trying to find out more about the man. There are a lot of rumors, but if you go through public documents and legal records, you can get a feel for someone. He’s rich. He owns a casino. Whether he’s really played it rough and created a few financial corpses along the way, or gotten in with the wrong connections, who knows? He doesn’t trust anyone.”

      “It doesn’t sound as if you like him much.”

      “Do you?” he asked her.

      She shook her head. “I don’t know him. I’ve seen him on the news, but I’ve never actually seen him in person. It’s unlikely I would have any cause to meet him, unless he suddenly decided to bring in a pack of little kids.”

      He sipped his tea, not wanting her to see him smile at the thought of how well she dealt with children. It was nice. Although, admittedly, he found himself so entranced by her that she might have said that lap dances were her thing and he would have found a way to find that nice, too.

      Mai returned to the table, and to Dillon’s pleased surprise, Jessy looked at him hesitantly and asked if it would be all right if she and Mai decided on their order. He grinned and told her to go right ahead.

      Jessy seemed to be relaxing. She was at least sitting all the way back in the booth now.

      “It must be difficult for you,” she mused, sipping her tea after Mai had left again. “Emil Landon certainly has a past, maybe a lot of enemies. And Tanner Green—from what I saw on the news, he had a past, as well. It does seem strange that a man as big as he was went down without a fight. You have to get close to use a knife.”

      She looked thoughtful as she spoke. Dillon wondered if she was disturbed or just stating facts.

      “It suggests that he was with someone he trusted,” Dillon said. “Also, in a place as densely populated as a casino, it’s easy to get close to someone without them noticing. But he might have been stabbed before he even got to the casino. Not enough evidence yet to be certain of much.”

      She gave a little shudder and offered him a rueful smile. “I feel guilty saying this, but it’s reassuring to think that someone wanted Tanner Green dead. It’s better than thinking there’s a killer out there, seeking victims at random.”

      “It’s more comforting, yes,” Dillon agreed.

      The meal arrived, and Dillon thought he had passed muster, because Jessy introduced him to Mai as a friend. Jessy had ordered two dishes, one chicken and one beef dish, one Cantonese and one Mandarin, and both were delicious. There were a few precious moments when the food first arrived that felt almost like being on a regular date. But she hadn’t agreed to go on a date with him; she’d agreed—reluctantly—to see him because

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