Page 86 of Strip Search

“I think so too.”

“Where’s Miles?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I thought he was with you. He was going to go out to Carson City last I heard.”

“I’m not there,” I said in a small voice. Why didn’t he call? Did he lose his phone in the fire?

“Fuck a duck. I’ll see what I can find out.”

“I’ll see too.” I bundled back into my coat and my boots, cursing myself. I should have known that Miles would never ghost me. He was the only person in my life who had ever put me first. I had to go back and find him.

“Where the hell are you going?” my boss said.

“Back to Vegas.”

“No, you’re not. You just got back this morning.”

“I had an emergency come up.”

She groaned. “Not Lisa again.”

“I’ll explain later.”

“You’re lucky you still have some vacation time left. You better hurry or you’re going to get stranded on the tarmac. There’s a storm coming in.”

I ran outside and hailed a cab. It was a good thing I hadn’t unpacked yet.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Miles Carvello

The worst part of all of this was the memories. The smell of burned wires and broken dreams. I walked through the wreckage. It had been arson all right. Mav had smelled the gasoline when he was doing his final rounds at four a.m. He had tried to put it out with a fire extinguisher, but it had spread too fast. At least he had enough time to clear the building and no one got hurt.

“Miles?”

I had to do a double take. I almost didn’t recognize Ginny in street clothes and sneakers. “Not now,” I said. I didn’t have the energy to fight. I was still sporting a hangover from drinking myself to sleep on Highway’s couch last night.

She walked up to me anyway, steadying herself as she climbed over the rubble. “This is for you.” She pressed a compact disk in my hands.

“What’s this?”

“This is the security footage from the bail bondsman office. You didn’t get it from me.”

Both Konner and Dieter’s pawn shop and the bail bondsman had claimed their security cameras had been off last night. Our tapes burned up in the fire. There had been no evidence except for circumstantial, just like when my uncle’s club was torched.

“How did you get it?”

“I took it from Leonidas, who took it from the bondsman.”

“He’s going to kill you. We have to get you protection.”

“Look, I’m not stupid,” Ginny said. “No matter what you think. He’s not going to realize it’s missing. I swapped it with one of Dee’s CDs. He destroyed the evidence this morning.” She put finger quotes around the word “evidence.”

“Dee?”

“Yeah, she told me keep away from Dalton’s Saturday night, so I stayed at her apartment in Pahrump. Leonidas came by with a few friends after he got bailed out.” She gave a chuckle. “You did a number on his face. He was already bragging that Dalton’s was going to burn to the ground. He got Zeke to do it.”

“Zeke?”