Chapter
52
Dress hiked up and bunched in one hand, I sprint away from the casino floor, thechngh chngh chnghof someone cashing out ringing in my ears, and book it up the escalator, through the food court.
I shove past people standing in line—there’s a smattering ofHey!andWatch it!—and speed toward the carpeted passageway that connects to the neighboring casinos. I check over my shoulder, thinking maybe I lost him, and—shit!—there’s Mark Winterson, coming after me at a light jog, jacket thrown over his shoulder. So I pick up the pace, heading for the Bellagio.
Groups of tourists are clustered in the hall, some of them staring and pointing.
I realize that I’m still clutching the bouquet, and I raise it above my head. Ahead of me, people gasp and shout, pressing closer and raising their hands to catch it, so I lob it as hard as I can toward them as I run past, and there’s some commotion as they scuffle to get it. Behind me, someone cheers.
“Ruby!” Mark Winterson calls after me. “Hey!”
I twist around to confirm that, yes, he is actually still running after me, red-faced and furious in the suit he was planning to get married in. “Come back!” he yells. “Stop! Don’t make this harder than it has to be!”
I wrench off the ring and toss it at him, and he yelps and goes scrambling after it. Maybe trying to recoup his investment will slow him down long enough for me to get away.
I rush through the winding hallways and down another escalator, weaving more deftly between groups of people than Mark Winterson on the freeway, and wrench the veil off my head and toss that too.
A burst of floral scent overtakes me as I jog past the conservatory, with its fountains and unreal displays of plants. I nearly lose my balance on the smooth marble floor as I risk a glance behind me again—and sure enough, there, far down the hall, is Mark Winterson. He’s slowed to a brisk power-walk—maybe because he hates making a scene—but he’s still tailing me without hurrying, which is somehow even more sinister.
I scramble up and race through the lobby, beneath the Dale Chihuly glass blooming from the ceiling, and slip into the revolving door, panic rising as they force me to slow my pace, thinking,Can this thing go any faster?
Then the summer Vegas heat envelops me like a cozy oven, and I take off running down the drive alongside the iconic fountain.There’s no way he’ll follow me outside. Too sweaty.
Across Las Vegas Boulevard, a giant poster of Martha Stewart beams at me from the fake Arc de Triomphe. Something tells me to run toward it, and the lights are on my side—I barely catch the tail end of a Walk signal as I sprint across the twelve-lane street, sweating profusely into this (surely expensive) gown.
I don’t see Mark Winterson behind me anymore. There’s a busy street between us, but I don’t know how much time that will buy me, so I scramble inside Paris and duck behindone leg of the fake Eiffel Tower, fumbling my phone out of my purse.
And my first instinct is to call Greg.
Multiple giant television screens on the wall in front of me show the same racehorse sprinting from different angles.Relatable,I think as the phone rings and rings.Run, girl, run!
“Ruby? Are you all right?” Greg answers. “Where are you?”
“P-paris! Paris!”
“You’re not in Vegas?” He sounds as panicked as I feel. “You left the country?”
“No! No, I am! I didn’t!” I can barely breathe. “Paris in Vegas! I followed Martha Stewart here!”
“What?” Greg yells.
“Paris the hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada!” I yell.
“Stay there, I’m coming!”
“No! No, Greg, I—” He sounds so ready to spring into action, it makes me tear up. Wherever I need him, that’s where he wants to be, even if it’s a ridiculous distance away. “I’m touched, really, I am, but I can’t wait here for, like, five hours, I—I called you because—” A strained laugh bursts out of me. “Because I’m on the run and you’re the first person I’d call in an emergency.”
“Ruby, I’m nearby. Stay there.”
He hangs up, and my head is spinning, a mightyWhat the fuck?reverberating in my head.
But then there’s Mark Winterson again, walking calmly through the front door.
I dive behind a cluster of video poker machines and scuttle sideways underneath the uncanny painted sky, inserting myself into a big Asian extended family moving together down the floor. I hop to a group of women who seem to be here for a bachelorette party, clustered around the bride, who’s wearing a sash and, for some reason, rabbit ears and a cotton tail. “Oh myGod, I love your dress!” one of them exclaims, and I give her a strained smile as I duck behind a slot machine, low electronic rumbling sounds rattling my nerves. I realize with a sinking feeling that I have no idea now if Mark Winterson is in front of me or behind me. A motion in my peripheral vision startles me—but it’s just some giant craps dice, bouncing inside a plastic capsule on top of another machine.
Someone touches my shoulder, and I shriek and spring to my feet.
