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She thanked Kate and returned to her room, deciding she’d better get dressed before meeting Andrea. She found clothes that fit her in the closet and pulled on a pair of dark jeans and a purple and blue patterned blouse belted at the waist.
When her stomach grumbled, Olivia crossed to the kitchen and smiled at her purse sitting on the counter. Marek had confiscated it. Grinning, she rifled through it and found everything in order: her laptop, phone, pens, her daily planner.
Beside the purse was a sticky note with words in a manly scrawl:I thought you might want these back. I trust you won’t do anything crazy. There is food and drinks in the fridge. If you need anything, you can call Tristan, Vegas’ AI. I will visit you tonight. - Marek.
Why was she so happy? It was her stuff.
Olivia checked her phone first. Out of battery. She found a charging station in the living room and plugged it in. Her laptop shared the phone’s fate, so she charged that too. Lastly, she opened her planner with a silly grin.
She can finally make that pros and cons list.
Marek—yay or nay,she wrote in big letters at the top of a blank page.
Her stomach growled again.Focus.Eat. Then find Andrea. The pros and cons list can wait.
As she poured milk over a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, she saw a box of her favorite rose chai tea on the counter. Had Marek also discovered that from her credit card? She did have a monthly subscription for the last two years.
Olivia filled the kettle with water. While waiting for it to boil, she gave in and wrote on the list as she ate the cereal.
Con: Kidnapping
Pro: Made an effort to find my favorites
Con: Invasion of privacy (background check)
Pro: Flew my favorite food from another state
Con: Insulted/hates my work
Pro: Cares for Betsy
Con: Conceited, arrogant, manipulative
Pro: Insanely attracted to him…
Annoyed with herself, Olivia crossed out the last one and scowled at the list. Definitely more cons than pros. The shrill bleating of the kettle brought her back to the present. Ugh, what was she doing? She slammed the notebook shut and poured herself a cup of tea.
While the tea steeped, she asked, “Tristan?”
“Yes?” A modulated male voice spoke from hidden speakers.
“Can you locate Andrea?” Olivia asked.
Silence while Tristan performed the task. Olivia’s university had a school-wide AI, so she was used to waiting for the answers. If Tristan was the only AI in Las Vegas, it would take a lot of processing power to locate one person.
“She’s at the coffee shop in this building. Would you like to speak to her?” Tristan replied, much faster than she had expected.
“Yes, can you ask if she can come up here?” Olivia asked.
Seconds passed again before Tristan said, “She’s on her way up now.”
“Thank you. That’ll be all.”
“Have a good day.”
Olivia sipped her tea as she waited. To stop herself from flipping open her planner, she strode to the windows and opened the blinds. Las Vegas greeted her in its sprawling, neon-lit glory. The late afternoon sun blazed in the sky; its light reflected off the shiny glass of Vegas’ infamous vampire Towers.
Olivia guessed she was close to the center of the city since the Towers’ height decreased the farther it was from her. A hundred years ago, the vampires had built the Towers in secret before announcing their existence to the world. With the tallest, Central Tower, in the middle, the rest spread out in the four directions of the compass, each one shorter than the next, with the shortest ones on the city’s outskirts only being five-stories tall.
