“I haven’t seen you staring holes in people like you were trying to lift them with your mind,” Kaylee pointed out. “So you’re probably okay.” Typing on her keyboard, she said, “Tell me about Rob’s cute roommates.”
Holly sat up on the seat, popped a Mentafixol onto her tongue, and chased it with water. The cold liquid shot down her esophagus and seemed to tear her body in two. She coughed, “One of them was Elijah Brown.”
“Elijah Brown!” Kaylee exclaimed, hands on her thighs, blue eyes wide.
“Yeah,” Holly said. Maybe her parents still didn’t want her to see him, and they’d conveyed this to the casino and Kaylee. Holly bridled at the thought that they were conspiring behind her back. “What’s wrong with Elijah Brown?”
“Nothing.” Kaylee put her hands up. “Isn’t he a carpenter for the casino? His mom is Jasmine, the head dealer? You said his name like he’s a movie star.”
Relieved that Kaylee hadn’t been given special instructions to keep her away from Elijah, Holly let herself smile in reverie. “I knew him in high school. He was adorable back then. But now.” She crossed her arms and rubbed her hands on her biceps. She wouldn’t be able to explain to Kaylee she was enthralled by more than Elijah’s muscles. It was the way those big muscles half hid beneath the sleeves of his T-shirt. It was the fact that they belonged to Elijah, who was sweet and funny and forbidden—at least, he had been forbidden, seven years ago. It was the fact that she associated him with a time in her life right before she was diagnosed with MAD, when she didn’t worry about her brain or her future, only her hair, and cute boys. What if Elijah didn’t think Holly was insane for jumping out his bathroom window, and she found a way to reconnect with him? She shivered with anticipated pleasure.
“That good, huh?”
“Yeah.” Letting Kaylee get back to work, Holly stared out at the Strip. The signs blinked pink and green against the black sky. Neon lights reflected in the faces of the tourists, ecstatic with escape.
Since that day in ninth grade, Holly had felt like a small gray blob surrounded by this ecstasy and color. The very idea of getting together with Elijah had lit her up again. She should back away now, retreat into her blob, forget Elijah. But blue and purple lights chased each other in circles around the thought of Elijah like a beautiful promise, and she just couldn’t let that fantasy go.
Rob’s bedroom door burst open. He stomped into the living room.
“Find your magician waiting in your bed, Rob?” Shane asked.
“Fuck you, Sligh,” Rob shot back. “Mom, when’s dinner?” he called loudly, though Elijah stood only five feet from him, behind the kitchen counter. “Chop chop. I’m meeting my brothers for a drink. And go easy on the salt this time, would ya, Dangermouse?”
“Almost done.” Elijah tried to say it lightly rather than resentfully as he removed the lid from the skillet, stirred, and put the lid back on to simmer for another minute. He hated himself for seeming to kowtow to Rob. Fear of MAD made him overcompensate—especially now that it was breathing down his neck. The last thing he needed was for Rob, in law enforcement, and an ass**le as it turned out, to discover Elijah’s mental illness and his missing medication.
Rob stared at him through the steam with his fists on his hips, like a superhero there to save the day and protect Las Vegas from the psycho. He looked from Elijah to Shane and back to Elijah. “What happened?” he asked suspiciously.
“Nothing,” Elijah and Shane said in unison. Inside his mind, Elijah felt Shane wince, the mental equivalent of grunting doh!
Rob nodded to the counter. “What’s with all the knives?”
“They’re for the Tuna Helper,” Elijah said. “The formula’s changed. It’s not as helpful as it used to be.”
Rob stepped closer to Elijah and looked him straight in the eye. Of course Elijah was imagining his own mind-reading capabilities. But they seemed so real. And right now, he almost believed he was inside Rob’s mind as Rob positioned his forearm across Holly’s slender neck and bore his weight down on her throat. She put both hands around his arm and tried to push him away, but he was too strong and heavy. She gasped hoarsely.
Elijah blinked. He was out of Rob’s head again, staring into Rob’s brown eyes, and the hair on Elijah’s arms was standing on end. Had Rob already done this to Holly? Surely not—Elijah would have sensed her terror tonight. Was it something Rob planned to do in the future?
Swallowing with difficulty, Elijah raked the knives back into the drawer and opened a drawer full of scoops and outsized spoons.
“You searched that one already,” Shane called, eyes on his guitar strings.
Had he? Elijah glanced around at the kitchen. He knew he’d intended to search each drawer and cabinet because this was where he’d taken his pill every night he’d lived here. But MAD had him frazzled. It would be like him to search the same couple of drawers over and over while the pill waited undiscovered on the shelf above the sink.
Rob watched Elijah, but his thoughts weren’t on knives or spoons or even Tuna Helper. Inside his mind, he slapped Holly. Falling, she tried to regain her balance and flipped backward over a guardrail at Hoover Dam. Her body sailed downward, glittering and dark against the background of white concrete.
Elijah held on to the counter with both hands.
Without another word, Rob crossed the room, snagged his loaded holster from the coat rack, and slammed the front door behind him.
“Good riddance,” Shane said. “More Tuna Helper for us.” He paused. “Hey, man, you’re looking awfully white again. You okay?”
That’s when Elijah knew he had to get that Mentafixol, no matter what the price. It wasn’t just a matter of living free or being committed to a mental hospital anymore. It was a matter of life and death. He imagined Rob wanted to hurt Holly. In turn, Elijah wanted to hurt Rob. And if he didn’t get back on his medication soon, he just might do it.
5
Kaylee power-walked across the casino floor in her power suit and power heels, feeling oddly powerless. After dropping Holly off at their apartment the previous night, Kaylee had returned to work, had finally crawled into bed at two, and was back at the casino by eight in the morning. Normally this schedule didn’t faze her, nor did handling security at one of the Strip’s largest and most profitable casinos, or defending Holly from everyday stalkers like Rob the Cop. But the additional responsibilities of protecting the casino from the Res and withdrawing two people from Mentafixol at one time, all while keeping Mr. Diamond’s death a secret, might be the death of her, too.