Losing Enough

by Helen Boswell

  There’s no way I can tell Connor exactly what Cruz said to me. No freaking way. Because if I do, Connor will give him what he wants, and it terrifies me partly because of what that would mean for Connor and partly because I know he would be doing it for me. But if I don’t tell him, my dad is in danger, and that scares me even more.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, my brain almost throbbing from the effort of trying to work this all out in my head. What the hell am I thinking? My dad is already in danger because he made a deal with some pretty terrible people. That is, if Cruz was even telling the truth.

  My eyes snap open, and I finally force that badly needed breath into my chest. I’ll find out for sure by talking to my dad, by asking him what’s going on. I need to be direct but also approach this carefully¸ to talk to him about this in a way where he’ll tell me the truth. Including the truth about where he got the cash that he gave me on my first day out here.

  A car door slams shut from right next to me, and I have to swallow back the scream that’s in the back of my throat. I hear a voice say hello and look up to see a woman standing in front of the house with the For Sale sign. She’s wearing a suit and stockings in one hundred plus degree weather, her makeup and hair all very professional. Obviously a realtor.

  “Hello?” she repeats brightly. Her glance skates down my sweat-soaked t-shirt, short skirt, and single flip flop before landing on my face again with confusion. “Are you here to see the house?”

  The house? Laughter bubbles out of my throat, and I clap my hand over my mouth to stifle it. Holy crap, I’m totally losing it. Scratch that. I may have already lost it, but I can’t stop and choke out a laugh that sounds like more of a sob. Hearing it jars me, makes me almost panic with the thought of how I’m in danger of losing so much right now. But I have to hold it together and fight so Dad, Connor, and I all come out ahead of this little game Cruz is playing. Somehow.

  “No. God, no,” I reply to the stunned realtor. “I’m not here to see the house.”

  I limp a few steps away until I can kick my poor naked foot back into my flip flop, stoop down to where the bag with my stuff is lying – I don’t remember dropping it – and make a beeline to Connor’s house. My hand is trembling when I dig out the slip of paper with the code on it, but I manage to punch in the numbers and get the green light to come on. I huff a sigh of relief when I hear the click, and I push my way into the house.

  My back sags against the door as I dig out my phone from my bag. My battery’s almost dead, but I need to call my dad and then Connor.

  I punch Dad’s name in my contacts list.

  C’mon. Please answer.

  I bite on my thumbnail as it rings, immediately hanging up when it goes to voicemail. I call the hospital, get redirected twice until I finally get to the wing where my mom’s room is, and ask the nurse if my dad is there with Grace Lin. His text from earlier this morning said he was going to the casino for a while, but maybe he’s back.

  “This is his daughter. I don’t want to wake up my mom in case she’s sleeping, but could you tell me if he’s there?”

  “Grace Lin... Oh, yes, your father. No, I’m sorry. He left a while ago, but your mother’s awake. I’ll transfer you now.”

  “Wait…” I protest, but it’s already ringing.

  “Hello?” My mom’s sweet, clear voice comes over the line just as another call comes through. My heart jumps when I see it’s Connor. But I’ll have to call him back.

  “Hi, Mom. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “Not at all,” she assures me. She sounds tired but also happy. “Did your father call and tell you the news?”

  “No, I haven’t talked to him.” My chest feels tight as I say it. But at the same time, Mom sounds positive, and I’m glad for that. I can’t hear the same tinge of pain that was in her voice earlier.

  “Well, maybe he wanted me to tell you,” she says, and I can almost hear her smile over the phone. “The echocardiogram showed that my heart suffered no permanent damage. According to my physician, I’m very lucky.”

  We’re all very lucky in that sense. “That’s great news, Mom. Told you that you have an amazing heart.” I put my hand over my own heart, the relief I feel almost incapacitating. “I’m coming over to visit you soon, so I can celebrate the news with you in person.”

  “Oh, dear. I would love that, but my lovely attending nurse is coming in a bit to give me a horrid sponge bath. I hope she’ll wash my hair, because I look like the zombie child of the Bride of Frankenstein.”

  I smile at the image. “I’m sure you don’t.”

  “I’m sure I do,” she says firmly. “I sent your father to the hotel this morning and told him not to come back until after lunch when I look more presentable. Give me a few hours?”

  Another call comes in, this time from Elle, and I ignore it, too. “Count on it. And Mom? I love you.”

  “Love you too, baby girl. See you in a while.”

  I end the call, my relief at hearing the news muted by everything else that’s going on. But at least now I know that Dad is at the casino, which means plan B. I’ll call a cab to take me to the hotel, and then I’ll go find him. And then visit Mom.

  But first, I go to my missed calls list to return Connor’s call. I stare at my phone in dismay as the display goes black. Crap. Totally dead.

  Okay, no problem. I just need to find a land line. I wander through the house in search of a phone. It’s strange being here without Connor, like I can still feel his presence. He told me he hadn’t done much with this place, but even so, there are touches of him everywhere.

  I go through every room in the house. Twice, and even check the garage. Yes, there are touches of Connor everywhere, but no land line.

  Shit. I’m stuck here without a car and without a way to call anyone. I could go to the clubhouse and ask to use their phone, but Cruz might still be lurking out there. Plus, I’m not sure if I remember Connor’s phone number from memory. I sink down on his couch and stare at the coffee table, the numbers I’d seen on my display scrambling in my head. I might be able to remember Elle’s if I think hard enough. Or I could just chill and wait here for Connor to come back…

  I drop my head in my hands, annoyed with myself for not remembering to pack my charger. The fact that both Connor and Elle had tried to call me within minutes of each other is unsettling, to say the least.

  My head jerks up when I hear it. In the distance, the whining and almost anxious sound of an engine accelerating up the street. It’s coming closer, and I stand up as I hear it approach the house. Connor?

  The sound dies as the car screeches to a halt, and I tense up as I hear a car door slam shut. From right outside the house. Connor would have pulled into the garage.

  I freeze, goosebumps popping up along my arms and legs as I hear the footsteps coming up the walk. Not walking. Running.

  I jump when a fist pounds against the door.

  “Alex?” the voice yells. “Alex!”

  Elle.

  I run to the front door and throw it open. Elle gapes at me, her expression frantic and pissed off at the same time as she waves her phone at me.

  “Holy shit. I’ve been trying to call you on your cell.”

  “My phone died.” I stare at her, my heart sinking. “What’s wrong? Is Connor okay?”

  “Your phone died,” she mutters. “Okay, so he just called me, hun. I think he split town.”

  I’m only vaguely aware of how maniacally Elle drives us to the Strip. I crumple up the piece of paper she gave me into a ball, my pulse hammering in my ears.

  Connor left town. He tried to call me but when I hadn’t answered, called Elle instead and told her to pick me up. Made her write down this phone number before giving her some line about having to take care of business and that he’ll be out of touch for a couple of days. Elle had protested (rightly so), but he hung up before she could get any more out of him and now all of her calls are automatically going to voicemail.

  “So you�
��re pretty sure he was on the road?” My throat feels raw, like I just breathed in fire, but I force myself to swallow.

  “Um, yeah. There was so much traffic noise in the background, it was hard to hear him. Pretty sure I heard a semi’s airbrake, so it wasn’t city noise either. Like he was standing on the side of the interstate or something.”

  Seriously, I may be at my limit of what I can take right now. Still totally freaking about my dad. Not having any idea if I should be worried about Connor or furious that he left for some mystery destination. I settle on both. He would have tried to feed me the same line if he’d gotten a hold of me, and I’m worried about Cruz being responsible.

  I shake my head. It doesn’t make sense. Even if Connor did call from the road, why wouldn’t he have been inside his car? My anger slowly morphs into dread.

  “Elle, you don’t think he was like… oh, I don’t know. Taken against his will or something? Or is it possible he just bailed?” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know how wrong they feel. He wouldn’t do that.

  She snorts. “Connor? No fucking way.” Her eyes briefly flick over to me. “I know you two have gotten pretty close physically and what-not. But he’s the kind of guy who follows through with things. And he knows how to take care of himself, believe me.”

  I guess I know all of these things. I also think about what he said about killing anyone who’d look at me the wrong way. At the time, I thought he’d been mostly joking. Mostly.

  “That’s part of the reason he’s been by himself so long, cuz he’s all about self-preservation,” Elle adds as she takes a sharp turn onto Las Vegas Boulevard. “But you know, I think he did really like being part of something when he was with the SEALs. And I also think he really likes you. Like, really likes you. If he left, it was for a good reason.”

  I really like him too. I’m already heartsick over the news about my dad, but a different sort of agony layers on over that to think about the possibility of Connor being in trouble.

  “This isn’t helping,” I sigh. “I’m worried about him.”

  “Yeah, well, me too.” Elle chimes in with her own heavy sigh, braking to narrowly miss a car that cuts in front of us. She lays on the horn and flips the other driver the bird, adding, “He’ll be okay, though. He always is.”

  I want to believe Elle, but I still have a really bad feeling about all of this. Cruz approaches Elle, accosts me, and then Connor takes off? But there’s no way Connor would have known about Cruz getting up all nice and close with me before he took off.

  Either way, I think Cruz somehow knew Elle would call up Connor in a panic and spur him into action – which essentially is what happened. And then he sprung on me and hit me with the info about my dad like I’d walked into a trap. The more I think about it, the more I think that this was Cruz’s full intention. What a manipulative bastard.

  And maybe everything’s simply coming to a head now, but I’m going more than slightly crazy not knowing what Connor’s up to.

  We run upstairs to my room, where I stick my phone on my rapid charger to power it up again. Dad’s not in the room, but I head straight for his desk. According to his schedule, he has a break right now, but that could have changed given the fact that he’s been at the hospital. I read across to see what was on his schedule for the past two days. The high roller room downstairs, the one across the street, and a place called Maxwell’s Room. I’ve been to the first two, which will hopefully make it easier to get in and check for him, but I don’t know where the third place is.

  “What’s up, hun?” Elle flits over to my side.

  “You ever hear of somewhere called Maxwell’s Room?”

  “Lemme see.” She whips out her phone and does a search. “Okay, so it’s across the street, but hold on...”

  I wait impatiently while she pores over the screen, the seconds dragging out to a full minute.

  “C’mon,” I protest. “What is it?”

  “It’s a pretty exclusive place, and it looks like you need a ten thousand dollar buy-in to play there.” She looks at me skeptically. “I’m not sure how these places work, but I don’t know if they would even let you in.”

  “I don’t need to get in,” I point out. “I just need to see if my dad’s in there.”

  I know I’m not being totally rational. I could wait in the hotel room for Dad to come back, but there’s no guarantee he’s planning on coming to the room anytime soon. And Elle’s comment makes me wonder. People in these places protect their privacy as much as they protect their money, and my dad is no exception. That’s exactly why trying to find him when Mom was hospitalized took forever. No one had wanted to locate him, let alone interrupt his play, and it was only because of Elle reducing some lower-pay scale employee down to tears that we were able to get word to my dad.

  “I have an idea, just in case,” I say. It’s a crappy and impromptu idea, but it’s better than nothing.

  Elle tails me as I storm back over my room, watching as I tear through my closet to find the nicest dress I own. It’s an evening dress in steel-gray satin, backless, and makes me look like I’m at least five years older. I’d only brought it with me on this trip because my mom picked it out for me and insisted I wear it out sometime for dinner. I sweated most of my makeup off before, so I fix myself up and borrow one of my mother’s necklaces and a bracelet.

  But the most important accessory is in my vault, and Elle’s eyes become as round as dinner plates when I pull out the stack of cash. The size of it fluctuated a lot with each day I spent on the floor with my dad, but I have just over fourteen grand now.

  Elle gapes at me. “First of all, you look gorgeous. But the money. Dude, what’s that for?”

  “Just in case,” I repeat grimly. I check my phone and see that it’s almost halfway charged. Good enough.

  “Come on. We gotta go.”

  Elle and I are outside on the pedestrian bridge when he calls.

  Dad hadn’t been in any of the gambling rooms in my hotel, so we’re going down the list. It must be a million degrees outside, and I’d been rethinking the brilliant idea of wearing this satin dress.

  “It’s Connor,” I hiss down to Elle.

  Seeing his name on my phone’s display makes me break out in more of a sweat. I hurry in my heels over to the side of the bridge, Elle hanging back but with her entire expression clearly reading, Omigod.

  “Hello?” My voice cracks.

  “Alex…” He sounds relieved but funny too, like he’s far away somehow. “I’ve been trying to reach you. Did Elle come and get you? Did she give you Neil’s number?”

  My jumbled thoughts fall away at hearing his voice, my mind suddenly sharp. He doesn’t sound like himself. There’s distance between us, but not only in terms of location. It’s a little loud on the pedestrian bridge, but if I try hard enough, I can hear some of what sounds like interstate noise, like Elle described.

  “I’m with her right now, and yeah, I got the number. Thanks for the babysitting service,” I say in what’s maybe too angry of a tone. I don’t bother to clarify that I left the number balled up on the floorboard of Elle’s Civic. “Where are you? Did you leave town?”

  “Yes, but I can’t tell you anything more than that, love.”

  Oh no, he doesn’t. Connor doesn’t get to shut me out like this, not after his brother lay in wait for me and grabbed me like that in the middle of the street. Not when my father might be tangled up with people that Cruz knows.

  I close my eyes and make myself breathe, remind myself that he has no idea what happened earlier today.

  “No one forced you to leave, did they? Are you alone?”

  “No one forced me. And yes, I’m alone.”

  “You’re coming back?” My eyes are still closed, but I can feel Elle’s pointed stare.

  “Of course.” He sounds genuinely surprised.

  “When?”

  “A couple of days maybe? Alex…” He hesitates. “I left because I need to take care of somethi
ng very important, and I’ll tell you everything when I get back. But I can’t right now, and I need you to trust me.”

  I do. I do trust you.

  I’m not going to ask him how dangerous his situation is. I won’t call him on the fact that he could tell me right now, if he really wanted to. I know exactly what he’s doing. He’s trying to protect me by telling me as little as possible. While my immediate instinct is to tell him what he can do with that security guard act, the way he asks me to trust him gets to me, gets through the rest of my walls.

  I lower my voice. “Does this have anything to do with Cruz?”

  A pause, and then, “Yes.”

  It feels like we’re playing twenty questions, but something almost like despair fills me at the idea that the time I get to speak with him might be that limited.

  “Connor… Promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “Always am.”

  “Yes, okay. I know.” I fight the temptation to roll my eyes. “But promise me you’ll be careful this time.”

  Because I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.

  “I promise.” He hesitates. “We probably shouldn’t call each other from this point on, not until I’m out of danger. Stay with Elle if you can tonight, but if you’d rather stay at my house or your hotel room, let Neil know. And don’t tell anyone I’m out of town, not even Elle.”

  He just said “out of danger.” I bite back my comments, that I strongly object to him being in danger in the first place. That Elle’s not an idiot and was already able to figure it out for herself. And that there’s no way I’m going to check in with this business partner of his that I don’t even know. What, is this guy going to stand outside Connor’s house or outside my room all night with his gun drawn? No thanks.

  “I’ll stay with Elle,” I say simply.

  “Good.” I hear him blow out a breath, or maybe it’s the wind. “I need to get going, but I just wanted to…”

  Hear my voice right before you go do something extremely dangerous?

  “…make sure you were okay.”

  “I’m fine, Connor.” I’m not going to tell him what happened with Cruz today. There’s nothing Connor can do about it now, it would make him mad, and I can wait until he gets back to share that story. Or hopefully I won’t even need to. I swallow hard, thinking about this morning. How can everything go from paradise to hell in such a short time? “Come back to me soon, okay?”