Olivia heard him talking but her mind had already moved to an elevator ride a decade ago.
WHEN THE DOORS had opened Olivia sat in the hall outside the elevator crying. She had never fought with her sister like that before. She looked up and there he was. His pale green eyes, like a jade sea, beckoned to her. In that moment she wanted nothing more than to sail away in them. He stepped out, scooped her up, and helped her onto the elevator.
“What happened? Did someone hurt you.” His voice moved her like a warm breeze across a cool glassy sea. It wrapped her up, carried her to a safe place. She was captivated in an instant. They began their descent his arms still wrapped around her. “I’ve been looking all over this place for you. I would tear the world apart to get to you.”
“I was in an argument. I’m better now.” She looked at the floor and then back up into his eyes. In her nineteen years she had never met another man like him.
He pushed a strand of dark hair out of her eyes and tucked it gently behind her ear. His face leaned close to hers. Her hand was on his chest and she could feel his heart pounding with every ounce of desire that flashed in his exquisite eyes.
“You are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met. I’ve waited so long for a chance to hold you.” Then he laughed sheepishly and bit his lower lip. “But In all the nights I lay awake dreaming of this moment, I never pictured it like this.” His young face and eyes burned with all the innocence and passion of a first love. He tilted her face tenderly toward his and kissed her. In her time at college other boys had come and gone. But Olivia had never been kissed like this before.
It was the first kiss of fairy tales and young girl daydreams. The kind of kiss that built up every part of her heart and soul and made them swell until she burst with the joy of the grand finale fireworks over a crystal sea. She closed her eyes and surrendered completely to his touch. Her breath left her and her knees weakened. She lived and died a thousand lives in that moment and would have given a thousand more to hold on for one more minute in his arms.
Suddenly the elevator doors opened and two security guards ripped him away.
“Stop! What the hell are you doing?” Olivia yelled as she stepped out into the lobby and watched them take him away.
THE ELEVATOR LURCHED and jolted Olivia back into the present. Dominic was staring at her with a knowing look. She could finally see what he had known all along. She looked up at Dominic, her eyes wide. “It was you,” she seethed. “Here in the elevator, ten years ago. You kissed me. I remember now. God I’m so stupid. That’s why you seemed so familiar at SaSS.” Tears in her eyes she pushed him away. He wrapped his hands tenderly around her wrists and pulled her back to him.
“It was always you.” He breathed and leaned his head to hers, lips and noses barely touching he continued, “That kiss haunted me every day for the last ten years. My soul has been searching for you ever since. I couldn’t bear to let you go.” His eyes brimmed as if he was seeing her for the first time.
She cried and pulled away from him bracing herself against the wall. “But you weren’t even kissing me, were you?” You didn’t know me. You were here for Grace. All that love and searching was for her, not me.” Olivia felt as if the floor of the elevator had fallen away and she was in free fall.
Dominic ran his fingers through his dark hair and looked away for a moment. “Olivia. I—” Before he could answer the elevator reached the lobby and the doors opened. “Come with me,” he ordered and grabbed her by the hand.
“I’m not going anywhere with you. Why should I trust anything you say?” Olivia stopped dead in the lobby. “You’ve been lying to me since the moment I met you.”
The pale sea in his wild eyes raged desperately. “Because you want to get out of here, and I trust you. I don’t know what’s going on here but I know that I left your sister here ten years ago and never saw her again. I’m not about to let something happen to you too.” He stood holding her hand tightly in his. “I’m not leaving you.”
Olivia hesitated. She wasn’t sure who to believe. She looked back at the casino. Luca would be there somewhere, but he and Piper wanted to send her with Dr. Ferguson. Were they trying to hurt her or protect her? They treated her like she was crazy. The more flashbacks she had the less sure she was of anything she thought to be true.
She looked back at Dominic. He stood ready to fight. He looked at her as if she was the only girl in the world. “Olivia,” he implored her. “You can yell at me later. You can hate me until the end of time but do it away from here. We have to go now . . .” The urgency in his voice stirred her from her stronghold. She took one last look toward the casino floor and the last traces of her sister.
“Okay.” She consented and squeezed his hand. He turned and led her quickly through the crowd toward the exit. As they reached the doors she heard Cammie behind them.
“Grace! Grace!” she yelled. “Where are you going?”
“Keep moving,” Dominic growled never letting loose of her hand. “Don’t look back.” He pulled Olivia through the large brass doors out into the desert night.
“Where’s your . . .” she started and then spotted it. “Oh, hell no…”
“Come on, Olivia. I won’t let anything happen to you.” They reached the Silver Ducati. He handed money to the valet who had been standing guard then took his helmet and quickly but carefully placed it on her head. He climbed on the bike and reached back for her. “Get. On,” he commanded. Though every fiber of her body was screaming no, Olivia swung her leg over the bike just as Luca and Piper burst out of the door.
“Stop, Liv! Don’t go!” Piper yelled. “Stop! Sweetie, please!” Olivia turned to see her friend running toward her.
“Hold on,” Dominic yelled as he revved the engine and tore out of the drive like a bat escaping the depths of hell.
THE BIKE SCREAMED across the desert. Olivia held onto him for dear life. She hated and cherished the closeness. She never wanted to let him go, but knowing he loved Grace ripped her soul to shreds. The memory of that kiss played over and over in her head like an old black and white movie. She could still feel him, taste him.
Now she understood the reaction she had to him at the event in Virginia. Though her mind had blocked that whole part of her life out, when she was close to him her body remembered. The chemistry of their connection could not be ignored. He wasn’t kissing you. She reminded herself. The thought cut her like a knife.
The bike slowed and Dominic pulled onto a narrow gravel path. He parked the bike and helped her off. Gently he took her hand and led her toward the small footpath. Olivia still stumbled from the effects of the medication. On her own she would never be able to navigate the rocky trail.
“Where are you taking me?” Olivia pulled back. She had no desire to go into the woods in such a desolate location.
“This is Lake Mead it’s a quiet place where we can talk. I owe you an explanation.” He stood in the moonlight. Every ounce of pain in the last decade played on his beautiful face and begged her to come with him.
“I can think of a hundred more populated places we could go to talk,” she countered. Olivia planted her feet firmly in the ground.
He laughed. “I’m on your side remember. I brought you here for a reason. There’s something I think you need to see.” The laughter fell away. “Olivia this is going to be hard but I’ll be with you.”
The airport, her office, the coffee shop down the street, even the stupid Pilates gym, Olivia went through a mental list of places she would rather be. It was too late to turn back now. What happened to the safe, by the book life she had created for herself. Was it all a mirage in her sick and twisted world? “You lied to me all this time. Why didn’t you tell me about Grace?”
“When I first saw you at SaSS I felt like the world stopped spinning. I thought I lost her a decade ago. Yet there you were like a heartbreaking dream finally real before my eyes.” He coaxed her down the path as he talked. “It was enough to make me go crazy. I had to have
you.”
“Me? You mean Grace . . .” She shook her head in frustration. “You were looking at Grace. You made love to the ghost of the girl tattooed on your fucking chest. Why didn’t you tell me then? When I asked you about your tattoo? You lied!” Olivia yelled and pushed him away from her.
“I didn’t know how I had been granted this second chance. God knows I didn’t fucking deserve it. But there you were. In my arms . . . In my bed. I didn’t want to do anything to risk losing you again,” he admitted and reached for her but she turned away.
“While you were loving her, you were killing me.” Olivia fought back hot tears that threatened to escape. She pushed past him and moved down the moonlit trail.
“Wait! Olivia. Listen. You’re right. In college, I had a massive crush on your sister. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. We dated off and on our sophomore and junior years.” He caught up beside her and tried to reach out for her arm but Olivia pulled away. Every word he uttered caused her to die a little more inside.
“I get it. You loved her. Congratulations. Take a fucking number. She had half the male population falling at her feet,” Olivia answered with green eyed bitterness. “A lot of good it did her.”
“Our senior year something changed. Grace changed.” He wrung his hands as he spoke. “I think it had to do with that sorority she joined. She stopped coming to class and was using drugs almost every day. When I tried confronting her she told me I was being controlling. I tried giving her space but she just got worse.” His voice fell like a stone into self-loathing.
Olivia could hear the guilt in his voice. She knew it all too well. She had watched her sister burn out like a shooting star and just stood by and let it happen. She studied the subtle creases in his face, a decade of regret was beginning to define him. “I don’t think there was anything you or anyone else could have done to stop her at that point,” Olivia offered. “God knows I tried, but she wouldn’t listen to me either.” She paused, something he said didn’t sit quite right with her. “Wait how did you date Grace for more than a year and not know she had a twin sister?” Olivia blurted suddenly.
“She never mentioned you. Trust me I would remember if she had. But then talking wasn’t exactly what brought us together. Maybe I should have said we slept together off and on and I helped her with some of her classes.” He laughed and shook his head. “I was young and stupid and head over heels for a girl who cared more about getting credit on my research than she did me.” He walked toward the edge of the cliff.
Olivia watched him move in the silver light. How much of what he was saying could she believe? Luca said she was still alive but then he tried to trap her in a hospital. Shaver thought she was off the deep end with her crazy theories. She didn’t know what to believe, even herself.
Dominic continued, “When she got kicked out of school I got desperate. I loved her. I would have done anything to save her . . . to get her help.” He stopped walking and turned to face Olivia. They had reached the end of the path. The large moon illuminated the cliffside and the ripples of the lake far below. “At first I went crazy wondering where she was. She didn’t answer my calls; the members of her sorority wouldn’t tell me anything. It was like she just cut me out of her life.” He sat down on a large rock and looked out over the silver lined water into the darkness.
“So you flew to Vegas?” Olivia asked. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
“I just had to see her. I thought if I could convince her to come back home everything would be okay. One of the dolls, Bethany, was in my parasitology class. After a few tense weeks she gave me a letter from Grace asking for help. She had gotten herself into some trouble with a casino and the owner was keeping her there. Bethany told me where Grace was and how to find her.” He shook his head. “I wanted nothing more than to see her but I was nervous as hell and drank one too many on the plane. By the time I got to Vegas I was half lit. They said she was working on the roulette wheel so I stormed through the Casino like a punk but couldn’t find her. Someone called security and they were chasing me like a criminal. I couldn’t leave without seeing her and making sure she was okay. I ducked in the elevator and pushed the button for her floor. When the doors opened there you were.” He reached out and pulled her close to him.
Olivia couldn’t bring herself to pull away. “Dominic . . .” she started but he put a finger to her lips.
“You looked like a battered angel that had fallen from heaven. I couldn’t resist you.” His lips brushed her forehead as he spoke. That dulcet voice mixed like a perfect cocktail with the sedatives that still swam in her system and offered to carry her away from the misery of her reality.
“I looked like Grace,” she corrected breaking the spell. “You couldn’t resist, her.”
“I did think you were Grace right up to the moment when our lips met. When I kissed you I knew you weren’t the Grace I had known,” he whispered and his lips moved closer to hers.
“What is it about her kissing? That’s the second time today I have been told how amazing it was compared to mine.” Olivia huffed and threw her hands up in the air.
“Who else have you been kissing?” Dominic growled, dark clouds of jealousy formed in his eyes.
“At the casino, tonight, when Luca first saw me he thought I was Grace. He kissed me and knew instantly that I wasn’t her. What the hell did her kisses have that mine don’t?” Olivia questioned folding her arms across her chest. Sibling rivalry never dies.
Dominic laughed. “You still don’t get it, do you? All the times that I was with Grace pale in comparison to that one kiss, with you.” He pulled her close again and kissed her hard before she had a chance to respond. Olivia’s knees went weak. The fire between them was a bond that time could not break. Dominic pulled off his shirt exposing every ripple of his bare chest. The eyes and wings of his tattoo were illuminated like an angel.
“Grace,” she said quietly and swallowed hard. She traced her fingers across the inked memorial.
“I got this after her memorial, Olivia. When I had this done, I sketched the face that had haunted me. But, Olivia, when I had this done I drew it from the memory that haunted my dreams. This is the look you gave me right after I kissed you in the elevator. Don’t you see, it was you. It was always you.
A breeze blew across the lake carrying with it the odor of cow manure. Olivia pulled back. “God, what is that smell? It’s horrible.”
Dominic gave her a sideways grin. “That’s Lake Mead for you. The heat and humidity create the perfect recipe for a certain type of algae that . . .” Dominic continued with the science lesson but Olivia was drawn to the edge of the cliff. She had been here before. Her heart began its familiar racing as she reached the edge and looked down to the rocks and water below. Her breathing became short pants. The body she had seen so many times in her dreams lay face down on the rocky shore. Grace! The horrible scene played over in her mind.
“You ruined everything, you stupid bitch. Why did you even come here?” Grace was yelling.
“Grace, I’m sorry. I came here for you. I love you, just come home and we can get past it. One lousy arrest isn’t the end of the world! When I’m a lawyer I can . . .” Olivia pleaded as Grace paced back and forth along the cliff's edge like a tiger trapped in a cage.
“You can what expunge my record? Get me out of prison? I don’t think so, miss smarty pants. “Maybe I would be better off dead.” Grace hissed and turned toward the cliff.
“NO! NO, GOD, No!” Olivia was screaming. Dominic grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back before she went over the edge. Olivia broke down in hysterical sobs. “Why did you bring me here? Why?”
“Because this was the sight of the first murder,” he said quietly.
“Are you saying I killed my sister?” Olivia gasped for air. She rocked back and forth. Was this the horror her mind had been trying to shield her from? Olivia’s stomach lurched and she vomited in the grass. She struggled to catch her breath
but it would not come.
“No,” he said looking puzzled by her reaction.
“But I saw her body. It was at the bottom of this cliff. She was lying in the moonlight.” She looked over the edge as if it were still there. “I could see the bugs all over her and the circular burns on her back. I’ve seen that image in my sleep every night for the past ten years.” She turned back around to face him as he slowly lit a cigarette.
“I . . . I didn’t know you smoked,” she said slowly mesmerized by the small circular collection of embers at the end.
“I try not to. That’s why I am always chewing that damn cinnamon gum. But in stressful situations it’s hard to resist,” he said coldly.
Olivia’s breathing slowed. She felt as if ice water had been poured through her veins. All the pieces began to fall into place. “Dominic where did you go after security threw you out of the casino?” she asked quietly, afraid to even ask the question.
“Olivia,” he began slowly and took a step toward her. “You have to understand. I was a desperate man. She threw me out of her life.” He took another step.
He stood between her and the only way out. On either side of her were large rocks. Behind her was a sheer cliff. She could hear the water down below lapping at rocks that held her sister in her final moments. Rocks that may carry her into the next world as well. She needed to reason with him. “She left you no choice,” Olivia choked out.
“Exactly.” He took a long draw off the cigarette. The red glow against his skin cast demonic shadows across his beautiful features. Her stomach twisted in knots. How had she not seen it before? Even if this was her last move Olivia needed to hear him say it. She needed to hear once and for all what exactly happened to her sister.
“What did you do, Dominic?” she asked deadpan.
He took another step toward her and Olivia prepared herself to fight back. “After I left the casino I . . .”
Roulette Page 17
