Page 97 of The Dominator

A man went in and then came back out of the bathroom, an older grandfatherly-looking man.

“Excuse me?” I called out. “My I’m wondering if my fiancé is all right. He went in kind of a long time ago, and hasn’t come out. He’s quite tall, brown hair, wearing a green t-shirt and dark shorts.”

“Bathroom’s empty,” the man said, shrugging.

I’m sure I must’ve looked shocked. “Thank you,” I said. I leaned against the wall and dialed Tommy’s phone number. It just rang.

I looked back at the text message. It was iMessage and it now said the earlier message had been read, just a moment before.

Where are you? I texted.

It was read immediately.

I waited to see the little dots showing me he was typing. It showed nothing after the read notification.

I looked around me. There were people everywhere. I sat there for another few minutes and finally, I felt like I had to do something. So I called him again. It rang and rang. Then I called Dario. His was the only other number in my contacts.

“Yeah?” he answered on the first ring.

“Dario, it’s Tia.”

“Hey-ya Tia Tyson!” he answered enthusiastically, and it sounded like he was smiling through the phone, which was weird because he’d gone from being the angry brother to this other person, still pretty intense, but now nice to me.

“Um, hi, uh… sorry to bug you but I don’t know what to make of this.”

“What’s that?” He sounded like he was in a restaurant. There was a lot of background noise.

“Um, I can’t find your brother. I went to the ladies’ room, he went to the men’s room, and I’ve been waiting outside the door for a long time, like almost half an hour. Someone told me the washroom is empty, he’s not there. I don’t know what to do.”

“Where’s security?”

“Tommy let them go have time to themselves.”

“Shit,” Dario said.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Okay, someone said the washroom was empty?”

“Yep.”

“Go in the washroom and check every stall, make sure he’s not passed out or something,” he told me. “Keep me on the line.” Then I heard him shout in the background to someone, “Gimme your phone.”

I walked into the mens’ room and followed his directions. I pushed every door open and there was no one there. I could hear Dario’s was voice muffled as he probably had his hand over his phone while, I imagined, calling Nino and James on someone else’s phone.

“Tia, where are you?” he asked.

“The Mandalay, in the shopping part between hotels. The bathroom’s definitely empty.”

“Go to the concierge’s desk in the Luxor and tell them you need security immediately and then put me on the phone with the concierge. Get out of that fucking bathroom in case someone’s behind this. Now. Keep me on the phone as you make your way to the front. Tell me if anything looks suspicious. The guys’ll be on their way.”

What now? I couldn’t wrap my head around this. Was this life, my life, going to entail one drama after another? Had Tommy been kidnapped or something? I prayed there was a logical explanation for this.

* * *

The fact that the concierge didn’t even make a weird face when I told him I needed immediate security and then passed my phone to him was beyond wonky to me. I guess in Vegas they are accustomed to weird requests.

My phone got passed back to me and Dario said, “I’ve got people on it. Don’t stress. I’m sending Jimmy to pick you up.”

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