Page 49 of Serial Killer Games

“It’s a degenerative neurological condition. It’s hereditary. There’s no cure. No treatment. I’m twenty-nine. If what happened to my dad is anything to go by…” He trails off. “It’s going to be bad,” he says simply.

My chest squeezes into itself like a black hole compressing. This handsome, healthy man. Not so healthy. I really know how to pick them.

“He was lucky to have you help him,” Jake says.

I can’t speak.

He reaches to touch me, but what’s the point? He’s dying. I twist and pull away.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“I have things to do.” There was a reason I needed to get to Las Vegas. I wriggle between two women craning their phones to take photos they will never look at again and reach into my bag to make sure the token is still there—yes—but it spins out of my grasp when I pull my hand from the bag. It flips through the air, glinting with reflected light, and lands somewhere on the pavement at my feet. Jake beats me to it. He gets down on one knee and locates it in a crack between the pavers. When he finds it, he holds it up and peers at it.

Around us strangers step back, turn, gasp, and point their phones at us. Jake and I freeze and watch the crowd around us with alarm.

“He’s proposing!” a flamingo woman shrieks to her silver-haired friends. “He’sproposing!”

Jake’s mouth falls open and I grow roots. The old girls press close around us, yowling their delight, penning us in as securely as a prison fence with their enormous magenta bosoms, all the while the fountain blaring “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” the silver and blue light flashing gaudily—and I’m convinced this is limbo, and we both died just now, and he and I are probably trapped here in this claustrophobic bubble of sensory torture forever when—

“Say yes!” another woman shrieks in my ear. Her friend jostles me from the other side.“Say yes!”

I snatch the token from Jake’s hands and the Flamingo Squad claps and squeals and flaps their hands.

“Wait till I show Ruth what she missed!” the original silver-hair gasps from behind her phone, recording the whole thing.

Jake quickly stands and leads me with an icy cold hand to a deserted vantage nook by the fountain. His face is painted in the gaudy lights of the display, the reflections in his glasses obscuring his eyes. We’re quiet for a moment. My heart is still pounding in my chest. I wonder what his heart is doing.

“Why did you need to come to Las Vegas?” he says at last.

It’s amazing how many times I have to repeat myself. I place my bag on the ground, unzip it, and pull out a square stone vase. The one he’s seen on my desk at work. I hand it to him. “Unfinished business.”

It takes him a moment to understand what he’s holding: the secret I’ve been keeping in plain sight.

“He wanted his ashes scattered somewhere in Las Vegas,” I say.

Jake raises his eyes to mine, understanding everything, finally. He really does see me this time.

I bite my cheek. “You’re the body disposal expert, aren’t you?”

23

A Vampire in Vegas

Dodi

Jake twists the urn inhis hands.

The fountain display has ended and the Flamingo Squad has stampeded off in search of other shenanigans, leaving us quite alone. A warm desert breeze buffets a light mist over us as the lights of the display dim, leaving us lit in a green, phosphorescent glow, and it’s eerily, strangely beautiful for a split second as the two timelines of my life touch.

Neil, meet Jake. Jake, this is Neil.

Jake raises his eyes to mine. “How do we do this?” he asks, lifting the urn slightly.

I let out a shaky breath. “I have no fucking clue. That’s your wheelhouse. But I have to do something else first.”

I show him the silver token still in my fist. I’ve carried it everywhere with me for the past seven years. “He always brought home a chip from his trips, or a token,” I explain. “He’d hang on to it until he could go back, and then he’d pick up at the casino where he left off. He gave it to me to bring back.” I look at the fountain next to us. Coins litter thebottom like sparkling fish scales. It would be easy to dispose of it here.

Jake’s hand closes around mine before I throw it. “He wanted you to place his last bet for him, then,” he says, and I know he’s right. He takes it from me and squints to read the tiny words:

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