Back in Black (25 page)

“Yes, but I think it's a well-established fact that I am not you. You've always been audacious. And I've always been … not.”

“That Jane Cabot Percy part of you needs to be squished like a nest of cockroaches in the butler's pantry.”

“My mother would die hearing that analogy.”

“That's my point. Anna, you're not Jane.”

“I'm getting better, really.” Anna sighed. “I called Ben and invited him to Vegas.”

“And?”

“I got his voice mail and left a message. He hasn't even returned my call.”

“Okay, so it isn't meant to be.” Cyn got up and stretched, then looked directly at Anna “The world is full of hotties. Speaking of hot, I've about had enough in here. Ready to go?”

“Sure.” Anna stood, still thinking about Ben. He was definitely a hottie. But she also felt some special connection between the two of them. It wasn't that she was going to do what she used to do in elementary school when it came to boys—write her name in her spelling notebook as Mrs. Anna Cabot Percy Birnbaum. Sometimes, though, she thought she might come close. “He's more than a hot guy. Ben, I mean.”

“As it turns out, Scott isn't,” Cyn said. “I'm not looking for more than hot and temporary anymore: not for a while, anyway. On to the next.”

“On to the next,” Anna agreed, even though her heart was saying, “Back to Ben.” But Cyn was right; it probably just wasn't meant to be.

“Pinkie swear?” Cyn asked, holding up her right pinkie.

“Like when we had the friendship rings from Tiffany that our mothers got us?” Anna grinned. “Definitely. And we'll swear to honesty.”

“To honesty. Look how upset you got tonight. Over all the wrong things.”

They touched pinkies and laughed, then headed for the showers.

As the hot water needled down on her, Anna thought how glad she was that the night hadn't hurt their friendship in any significant way, and how right Cyn was about honesty. Without honesty, you couldn't have love and you couldn't have friendship. Friendship meant everything to her—maybe even more than love. Ben might have been different, but it seemed like guys came and guys went, but true friends—especially true girlfriends—endured. If that was the lesson she was supposed to learn from this amazing adventure in Las Vegas, she was very glad she'd come.

His Famous Megawatt Smile

S
am swung her taupe embossed leather Rena Lange open-toe pumps from her index and middle fingers as she and her friends stepped through the glass doors into the Palms. It was nearly dawn. Once again, her feet were killing her. Though the hour was late, the casino was still packed; the bells and whistles and music and alcohol-fueled excitement felt overwhelming after such a long night. Though she'd been here many times, it always struck her as extraordinary that this was a place where time lost all meaning—where morning and afternoon and night all melded into one thing called Sin City.

Scott and Cyn claimed exhaustion and went right up to their suite. Cammie and Adam did, too. Sam was impressed that the two couples had been able to recover from the evening's revelations. “Well, that was quite an evening,” she commented to Anna as they passed the reception area—per usual, the video monitors were flashing the Palms Girls.

“It was … interesting,” Anna replied carefully.

“Vegas isn't interesting,” Sam quipped. “To quote Dee, it's sound and
furry
, signifying nothing.”

“We should check on her before we go to sleep,” Anna decided as Sam stopped at the cash machine to get some more money.

She stuffed the money into her back pocket carelessly, then caught a glimpse of someone familiar at the bar beside the video poker machines. “Parker's over there.”

“Alone,” Anna noted. “I wonder what happened to Kendall?”

“Me too.” Sam's eyes were still on Parker. He was rubbing his forehead, and his foot was tapping nervously against the bottom of the bar. Something in her gut told her that all was not well. “Hey, I need to go talk to him a sec. You wanna wait here or you want me to meet you upstairs?”

“I'll wait.” Anna sagged against the wall and yawned.

“Go play some slot machines,” Sam instructed.

“Better yet, hang around the craps tables. Some rich asshole who's winning big will give you thousand-dollar chips just for looking good.”

Sam sidled up to Parker, who was staring into a tall glass of what looked like gin and tonic. “Hey.” She slid onto a bar stool, and a beefy bartender with a bald head and a soul patch asked her what she wanted to drink. She considered a dry Tanqueray martini on the rocks with a twist of lemon but opted for a Campari instead. “And get my friend here a refill.” Sam cocked her head toward Parker. “He looks like he needs it.”

“Another
ice water?
” the bartender asked, his tone withering.

“I'm good,” Parker mumbled.

So. Parker was sitting by himself drinking ice water with a lime in it. That made zero sense to Sam. “Where's your new squeeze?”

He shrugged, staring into his glass.

“Don't you care? I thought you were so into her and everything.”

He shrugged again. “I'm not really in the mood to talk, if you don't mind.”

Okay.
She could just say good-bye and leave him be. But maybe if she probed enough. … “You're really into this Kendall chick, huh?”

Parker finally looked at Sam. “What part of ‘Go away’ don't you understand?”

“The part where you declared your devotion to the new love of your life and ended up sitting here alone at the bar looking like you're ready to slit your wrists.”

“She left right after we got here. Her father called, screaming at her. She's on a plane back to Texas even as we speak.”

“That sucks,” Sam said soothingly. “You can go visit her and—”

“Geez, Sam, I don't even like the chick!” Parker exploded.

Her brain tried to process this information. Parker didn't like Kendall. But when he'd been hypnotized, he'd said how he was into her “inner beauty,” or some such bullshit. Either he'd been really into her for a really short period of time, or—

Holy shit
.

“
Sonofabitch
. You fucking scammed the hypnotist.”

Parker looked at her balefully.

“Goddamn. You were
acting
!”

She was impressed. Not with herself because she'd figured it out, but with Parker, because she'd never thought that he actually had any talent. “Jesus Christ. Parker, you're good!”

“Tell that to
Everwood's
casting director,” he snapped.

“You shined all of us on, even the hypnotist.” She waved a finger at him. “I knew your taste in girls couldn't have slipped that much,” Sam mused. “‘My father invested in this Hollywood movie. We all love Hollywood.’” Sam laughed, mimicking Parker's date. “You couldn't have pretended you were hypnotized to get into Kendall's pants because, I mean, who would want to? You wanted to prove that you have talent! This is so hilarious!”

“Yeah, Sam. It's a laugh riot.” His eyes slid to a bony blonde at the other end of the bar whose diamond necklace looked as if it weighed more than she did. He lifted his ice water and gave her that special smile.

“You're
still
acting.” Sam laughed.

The blonde pouted at Parker, then looked to Sam, then looked at Parker again, a question in her eyes. “I'm about to go pick up that chick, so if you wouldn't mind …”

“Her? Why would you—”

“She's got money,” Parker hissed. “She's in real estate; I overheard her say she took home seven figures last year. You happy now?”

Sam might have been raised by nannies, but those nannies had not raised a stupid girl. The last piece of her mental puzzle fit neatly into place. Kendall was rich. Parker knew the chick down the bar had some money. The only reason that Parker, with his A-list looks, would hit on C-list girls who had money was that he didn't.

He gestured to his glass of ice water. “You pay for your drinks unless you're gambling.”

“You're …” Sam could hardly bring herself to say it. “Low on cash?”

“I'm broke,” Parker replied through clenched teeth. “As in poor, as in pretending to have money like all the rest of you. As in low-rent.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I hit on Kendall so that she'd pick up my hotel tab, but she split. If you don't get your ass out of here, I'm gonna lose out on the chick at the other end of the bar, too.”

For once in her life, Sam was speechless. She had
no
idea how to deal with this. It wasn't like she was Miss Sensitivity. The truth was, she spent most of her time thinking about herself and her problems, not other people's difficulties. “I can pay your hotel bill,” she offered awkwardly.

“I really don't want to have this conversation, if it's all the same to you.”

“Well, it's not. I want you to know—”

“I don't care what you want me to know.”

“Hey, I didn't steal your family's fortune, bucko.”

“What fortune? My mother is a cocktail waitress.”

At that moment a weary cocktail waitress with a trayful of drinks passed them, on her way into the casino. Sam studied her. She was thin and pretty, but there were already lines around her mouth and a hard set to her dark, almond-shaped eyes. She probably wasn't more than thirty, but in five years she'd be considered old. No hip hotel would want her serving drinks to the high rollers. Then what?

Sam shook her head despondently. The waitress's life wasn't her problem. She wasn't accustomed to thinking about the crappy lives of the teeming masses, and she wasn't about to start now.

“Happy, Sam?”

“I don't care that you don't have money, Parker. That's not why we're friends.”

“Who's acting now?”

“Okay, you're right,” she admitted. “All my friends are rich. Well, except you, evidently.”

“Bingo.” He took a long drink of his ice water and held up a one-moment finger to the skinny blonde, who looked antsy.

“Okay, so I'll … leave you to whatever,” Sam muttered. “I won't tell anyone.” She got off the bar stool.

Parker's façade slipped. He looked about twelve years old. But he quickly covered, a cool veneer closing down any hint of need. Then he leaned over and kissed Sam's cheek. “Thanks.”

“You're welcome.”

He kissed her again, this time lightly and sweetly, on the lips.

“Uh-uh-uh,” Sam demurred. “I have a boyfriend.”

“For now.”

Parker's grin spread into his famous megawatt smile, and he moved down the bar toward the blonde.

Wow, who'da thunk it? Parker Pinelli had guts. Evidently he also lived off of rich girlfriends. But his guts, at least, Sam had to admire.

She went to the reception area and told them to put all Parker's charges on her credit card. Just in case things didn't work out with the blonde.

“How did it go?” Anna asked as Sam pressed the elevator button that would take them back to the top floor.

“You tell me first. Pick up any princes who showered you with chips?”

“None. So what happened with Parker?”

The shiny chrome elevator doors opened and they stepped out onto their floor.

“He hit on me,” Sam said.

Anna looked incredulous. “Out of nowhere?”

“Who knows?” Sam mused breezily. She intended to keep her promise to Parker. Bizarre. She had just done something nice for a guy in whom she was not even interested. “You know, I
am
capable of being a really nice person.”

“I already knew that.”

“Yeah?” Sam's eyebrows rose and she opened her pocketbook to dig for their key card as they approached the wooden door to their suite. “Well, I didn't.”

“Wait.” Anna put her hand on Sam's arm. “We were going to check on Dee, remember?”

“Please. I'm so tired I'm about to pass out. I'm sure she's asleep. Why wake her?”

“Let's just knock softly and see what happens.”

“I'm tired of being Oprah. Especially at five in the morning.”

Still, Sam dutifully trudged after Anna down the hallway to Dee's suite and waited patiently as Anna knocked on the large white door. No answer. Anna knocked louder.

“Dee slept through the Northridge earthquake,” Sam reminded her. “She'll never hear you. Let me call her cell.”

But before she could, her own cell rang.

“Yeah?” Sam answered.

“Samantha Sharpe?” asked an unfamiliar voice.

“You're speaking to her.”

“This is Nurse Maria Hernandez, Clark County Hospital. Your friend Dee Young gave permission for us to telephone you. We've got her here in our psych unit.”

Thorazine

“H
ow could they just bring Dee here against her will?” Cammie ranted as she, Adam, Sam, and Anna followed the signs to the hospital psychiatric unit. Clark County Hospital was a big and antiseptic place, bright fluorescent lights casting a deathly white glow against the white walls of its hallways. The place was alarmingly quiet: the graveyard shift. Cammie shuddered. She hated hospitals.

“We'll find everything out when we talk to the doctor,” Adam assured her, giving her shoulder a little squeeze.

“If they don't release her, I'm suing their asses,” Cammie thundered.

She sounded a lot like her father at that moment. And she was glad. It was better than freaking out. That had been her initial reaction when Sam had pounded on the door of their suite at dawn, just as she and Adam were drifting off to dreamland. They'd pulled on some clothes, and Cammie hadn't even stopped for a slick of Stila lip gloss, which meant she was damned serious.

Finally, they were in the psych unit, identified by a simple sign on a pair of double swinging doors.

“Over there.” Sam pointed to the nurse's station—a low wooden counter with high Plexiglas sections separating the nurses from the general public. A middle-aged woman with her dark hair in a long braid over one shoulder glanced indifferently through the Plexiglas as they approached.

“Can I help you?” Her voice was slightly muffled by the barrier.

“I'm Cammie Sheppard. We're friends of Dee Young. You called my friend.”

“Me,” Sam chimed in. “Samantha Sharpe. My father is Jackson Sharpe. The actor.” To prove her point, she held up a photograph of her father with his arm around her.