Lucky Enough by Deborah Coonts

Author:Deborah Coonts [Coonts, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781944831028
Publisher: Chestnut Street Press

Chapter Eleven

THE ELEVATOR doors opened on Babel in peak party mode, thumping me with the bass of male bravado and the treble of women’s laughter. Since this was a private party, we’d kept the music as an afterthought and not as the main show so people could talk. Novel concept, I know. I stepped out of the elevator, took a few steps, then paused to drink it all in. Heat lamps dotted the expanse keeping the cool night at bay. The bistro lights over the pool lent an air of casual comfort. The subtle lighting from below, fractured by the ripples in the water, danced like glowing diamonds across the crush of people encircling the pool. The tall palms swayed in an invisible caress of breeze. The DJ spun from a platform off to the left. Food tables formed a horseshoe at the far end, leaving the whole right side from which to drink in the view of the heart of the Strip.

The same view as my father’s.

I wondered if he was staring out at his town right now in the same way I was. As a child I used to play a similar game when lying on my back drinking in the stars and wondering who was looking at them as well. How far away were they? How close? The shared view eliminated the distance and the differences making me feel so close to my fellow stargazers l didn’t know and couldn’t see. If only it were that easy to bridge the gaps between all of us.

Could Jean-Charles see this same sky from Paris?

What would he be thinking as he stared skyward? Across the pond, morning would be lightening the sky and chasing away the darkness. I missed him. I missed his touch. He challenged me, but in a good way. Oddly, I missed that, too. But he came at a price. A price I didn’t have the currency to pay. No, I could if I wanted. But I didn’t want to. My life, my place, my purpose here, sustained me. To sacrifice that? Nobody was worth that. And the right somebody wouldn’t ask me to.

The car, with its necklace of crime scene tape perched in the middle of the festivities, a stark reminder of the less frivolous side of life. Doc had wanted us to cancel the party as we couldn’t find anyone to get his crime scene off the roof. We’d compromised. The access ramps to the platform had been removed and guards stood at attention, presumably to discourage anyone who might decide swimming out to the Bugatti seemed like a good plan. Given the time that had passed, Doc most likely had finished with the thorough going-over but wanted to preserve the final resting place of Freddy Morales. The way my staff had set it up made the car look like part of the party, not that anyone cared. With libations flowing and food beckoning—I could smell the tantalizing aromas from here—the cogs of social interaction were well-oiled and operating smoothly from what I could tell.

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