“Tallulah, please—”
“She’s probably worried out of her mind about you right now. Call her.”
I guess my voice had just the necessary amount of command because Sawyer stopped arguing and took the phone from me, dialing a number she knew by heart. She paced nervously while it rang, and I knew the second Yvonne answered because Sawyer’s face went ashen and she said “Hey” in a trembling, uneasy voice.
I could also hear Yvonne screaming through the phone, which helped.
After a few minutes of back and forth, wherein Sawyer continued to apologize and insist she was okay, and Yvonne continued to yell at her—“nearly gave me a heart attack” was said several times—Sawyer handed the phone to me.
“She wants to talk to you.”
“I bet.”
When it was my turn to speak, Yvonne was much more calm, but the edge of hysteria still gave her a slightly higher pitch than I remembered her having in Lovelock. “I am so sorry about all this, Tallulah. I honestly don’t know what got into that girl’s head.”
“It’s okay.” I wondered how much Yvonne knew about Sawyer’s history. I had a hard time believing she’d let the girl talk to me if she knew how much the cleric connection would mean to her.
“I’m not sure how we go about handling this. I know how busy you are and how valuable your time is…” She drifted off.
Time for a very bad, very poorly thought out idea. “Yvonne, I have a proposal.” I doubted she would like it, but I was hoping she might agree that it was pretty smart, all things considered. “Leo and I are going to Las Vegas for the convention. How about I take her along to Vegas and introduce her to a few people. She can find out how things really are for people like me. Once she sees what it’s like, I don’t think she’ll be so interested in following the next cleric who rolls through town.”
Sawyer’s already cartoonish eyes had grown at least six sizes as I spoke. Leo, too, seemed to not believe what he was hearing. That made three of us, because even though I was saying the words, I could barely fathom that they were coming out of my mouth.
Yvonne was quiet for a minute, then said, “Don’t you think that’s rewarding her?”
I laughed humorlessly. “Trust me. By the time we’re on our way back to you she’ll never want to see another cleric in her whole life. Depending who I introduce her to she might never want to leave Lovelock again.”
This resulted in a small hmm sound on the other end of the phone. “You’d keep her safe, right?” For the first time I was starting to sense that Yvonne really did care about Sawyer, as more than just a state-sponsored ward. There was something genuinely motherly in the way she was asking me to protect Sawyer, and I hoped the girl might come to appreciate how lucky she was to have that kind of woman in her life.
Mothers were a rare prize, especially ones who honestly cared. They didn’t need to be the ones who gave birth to you.
Maybe this trip would make Sawyer understand what it was she was trying to run away from.
“I swear to you nothing will happen to her except a rude wake-up call.”
It took Yvonne another minute, but she finally said, “Okay. But please make sure she calls me every day.”
“Will do.”
I hung up and pocketed the phone. My guts were swirling with apprehension. Was I insane to be taking a teenager along for the ride when a madman was out their killing initiates?
What had I just gotten myself into?
Chapter Fifteen
We pulled into the lot for the Lucky Star Hotel and Casino about three hours later.
The name in and of itself was a bit of a joke, considering it was also the temple for Ardra, the bad-luck goddess and Cade’s boss.
She made an absolute killing in tithes from people desperate not to lose everything in the gaming pits. Truth be told, the Lucky Star was no more or less unlucky than any other casino on the strip. The only difference was that people thought their tithes might save them from bad luck here. Everywhere else people understood a gamble was a gamble.
Sawyer had been mostly quiet the whole trip, alternating between staring out the window or playing with Fen. I think she was worried if she said the wrong thing or reminded me she was still there, I might change my mind on this entire plan and drop her at the nearest Greyhound station.
She wasn’t totally wrong.
The Convention of the Gods wouldn’t be taking place at the Lucky Star. It would be too much of a conflict to be seen favoring Ardra’s establishment. But I liked the suites the hotel offered clerics.
It had nothing to do with my desire to bump into Cade.