CHAPTER TWELVE
Paige could feel the frustration running through her as they had to release Zane Caister.
“Thank you, Agents,” his lawyer said with a smile that was obviously calculated to be as annoying as possible. “My client and I will discuss whether to add you to the suit in the morning.”
So now, as well as having struck out again on the case, there was the risk of getting sued as well.
“Don’t worry about it,” Christopher said as Zane and his lawyer left. “Nothing will come of it. The lawyer knows that, murder or not, we might have enough to get Zane’s probation revoked. He won’t want to actually sue.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Paige said, although that was a part of it, and it worried her more that Christopher could see everything she was feeling so easily on her face. It made her worry about what else he might see there. “I’m worried because we just chased down what looked like our best lead, and it turned out to be a dead end.”
“We’ll find another lead,” Christopher said. “But tomorrow. It’s getting late. We should head for whatever hotel Agent Sauer has booked us into, and get started again in the morning.”
Paige thought about arguing to keep going, but almost as soon as Christopher said it, she felt the wave of tiredness hitting her, hard enough that she felt like she might be about to fall asleep right there. Maybe it would be better to get some sleep, and then start fresh.
“Ok,” Paige said. “Let’s find out what kind of hotel we’re stuck in here.”
*
The Seven Lakes Casino and Hotel was not what Paige had been anticipating when she’d heard that her boss had booked somewhere for the two of them. It was a huge, glitzy casino on the strip, complete with the seven lakes of its name out front, in what amounted to a pretty ostentatious display in such a hot, dry state as Nevada.
This was where Sauer had booked them to stay?
As she and Christopher walked in, Paige saw gamblers moving through to the casino, apparently oblivious of the time, saw a whole clutch of Elvis impersonators, presumably there for some kind of conference or competition, saw a group of young men and women moving through the place, all drunk, all wearing “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” t-shirts.
The two of them headed up to their rooms, which were opposite one another across a narrow corridor on the twelfth floor. That distance didn’t seem nearly great enough.
“Goodnight, Paige,” Christopher said as he opened the door to his room.
What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. The t-shirt slogan ran through Paige’s mind. It would be so easy to take that literally, reach out for Christopher, and…
No, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
Paige had to back away, fear of the possible consequences making her stumble back from Christopher. Could she keep working like this? Could she work with a guy where every moment she spent near him burned inside her, making Paige long to be closer to him?
Paige swiped the card for her own room without even saying goodnight. She all but ran inside, putting her back against the door. She was breathing hard. It took several seconds for Paige to move deeper into the room, determined to ignore everything she felt right then.
Working alongside Christopher was proving harder than Paige could have imagined. She had to do this, had to be a part of this, and not just because of the fact that there was a killer out there somewhere who might strike again at any time. Paige also had to show Agent Sauer that she could keep up with the demands of the job, that she deserved to be a part of the BAU.
If she did that, maybe he would give her the information that she needed when it came to her father’s killer. Information that simply wasn’t out there in the public domain.
Paige went over to the bed and perched on the edge of it, opening up her laptop. She needed to distract herself from thoughts of Christopher, and work was the best way to do that.
It helped that Zane had given her a small moment of inspiration in with the disappointment of him turning out not to be the killer. He said that he didn’t have the time to be the killer, because he was too busy working on his own act and his projects for clients.
It had been a small comment, and probably not one that had been intended to be serious, but there was a point behind it. The two murders that they knew of by this killer had both been elaborate. They had both presumably required considerable planning. To get an airtight safe from the company and then put it in place must have taken an effort. Just the transport would have required planning ahead of time, especially when it was just one person moving it into position.
Assuming it was. Was it possible that there was a whole team doing this? No, Paige didn’t think that fit. If a serial killer hired people to help him, one of them would talk once they realized what was going on.
So one magician, working alone.
Would a working magician have enough time to do all of that? More importantly, would they be able to do it without being noticed? Surely, with the hours that it would take to set something like that up, someone would wonder where they were? They would want to know why they weren’t putting the work in on their own job, or might start to think that they were planning to run off to another gig or change their act.
Was it possible that this was a magician who wasn’t working anymore? Zane had hinted at how hard the magic scene could be in Vegas, but now Paige found herself looking for more, realizing that she didn’t really know enough. She found a couple of forums dedicated to magicians in and around the Las Vegas area, and quickly found a few threads that were interesting, with titles like “Why is it so hard to get a gig?” and “Is the whole scene rigged against me?”.
Paige had no idea whether that was just a couple of less skilled magicians who weren’t able to get work because they weren’t good enough, or if the whole process of getting gigs in Las Vegas really was that hard.
Thinking about it though, what would it be like if this were a singer or an actor in Nashville or LA? Both of those cities attracted people not just from around the country, but around the world, all looking for their big break. That meant that both of them featured stiff competition for anyone trying to make it, so talent wasn’t the only, or even primary, factor determining who succeeded. They had to be in the right place at the right time, and plenty of people weren’t.