Las Vegas Savior
Chapter 7

Emily walked back to the laundry room and leaned against the door, just like he had. “Hi. Did you get it started up ok?”

“Hi. You came back. I thought you were going to make me do this by myself.” John smiled back at her, making her stomach clutch and the butterflies started trying to get out again. He had very pleasing features to her eyes.

He had large, wide set eyes the color that reminded her of pancake syrup. Between those dreamy bedroom eyes was a straight broad nose and below them high cheekbones. He had a strong looking jaw that ended in a square chin and right above that were full sensual lips. His complexion hinted at a person who spent a lot of time in the sun. His jet black hair made her wonder about his nationality. Knowing someone’s ancestry had always fascinated her.

“Yeah, I needed to use the restroom. So where are you from John?” Emily said, putting on a braver front than what she was feeling. She had become good at that over the past 3 years. “Never let them see you sweat or you’ll give them the upper hand.” She remembered Shelly telling her when they had talked about fending off the truckers when they got a little too familiar.

“Originally from Cali but my folks bought a place here a couple of years ago and I came to spend the Christmas holidays with them. I had several weeks of leave built up and my boss said take it or lose it so I decided to stay through New Year’s! I know everybody thinks that New York is the place to be on New Year’s Eve but that’s only because they’ve never been in Vegas for the holiday! But that is almost over now and soon it’ll be time to go back to work.”

“What kind of work do you do?” Emily asked.

“FBI. Agent John Travers, at your service.” John smiled at her. Emily caught her breath when he smiled at her like that. “Damn, he’s handsome.” She thought to herself as her eyes moved over him when he turned away to pour the soap into his machine. He was tall, at least 6’2”, with long, muscular legs that led to a very nice tush and lean narrow hips up to shoulders so wide that she was sure she wouldn’t be able to encompass them with both of her arms.

“FBI! Really?” Emily said in amazement as she tried to gather her wits about her but this man had a way of shattering her usually cool attitude towards men.

John laughed and pulled out his badge and showed it to her. Emily read the official ID, then said “Very impressive.”

“Why?” John asked. He had never had anyone react that way and few people were impressed by his ID.

“I’ve just never met a real life FBI agent before.” Emily blushed, feeling very naïve. “That must be very interesting work.”

“It can be. There is a lot of satisfaction in catching criminals and putting them in jail.” John said. “Damn, she’s even more beautiful when she blushes like that.” He thought to himself as he watched her. She wasn’t tall, maybe 5’ 7” at most, in fact her head would barely make it to his shoulder but she was very well proportioned.

Her long, silky looking hair was chocolate brown, like his favorite candy which was a Hershey bar. She had long, dark lashes around exotic almond shaped brown eyes under nicely shaped eyebrows. She had a cute button nose above full, lush, kissable lips. She didn’t seem to be wearing much if any makeup, but then she really didn’t need it.

She was beautiful without the paint and powder that most women had to use to even come close to her level of beauty. And she had a very pleasant voice, not high and screechy or overly deep and smoky. She had a laugh that sounded like the small wind chime on his parent’s back porch, as it rippled over him.

He hadn’t planned on doing laundry today but when he had come down the sidewalk on his way to the restaurant and had seen her he just couldn’t resist stopping in to hopefully meet her. They made polite conversation for a while as they waited for their clothes to finish in the wash.

After a few minutes, Emily began to relax a bit and they sat on the folding tables to chat. John told her about the things there were to do in Vegas. Emily’s washers cut off and she transferred her clothes to the dryers. She put in 3 quarters each and realized that she was almost out of quarters.

“So what kind of work do you do?” John asked. He had noticed that part of her belongings were a sleeping bag and sheets but surely she wasn’t doing the sheets off of the hotel bed.

Emily looked at him and wondered if she dared tell him anything true about herself. Maybe she should lie and make something up. “Lies always come back to bite you in the ass. Better to stick to the truth.” She thought to herself and then told him “I have a degree in computer programming. Right now, I’m out of work but will be looking for something soon.” Emily admitted.

“Oh, how come you are out of work? If you don’t mind me asking?”

“Well, I’ve been traveling a lot. Just got here last night from Idaho.” Emily hedged.

“Wow, that’s some drive this time of year.”

“Yeah, there was just too much snow up there. At least Vegas doesn’t get much of that.” After having spent the better part of the last month freezing her tush off. She was glad for the warmer climate of Vegas and was going to like southern California even better. At least that had been the destination she had in mind when she had been watching for black ice on the road out of Idaho.

“Is Idaho home?” John asked.

“Oh, goodness no. I’m originally from Redding, California. At least that was where I grew up. I went through college at the University of California in Oakland and then lived and worked in Seattle for a while.”

“So what kind of job are you looking for?” John asked innocently.

“Anything that pays cash and won’t ask a lot of questions about me.” She had replied without thinking and then immediately regretted it.

“Sounds like you are on the run from something.” He said without smiling and saw Emily start to pull back.

“Not for anything I’ve done. It’s because of something that I saw happen. Something I wasn’t supposed to see.” She hedged.

“What did you see?” John asked, trying to keep his voice neutral so he didn’t scare her but he couldn’t help it when the cop in him came to full alert at her admission.

Emily didn’t normally tell anyone about what had happened. She was afraid she might be putting other people in harm’s way if they knew what had happened and Derrick came asking about her. But John is a cop. Maybe he could help? Would it be considered federal jurisdiction if Derrick had killed someone in Seattle and then hunted her across 8 different states?

“I saw my ex-boyfriend and another man shoot and kill a man almost 4 years ago in Seattle. I’ve been on the run from them ever since.” Emily said.

“Wow. Why didn’t you go to the police?” He asked as he put his clothes in the dryer and turned it on. From the looks of it, he was only washing t-shirts and some underwear and socks.

Without thinking about it or knowing why she was doing it, she confided in John her story from the time she had met Derrick till now. “So I’ve been running from one end of the west to the other. I try to stay in the south during the winter months and in the north during the summer.

This time last year I stayed in a cave in the desert in Arizona for almost 2 months. I’ve done just about every kind of work you can think of from pumping gas to waiting tables to cleaning toilets, just so that I can keep myself and my car fed.

So long as they paid in cash and didn’t ask too many questions, I did what I had to, to keep out of his way while I kept hoping the police would eventually catch him. I used to call the Detective I first talked to but every time I did, Derrick would show up and I’d have to take off again. A few times I had to leave things behind and only had what I had in my backpack, my car and my purse.

I’ve been paying on a storage unit full of everything I owned for three years now and I’m basically living out of my car, in jeans that are getting so worn out that they are barely holding together anymore. I’ve almost emptied my savings account, just trying to keep my bills paid and keep myself alive.

I wouldn’t have stayed in Idaho as long as I did but my car was giving me trouble. Why is it that some mechanic’s take advantage of their women customers? He told me I needed a new transmission when it turned out that the only thing it needed was a new fan belt and a tune up.”

“Wow. Sounds like you’ve had it rough for the past couple of years. If you get a written quote and another mechanic will verify that he was padding the bill or just outright lying about what needed to be done then you can prosecute but most mechanic’s, especially if they have a licensed shop, have insurance. It’s hard to really nail them because they can say that their machine malfunctioned and gave them the wrong information.” He said and then thought,

“Unfortunately, mechanics are not the only criminals out there and while I don’t want to point fingers at a fellow officer without proof, it sounds like the Seattle police department has at least one leak, if not a dirty cop.” He would have to talk to his division commander before getting involved in this but felt like it was a call he would need to make when he got back to his room.

“Well, my friend’s brother came home for the holidays and he’s a mechanic in the army. He fixed it for me for $50 and the cost of the parts, which was less than $50. Now she’s running smoothly again.”

“So how long are you planning on staying in Vegas?” John asked.

“Well, I was only planning on stopping for the night to get some sleep, a shower and to get my laundry done then I was going to head on to South Cali to look for work.”

“Oh. Could you take some time to have dinner with me?” John asked, hopefully. For some reason, he didn’t want his time with her to end when their laundry was done. Not only was he personally interested in getting to know her better, he also wanted to see if he could help her out of the jam she had found herself in.

“Why?” Emily asked in surprise.

“Hahahaha. That’s the first time a woman has ever asked me that when I’ve invited her to join me for a meal and Emily, that’s all it is. Just dinner. I’m hungry and hate eating alone. I don’t know if you’ve eaten recently but you do have to eat sometime. Won’t you join me? The restaurant here at the hotel is fairly good but if you’re willing, I know of a great place to get some good steaks.”

“What time?” Emily hedged as she thought about it. It had been a very long time since she had had a good steak dinner or shared a meal with a good looking man like John and she was very tempted to say yes.

“Well, I need to get a shower and put on something better than this, but I could be ready to go in say an hour?” John said.

“Oh, is this some place you have to dress up for?” Emily asked.

“Nothing really fancy but jeans and a t-shirt will kind of be out of place.” John admitted.

“Oh, well. I guess I’ll have to pass then. Jeans are all I have and none of them are new.” Emily admitted, shamefaced.

“Well, we could go someplace else.” John said, hoping he had not embarrassed her.

“Look, John. It was very nice of you to ask and while I will admit that a steak dinner does sound really good, the only clothes I have are what’s in those two machines right there and none of it is good enough for any place but fast food joints. Besides, that sounds like a very public place and frankly, some place Derrick might go to eat. For the past 3 years, I’ve been trying to avoid anywhere I might run into him, even by chance.”

“Well, if you were with me and if you were to point him out to me, I could arrest him and your hell would be over.” John said.

“Oh, you have no idea of how good that sounds but Derrick is not going to go down without a fight and he carries a gun. I would hate to have anyone get hurt on my behalf.” Emily said.

“He’s not the only one who carries a gun and I do it legally.” John said as he lifted the leg of his jeans to show her the pistol he had in a harness strapped to his ankle. He might not wear his service revolver all the time on his hip or in the shoulder harness that he usually preferred but he always had his back up gun on his leg.

“Oh, of course.” Emily said. She really wanted to go to eat with him but at the same time………. “What?” She asked herself. “What is holding you back? He’s a good looking man who is definitely not a criminal. He’s not wearing a wedding ring, there’s not even a tan line for one, so he’s not married but………but what? Stop trying to throw obstacles in the path and just go!”

“Please?” John asked.

“I tell you what. Let me go somewhere and buy something that might be more appropriate and if you’ll give me the address, I’ll meet you there?” Emily hedged and hoped she wouldn’t chicken out and leave him waiting at the restaurant.

“Or you can save your money and we could just eat here at the hotel. They do have a fairly decent menu. I’ve never tried their steaks but the breakfast was good.” John said with an incredibly sexy grin. He could tell that she was nervous about being seen in public and from the story she had told him, she was afraid to leave her car and her possessions for any reason.

“Okay. I guess we can do that.” She grinned back at him. She didn’t know why but for some reason this very handsome man wanted to spend time with her and if she was really honest with herself she would really like to spend some more time with him too.