The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(91)

The memories hit him like a fist to the face. The chase through the house. The contract. The fire. Caitlin. No tears now, Artie. This is just a taste of what’s to come. He stared at Stacy with bulging eyes, horror dawning.

“The second message,” Stacy said, “is ‘Welcome to hell.’”

Artie flailed at the cuffs, frantic, jerking against the steel chair.

“I was trying to get my life together when you found me,” Stacy said. “Did you know that? I did a lot of things I wasn’t proud of back home, with some bad people. I ran to Vegas to try to get away from all that. I wanted a new start. I found you instead.”

Artie ignored her, consumed with his own terror. “Come on, come on, untie me. Let’s get out of here—”

“There was a pretty good chance I’d have done it. Given time, given help. I could have made something of myself. I could have been a better person. I wanted to be. But it turned out that wanting wasn’t good enough.”

He shook his head wildly at her. “Are you listening, you stupid bitch? Untie me right f*cking now!”

“I’ll never see my grandfather again,” Stacy said. “Never see anyone I cared about, anyone I loved. Never see the sun. Not for all eternity. I know that I’m responsible for the choices I made, for the crimes I committed. But you, Artie? You’re the reason I’m here.”

She pulled a cart, wobbling on one broken wheel, around to the front of the chair so he could see it. Surgical tools, half of them rusted and dull, lined a silver tray.

“Bitch,” Artie whispered, too terrified to put any force behind the word, “what do you think you’re doing?”

“Do you remember what you told me when you first met me?”

He forced a smile, head bobbing like a puppet. “Yeah! Yeah! I said you had star quality! I meant it, baby girl, meant every word of it!”

“The pretty lady I met, she said the exact same thing. She said it wasn’t fair how this all happened, but she had a way I could make things a little bit better for myself. She said Caitlin asked for a very special favor, just for me. Isn’t that nice?”

Stacy’s hand hovered over the tray. After a moment’s indecision she picked up a scalpel, its dark, pitted surface caked with decay.

“What is this?” Artie squirmed helplessly in the chair. “What, you want revenge? Is that what this is all about? You think that’s gonna make you feel better?”

Movement caught his eye, beyond the wall of blackened glass. Outlines of figures in the dark, seated, watching intently.

An audience?

“No,” Stacy said with a wistful sigh. “No, Artie, you don’t understand. Revenge won’t make me feel better. Besides, you aren’t worth it. This isn’t about you at all.”

She touched the edge of the scalpel to his cheek.

“This is my audition.”





Afterword

Readers familiar with the Vegas Strip will have noted the changing of casino names. This was done to provide a certain amount of legal cover (since the real casinos might not look kindly upon accusations of getting friendly with a guy like Nicky Agnelli…) and allow for certain deviations from reality when necessary. Just assume that Daniel Faust’s Vegas is a slightly skewed version of our own, glimpsed through a smoky glass.

That said, every location mentioned in The Long Way Down is a real place you can visit, with the exception of the Tiger’s Garden.

Probably.

Special thanks to James T. Egan and Kira Rubenthaler at Bookfly Design for their absolutely top-notch cover design and copy-editing work. Thanks to my friends for indulgently putting up with me while I’m lost in a writing binge, and to the always-awesome staff at Hotel 32, my home away from home when I’m doing field research in Vegas.

Thanks to you, especially, for reading! If you’d like to see more (and get the inside track on Daniel Faust’s next adventure), visit me over at craigschaeferbooks.com. I’d love to hear from you!