Laney
My phone buzzes for the hundredth time this hour, but it's not the notification I want.
Spam email. Sale at Target. LinkedIn connection request.
Not Laurie.
I lock the screen and shove it back in my jacket pocket, trying to focus on the slot machines ringing around me, the cigarette smoke hazing the air, the impossible grandeur of the Korolyov Casino's main floor. Colourful lights flashing everywhere. Marble columns. Golden chandeliers shining too brightly.
Laurie sent me approximately eight million photos of this place when she first started working here."Laney, oh my GOD, you have to see this place. It's like if Versailles had a baby with a nightclub. I'm gonna make SO MUCH in tips."
That was ten days ago.
It’s been seven days since her last text.
Seven days of silence from the person who texts me before she's even fully awake, who sends me photos of her coffee and her outfit and random dogs she sees on the street. Seven days of my calls going straight to voicemail, of her Instagram staying frozen on a mirror selfie in her cocktail waitress uniform, gold corset top, tiny fringed skirt, legs for days.
"Loving my new job! Come say ‘hi’ at the Korolyov, Las Vegas!"
Forty-three comments. I've read every single one.
The casino manager's office is down a hallway that screamsemployees onlyin everything but actual words. I push through anyway, past a security guard who's too busy watching a blackjack table to notice me.
The door at the end saysMichael Torres, Floor Manager,in brass lettering.
I take a steadying breath and knock. A voice follows a second later. "Yeah, come in."
The office is smaller than I expected. Corporate bland, with a desk buried under paperwork and filing cabinets overstuffed with personnel files lining the back wall. A man I assume is Torres looks up from his computer. He is mid-forties with tired eyes, the expression of a man who's seen every variety of human on his casino floor.
"Can I help you?"
"I'm looking for my sister." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "Laurie Parker. She works here. Worked here. I don't…she's missing."
His expression shifts from mild irritation to cautious concern. "Missing?"
"She hasn't answered her phone in a week. I haven't heard from her since her third shift here. I flew in from Sacramento this morning because the police won't do anything and—" I stop myself before I sound completely hysterical.Deep breath, Laney. "Can you tell me when you last saw her?"
Torres is already typing on his computer. "Parker, Parker... Laurie, yeah. Cocktail waitress." He frowns at the screen. "Looks like she worked three shifts…Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, last week. Didn't show up for her Monday shift. We tried calling, got voicemail, figured she ghosted."
I bite back my exasperation. "She wouldn't ghost."
"Miss—"
I cut him off with a wave of my hand. "We're twins. Identical twins. We talk every single day, multiple times a day. She wouldn't just stop responding to me. Something must have happened to her."
He has the decency to look uncomfortable. "Look, I'm sorry, but Vegas has a high turnover rate. People come here thinking it's gonna be glamorous, then reality hits, and they bail. Happens all the time. We've got three other cocktail waitresses who've quit this month alone without notice."
"Did you file a missing person report?" I ask.
"For someone who stopped showing up for work?" He spreads his hands. "That's not really our—"
"She didn't pick up her last paycheck." I've done my research. Called HR twice already. "If she quit, she would've still picked up her money."
That gives him pause. He checks his computer again. "Huh. Yeah, you're right. It's still here."
"So she didn't just quit." I clench my teeth and take a deep breath. The frustration of trying to get anyone to help me is beginning to chew at my nerves.
Torres leans back in his chair, studying me. Looking for crazy, probably. I'm used to it. I’ve spent the last three days having this exact conversation with my boss, with the Sacramento police, with the Vegas Metro operator who took my missing person call and basically told me to fuck off and wait for Laurie to call me.
