Chapter 85
VAL KENNEY ENTERED Las Vegas’s famed CityCenter, determined not to be awed by this glittering constellation of resorts, hotels, high-end retail shops, and million-dollar condos, all of it a monument to greed and excess.
Val had grown up poor, the child of a working single mom, and they’d lived with Grandma in Liberty City, a black ’hood in Miami. She had nothing against money. It provided necessities and comfort and also the means to help those in need, and that she loved. But Val’s ambitions didn’t run to amassing wealth. She wanted to raise her own bar, do good and achieve big things.
That’s why she was here.
Olsen taught his how-to-catch-a-rich-husband class in his condo in Veer Towers, the residential complex composed of two buildings, each thirty-seven floors of modern luxury encased in glass and golden panels, their tops craning outward, so that neither building would interfere with the other’s view of the Las Vegas cityscape.
Val took the escalator to the main floor of the North Tower, traveling up through a vast, futuristic lobby that made her feel as though she’d been living in a cave until today, when she had somehow stepped into the twenty-second century.
She told herself to get a grip.
She looked like she belonged, dressed to impress in a brilliant cherry-red-and-white print Rachel Roy dress that skimmed her curves without hiding them, the hem ending just above her knees. Her black shoes were pointy toed with three-inch heels, which would make her the tallest woman in almost any room.
As she headed toward the elevator bank, Val had an unexpected flash of fear. In a few moments, she would be entering Lester Olsen’s home with a wireless microphone nestled in her cleavage, a digital recorder in her handbag. And then she was going to lie her face off.
Would she get away with that? Really?
Val remembered the last thing Jack had said to her before she left LA; “I have one hundred percent confidence in you, Val. But if you become afraid for your safety at any time, get the hell out. Okay? Get the hell out and call me.”
“Okay,” she had said. “I’m going to be fine. And thanks for having faith in me.”
No question. She had faith in Jack. And she would not disappoint him.