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  CATCH

  Michelle D. Argyle

  Copyright © 2013 Michelle D. Argyle

  Catch

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, printing, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Summary: “Eighteen-year-old Miranda falls in love with a purse snatcher in Las Vegas while vacationing with her family.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Edited by Diane Dalton

  Cover Design by Melissa Williams Cover Design

  Cover images © 2013 Shutterstock

  Author Photo by Meg Hall Photography at

  http://meghallphotography.blogspot.com/

  Visit author Michelle D. Argyle at

  http://michelledargyle.com

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  1.

  Miranda’s parents had gone overboard in planning this last family vacation before she went off to college. The next five days were packed to the brim with activities organized around her father’s business convention. She should have been excited, but it all felt so inevitably predictable. Just like her life. As much as she sometimes wished for something unplanned and exciting to happen, she knew it was a reckless hunger. She had once told her fifteen-year-old sister, Julia, “If you look for excitement, you’ll probably find trouble.”

  But maybe a little trouble would be worth it.

  “Okay, girls.” Miranda’s mother, Gabriela, flung a suitcase onto one of the hotel beds and unzipped the top. “I’ve brought something for you two to do while we’re here.”

  “Like there’s not enough entertainment in Vegas already?” Julia asked as she sank into a chair by the window and dropped her sunglasses on the table. She looked the most like their mother, with darker skin and full, curly black hair inherited from Gabriela’s Brazilian genes. Those genes had skipped Miranda entirely. She looked most like her father, with fair skin and straight, light brown hair. The most exotic things about her were her long, black eyelashes, full lips, and bushy eyebrows she had to pluck nearly every day.

  “Of course there’s enough entertainment,” their mother replied with a small pout, “but this is … this is different.” She pulled a small white box from her bag and slid off the top. “You two got to know Grandpa pretty well before he died, but he never talked much about your Grammy. I want you two to get to know her better.”

  “Here we go,” Julia groaned as she slowly fist-pumped the air. “Another march into the Brazilian roots!”

  Miranda smirked and looked out the window at the city sprawling below. They were on the sixth floor of the Las Vegas Hilton, and she was only now beginning to cool off from the dry July heat outside as the air conditioner blasted cold air up her sweat-damp shirt.

  “These are the pictures we saved?” Julia asked as she jumped onto the bed and peered into the white box. Miranda watched them over her shoulder, remembering how devastated their mother had been when that stupid flood destroyed the few boxes of memorabilia they had of Grandma and Grandpa Soares. They had managed to save one box with a few pictures and some knickknacks, but Miranda hadn’t paid much attention to them at the time. She was too busy mourning the loss of her baby scrapbook, which was now a water-warped mess.

  “Yes, these are from her first trip to Vegas. It was 1967—when Elvis married Priscilla at The Aladdin, and Howard Hughes started buying hotels, to give you some sense of the time period.”

  “Who was Howard Hughes?” Julia asked, snapping her watermelon gum.

  Miranda laughed. “Leonardo Dicaprio?” she hinted. “That movie The Aviator? Howard Hughes was one of the richest men in the world, ever.”

  Julia shook her head. “No clue who you’re talking about.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” Gabriela sighed as she lifted old photographs from the box. “What matters is that you two get to know your Grammy through these pictures.”

  Walking to the bed, Miranda picked up one of the pictures and studied it. Her Grandma Soares had the same dark coloring as Julia. In the black and white photograph, she was wearing an old-fashioned dress with big shiny buttons going all the way up the front. She leaned against a light-colored Chevy, her face half covered with a huge pair of white sunglasses. On her head was a floppy sunhat.

  Miranda smiled. “Looks like she walked straight out of Hollywood.”

  “Well, we don’t live far from there, now do we?” Gabriela laughed. Miranda’s parents had lived in Santa Ana forever, even before they’d met and married … and Miranda feared she would live there forever too. That was why she had been so desperate to go to college somewhere other than California. She’d always had an itch to travel and move around. She didn’t like the idea of being stuck in one place for the rest of her life. Being stuck meant even less excitement than she already had.

  “How old was she in these?” Julia asked as she thumbed through a stack of photos.

  “Eighteen—your age, Miranda. She and her older sister, Veronica, came here to Vegas for the very first time.”

  Miranda picked up a few more pictures. Some of them were in color, but most of them were black and white. Gabriela sifted through the pictures until she found a neat stack held together with a rubber band. She pulled off the band and handed Miranda the photos. There were at least a dozen snapshots of the two sisters in front of buildings—The Flamingo Hotel, The Riviera, The Aladdin, Caesars Palace, and a bunch of others Miranda had never heard of. Half of them probably weren’t even around anymore. Her grandmother looked so happy and excited, and in every shot she had an arm wrapped around her sister’s waist, hugging her close. In a lot of ways, they looked similar to her and Julia.

  “I thought you two could go to each of those locations—if they still exist—and take a photo just like your grandmother and great aunt did. Create some memories, and then we can put them all together in an album.” Gabriela’s eyes sparkled as she looked up at Miranda. “It’ll be an adventure.” She moved her attention to Julia. “I know this trip wasn’t something you really wanted to do, but humor me for this? Please?”

  Miranda saw the desperation in her mother’s eyes, and it hit her in the gut. All those hours Gabriela spent learning Portuguese, all that time in the kitchen trying to learn Brazilian cooking, it all had to do with connecting to her mother in the only way she knew how. For the first time in her life, Miranda felt a small spark of motivation to help her find that connection.

  “Sure, Mom,” she said, putting her hand on her mother’s. “We’ll go out and take the pictures.” She grabbed all the photos and stacked them into a nice, thick pile and stretched the rubber band around them.

  “Thanks, girls. I’ll be at your dad’s convention tomorrow. You can go first thing in the morning after breakfast. I know you’ll have fun.”

  Julia rolled her eyes and slid off the bed. “Sounds like a blast,” she sighed as Miranda dropped the photos in her handbag for later. “Better than the convention, at least.”

  *

  “Well, it doesn’t look anything like it did in 1967,” Julia said as she and Miranda stood below the gaudy Flamingo Hotel and Casino sign. It hung over the sidewalk, bright pink and orange and in the shape of flamingo feathers. In Grammy’s picture, the sign wasn’t attached to the building but still had the same basic shape. Miranda couldn’t tell what the colors had been back then since the photo was in black and white. She wasn’t even sure the hotel had been in the
same place. She squinted at the picture and then up at the sign above them. People bustled around them, sweating under the hot sun. Julia wiped her brow. “Maybe we should go inside. I’m so tired I’m going to fall over.”

  “Hang in there, Jules. We only have Caesar’s Palace and Planet Hollywood left,” Miranda said, turning around. “Caesar’s is, like, right across the street.” She pointed in the direction of a white pedestrian bridge stretching across the busy road. “See? Then we can take a break before we head down to Planet Hollywood.”

  “That one’s not in any of the pictures,” Julia complained.

  “It used to be The Aladdin, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Then after that we’ll go back to our hotel and sleep for the rest of the day if you want.”

  Julia heaved a sigh and started turning in circles to find someone who might be willing to take the picture for them. They had done this five times now, and Miranda’s feet hurt so badly she thought they might fall off. They had to finish this. They had to give her mom these pictures. She wasn’t sure why it was such a deep need for her now, but as she and Julia had trekked down the Strip and looked at the pictures of Grammy and her sister, trying to pose in the exact same positions for their own pictures, she had felt a strong connection to her grandmother. She had been a real person, just like her, in a city that must have been exciting and wild and fun. Had she fought with her own sister like Miranda fought with Julia sometimes? Had she loved her just as much? Had she ever been angry with her parents for leaving Brazil? She hadn’t ever gone back, so she must not have minded too much.

  “Thanks!” Julia said in an upbeat voice as she handed their camera over to a middle-aged woman in a pair of yoga pants and sneakers. Miranda could tell Julia was forcing her excitement.

  “So, you want the big sign in it, then?”

  “Yeah, if you can,” Miranda answered as the woman positioned the camera in front of her eye.

  “I’ll have to step way back,” she said. “Just wait there.” The woman backed up until she was practically in the side street, then angled the camera up and adjusted the lens until it was at the widest angle possible. “Smile!” she yelled out.

  Miranda hugged Julia close to her, squeezing and smiling until the woman was finished. Miranda thanked her and waited until she’d walked off before looking at the picture. The sign was a little cut off, but that didn’t matter so much since the original sign in the picture was completely different anyway.

  “I look so fat next to you,” Julia grumbled as she peered at the pictures while Miranda scrolled through them.

  “Oh, you do not. Shut up.”

  “Yes, I do. I’m short and chubby and you’re tall and thin.”

  Miranda nudged her in the ribs, realizing how much she’d miss her at college. “You do realize I’ve always thought you’re the prettier one, right?”

  Julia’s mouth fell open. “No.”

  “It’s true! You’re gorgeous, just like Mom.”

  Julia looked herself up and down. “Whatever.”

  “Believe it, sis.” Miranda swung her handbag off her shoulder to put the camera back inside it. Once it was between her wallet and her iPod, she carefully tucked the thick stack of pictures at the bottom beneath a package of Kleenex.

  “I’m hungry,” Julia said as they turned toward the bridge.

  Miranda looked at her watch. It was almost three o’clock. They’d been walking around all morning and afternoon without stopping to eat. Their breakfast back at the Hilton seemed like five million years ago.

  “Yeah,” Miranda answered, “we can eat somewhere.” She moved to push the strap of her bag back up on her shoulder, but something tugged at it so hard she almost fell on her butt. She felt the strap yank away from her fingers, and spun toward Julia.

  “What are you doing?” she growled, and then realized it wasn’t Julia who had grabbed her bag, but someone else entirely. When she looked up, she saw a guy sprinting down the sidewalk. He was dressed in a suit. Short brown hair and white sneakers. Who wore white sneakers with a suit? What she noticed most of all, however, was her red leather hobo handbag dangling from his hand. A string of curse words left her mouth, and without thinking, she started running down the sidewalk after him.

  “Miranda!” Julia called out from behind her. “Miranda! Stop!”

  Miranda spun around. “Just stay put. I’ll be right back.”

  Julia looked stunned as Miranda turned back around and took off down the sidewalk. The guy wasn’t that far ahead. She could totally catch him. What could possibly happen? He wouldn’t hurt her on a public street surrounded by witnesses. She would catch him and get her purse back. Simple.

  “Thief!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, pointing at the guy. “Someone stop him! He stole my purse!”

  People stared at her and then down the sidewalk at the guy. Nobody made a move to stop him. Her feet pounded the sidewalk and she dodged people left and right. She could still see him. Ahead of him was a little red brick partition separating the sidewalk from a very busy intersection. He would have to turn the corner and she might lose him. She ran harder … then almost stopped in shock as he leapt over the fence right into the busy street. It was an intersection with no crosswalk, and as he darted between cars, horns honking left and right, Miranda wondered if she should follow him. She was nearing the partition. It was now or never. She came to a complete stop, looking across the road as traffic paused at a red light. She scrambled up and over the partition, careful not to catch her clothes. The light was still red, and she ran past the stopped cars to the other side where there was a short stone fence. She leaped over that one and caught sight of the guy still running at a dead sprint. She felt like her lungs might explode as she tried to catch up to him.

  As she ran, her mind skipped over the contents of her purse and the things she was in danger of losing. Her mother’s expensive SLR camera. That was replaceable, although the pictures of her and Julia would be a pain to replace. Her wallet with a debit card, her driver’s license, her and Julia’s five-day monorail passes to get back to the hotel, and about two hundred dollars in cash. All of that was frightening to lose, but replaceable too. Her iPod. That was replaceable. Her key to the hotel. Was that a big deal? Her cell phone. That was replaceable, but a pain in the butt to lose. It wasn’t password protected, but she had safeguarded it when she’d bought it so she could lock it from online if it was ever lost or stolen.

  But there were the pictures, and those weren’t replaceable. She imagined the disappointed look on her mother’s face. She had to get them back. She ran even harder. Up ahead, she caught sight of the Eiffel Tower replica looming over Paris Las Vegas, its tall spire backed by a sea of blue sky. When she looked back down, the guy was gone.

  Gone.

  She swore under her breath and stopped running. She was in front Bally’s—a tall, skinny building stretching up, up, up. A long row of white columns were set in a half-circle along the concourse where she stood. Up ahead was another stairway with escalators leading to a pedestrian bridge across the road. Had he gone up there?

  Running forward, she peered up at the escalators. No men in suits. Then, along the bridge, she caught sight of a head of brown hair moving quickly. It was difficult to see much of anything with the white railings in the way. She had to take the chance. She leaped onto the escalator, running up two stairs at a time until she was at the top and could look out across the bridge. She couldn’t see him, but the bridge led into a covered area inside the Bellagio, probably filled with shops and restaurants. He could hide anywhere in there.

  With a heavy sigh, she felt her shoulders droop. She hadn’t been fast enough. Everything was gone. She was going to have to call the bank and cancel her card, lock her phone, explain to her mother what had happened. Buy a new purse. She’d spent over a hundred dollars on that thing just a few months ago.

  Then she remembered that she’d left Julia all alone down at The Flamingo. Julia wa
sn’t helpless, but that didn’t make it right. She rushed down the escalator again and rounded the corner to head back to The Flamingo. Well, she had just been thinking about how she wanted more excitement in her life. She supposed it had finally happened—for a moment, anyway.

  “Miranda!”

  Miranda let out a sigh of relief as Julia ran toward her. “Sorry I ran off,” she apologized as Julia stopped in front of her and put her hands on her hips, irritated.

  “I thought I was going to find you shot on the sidewalk,” Julia growled. “What were you thinking?”

  Miranda shrugged and wiped her palm across her forehead. She was sweating so much it felt like she’d just walked under a waterfall. “I didn’t want to lose Mom’s pictures,” she answered. “I figured he couldn’t hurt me in public if I caught up with him, but he was too damn fast. I think he went inside the Bellagio.”

  Julia looked across the congested street split down the middle with a median of palm trees. The tall, curved hotel stood majestically behind an expansive turquoise pool. “Yeah, that place is like a small town,” Julia moaned. “There’s no way.”

  “I know, so just forget it. My purse is gone and we have to tell Mom and Dad. You brought your phone, I hope.”

  Julia slipped it out of her back pocket. “Right here. I guess I was smart not to bring a purse.”

  “Do you have any money?”

  “Not very much.” She pulled out a five-dollar bill, three ones, and some change. Miranda stared at the bills, disappointed. It was probably enough to get a cab back to the hotel, but if they could make sure their mother would come and get them, they could buy something to eat while they waited. If they had to, they could walk the few miles back to their hotel after that.