Sammy Keyes and the Showdown in Sin City by Wendelin Van Draanen Page A

four … can you …? Thank you.”
    Then the door closes.
    I don’t dare look as the elevator goes up, but I’m pretty sure I know who the other half of “we” is. Then the elevator stops, and I hear her voice go, “This is it, Mom,” and I know I’m right.
    “What are
they
doing here?” Marissa mouths.
    I’m just working out that the reservation for Acosta must not be for Warren and my mom, but for Warren’s ex and the last person on earth I want to deal with—Heather.
    But them being in Las Vegas actually does make sense. “Probably the same thing I am,” I whisper to Marissa.
    Marissa shakes her head. “Wow. Your mother has no idea what she’s in for.”
    The doors are open, and since Heather and Candi arealready off the elevator and there’s no time to
think
, I grab Marissa and announce, “Excuse us, we have to get off here, too,” and push forward.
    “No!” Marissa whispers, yanking back.
    I drag her along. “Yes!”
    The fourth floor looks just like the fourteenth, with a short elevator hallway that leads to an open area with a bunch of long corridors branching off it like the spokes of a wheel. Heather and her mother are already out of sight, so I hurry toward the open area and catch a glimpse of a big red suitcase disappearing down a corridor to our right. “There they go!”
    But Marissa stays put by the elevators.
    “Come on!” I whisper, waving her along.
    She finally takes a few steps forward. “Why? I don’t want to talk to them! And I promised Mom we’d be right back! What are you going to do if my mother gets mad and kicks you out?”
    I move forward so I can peek down the corridor. “I just want to see where they’re staying, okay? Nothing else.”
    She finally gives in and we watch as Heather and her mother stop at a door about a third of the way down the corridor and slide their card in about six different ways before unlocking it and going inside.
    Since the doors down the corridor all look the same, it would be easy to lose track of which room they went into, but there’s a tray with dishes outside the room right across the hall from them. So I’ve got my mark, and the second Heather and Candi’s door closes, I jet down, readthe room number, and jet back. “Four fifty-six,” I pant when I join up with Marissa.
    “So now what?”
    “Now we get back to your mom!”
    Once we’re on the fourteenth floor and don’t have to worry about people in the elevator hearing, Marissa says, “So if they’re here and your mom’s
not
, how are you ever going to find her?”
    I don’t have an answer, so I just march along saying a whole lot of nothing.
    “Well, do you think
Heather
knows where they’re staying? They wouldn’t have come clear out here if they didn’t know more than we do, right?”
    We’re practically running down the hallway to make up for my little detour, and it’s hard to run
and
think
and
be in shock. “I don’t know! But she’s sure not going to tell me!”
    “So true.” Then when we get to the door, she whispers, “So do you want to look up wedding chapels and start calling around?”
    “Now?”
    “I think a lot of them are open all night.”
    So the minute Mrs. McKenze’s disappeared back inside her room with the aspirin and a sandwich, we dive into our food as we dig through the room’s phone book. And almost right away we discover that there are about a hundred wedding chapels in Las Vegas.
    “You’ve got to be kidding,” I say through a mouthful. “It’ll take us all night to call these!”
    “And what if they didn’t make an appointment? Some people just show up, wait in line, and get married.”
    I shake my head. “I’m never going to find her.”
    “You’re just now getting that?” Then she rubs it in by pointing to an ad that reads, Love in the Fast Lane—Drive-Thru Weddings. “I doubt people get appointments for that.” She points to another ad, for the Love Me Tender Wedding Chapel that has a picture of a white