Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

“Did you get cold feet?” I asked, looking back and forth between my parents.

He didn’t answer right away, but Mom had her lips pursed, like she was having to restrain herself. I almost giggled. This was a story I’d never heard. There’d been no hint of this, no sign. The wedding photos were all stereotypically happy and perfect.

Filled with awe, I said, “He didn’t leave you standing at the altar, did you?”

“No,” she said. “Thank goodness. I’d better let him tell the story.” She gave him a sly glare. So, he hadn’t quite stood her up at the altar. But whatever he’d done, he hadn’t lived it down after thirty-five years. Wow.

His shoulders hunched, looking chagrined, he explained. “I left town for the week before the wedding.”

“Oh my God. What happened? Where’d you go?”

“I literally drove around for a week. Picked highways at random. Ended up in Texas, of all places. I came back just in time for the rehearsal. Even then, I sat outside in my car for twenty minutes, deciding whether or not to go through with it. I was very late, but I was there, which I thought was something of a victory.”

Quiet, responsible, solid Dad almost ditched his own wedding? This was enlightening.

“What did you do?” I asked Mom.

“Oh, I forgave him. Eventually.”

“She didn’t even say anything,” he added. “But it was very, very clear how much I owed her for forgiving me. If I hadn’t gone through with it, I’d have been asking ‘what if’ for the rest of my life.”

Mom patted his arm, and they traded one of those old married, would-do-it-all-over-again glances.

“And you think Ben is sitting somewhere, thinking about that himself right now,” I said.

“Maybe. Or maybe he’s been kidnapped.” Infuriatingly, he shrugged again, and I suppressed an impulse to scream. This conversation wasn’t making me feel any better, whatever Dad’s intentions were. I couldn’t keep waiting around for something to happen. I had more leads to follow.

“What time is it?” I said.

Dad glanced at his watch. “Almost eight.”

“Okay. I have some more people to talk to, some other leads that might know something about what happened to Ben. I have to get going.”

Mom managed to look even more worried. “Are you sure you shouldn’t just wait for the police to call? Let them do their jobs?”

“Can’t do that. Sorry.” I stood and went to her side to give her a big hug. “Don’t worry, guys. It’ll all work out. I just know it.”

I could feel them watching me with worried gazes as I left the bar. Outside, I retrieved my phone from my bag and called the number Dom gave me in case I needed help.

Chapter 14

I talked to Dom on my way to the Napoli hotel. My feet in their high heels were starting to hurt with all this running around, and the night was still young. I didn’t think about it.

“Kitty!” he answered my call with enthusiasm. “Please tell me you’re having a good time.”

“Yeah, about that. I really need to talk to you, are you busy right now?”

“As a matter of fact, I’m having a party here in the roof bar. We’re just getting started, you should come over.” It was probably an all-vampire, blood-in-wine-glasses kind of party. I could put up with that. That was how desperate I was.

“I’ll be right there,” I said.

“And bring that nice gentleman of yours.”

“Um, that’s actually what I need to talk to you about. He’s missing.”

“He’s left you alone in Las Vegas on a Saturday night? What is he, brave or stupid?”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that,” I muttered. “I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

“I look forward to it.”

As I left the elevator outside the club, my heart sank a little, because it was a vampire party. I could smell it, an odor that wafted into the hall via the air-conditioning like a hint of perfume. Blood and corpses. A normal person wouldn’t notice it. To me, it was unmistakable. A group of vampires—essentially clean, preserved corpses imbued with life—were imbibing their beverage of choice.

At the scent of blood, a presence within me stirred. Wolf waking up, turning nose to the air, wondering if we were going on a hunt. Blood meant prey. I paused a moment, took a deep breath, and said no. No hunting here. I was in charge. The fur and claws settled.

Besides, just because I smelled blood didn’t mean anything was being hunted.

It didn’t occur to me that the line of people along the hallway was the line waiting to get into Dom’s rooftop nightclub. I stalked right past them, oblivious to the offended stares people were giving me, and headed straight for the door, following the scent of vampires.

A bouncer stepped in front of me. His bulk filled the doorway. He was white, bald, with a tattoo peeking up from the neckline of his crisp button-up shirt. He glared at me. I almost snarled back.

“You’ll have to wait in line.”

A calm breath focused me. “Dom invited me. He’s expecting me.”

“You’re not on the list,” he said. He wasn’t supernatural. I’d have expected a werewolf or vampire or something to be working for Dom. But he was stereotypical muscle. May not even have known what was going on in there, or that I smelled blood on the air.

I tried to be reasonable and failed. “You don’t even know my name! How do you know I’m not on the list? Do you even have a list? And aren’t famous people supposed to be able to just, you know, walk in?”

“You’re famous?” Bald Guy said flatly.

That was exactly the smackdown I needed. I sighed and rubbed my forehead. “My name’s Kitty Norville. I spoke with Dom a few minutes ago, and he invited me here. And I have absolutely no way to prove it to you.”

A second bouncer had edged over to listen. I didn’t think he thought I was a threat. Rather, I was probably the most entertaining thing to happen all evening. Oh, the humanity.

This guy quirked a smile and said to his colleague, “I’ll go check.” He must have felt sorry for me.

“Thank you!” I called after him.

Bald Guy just kept glaring at me.

“We have a dress code here,” he said after a few long moments, looking me up and down. Like I wasn’t freaking good enough. As if I needed any more reminders as to why I hated vampire-run nightclubs.

“This is my wedding dress! Are you telling me it’s not up to dress code?” I said. I glanced at the line of people winding away from the door, trying to figure out why I didn’t measure up in this guy’s opinion. The men wore silk shirts, pressed slacks, and polished Italian leather shoes. The women wore lots of black, lots of makeup, lots of jewelry, and very high heels.

That was it, I guessed. My two-inch heels weren’t high enough. Bastards.

But then the nice bouncer reappeared and said, “She’s in. Dom okays it.”

I gave him my best smile. But I glared at Bald Guy, who glared back with equal enmity. “Thank you.”

I left the line full of acrobats in five-inch heels behind.

The bar was at the top of the Napoli ’s tallest wing. Glass walls on all sides offered views of the Strip. The place didn’t need its own light show, because how could it compete with all the glitz and neon outside? Instead, the decoration inside was modern and tasteful, with comfortable designer chairs and sofas in gray and chrome, black tiled floor, a black and chrome bar, and lots of mirrors that gave the place a mazelike appearance. Best of all, it was isolated from the eternal, headache-inducing clinking of slot machines.

The party was in full swing. A good mix of music played at exactly the right volume on a killer sound system. I couldn’t spot the speakers. I was glad I’d kept my new dress on, because if I’d had on anything else I’d have been underdressed. The women wore sleek and sexy cocktail dresses, the men wore suits. I caught glimpses of expensive watches and jewelry, designer shoes and makeup jobs. Every head of hair was perfectly styled.

If I had to make a guess, I’d have said about a quarter of the people in the place were vampires. It was hard to tell when everyone was mingled. Many vampires, especially the ones who live in cities as part of a Family under a Master like Dom, cultivate incredibly sexy manners and appearances. A roomful of vampires is like a convention for the models in an issue of Vanity Fair. The fashion and haughtiness are overwhelming. Here’s the big secret: they do this for a reason. They attain levels of irresistible sexiness because it lures people. It’s bait for warm bodies. They start a nightclub, make sure they have a reputation for trendiness and sexiness, then wait for it to fill up with nubile young humans for them to pick over. Quite a system, really. I could probably work out some ecologically correct ratio of predators to prey for a healthy ecosystem, apply it to the room, and figure out how many vampires were here. I filed that away for a future project.

As I cut through the crowd trying to find Dom, I could spot some of the vampires: they looked at me, following me with their gazes as I passed, because they could tell what I was and they were surprised to see me. As Dom had said: no werewolves in Vegas. I didn’t like being that unique.

I didn’t sense a single lycanthrope in the room. It made me feel lonely. Even cities like D.C. and New York had werewolves.

“Kitty! Welcome!” Dom called from where he held court in a big semicircular booth between the bar and a bank of windows. I waved and trundled over.

“Hey, sorry about the mix-up out front,” he said. “I didn’t get a chance to get your name on the list.”

“That’s okay, I think this is the first time I’ve ever been to a nightclub that had a list in the first place.”

Vampires surrounded him, fawning like courtiers. A red-haired woman leaned against him, tucked under his arm, and seemed half asleep. Two other women lounged arm in arm with each other, and one of those had her foot in another guy’s lap. He was massaging it absently. Another man smoked a cigarette, which struck me as odd, because vampires don’t breathe. One of the men stood, leaning against the end of the booth, with a vantage of the room. He held himself like a bodyguard. His lip curled as he studied me, head to toe.

The table before them was covered with empty tumblers and wine glasses. The glass Dom held was filled with a thick red liquid that I was pretty sure wasn’t cabernet.

He introduced me to his entourage. “This is Kitty. The werewolf.”

“Hmm, how novel,” the redhead said.

One of the women, a brunette in a rust-colored dress, extricated herself from her two admirers and leaned forward. “Kitty? With the radio show? Oh, my God, I’m such a big fan. I knew you were in town, but I had no idea you’d be here. This is so cool.” She looked on me with a hungry gaze. I couldn’t tell if it was awe or, well, hunger.

“Everyone move over, let Kitty sit here with me,” Dom said.