Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand

Ten minutes without heat and smoke convinced me that this was, in fact, a false alarm. Between about the fourth and fifth floors, I rounded the corner, intending to plop down on the step and catch my breath. Maybe try to analyze what had happened over the last half hour. But movement caught my eye, someone darting across the landing below me. The door giving access to the floor opened, and the figure looked back at me, urgency tightening his features. He was tall, tan-skinned, and wore a suit.

It was Evan. And I thought I saw a gun in his other hand.

It all passed as a blur before he was in the hallway, and the door shut behind him. But my nerves spiked, and I ran to the door, opened it, looked—he wasn’t there. Or he was very good at hiding. First Sylvia, now Evan. What was going on here?

Belatedly, I slipped back into the stairwell and pressed myself to the wall, in case bullets did start flying. I was almost gasping for breath; my heart was racing and my head swimming from the alarm and the alcohol. I couldn’t hear anything. I could smell the trace of aftershave and a wool suit that might have been Evan’s. Might have been anyone’s. My imagination conjured the scent of gun oil. I couldn’t be sure of anything.

Carefully, I continued the rest of the way to the lobby. Taking every step carefully, I listened for footsteps, for the sound of a gun being cocked, and I breathed slowly, waiting to catch a scent. I made very slow progress.

By the time I reached the lobby, the alarm had stopped, but my nerves hadn’t stilled. The place was packed with people coming and going, milling in the resulting confusion. A guy in a firefighter coat and helmet walked past, obviously not in a hurry. No real emergency, but people were still confused. Like nothing so much as a flock of nervous sheep. Then a voice called, “Kitty!”

Brenda stood in the lobby ahead of me, gesturing me over. I never, ever thought this would happen, but I was happy to see her. When I reached her, she pulled me over to the wall. She kept looking around us like she expected demons to spring from the walls.

“What’s going on?” I said. “Have you found Ben? I thought I saw Evan upstairs—”

“Yeah, he’s the one who pulled the fire alarm.”

“Wow. I think I should thank him,” I said.

“No doubt,” she said with a huff. “Did you know that animal act is actually a bunch of lycanthropes?”

I said, totally sardonic, “Yeah. I might have figured that one out.”

“And you got yourself stuck up there in the middle of them?” she said, disbelieving. “What were you thinking? Those guys are bad news.”

“So I’ve heard, but no one will tell me why. What have you found out?”

“Everyone keeps out of their way. Even our crowd. And that’s saying something. What were you doing there?” She had a hand on her hip and looked accusing.

Avoiding getting seduced, I thought but shook my head. I understood why Balthasar and his gang made me nervous. But they made everyone nervous. “I thought they might know something about what happened to Ben.”

“And did they?” I shook my head, and she said, “We haven’t done much better. Word is that Faber’s lying low after his ring at the Olympus poker tournament went bust. I haven’t heard anything about him taking Ben. He’s keeping it real quiet.”

“How did you guys end up here?”

“Keeping track of you. Boris and Sylvia are on the hunt.”

“What? I spotted Sylvia at the Napoli —”

“They’re keeping tabs on you. So we’re keeping tabs on them.”

“Are they here?” I said, looking around wildly.

“No, unfortunately.”

Unfortunately? I was counting that a small blessing at the moment.

I sensed movement, another set of footsteps approaching. Evan. He strode from the elevator, scanned the lobby, spotted us, and came over. All business, all focused intensity. Even when he joined us, looking me up and down, nodding once when he found me in one piece, part of his attention stayed outward, watching the crowd. I had a feeling he could tell me a lot about all the people here from a few fleeting details, in Sherlock Holmesian fashion.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You better thank me. I hear that Balthasar guy doesn’t like werewolves. Drives ’em out of town when he can.”

“Oh, he wasn’t trying to drive me out,” I said, my smile thin. Except out of my wits, maybe.

He turned to Brenda. “Boris and Sylvia didn’t track her here. I can’t find any sign of them.”

“But they’re still out there, and I want to know where.”

“Then let’s go hunting,” Evan said, a quirk to his lips and a glint in his eyes. People like him lived for moments like this, I bet. In fact, both of them were grinning.

“What about me?” I said. “What about Ben?”

“We’re still looking,” Evan said. “We still have leads to follow.”

Brenda said, “There’s a chance those two know something. If they do, we’ll get it out of them.” If this had been a movie, she would have drawn her gun and cocked it right then, to accentuate her point. Not that that would have made me feel any better.

“In the meantime,” Evan said to me, “We’re going to take you back to your hotel. And you should stay there until we know Sylvia’s not gunning for you. Got it?”

My thoughts were too tangled to argue. I wanted to go with them. I wanted to find Ben now. I also wanted to bury my face in a pillow. And get rid of these damned heels.

At this point, it was easier to agree.

They escorted me to a cab, which drove us back to the Olympus . This was very nice of them, I supposed. But I had a feeling they were doing it not necessarily because they liked me, but because they really hated Boris and Sylvia. That, I couldn’t argue with. I got a little more annoyed when they walked me from the front lobby to the elevator, then into the elevator and to the room.

Evan left me with final instructions: “Keep the door locked. Keep the chain on. Don’t answer the door for anyone. Stay here, right?”

“I’m not stupid, you know,” I said. He glared at me like he didn’t agree with that assessment.

“Call us if anything happens. If you spot those goons, or if you hear from Ben, call us.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

They didn’t leave until I closed the door and they heard the chain slide into place. I could tell because watched them through the peephole.

So here I was, safe and sound, with nothing to do but wait for Ben. To wait and see what else went horribly wrong. I took the opportunity to peel off the pain-inducing shoes and change out of the dress and into jeans and a T-shirt. My poor abused dress. The one Ben wanted to take off me.

I hung it in the closet where I wouldn’t have to look at it.

I wasn’t entirely out of options. Despite Evan’s warning, if I came up with a plan, I wasn’t going to sit around here, waiting. I could wander around Las Vegas hoping to catch a scent of Ben and find him by chance. As screwy as that sounded, I was ready to try it. This was all my fault. If I’d been happy with a nice, traditional wedding, none of this would have happened. If I’d talked Ben out of playing in that poker tournament, if I’d pitched a fit about it, he’d still be here.

Maybe I wouldn’t have to go that route, though, and risk being tracked down by Boris and Sylvia. I still hadn’t tried absolutely everything I could to find Ben. What was left? Just a little magic.

Chapter 16

Someone could have been tracking me, trailing two steps behind me, and in the weekend crowds I’d never know it. People were following me, people funneling along the same paths and walkways arranged between resorts, like the winding lines at an amusement park. I couldn’t smell anything beyond the concrete, sweat, and alcohol that tainted every crowded place here. I couldn’t hear anything but voices and loud music. The surveillance cameras had numbed me to the idea that people were watching me all the time. And I had stopped being able to focus on anything but what had happened to Ben.

It wasn’t until I reached the lobby of the Diablo that I stopped, because my neck had started prickling. I looked around, trying to track where the feeling was coming from. I made my way to the wall and tried to get my bearings.

Then I spotted him, near the front doors. Boris, wearing a leather jacket over his T-shirt. He didn’t look like he was watching me; he was turned toward the flashing lights over the stairs leading to the casino area. But I was undoubtedly in his peripheral vision. He was touching his ear and speaking into an almost invisible hands-free earpiece. It curled around his ear and lay flush along his skin.

He was talking to Sylvia. They could have followed me from the Olympus . From anywhere. They’d dodged Evan and Brenda. Crap, I had to get out of here.

Too late, I saw her. I’d been seeing her all weekend. Just once, couldn’t I be wrong about there being people out to get me? I was standing between them. She walked straight toward me, and all my instincts screamed for me to run. But where? They’d picked their spots well, Boris at the main door, his partner near the casino.

I took a breath and calmed down. I was in a wide-open space, in full view of security. What could they possibly do to me here? Anything they tried would draw way too much attention to themselves. A hundred cameras in fish-eye globes spaced regularly across the ceiling meant they couldn’t get away with anything.

I should have asked Evan or Brenda to stay with me. But I needed them to find Ben.

Working my way farther in, I headed for the casino. Plenty of people, along with plenty of security, made it seem like the safest place at the moment. All the noise of a million ringing bells and clicking slot machines hurt my ears and gave me a headache. Not to mention the lights stabbing at my eyes. But right now, it was a haven.

The woman angled to intercept me. I glanced over my shoulder; Boris still guarded the entrance, and he no longer made any pretense about not watching me. Without breaking into a run and shoving people out of the way, I wasn’t going to get out of the entrance. My back was stiff, hackles up, and I wanted to growl, but I swallowed it back and kept it together.

She slipped in front of me and stopped before I could descend the stairs to the main casino floor.

“I have a gun in my pocket,” she said softly, meeting my gaze. This was a different manner than any of the other personae I’d seen in her all weekend. She was an actress, a brilliant actress, completely unrecognizable when she wanted to be simply by changing the way she moved, spoke, and held herself. “Come with me or I’ll open fire right here.”

Astonished, I laughed. “What? Into a crowd in a Vegas casino? You’re kidding.”