Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand (Kitty Norville 5)

“I hear you’re headed to Las Vegas to get married,” he said.

I tossed aside the stack of press releases I was reading. “Where did you hear that?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s all over the building. It doesn’t matter, because here’s the thing, I’ve got this great idea.”

Ozzie fit the general stereotype of the aging hippie—thinning hair in a ponytail, a general belief that he was enlightened and progressive—except that somewhere along the line he had embraced capitalism and was always looking for ways to make a few more bucks. Why should big industrialists have all the fun? He wanted to beat them at their own game.

“You’ve been talking about doing a TV show for a while, right? I mean a real one, not that disaster in Washington last year.”

Disaster. That was putting in mildly. Never mind that that disaster had made me famous and boosted my ratings.

“I wouldn’t say talking. Woolgathering, maybe.” We’d mostly been looking for ways to piggyback The Midnight Hour onto someone else’s talk show to see if there was a market for it. I’d appeared on Letterman last month when my book came out and managed not to make an ass of myself, despite way too many cracks from Dave about how often a werewolf has to shave her legs. But that was a long way from my own show. Still, any way we could keep cashing in on my instant celebrityhood as the country’s first publicly outed werewolf had to be considered.

“How about a one-off? A special, maybe a couple of hours long, where you do the show live. It’d still be exactly the same—you’d take calls, do some interviews maybe. Just with cameras and an audience.”

Weird. But cool. And so crazy it just might work. “You think something like that would fly?”

“You on TV? You’re photogenic, of course it’ll work. And in Vegas you’ve got an instant audience, access to studios and theaters. I’ve got a producer friend there—let me make a few calls.”

Far too late I realized: he wanted me to work the same weekend I was getting married?

Right. Now both Ben and my mother were going to kill me.

We’re getting married, and you want to work all weekend?” he said, in the offended tone of voice I’d expected.

“Not all weekend.”

I’d come home from the station, slumped on the sofa, and told Ben the big idea. He was still at his desk, where he’d been working at his computer, and regarded me with an air of bafflement. He’d be perfectly within his rights to call the whole thing off. Postpone it at the very least. I clasped my hands together and twisted the engagement ring he’d given me.

Crossing his arms, he leaned back in his chair. “Why does anything that happens to you surprise me anymore?” He was smiling, and the smile was encouraging. His nice smile, not the “I’m a lawyer who’s about to gut you” smile.

“So. . . you’re okay with this?”

“Oh, sure. But while you’re working, I’m going to go lose a lot of money playing blackjack or poker or something, and you’re not allowed to nag me about it. Deal?”

I narrowed my gaze. “How much money? Your money or mine?”

“No nagging. Deal?”

My fiancé, the lawyer. The werewolf lawyer. I should have expected nothing less. At least he hadn’t said he wanted to cruise all the strip clubs in Vegas.

“Deal,” I said.

Chapter 2

Ozzie arranged it, and more quickly than I would have thought possible. A million things could stall a plan like this. I figured he’d have lost touch with his contact, or this person would have changed careers and was now selling used cars, or it wouldn’t be possible to put this kind of show together, or he wouldn’t be able to get airtime for it. Maybe Ozzie would lose interest, and I wouldn’t have to work the same weekend I was getting married. But he pulled it together. His producer friend thought it sounded like a great idea and signed on, found the venue, sold it to a high-profile cable network, and before I knew it the avalanche was upon me. I couldn’t say no. They picked a weekend, I told them no—full moon that weekend, no way was I going to be spending it in foreign territory. They changed the weekend, the contracts were drawn up and signed, and we had a TV show. We’d broadcast in a month. Promotion began in earnest.

To tell the truth, I was excited. My first TV appearance had been against my will under very trying circumstances. It would be nice to be the one in charge this time.

The month before the trip passed quickly. With the Las Vegas producer’s help we booked the theater, lined up an interesting set of local guests, and started promotion. On the wedding front, we set it all up via the Internet. No long, drawn-out stress at all. As a bonus, because this was now a business trip, the boss was paying for the hotel and plane tickets. I even found the cutest dress in the world in the window of a store downtown—a sleeveless, hip-hugging sheath in a smoky, sexy blue. Sometimes all you had to do was look around and solutions appeared like magic.

The only problem really remaining—I still hadn’t told my mom I was planning a Vegas wedding. And wasn’t that an oxymoron? You weren’t supposed to plan a Vegas wedding. Maybe I could pretend it had been spontaneous.

In the meantime, I still had this week’s conventional show to get through.

“—and that was when I thought, ‘Oh, my, it’s an angel, this angel has come down from Heaven to tell me how to write this book!’ These words on the page, these aren’t my words, these are the words of the angel Glorimel, a cosmic being of pure light who in turn is channeling the voice of the universe itself! If you close your eyes you can almost hear the singing in the words, the harmony of the spheres—”

“If I close my eyes how am I going to read the book?” Oops, that was my outside voice. I winced. Fortunately, if the fringe element of any group had one thing in common, it was an inability to recognize sarcasm.