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

I had to catch my breath before I could speak. “Hi, I’m Kitty Norville, I just spoke on the phone with Detective Gladden about Ben O’Farrell.”

He was good-looking, in the way of a polished twenty-something on the way up in his chosen profession. He also seemed to be practicing his intimidating stare. I tried to read in his expression what had happened, what he knew about Ben, but the glare revealed nothing. I braced myself and didn’t wilt.

“Detective Gladden asked me to come answer some questions,” I insisted.

Finally, he spoke. “I’ll let him know you’re here. Wait just a minute.”

Like an anxious wolf, I paced the office’s tiny waiting room, with its thin carpet, plastic chairs, and a couple of Las Vegas tourism posters on the wall. What happens in Vegas. . .

I didn’t want to go there.

Ben had disappeared. I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. My mind kept slinking away from the thought. He’d been playing poker. That tournament. Disappeared—what did that even mean? Did he poof out of existence? Which made me think of Grant. Did Ben walk out when no one was looking? Vegas was full of crowds—didn’t anyone see anything?

At least one answer was obvious: we were in a hotel hosting a gun exhibition, with a mini-convention of supernatural bounty hunters meeting in the bar. Evan, Brenda, Sylvia, Boris. Any one of them might have had a hand in this. I crossed my arms tighter and paced faster.

G-man kept me waiting for fifteen minutes. This was driving me crazy. Ben could take care of himself, I kept telling myself. Surely he could. This was all a misunderstanding.

“Ms. Norville? I’m Detective Gladden.” A man who looked much like the G-man probably would in twenty years appeared at the door and offered his hand, which I shook. On top of that, he seemed exhausted, harried. Shadows marked his eyes, and he had a faint, ripe, well-lived-in smell to him, like he’d been wearing the same suit for a couple of days now. I recognized his voice from when we’d talked on the phone.

“Hi,” I said. “What’s happened to Ben? What’s going on?”

“If you’ll come this way, we can have a seat and I’ll answer your questions. Coffee?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” He nodded at the G-man, who scowled at the chore but went to get the coffee anyway.

I didn’t get to see the darkened room with the banks and banks of closed-circuit televisions examining the casino floor from any and every angle, the one that featured in every TV special about security in Vegas casinos. Instead, I was taken through a set of cubicles, desks, computers, and filing cabinets, like any other office. This might have been a private security outfit, but it smelled and felt similar to every police station I’d ever been in: worn-out furniture and decor, frayed nerves, bad coffee that had been heating too long. All of it vaguely intimidating. The room Gladden brought me to was the same as any number of police conference—interrogation—rooms I’d sat in. It had a couple of video monitors. In Vegas, most of the evidence came on video.

The G-man brought me my coffee, and I took it gratefully. It was more to have something to do with my hands than to actually drink.

Gladden offered me a seat, and another man came in, tall and broad, brown skinned, with close-shaven hair and a trimmed beard. Heavy, searching stare. Nothing got past this guy, I bet.

“This is Allen Matthews, director of security here at the casino.” We shook hands, and I managed to get even more nervous. This did have something to do with the poker tournament, I bet.

“Thanks for coming to talk to us, Ms. Norville,” Matthews said. “We hope to have this cleared up quickly.”

And what did he mean by “cleared up”? Carefully, trying not to sound hysterical, I said, “Can you tell me what you mean when you say that Ben disappeared?”

Neither of them would look at me. Gladden straightened some papers on the table as he said, “Ms. Norville, what’s your relationship to Ben O’Farrell?”

That was such a complicated question. They really only needed one answer, though. I held up my left hand with its engagement ring. “We’re supposed to be getting married in half an hour. This is supposed to be my wedding dress.” I glared.

They glanced at each other with a pained look, like they hadn’t wanted to hear that.

Matthews asked the next questions. “Do you know if he’s in any trouble, if he has any enemies who might want to harm him?”

So much for not getting hysterical. “What happened? Is he hurt? What’s going on? I can’t tell you anything until I know what’s happened.”

Again they looked at e

ach other, like they were tossing a mental coin between them. Matthews must have lost this time. “You know Mr. O’Farrell was playing in the Olympus Casino’s weekend Texas Hold ’Em tourney? It’s one of our most popular events—a lot of players look at it as a stepping stone to the big World Poker Tour tournaments—”

I held up a hand. “I know. Go on.”

“About an hour into this afternoon’s play, Mr. O’Farrell came to us with some suspicions of cheating going on. I don’t know how he picked up on it when none of our dealers or pit bosses spotted it.” Because he’s a werewolf, I didn’t say. He smelled it. “But he was right. A couple of the security cameras taped it, but we’d never have seen it if we didn’t know what to look for.”

“And then?” I prompted.

Gladden picked up the story. “Then things get odd. The tournament was supposed to continue—officials decided there hadn’t been enough damage to cancel it. But when the tables seated again after the break—no Ben O’Farrell. The dealers were definitely keeping an eye out for him after the ruckus.”