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

Her brow furrowed. Like Evan, she didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. “Missing? When did this happen?”

“This afternoon,” I said. “And why have you been looking for me?”

“Scoot over.” She shoved into the booth next to Evan. “What happened?”

I explained it all again. Like Evan, she nodded in recognition at Faber’s name but didn’t seem to know much about him other than his identity.

“Are you sure he didn’t run off on you?” she asked finally.

“Don’t start with that, please,” I said. “If this guy did take him, wouldn’t the police have been able to find him by now? They know where all these guys are, where they operate.”

Impatient, Brenda shook her head. “Listen, Ben’s a good guy and I don’t want anything to happen to him, either. But that’s the least of your worries right now. Boris and Sylvia have been making noise.”

“What kind of noise?” Evan said.

“They’re bragging about being able to take you down and get away with it,” Brenda said, nodding at me. “She’s been saying she’s spent the last two days scoping you out.”

“I know,” I said. “I saw her at the pool this morning.”

“And you didn’t run?” Evan said. “I’m amazed you’re still alive.”

Brenda continued. “She’s looking for someone to pay for the hit. But it turns out fame

is pretty good protection and she can’t find a buyer.”

“That’s good, right?” I said, my eyes wide and shocky.

“Except this is Sylvia, and she may just do it for laughs.”

“I wouldn’t be laughing,” I said.

Brenda leaned back in the booth. “Anyway, I thought you and Ben should know. But now Ben’s missing. Which is kind of worrying. I wonder if those two are involved.”

Evan set his jaw; it almost looked like a snarl. “Boris and Sylvia. I hate those guys.”

I stared. “But they’re just like you. Same line of work—” Evan and Brenda were both shaking their heads.

“They’re nothing like us,” she said. “Okay, so compared to normal people we may all be pretty dodgy. But even we have rules. You don’t poach anyone else’s bounty, and you don’t go after innocents. But those two—it doesn’t matter. When they shoot you in the back, it probably won’t even be for money. They’ll do it to be nasty.”

I felt queasy. “And do they have anything to do with Faber? Could they be involved with what happened to Ben?”

Evan and Brenda exchanged a flat, unreadable look. Then Evan gave me a steady, reassuring gaze. “We’ll find out what happened to him.”

Which was different than finding him alive and in one piece, but I didn’t quibble. “Thank you.”

“Kitty!” called a familiar, anxious voice from the bar entrance.

I closed my eyes and braced. I’d almost, almost finished with Evan and Brenda before my parents arrived. Almost wasn’t quite close enough, was it? Horseshoes and hand grenades.

My life was split between two worlds. I had a normal family, an ordinary upbringing in a typical suburb. My parents weren’t even divorced. This was all a far cry from the other half of my life, where I sat in bars with bounty hunters of supernatural prey, talking about how to rescue my werewolf boyfriend. I worked hard, with moderate success, to keep those worlds separate. How was I going to explain this to my parents?

Or explain my parents to people like Brenda and Evan?

Mom and Dad came over to our booth. Like me, they were dressed for a wedding that wasn’t happening: Mom wore a summery silk dress, and she’d even traded out her walking shoes for heels; Dad wore a suit and tie. They looked awesome. It brought tears to my eyes that we weren’t going to have pictures of this. But without Ben here it all paled.

Mom put her hand on my arm and gushed. “Kitty, oh, my goodness. This is so awful. Are you all right? What can I do to help?” She slid into the booth next to me. Dad hovered over us, eyeing my two companions.

Everyone was looking at me now. Brenda had her eyebrows raised, like she was saying you’ve got to be kidding. Evan looked like he might start laughing.