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

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.”

“Either way you’ll be dead, which is all I want. I’m simply betting that your sunny disposition won’t let you take anyone else down with you. So how about it? Shall we be going?”

Wait a minute. She basically just told me she was going to kill me, and now she wanted me to stroll out of here with her or she’d fire into the crowd? But only after capping me first. I didn’t bother asking if she had silver bullets or not.

“You’re bluffing. You have to be bluffing.”

“You willing to make that gamble?”

My voice pitched higher, almost hysterical. “This is Vegas. Shouldn’t I be?”

I had a thought then: What if this were Cormac? If he were here, threatening to open fire in a crowded lobby unless I did as he asked, would I believe him? Did I really think he’d do it? No, of course not. But looking at Sylvia, she had something more than the cold, calculating, unwavering expression that I’d seen in Cormac when he was on a job, when he was about to kill—or had just killed—something. Someone. She had a fanatical glint to her expression, a berserker edge. I remembered what Brenda said: Sylvia didn’t play by rules. So yes, I believed if I pushed her, she would shoot me here.

I started walking, and she fell into step at my arm, and a little behind, guiding me out of the lobby and down the hallway to the elevators. She was half a head shorter than I was. I could totally take her. Right until she pulled that gun. I wondered what she planned on doing. Taking me to a room, maybe. Shooting me quietly, dumping me out with the trash. Or maybe taking me out to a car, driving out to the desert, out of sight of the thousands of surveillance cameras. No one would ever know.

I tried to keep her talking. People fired guns less when they talked. “Found a buyer, then, did you? Someone willing to put a hit on me? Because most people aren’t willing to go that far. I’m famous, you know.”

She sneered. “This one’s for the fun of it.”

“So,” I asked. “Does this mean you got Ben, too?”

“Why would we want him? I sure as hell don’t know what he sees in you, but I don’t have a beef with him.”

Which meant they didn’t know he was a werewolf, weren’t gunning for him, and hadn’t gotten to him. I should call Brenda.

I swallowed and kept my breathing steady. Kept Wolf settled. Had to think. “Cormac’ll go after you when he finds out about this. You know that.”

“Cormac’s in a box. There are ways of getting to him. You don’t actually think he’s safe in prison, do you?”