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“He tipped the casino off to a cheating ring in the poker room. They got security footage of one of Faber’s goons putting Ben into a car.”
He lowered his voice. We both leaned over the table for our conference. “Do they know he’s a werewolf?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
“Because if Faber and his goons know, and don’t ask me how they might know it, they might have gotten someone from here to go after him.”
I didn’t like the sound of that at all. Mob guys were scary enough, but they probably didn’t use silver bullets, and Ben might have a chance. But if one of Evan’s bounty-hunter crowd was involved—anything could happen.
“Have you heard anything? Have there been any rumors about Faber?”
Evan put his hand on his chin and looked thoughtful. “I can find out. I know a couple of local hunters. I’ll talk to them about what Faber’s been up to.”
When Brenda entered the bar, I recognized her by the rhythm of her heels clicking on the floor and the scent of her leather. She came straight toward us and stood at the table, hand on hip, hip cocked out. Today she wore leather pants that laced up the side and a complicated sleeveless top with more lacing and strategically placed gaps in the fabric.
“I’ve been looking for you,” she said. “I have to say this is the last place I expected to actually find you.”
“Ben’s missing,” I said. “You have anything to do with that?”
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 i
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.
So. Yeah. We could all pretend like this was normal, right?
“These are my parents, Jim and Gail. Mom, Dad, this is Evan and Brenda. Some friends of Ben’s who happened to be in town. They might be able to help find him.” I smiled tightly. Everything was going to be just fine. I could keep saying that.
“Oh, good. Are you with the police?” Mom asked them.
Evan looked like he might have been biting his tongue.
Her face completely straight, Brenda said, “We have access to resources that could help.”
“That’s such a relief,” Mom said. “I knew coming to Vegas would be exciting, but this is a little too much.”
“Mom, Dad?” I said quickly. “We just have a couple more things to talk about. How about I meet you at the bar for drinks in a couple of minutes?”
Mom squeezed my shoulder one more time, and Dad gave me a fatherly smile before they went to put in drink orders.
I nearly deflated, slumped over the table with my head in my hands.
Disbelieving, Evan and Brenda stared after them.
“A werewolf isn’t supposed to have parents,” Brenda said, grumbling. “They’re not supposed to have mothers. How am I supposed to shoot you now, knowing it’ll upset that really nice woman?”
“You’re not supposed to shoot me at all!” I glared.
“Sorry. Figure of speech,” she said, then turned to Evan. “This is why mothers are a bad idea. They muddle everything up.”
“What about your mother?” I said.
“Haven’t talked to the woman in ten years. I walked out when I was eighteen and never looked back.”
I couldn’t even imagine that.
“We’ve got work to do,” Evan said, nodding at Brenda to encourage her out of the booth. “The sooner we track down those leads, the sooner we’ll find Ben. Then you all can be a big happy family again.”
“That’s so weird,” Brenda muttered, standing and waiting for Evan to join her. And really, she was one to talk.
“Thanks again,” I said and gave them my phone number before they left on their mission.
Mom and Dad must have been keeping an eye on the booth, because they arrived a moment later, carrying a bottle of wine and three glasses. They sat across from me, in the same places Evan and Brenda had sat in before. The supreme discontinuity almost made me crack right there.
Dad poured the merlot. Mom talked.
“So you’ve talked to the police? What do they know? Is there anything else we can do?”
I shrugged. Took a long drink and let the warmth replace some of the tension in my body. Then I stopped drinking, because if I got too relaxed I might start crying.