Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

Chapter 15

On the cab ride to the Hanging Gardens, I checked my phone for messages. Still nothing from Gladden, or Evan and Brenda. Or Ben. Out of curiosity, I called up to the room and got no answer. I was not going to freak out. Yet.

In the hotel lobby, Balthasar’s face, smiling on his show’s poster, greeted me.

The troupe was probably done with its last performance for the evening. I needed to know if Balthasar knew anything about what had happened to Ben. If he’d had a hand in it himself, as Dom had suggested, I’d smell it on him. I checked the theater area, and it was dark and quiet after the performance. They were probably back at their lair, then. Eighth floor. I found the elevator and wondered if I should be doing this after those martinis.

No, don’t think like that. I was in control. I was an alpha wolf. I squared my shoulders, concentrated on being sober, on asking the hard questions and not falling prey to that charming smile. I was here to get answers. When the elevator stopped, I marched through the doors, determined to channel Lois Lane. Without the always-needing-to-get-rescued part.

Follow your nose, he’d told me. The hallway here branched off, and the doors seemed much farther apart than on other floors. These must have been suites. I stood at the intersection and took a deep breath. From the left came the musky, wild scent of lycanthropes. The trail blazed clear. I wondered if Balthasar walked home in the evening, his tigers and leopards trailing him through the hotel corridors. What a sight that must be. Especially if someone in one of the other suites opened their door at the wrong time.

The next turn brought me to a short hallway that ended in a set of double doors. This was the pack’s place, the heart of its territory. I approached the door like it might jump and bite me. At the same time, in all of Las Vegas, this smelled more like my kind than anyplace else.

I knocked on the door and waited. Waited some more. Knocked again, then figured everyone was probably asleep. Or out partying, which seemed to be the thing to do at midnight on the Strip. I had turned to leave when the deadbolt clicked back. The door opened. Eyes peeked through, and when they saw me, the door opened wider.

Slightly taller than me, a very young man—eighteen v

I wasn’t just staring at a model. I was staring at an underwear supermodel, and I wasn’t sure my knees could handle it.

When I managed to take a breath, I recognized his scent. Avi the were-leopard, from the show. “Hi,” I said.

“It’s you,” he said. His smile lit up his face. My heart skipped a beat.

We watched each other for another bemused moment. Then I had the agonizing thought, I’m a cradle robber. This kid’s too young for me. I’d never thought that about a guy before, and it made me feel old. But it was true. I kind of wanted to take him out for ice cream.

“Er... I really need to talk to Balthasar. He suggested I should stop by and talk to you guys. You know, in person. Human-like.” I swore I’d have been wagging my tail, if I’d had one at the moment. This was ridiculous.

Then Balthasar sauntered up behind Avi. And he looked even better than Avi. He was plenty old enough for me. He wore a rumpled dress shirt, sleeves rolled up, and jeans. He was also barefoot.

“Kitty,” he said. “What a surprise.”

He didn’t say nice surprise, which left me wincing. “I’m sorry, I should have called first. But I really need to talk to you.”

“It’s fine,” he said, chuckling. “It’s good to see you. Are you married yet?”

“No. In fact, that’s what I want to talk to you about.”

“I’ve never met a werewolf before,” Avi said, beaming. “I can smell it.” He glanced at Balthasar, as if for confirmation. “It’s different.”

“Werewolf and female,” he said, studying my curves under the dress. “Exotic all the way around.”

I couldn’t tell if I was blushing from being tipsy or from being flirted at. I hoped my smile managed to be polite instead of silly. “Not really. There’s lots more where I come from.”

Balthasar opened the door wide. “Why don’t you come in? You can meet the others, and we can all talk.”

The two invited me in. Avi closed the door behind me.

It hit me that I was walking into the heart of another lycanthrope’s territory. That sobered me up. No one was acting threatening or aggressive, but I started to pay more attention. I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder to the closed door.

We continued to the inner room of the suite.

I had to say this much: Avi didn’t act like he was a prisoner, or here under duress. He didn’t seem tense or wary, and he held himself with the same graceful ease that his leopard persona had displayed. I had to wonder: how did a teenager get himself in a position to be bitten by a were-leopard? Maybe I could get him to tell me the story.

The first room—a large foyer, maybe, but I wanted to think of it as a great hall—was open, with a low ceiling. Chairs and sofas were low to the ground and piled with cushions. They looked fluffy and comfortable enough to jump on. A thick red carpet muffled footfalls. Columns painted lapis blue and trimmed in gold supported the ceiling at regular intervals. Sconce-style lamps on the walls cast warm, gold light. The closest thing I’d ever seen to this was a fancy Moroccan restaurant.

The place must have been designed by the same people who did the whole hotel. Murals covered the walls, line drawings done in such detail I thought they were printed wallpaper at first. But they’d been painted in dark lines on beige backgrounds, so that they almost seemed like stone carvings. Processions marched away on either side of me: men and women, life-size, in single file, staring forward, fists clenched. The motifs seemed ancient. The figures had the curling beards and tall hats of Babylonian kings. They weren’t all fully human. They had human faces, but the bodies of lions, bulls, deer, even birds.

Some lycanthropes believed that our disease—whatever made us what we are—had its origin in the very beginnings of civilization, from a time when people were closer to nature, when people and animals talked to each other, like in so many of the old stories. We bridged the space between them, reminded people of that time. It was an optimistic, environmentally friendly attitude toward lycanthropy.

Other people—a little less nice, a little more inclined to believe in a vengeful God—believed we were spawn of the devil.

Maybe that was why I preferred to think of this as a disease. A strange disease, but still quantifiable. Because if lycanthropy was a disease, it meant I was just unlucky. Not part of a giant cosmic scheme I had no control over, not to mention no knowledge of.

The smell of the room washed over me, brilliant as any color or light. They were unfamiliar, undomesticated scents: not just the human-mixed-with-fur smell of lycanthrope, the smell of skin covering something wild. This was even more animal. Like the fur covered skin instead, and nothing tempered the animal side of the equation. It was the smell of instinct, of fighting for food, for space. Communication happened through scent—not just pissing to mark territory. Fear, anger, joy, lust, all had their own scents. A lot of emotion had been spent in this place. A lot of hunger, meaty and ripe.

Balthasar gestured, taking in the decor around us. “What do you think?”

“I like it. Not sure I’d want my own living room to look like this, but it’s... exotic.” I’d almost said sexy. “The figures—what are they? Babylonian?”

“Right in one,” he said, nodding in acknowledgment. “Do you know the old stories?”

“Some of them. Daniel and the Lion’s Den—the version where he’s a were-lion. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Mostly through modern interpretations in English lit classes and all.”

“There’s a lot we can learn from the ancients. In some ways, those were better times.”

“I don’t know, I sort of like modern medicine, TV, women being able to own property and vote. All the modern conveniences.”

“I did say in some ways.” He moved closer. I probably wouldn’t be able to just step out of his grasp. Goose bumps traveled up my arms. But I didn’t move away from him.

Behind my shoulder now, he looked at the murals, the procession on the wall, and pointed. A row of smaller, human figures lined up before a throne, where a lion-bodied god crouched and accepted the offerings, the boxes and jars they set before him. “There was a power in those times. We hide ourselves now. Then, the gods and their servants were painted on every wall, for all to see. The statues stood guard at the gates of every city. How do you think it would be, to be celebrated by your society instead of looked on as a curse? To be an avatar of the gods?” His voice was hypnotic.

He painted an attractive picture. A utopia, almost. But these societies also made blood sacrifices to their gods. We could idealize the past all we wanted, at the price of ignoring the drawbacks.

“Is that what you’re doing here? Trying to re-create that kind of society?”

He just smiled. “Come in, see the rest of our home.”

He put his hand on my shoulder. The bare part, not even touching the dress’s narrow strap. His touch was fire. Every muscle in my body clenched. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t even think of it. His words rang over me. I am part of the procession, which stretches back to the dawn of time. That made me powerful.

When I moved, my bones creaked. I heard them, and the noise jarred me. I stepped away, took myself out of the burning, alluring grasp. I took a deep breath, tried to get oxygen back to my brain. There was something in the air here...

“Ben’s missing,” I said, wincing mentally, because blurting it out like that wasn’t sly or smart at all. Not if Balthasar had a hand in it. I was supposed to be smart about this. “Ben’s my fiancé, and a crime lord named Faber might have taken him. The police are looking, but they haven’t found anything, and I’m running out of ideas. Dom said you might know something.”

“Dom?” Balthasar said, chuckling. “We don’t hear much from Dom. Let’s sit down and we can talk about this.”

I didn’t know what to call the room he took me to. It was much like the foyer, the great hall, rich in its decorations, exotic for the lack of anything I’d call chairs and sofas, anything that might identify it as a living room. I might have called it a dormitory, or a barracks: futons, made up with sheets and pillows, lined one wall. But there was also a fountain, water dribbling over round gray stones, in the middle of the room, and chaise lounges, and draped over these in a most decorative manner—dangling their fingers in the water, stretched out on cushions—were a group of young men. They were all glowingly gorgeous, smooth-skinned, bronzed, muscular. At the sound of Balthasar’s voice, they looked up at me with alluringly hooded gazes. They had wicked smiles. Balthasar was the pirate captain, and here was his crew.

Part of me really wanted to run now. But they were all so attractive.

“So you all live here together?” I said, working to keep my voice steady. “All the performers?” I was hoping Nick would be around. He’d been the first one I’d met, and for some reason he seemed like the one most likely to tell me the truth. I assumed there was another truth under all this.

“We’re a pack, of sorts,” Balthasar said, with Avi nodding in agreement. He gestured forward with a sweep of his arm, worthy of his best showmanship. “Meet the cast.”

They were a pack of lycanthropes, unmistakable, and this was their territory, but I sensed more to it than that. The smell of the place had another layer to it, threatening but even more alien. My skin tingled with it. I wasn’t an invader here. I was... something else.

The place smelled thickly of sex. As if—what else were a bunch of hunky men supposed to do when they weren’t onstage?

They perked up, straightening, peeling themselves off their perches. They moved like water, graceful, without a sound. They wore jeans and pants, riding low on their hips. No shirts. Their chests were long expanses of enticing skin. They stalked forward on bare feet, never taking their gazes from me, like I was some interesting new toy they had to examine—a mouse stuffed with catnip, maybe.

I should have run from there. But the warmth of Balthasar’s body kept me in place. Drew me closer. This was a place of great mystery, his gaze seemed to tell me. Didn’t I want to learn their secrets? Avi’s smile and relaxed stance made me think that nothing was wrong.

They were all in their twenties, young and fit. They definitely worked out. Their muscles shifted and flexed under their perfect skin. They were model-perfect, watching me with expressive eyes. Fanning around me, they cocked their heads, taking breaths, smelling me, studying me from every angle. My breath caught. I could feel my heart pounding.

Lycanthropes had to shape-shift only on nights of the full moon; the power to shift was voluntary at other times. We could choose to shift, or we did so instinctively, in dangerous situations. Balthasar’s whole show was based on that, that they could shape-shift at will and retain some of their humanity through the transformation. As a result, this place was more animal than human, and these men had their beasts looking out of their eyes, right at the surface, because they changed into their lycanthropic forms almost every day in order to perform. We weren’t meant to spend so much time in our animal forms. Not if we had any hope of remaining human, of living as humans. But they didn’t seem too put out by it all. Living together like this, isolated, they probably didn’t have to deal with their humanity any more than they wanted to.

But what about territory? Instinct? A group of male cats would never live together in a pack like this. And that was where the human side came in. Their looks were far too calculating to be driven purely by instinct.

They stayed just out of reach. I kept thinking one of them, or all of them, would reach out and touch me. If they did, I might retreat in a panic. Or I might reach back. I was blushing, all the way to my gut.

“Is she for us?” one of them said. He was closest, and he kept his gaze on my chest, like he could see through my dress.

My shoulders bunched up, the hair on my neck stiffening. Some of them—They were looking at me like they wanted to start batting me around with their paws.

“She’s a guest,” Balthasar said, and the other made a disappointed click in answer. He turned his shoulder, brushing against one of his packmates as he did. The latter snapped at him, a quick bite at air, but he also leaned into the touch.

They stood close to each other, touching, leaning against each other’s backs and shoulders even as they stripped me with their gazes. The exchange disturbed me. Did Balthasar often bring women here as cat toys?

I looked at the ceiling, the faux-stone pillars, the carpet, my feet, anything. But I could smell them, their hormones, the sweat on their skin. I might have sounded a little panicked when I said, “The women in the show... they’re not here? They’re not lycanthropes?”

He shook his head. “They’re just assistants. They’re not really part of the act.” Or part of the pack, the pride of felines.

“Even the one at the end? Because she looked pretty integral. Is she one of you?”

A couple of them chuckled, others ducked to hide smiles. There was a joke here I was missing.

“I suppose in a sense she’s one of us,” Balthasar said finally.

“Can I meet her?”

“She’s shy,” he said.

But she strutted around onstage half naked, I wanted to say. “So there aren’t any other women here at all? Where’s Nick?”

“I’m here.” And there he was, striding through a doorway on the far side of the room. There was a hallway there, and I couldn’t see where it led. Rooms, maybe. Nick looked just as cocky as he had the first time I saw him, striding toward me like he knew he looked good and planned on showing it off. “Welcome to our humble abode. I hope the boys are showing you a good time.”

“They’re trying, I’m sure.”

Balthasar wore a dark look. The sly smile hadn’t changed, but he gazed at Nick warningly.

Trouble in paradise? Competition? Hmm.

“I need to find Ben,” I said, the focus of my life pulling me back from them. “As much as I’d love to stay here and socialize with you all, if you don’t know anything, I need to get going and track down the next lead.” Even if it meant wandering the streets and calling his name. I would, if I had to.

In the meantime, the pack moved closer to me, slinking, noses flaring as they worked overtime to smell me. Any moment now, they’d reach out and start touching me. I backed up a step, surveying the crowd of handsome, earnest faces surrounding me. I was betting they didn’t get out much. They were all smiling, vacuous. Cult, anyone?

“Hey, guys, back off a little,” Avi said, stepping between me and the Calvin Klein ad auditions. “You don’t want to scare her off when she just got here.”

Balthasar, who hadn’t made a move to intervene, gave an indulgent smile. “He’s right. Sanjay, why don’t you bring over some drinks? Maybe some water. Shall the rest of us sit? We can talk about Kitty’s problem.” He gestured to another artfully arranged pile of cushions. Just what I needed: all of us lying around on the floor together. What was my problem again?

Nevertheless, I found myself lounging back against a cushion, legs primly tucked under me, surrounded by men who looked like they might start purring. Balthasar was on one side, Nick on the other, and Avi was at my feet.

I needed a distraction. “So tell me about the murals. The old stories. Is that where you get your inspiration?” I glanced around at the group, directing the question to all of them. Their rapt attention was making me nervous, and I didn’t want to act nervous around them. I didn’t want to seem weak.

“It’s more than inspiration,” he said. “I suppose you could almost say it’s a belief system.”

“Yeah? Like a religion?”

“Those stories have to do with the creation of the world. People have forgotten about it in our modern world. I think part of why we’re here is to remind people how wild things once were. How chaotic.”

“Okay,” I said, but my stare was blank, not really getting it. Sanjay arrived with drinks, a tray, a few glasses, and a pitcher. It looked like water, but when I brought the glass up to take a drink, I wrinkled my nose. It didn’t smell right. Drugged, maybe? Maybe it was just a weird brand of bottled water.

Balthasar took a long swig from his glass, which somehow didn’t make me feel any better. No one else had anything to drink. It made them seem even more like pets instead of people gathered around us, gazing adoringly while they waited for a touch or a word.

Nick said, “I’ve been arguing with him. I think we should go public. Then we could make the show really wild, add shape-shifting onstage—”

“Ew!” I said, appalled. Shifting was such a personal, traumatic thing. Doing it in public, in front of spectators—which I had actually done, filmed in captivity, completely against my will—seemed so wrong, so invasive.

But I had to admit, it would make for great box-office draw.

“We’re not that sensationalist,” Balthasar said, frowning at Nick.

“Hence all the whips and chains,” I said wryly.

“You liked it?” Balthasar said.

“I have to admit, lurid sex is an easy way to shock people. And it gets the blood going.”

Nick narrowed his gaze and smiled. “In more ways than you know.”

Balthasar and Nick both loomed over me, where I slouched against the cushion. Once again, I lay there belly up, looking up at them, a picture of submission, and I didn’t want to be there.

I sat up and put the glass aside. “Do you know anything about Faber and what might have happened to Ben, or not?”

“Ah, yes, Ben. The other wolf. Your mate,” Balthasar said.

I tensed, my mind ringing with alarms. Ben hadn’t been with me for the show, Nick hadn’t seen him, there was no way he’d even know about him. I’d told Balthasar that I had a fiancé. I hadn’t said he was a werewolf.

Keep cool, I told myself. Act indifferent. “Why do you think he’s a wolf?”

He leaned close, so his breath stirred my hair. “I can smell him on you. It’ll take more than a night to get his scent off you.” He was so close to me he tipped his head to kiss my brow. A warm dry pressure of lips, that was all. Something one friend might do to another to give comfort. Then he shifted, tilting forward to move the kiss to my lips. I could smell him, heat, spice, and fire. Hands touched me, Balthasar’s, on my chin, my arm. And other hands—Nick’s, maybe, on my leg, moving up my thigh. Yet another on my ankle. They all pressed close, a dozen men—boys, some of them. Creatures. With beseeching looks in their eyes, like they needed me to stay, like they’d never seen anything like me and I was treasure to them. It made me flush and feel giddy. But Wolf was cornered.

I was drowning. I couldn’t breathe. I want my mate, Wolf whispered.

Snarling, teeth bared, I stood, shoving away hands, extricating myself from the mob, and backed to the middle of the floor. My shoulders hunched, head low, glaring a challenge—a cornered wolf. Attention from willing males was fine, but feeling helpless wasn’t. Not anymore. We’d had enough of that and weren’t going to go back. If one of them took another step toward me, Wolf would take matters into her own hands. Claws.

Taking a deep breath, I made myself stay calm. There were doorknobs between me and the outside, which meant I had to stay human to get out of this.

“I don’t know what your game is, I don’t know what’s up with you and werewolves and this crazy fucked-up town. But I’m going to go find my mate now.”

“Kitty, wait,” Balthasar said. His voice remained buttery: the seductive tone never left him. “We can help. If there’s a lost werewolf in this town, I can find him—”

An alarm rang. A real one. The deep, electric drone of a fire alarm echoed from the hallway outside. It sounded closer than I would have expected; the suite of rooms seemed so large, and we had seemed so far away from the rest of the hotel.

Balthasar’s packlings glanced at each other in confusion.

I ran to the front door. Surely this wasn’t for real. It was a drill, or a false alarm. Then again, I thought: if a major Vegas hotel was going to go up in flames, of course it would be the one where I was at the moment.

I touched the main door. It wasn’t hot. By this time, Balthasar was on the phone—there was a phone tucked away in the corner of the first room. As I opened the door to leave, he called out—

“Wait, Kitty, they’re telling me it’s a false alarm—”

That might have been the case, but I was still going to use the opportunity to get the heck out of there.

The hall was empty. Maybe everyone but me thought it was a false alarm. Or m {se

The fire alarm echoing through the concrete stairwell gave me a roaring headache.

Ten minutes without heat and smoke convinced me that this was, in fact, a false alarm. Between about the fourth and fifth floors, I rounded the corner, intending to plop down on the step and catch my breath. Maybe try to analyze what had happened over the last half hour. But movement caught my eye, someone darting across the landing below me. The door giving access to the floor opened, and the figure looked back at me, urgency tightening his features. He was tall, tan-skinned, and wore a suit.

It was Evan. And I thought I saw a gun in his other hand.

It all passed as a blur before he was in the hallway, and the door shut behind him. But my nerves spiked, and I ran to the door, opened it, looked—he wasn’t there. Or he was very good at hiding. First Sylvia, now Evan. What was going on here?

Belatedly, I slipped back into the stairwell and pressed myself to the wall, in case bullets did start flying. I was almost gasping for breath; my heart was racing and my head swimming from the alarm and the alcohol. I couldn’t hear anything. I could smell the trace of aftershave and a wool suit that might have been Evan’s. Might have been anyone’s. My imagination conjured the scent of gun oil. I couldn’t be sure of anything.

Carefully, I continued the rest of the way to the lobby. Taking every step carefully, I listened for footsteps, for the sound of a gun being cocked, and I breathed slowly, waiting to catch a scent. I made very slow progress.

By the time I reached the lobby, the alarm had stopped, but my nerves hadn’t stilled. The place was packed with people coming and going, milling in the resulting confusion. A guy in a firefighter coat and helmet walked past, obviously not in a hurry. No real emergency, but people were still confused. Like nothing so much as a flock of nervous sheep. Then a voice called, “Kitty!”

Brenda stood in the lobby ahead of me, gesturing me over. I never, ever thought this would happen, but I was happy to see her. When I reached her, she pulled me over to the wall. She kept looking around us like she expected demons to spring from the walls.

“What’s going on?” I said. “Have you found Ben? I thought I saw Evan upstairs—”

“Yeah, he’s the one who pulled the fire alarm.”

“Wow. I think I should thank him,” I said.

“No doubt,” she said with a huff. “Did you know that animal act is actually a bunch of lycanthropes?”

I said, totally sardonic, “Yeah. I might have figured that one out.”

“And you got yourself stuck up there in the middle of them?” she said, disbelieving. “What were you thinking? Those guys are bad news.”

“So I’ve heard, but no one will tell me why. What have you found out?”

“Everyone keeps out of their way. Even our crowd. And that’s saying something. What were you doing there?” She had a hand on her hip and looked accusing.

Avoiding getting seduced, I thought but shook my head. I understood why Balthasar and his gang made me nervous. But they made everyone nervous. “I thought they might know something about what happened to Ben.”

“And did they?” I shook my head, and she said, “We haven’t done much better. Word is that Faber’s lying low after his ring at the Olympus poker tournament went bust. I haven’t heard anything about him taking Ben. He’s keeping it real quiet.”

“How did you guys end up here?”

“Keeping track of you. Boris and Sylvia are on the hunt.”

“What? I spotted Sylvia at the Napoli —”

“They’re keeping tabs on you. So we’re keeping tabs on them.”

“Are they here?” I said, looking around wildly.

“No, unfortunately.”

Unfortunately? I was counting that a small blessing at the moment.

I sensed movement, another set of footsteps approaching. Evan. He strode from the elevator, scanned the lobby, spotted us, and came over. All business, all focused intensity. Even when he joined us, looking me up and down, nodding once when he found me in one piece, part of his attention stayed outward, watching the crowd. I had a feeling he could tell me a lot about all the people here from a few fleeting details, in Sherlock Holmesian fashion.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You better thank me. I hear that Balthasar guy doesn’t like werewolves. Drives ’em out of town when he can.”

“Oh, he wasn’t trying to drive me out,” I said, my smile thin. Except out of my wits, maybe.

He turned to Brenda. “Boris and Sylvia didn’t track her here. I can’t find any sign of them.”

“But they’re still out there, and I want to know where.”

“Then let’s go hunting,” Evan said, a quirk to his lips and a glint in his eyes. People like him lived for moments like this, I bet. In fact, both of them were grinning.

“What about me?” I said. “What about Ben?”

“We’re still looking,” Evan said. “We still have leads to follow.”

Brenda said, “There’s a chance those two know something. If they do, we’ll get it out of them.” If this had been a movie, she would have drawn her gun and cocked it right then, to accentuate her point. Not that that would have made me feel any better.

“In the meantime,” Evan said to me, “We’re going to take you back to your hotel. And you should stay there until we know Sylvia’s not gunning for you. Got it?”

My thoughts were too tangled to argue. I wanted to go with them. I wanted to find Ben now. I also wanted to bury my face in a pillow. And get rid of these damned heels.

At this point, it was easier to agree.

They escorted me to a cab, which drove us back to the Olympus. This was very nice of them, I supposed. But I had a feeling they were doing it not necessarily because they liked me, but because they really hated Boris and Sylvia. That, I couldn’t argue with. I got a little more annoyed when they walked me from the front lobby to the elevator, then into the elevator and to the room.

Evan left me with final instructions: “Keep the door locked. Keep the chain on. Don’t answer the door for anyone. Stay here, right?”

“I’m not stupid, you know,” I said. He glared at me like he didn’t agree with that assessment.

“Call us if anything happens. If you spot those goons, or if you hear from Ben, call us.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

They didn’t leave until I closed the door and they heard the chain slide into place. I could tell because watched them through the peephole.

So here I was, safe and sound, with nothing to do but wait for Ben. To wait and see what else went horribly wrong. I took the opportunity to peel off the pain-inducing shoes and change out of the dress and into jeans and a T-shirt. My poor abused dress. The one Ben wanted to take off me.

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.