Sucker Bet (20 page)

If she wasn't so disturbed for reasons she didn't understand, she would have told him where he could stick his commands, but she didn't bother. She found she had no desire whatsoever to hang about. In fact, she had done her duty. She had showed up, kissed her brother, and she desperately wanted to leave.

Turning, she nearly bumped into a couple of women who were watching the doorway and murmuring in low voices. "I can't believe Kelsey married him," the brunette was saying, shaking her head and fingering her diamond pendant.

"Well, you know ever since Kelsey had all her blood drained and was left for dead, she's been nuts. Not that she wasn't nuts before, because she was, but since she was drained, she's like incapacitated. You know they say that Donatelli did it…"

The woman with curly blond hair stopped speaking when she realized Gwenna was staring at her. "Are you okay? You look a little pale."

"Sorry… I've skipped feeding for the last few days. I feel a bit faint."

"There's an open bar. Go get something to drink."

"Thanks." Gwenna turned and walked quickly off. Roberto couldn't have drained Kelsey… she just couldn't believe he could be so cruel. Not to mention that surely Ethan would have told her his suspicions. Then again, Ethan preferred to think she was incapable of handling unpleasant truths and tended to shield her. So she supposed it was entirely possible that Roberto had been the one to leave Kelsey for dead.

But that aside, the conversation had also triggered a possible theory for the loop killings.

Heading straight for the balcony, Gwenna dodged and weaved in and out of vampires young and old, smiling and nodding and giving cursory greetings. When she stepped outside in the cool spring night, she pulled her phone out of her bag. Edging away from an amorous couple sharing a cigarette and heated looks, she dialed Nate, hoping like hell he wasn't in bed already.

"Hello?"

"It's Gwenna. Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"How did those boys die? Do you know?"

"Strangulation. Then they were drained of blood, though we're not sure how. That's not a clean job normally."

"There were puncture wounds on their necks, weren't there?"

Nate was silent for a second. Then, he just said, "It's possible."

"Oh, God." Gwenna put her hand over her eyes and leaned against the wall for support.

There was only one explanation for what was going on.

She was not the only vampire on the slayers' loop pretending to be mortal.

And that other vampire was a killer.

"What are you thinking, Gwenna?" Nate asked her, his voice sharp, curious.

She couldn't tell him the truth in its entirety but neither could she bring herself to lie to him. And they were on the same side—they wanted to catch a killer. "I think the killer is on the vampire slayers' loop." She was whispering, aware of the couple ten feet away from her.

"Yeah, we figure that's pretty much a given, since that's the only connection between the two victims, and they were killed by the same method."

"I think that whoever is doing it is trying to make it look like a vampire killed them."

"Okay." Nate was rustling around and she heard a soft drink can being opened. "So we have a delusional serial killer."

He wasn't getting the bigger picture. "No, what we have is a killer who understands that killing members of a slayers' group in a way that makes it look like a vampire did it, will have those slayers ready to take action and retaliate. Which means to kill a vampire before—in their minds—another slayer is taken out."

She should have seen it before. It was a brilliant strategy. Some of the slayers had been pushing for action, for a large-scale attack on vampires. This kind of violence would only give credence to their claims that vampires were dangerous and the time to eliminate them was now.

Nate was silent for a second. Then he said, "You've got to be kidding me. These people on this loop… they don't really take this shit seriously, do they?"

Gwenna stared out at the Strip, at the faux landscape that was Vegas, everything meant to look like something else, everyone intent on forgetting reality. "Some don't. But some do. They take it very seriously."

"Why are you on that loop anyway? You just a Buffy fan or what?" he asked her.

"I like observing people," she told him.

She heard Nate swallow as he took a drink. "You don't really believe in vampires, do you?"

If he only knew she was standing at the Inaugural Ball for the president of the Vampire Nation, with approximately a thousand undead voters behind her in the room celebrating. That would test the boundaries of his black-and-white world.

"It doesn't matter what I believe. What matters is that someone either believes it himself or knows others do."

"Why do you think Slash has been contacting you and wanting to meet you where bodies are turning up? If there's something you can tell me, any thoughts at all, I really need to know it."

"I have no idea why Slash is suggesting these meeting places. And I actually contacted him privately first." She looked back, saw the party going on full swing, the dancing, the flutes of blood being passed around on silver trays, the laughter. Those who were vampire understood who she was, and why they needed to stay together, organized for their protection and prosperity. "No, there's nothing I need to tell you. I've told you everything."

Everything she could. And that made her suddenly sad. She had been sharing such intimacy with Nate, their bodies, his grief, her frustration with Roberto. Yet it was cursory, elusive… Nate was mortal, and she would live forever. He would never believe what she was, and she didn't want to try to convince him. She didn't want to see the look in his eyes, the admiration and attraction for her, disappear.

He would either think she was a complete lunatic or he would actually believe her, and that would be even worse. Mortals had all manner of bizarre reaction to vampires, including a fiery moral obligation to kill them, intense fear, or the desire to share their immortal gift. Gwenna didn't want to see any of those from Nate. She wanted her relationship with him to stay as it was, a quiet growing friendship and a steamy physical attraction.

"We need to get a court order to trace Slash's e-mail back to his true identity through his e-mail provider if we can't find it any other way. It could take weeks until we know who he really is."

"Maybe I can make plans to meet him again."

"No, it's dangerous as hell."

"I could meet him with you backing me up." Though she wasn't afraid, not of being killed. It would take a cunning and incredibly strong mortal to overpower her enough to take off her head.

"Except that every time you try to meet him he stands you up. I think he's playing you, Gwenna. And I don't like it."

Well, she wasn't too fond of it either. "It's worth a go."

"No."

"Yes." Damn it, on television the police were always sending in civilians to act as sitting ducks. Why didn't he see the brilliance of this ? And she suddenly realized that she was digging in, feeling stubborn and contrary, because Nate was assuming control, giving her orders, like Roberto. Like Ethan.

But he just sighed. "Can we not argue about this, please? I really need to get some sleep… why don't we talk about it tomorrow? "

Ouch. So maybe she was leaping to conclusions. He wasn't her brother or her ex, and he'd been having a couple of really brutal days. She didn't need to contribute to his stress.

"Sure. Of course. You get a good night's sleep and I'll see you in the morning."

He sighed. "Yeah. Thanks, Gwenna. Goodnight."

"Good night, Nate." Gwenna hung up and stared at the phone in her hand, her heart swelling with something that she was fairly certain she shouldn't allow.

Bloody hell, she was falling in love with him.

And Lord knew, she was absolutely old enough to know better, but it didn't seem to matter. She wanted to go to him, comfort him, hold him, make him a sandwich—which was laughable since she hadn't touched a cold cut in a solid nine hundred years—and love him.

Stuffing the phone back into her clutch, she turned to the door of the penthouse.

She needed a drink.

Nate had a whole new respect—and gratitude—for Gwenna Carrick. They'd known each other all of what, three days, and yet she had totally come through for him. She'd spent the entire day by his side on Sunday. The funeral mass, the cemetery internment, the reception afterward—she had been right there, with him. A silent, steady support.

He wasn't sure he could ever explain to her how much that meant to him, how much he appreciated the sacrifice of her time to attend something so uncomfortable and sad, for someone she had never met, or how grateful he was for the buffer she created between himself and his mother. Having Gwenna with him allowed him to stand straight and concentrate on giving his baby sister a final and fitting tribute to the loving and beautiful person she had been.

Now he was exhausted and mentally drained, but he'd made it through and he would be alright. The worst was done and he could regroup, grieve, heal. But first he wanted to figure out how to say thanks to Gwenna.

They were sitting in his truck at the funeral home after the reception since she'd left her car at his place. It always struck him as odd to see Gwenna driving the massive Lexus SUV, but she had told him it was her brother's car. At the moment she was obviously waiting for him to drive or say something, but his tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth.

Gripping the steering wheel, he tried to figure out how to explain to her what he was feeling. That he was grateful, appreciated her presence, her comfort. And that he dug her. That he was completely, totally falling for her. But he was afraid it was onesided or that she'd tell him it was just some kind of stress-induced attraction. That under normal circumstances neither one of them would have ever glanced at the other.

Maybe that was true, but hell, did it matter?

He turned to her. She smiled at him and touched his knee.

Instead of saying what he really wanted to, he said, "You didn't eat anything at the reception, did you?"

She frowned a little. "I had a sandwich."

"I didn't see you." It was nearly four in the afternoon and he would swear he hadn't seen her eat one bite. Her poor eating habits might explain why she always looked so pale, so thin. Not that he thought she looked unhealthy, because she didn't. Her skin was smooth and shiny, cheeks pink, body curved in all the right places. But he never saw her eat and it was starting to bother the detective in him. "Let's go back in and get you something. Or we could stop and pick something up on the way back to my place if there wasn't anything you wanted at the lunch."

"Nate, I ate. I did. Trust me, I'm fine."

Her eyes didn't meet his. A bad, bad sign. He wondered if she could have an eating disorder or something. He was no shrink, but it seemed like Gwenna would be the kind to stuff her feelings down deep and deal with them in a way that would make no sense to him. The daughter, the ex-husband, the lack of a career to distract her—she had plenty of reasons to be stressed and out of whack.

"What happened to your daughter?" he asked, with about zip for tact. But he was tired and he was suddenly really friggin' worried about her.

Her eyes went wide. "Isabel? She died." Then she looked out the passenger window and bit her lip.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up… I was just wondering how. I know today must have brought up bad memories for you, with a funeral and all."

"It's been a long time since my daughter died," she said, her voice low, sad, her shoulders tense.

Considering she looked about a minute out of high school, Nate couldn't believe it was that long ago, but it was clear she didn't really want to talk about it. "I don't guess you ever recover from a loss like that."

"No." Her head swung around and she looked at him. "You don't."

"Was she sick?" Nate figured he should shut the hell up, but his mouth seemed determined to do its own thing.

"No. She was very healthy actually. It was just an accident. A horrible, unexpected accident. It was at our castle in England… she fell on a sword."

"A
sword
? Jesus." Nate covered her hand on his knee with his and gripped her tightly. "Shit, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up." And he felt guilty as hell that he had. A sword. God, he wanted to throw up at that image.

But she gave him a brief smile. "It's alright, Nate. I'm actually okay, for the most part. I did have what amounted to a breakdown after, and that pain, that grief has changed me permanently, but the thing is, I'm still here, sane. Functional. I've been through the worst that could ever happen, and finally, I feel like I've regained myself as a woman. I can actually look to the future with something like pleasure for the first time in what feels like literally forever."

"Good." He squeezed her hand harder. "I'm glad to hear it." Which wasn't exactly profound or poetic, but hell. It was what he felt.