Tantalize (17 page)

What now? I wondered. No toilet paper? I’d checked the supply half an hour earlier. The condom machines? This might be a place for role-playing lovers, but you had to give reality its due. I
prayed
she hadn’t slipped, thrown up, or had some kind of bowel eruption. The last thing we needed was food poisoning rumors, a trumped-up lawsuit, or heaven forbid, a cockroach. “May I help you, ma’am?”

“Oh!” She straightened, clasping hands. “Yes, dear, it’s about the peeing.”

“The peeing?”

In reply, the lady gestured to the two restroom doors, which earlier today had been marked “M” and “W,” but now “Predator” and “Prey.” The “Prey” door had a cross on it. The “Predator” door didn’t. Unisexy. Nobody had warned me.

“I don’t mean to be a prude. The food is fantastic, and I, well . . .” She lowered her voice. “I have certain fantasies, you know.”

Falling under the category of too much information.

Waving her hands, she continued, “But I just can’t go with men —”

“I’ll guard the door.” As emergencies went, I’d seen worse.

An hour later, I dropped off a tray of dirty dishes, and the kitchen was chaos.

“Where’s Travis?” Uncle D yelled in the crowd. “Clyde, where’s Travis?”

“Didn’t show,” Clyde replied, water spraying dishes. “But no sweat. I’m cool.”

My uncle threw his hands into the air and stormed out of the room, muttering.

“Quincie,” Bradley called from the stove. “A homeless guy stopped by the back door a while ago, asking for a handout. Said his name was Mitch and to tell you howdy.”

“Did you feed him?”

Bradley nodded, stirring. “He looked hungry and harmless. I’d given him some leftovers a few weeks back, too. Was that bad?”

“No,” I said, relieved. “Not bad at all.”

Big picture, things were going as planned, though Uncle D — in head-to-toe black mesh and massive amounts of hair gel (I nearly died laughing) — did have to step in when the intoxicated date of a city council member made a grab for a waiter’s ass, thus causing said waiter to dump a plate of sautéed porcini and veal kidneys on the mayor’s lap. And at the hostess stand Yanira did suggest Uncle D install a sign in the foyer to read:

I
refilled water and wine glasses, helped the busers clear tables, and conferred in the hall with the lead singer from Luminous Placenta about placing a ruby-and-diamond engagement ring on her girlfriend Amber’s blood cakes.

A number of guests, in tones both hushed and boisterous, were discussing the two bodies found at the hike-and-bike trail, one last night and another the previous Friday. I overheard a few rumors. One gruesome, one hysterical, one that made me cringe.

I tried not to listen whenever someone mentioned Vaggio.

Once I realized the servers were clearing dinner plates, I ducked into Uncle D’s office to check the digital clock. Two minutes until midnight. Bradley was to make his grand entry during the dessert service. It wasn’t like he needed me for the midnight toast, but I wanted to be there. As I turned to leave, a shadow flexed on the wall. “Kieren?”

“I was looking for —”

“I’ve been in the dining room or kitchen all night. It’s been crazy, but, hey, thanks for coming.” I’d never considered myself a babbler, but I was so euphoric the words just tumbled out of my mouth. “Did you sneak out? Oh, we’ve got to get back. Wait until —”

“Quince, stop,
stop.
I’m here to —”

“Later,” I said, slightly tipsy.

“Now.” In the shadows, Kieren’s eyes reflected like mirrors. “Listen, I think it’s Ruby. I think she’s the vampire. I think she killed Vaggio, or at least, she was in on it. Quince, I think she’s using the restaurant as a beacon to her kind, a hunting ground. I’m not quite sure what. Maybe Vaggio saw something. Maybe . . .”

Giddy mood fading, I couldn’t believe he’d used the phrase “beacon to her kind.”

Kieren, not being a mind reader, kept talking. “She’s been seeing your uncle since about the time the whole vampire remodel came up. She’s never at your house. She’s hardly ever let me within a hundred feet of her, up or downwind. Coincidence?”

I thought back to what Uncle D had said about Ruby wanting to turn vampire for real but then remembered. The night of Vaggio’s murder, she’d been swimming au naturel with Uncle D at Hippie Hollow. “Ruby has an alibi. She —”

Kieren growled at me, and I shrank back. He’d never growled at me before.

One moment he was haunting the shadows, I realized, the next he was in my face.

Detective Sanchez had said the killer had been someone, a shifter that Vaggio had probably known. Kieren had known Vaggio. Kieren was half Wolf. Kieren had discovered Vaggio’s body. Kieren had been covered in blood. Kieren also had been acting weird, really weird, and I wasn’t an idiot. I knew the wereworld wasn’t all puppy-dog eyes and man’s best friend. I couldn’t stay in denial forever. Even the police suspected him.

I inched backward till my hand hit the brass doorknob.

“Maybe I was wrong about Ruby,” he admitted, “but my instincts are screaming. Something about you seems wrong, smells wrong.”

And now I was insulted, too.

“Quince, you’re . . . When’s the last time you showed at school? Did you know that five students are missing? Eight or nine people in the neighborhood?”

I’d heard the waitstaff talking, but they’d always hushed when I walked into a room. I hadn’t realized how high the number had climbed. “The cops —”

“Don’t understand what they’re up against.”

“They know Vaggio’s murderer is out there.”

“Out there,” he repeated. “Do you realize he could be in here, in this very building at this very moment.”

That did it. “I have to leave.”

I took off down the long hall, past the doors marked “predator” and “prey,” walking fast, running when I heard him closing in behind me.

We burst, me first, Kieren on my boot heels, through the velvet curtains leading to the dining room. Everyone stared — guests, wait and bar and hostess staff, Ruby and Uncle D — then returned their attention to the main event.

Everyone except Bradley, who was dressed as he had been before the party began, only more flushed, more vibrant. He stood once again in the center of the dance floor, a glass of red wine perched in his right hand. Making a speech about the foolishness of those who’d entered freely and of their own will.

Bradley waited until finishing his thought to turn and address Kieren. “You,” he roared. “You are not welcome among the blessed.”

Kieren laid rough palms and finger pads on my forearms, and I goose-pimpled beside the air-conditioning duct. “You know me, Quince.” He let go before I could shrug him off. “Nobody knows me like you.”

All eyes watched him exit with a dignity humanity lost long ago. Unbeatable, that’s what his body language said. There was just somewhere else he’d rather be.

As the door closed behind Kieren, the vampire chef raised his glass in a toast, leading all those gathered in doing the same. “I dedicate this drink to the countess of this fine establishment, she whose destiny is this dream.”

Bradley Sanguini raised his glass to me.

T
onight, Saturday night, would be our first of regular business. Not a handpicked guest list, just whoever had called to reserve a table, including probably a reviewer or two who was miffed at not having been invited to the debut. Tonight, the tables would turn over. Higher volume. Higher stress. Higher stakes.

This afternoon, I was indulging in a glass of Chianti with Uncle D in his office when Clyde appeared at the door with news of Travis’s death and to give notice.

“Travis
died
?” I turned the idea over in my mind and felt nothing. Shock, I supposed. Like with Mama and Daddy. Vaggio. But no, this felt somehow more numb. Empty. Maybe because I’d only liked Travis, rather than loved him. “What happened?”

Clyde glared at me like I should already know.

“You’re quitting?” my uncle exclaimed as if that was the only part he’d heard. “But it’s opening night.”

I glanced at the clock. Two
P.M.
At that very moment, Clyde was supposed to be starting in on the dishes from the pastry and prep.

“If you quit now,” my uncle added, “do you think you’re going to walk out of here with a good recommendation?”

Clyde’s nose twitched.

“I can wash dishes,” I told my uncle.

“You shouldn’t have to do that, honey.”

Uncle D made out one check for Clyde and another for him to give to Travis’s family. As Clyde reached to take the money, though, my uncle jerked back his hand. “Stay for dinner tonight and there’s another hundred in it for you.”

Clyde smiled down at us, revealing sharp, tiny teeth. “I don’t think so.”

“One fifty,” my uncle countered.

“No.”

“Three.”

My eyes widened.

“Just tonight,” Clyde said.

“Deal.”

“I won’t close,” he added. “I’m leaving with the last guests.”

About a half-hour before opening, Sebastian took a break from bar inventory to drop by the office and relay that Bradley had a surprise for me in the private dining room.

It was small compared to the main one, but with matching décor — the faux painted “castle” rock walls, candlelike wall sconces, crystal chandelier — and big enough to hold a six-top, which, with leaves, could seat twelve. Overwhelmed, Uncle D had held off on booking it until Halloween.

When I walked in, Bradley offered me a single red calla lily. “For you.”

I loved lilies. They reminded me of champagne flutes, weddings, and funerals.

“I’m sorry that boy tainted last night.”

“It wasn’t horrible,” I said, mostly trying to convince myself.

“Yes,” Bradley argued, “it was. You deserve so much more, someone who’ll offer a real, long-term commitment. Someone you can trust. Promise me that if he comes back you’ll be more careful. You’ll ask for help.”

When did Kieren become someone I sought protection from? When had Bradley become that protection? My life was changing so much, so fast. My life, and for that matter, my restaurant.

I briefly closed my eyes. “I promise.”

Then Bradley showed me a handwritten sheet. “Now then, I’m going to run this by your uncle, but I’d appreciate your thoughts first.”