Vampire Beach: High Stakes (16 page)

It’s not like it’s something you’d ever actually be able to forget anyway
, he told himself. A crossbow bolt in the chest – that was a memory that stayed with a guy pretty much forever, twinge or no twinge.

Jason jerked down on the ladder with both hands. It gave a squeal of protest and lowered about an inch. He gave it a yank. Nothing. The thing was completely jammed. Well, if the ladder wouldn’t come down to him, he’d have to go up to it.

Jason adjusted his grip on the bottom rung of the jammed fire escape ladder – the only rung within his reach – and swung himself up to climb the ladder.

Halfway up, he felt a strong hand – an inhumanly strong hand – grab his shoulder.
On the upside
, he told himself,
a vampire guard means I’m probably very close to Sienna
. He looked over his shoulder, and his mouth fell open.

Paige stood behind him on the metal ladder.

‘How’d you get up here?’ he asked.

She laughed. ‘It helped that I’m not a clumsy human boy,’ she replied.

‘OK, forget about how,
why
are you up here?’ Jason demanded. ‘You’re supposed to be hiding out so you don’t get snatched by Marc or one of his goons.’

‘It’s my fault Sienna got kidnapped,’ Paige answered. ‘When I heard Zach on the phone telling you all the places the Lessards owned, I figured this was the most likely spot for Sienna to be stashed. So when Zach went to the bathroom, I decided to come over and check it out.’ She raised one eyebrow at him. ‘I didn’t hear Zach tell you to search the warehouse. You’re rogue too, aren’t you?’

Jason gave a reluctant snort of laughter. ‘Rogue! Yeah, that’s me.’

‘So, are you going to keep climbing? Or do you want me to go first, since I’m the one with the preternatural powers?’ Paige asked.

Jason answered by continuing to climb.

‘You have a cute butt,’ Paige commented from below him.

Jason didn’t know exactly how he was supposed to answer that kind of compliment, especially from his girlfriend’s sister, so he pretended he hadn’t heard and kept climbing until he reached the top of the fire escape.

He and Paige crouched down and peered through the window that led to the metal platform they stood on.

‘Just more boxes,’ Paige murmured.

‘Let’s go inside, just to be sure,’ Jason said. He tried to open the window. ‘Locked,’ he told Paige. He wrapped the bottom of his shirt around his fist and punched it through the glass.

‘You should have let me do that,’ Paige told him. ‘I heal like it’s nothing.’

‘All I was thinking about was getting in there,’ Jason admitted. He plucked a fragment of glass out of his forearm, then carefully reached through the hole in the window and flipped the latch.

‘You really love my sister, don’t you?’ Paige asked, her voice serious.

‘Yeah.’ Jason shoved the window up and climbed into the warehouse.

‘SiSi has very good taste,’ Paige said as she followed him.

It felt just as deserted inside the place as it had out.
She’s not here
, Jason thought, but he didn’t say it aloud. He didn’t know for sure; why not let Paige hope for a little while?

Quietly, they wove through the corridors of boxes. There was no Sienna, and nothing to indicate that Sienna had ever been there. It was the same with the small office, the rows of boxes downstairs, the bathroom, and the larger office.

‘I really thought I’d find her,’ Paige said. ‘When I heard Zach say “warehouse”, I thought for sure …’

‘Me, too,’ Jason answered. ‘But we’re all working on it. Maybe someone else is about to find her right now.’

‘So we all got nada, zip, an endless void of nothing, a—’

‘Thanks for that recap,’ Jason said, interrupting Adam before someone – possibly Jason himself – felt the need to kill him.

Belle gave Adam an affectionate pat on the knee. ‘I thought it was very creative,’ she told him.

Brad used his fingers to scrub his face. ‘All we can do now is get Zach over to the tournament.’

‘And be there as back-up if something nasty goes down,’ Van Dyke agreed.

‘Then we need to go get ready,’ Maggie said. ‘None
of
us could walk into a big money invitational game looking the way we do.

True
, Jason thought, taking in the little rips at the bottom of his shirt. And the streak of blood.

‘Is the invitational part going to be a problem?’ Erin asked. ‘We didn’t think about that.’

‘Actually, we did,’ Zach said, ‘and I’m expected, so let’s meet downstairs in the lobby at seven forty-five p.m.’

‘Less than an hour to make myself gorgeous,’ Adam said, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know if I can do it.’

‘I don’t know if you could do it even with
unlimited
amounts of time,’ Van Dyke joked, herding everyone but Zach out of the suite.

‘Hey. You holding up OK?’ Adam asked when he and Jason split off from the others at their room.

‘Sienna can take care of herself. I have to keep reminding myself of that,’ Jason answered. He slid the key card through the reader and opened the door.

‘She could definitely kick my butt,’ Adam agreed. ‘And the butt of my dad, who is, as you know, a sheriff with years of training.’

Jason headed over to the closet and pulled out the suit Sienna had insisted he buy a few weeks ago. He changed his clothes as quickly as possible, then grabbed his new shoes. Sienna had insisted that he buy
a
pair of loafers to go with the suit. She called them light green with a ‘world-weary patina’, whatever that meant. He called them gray. They’d mock argued about it all the way home in the car. And then they’d made up for the mock fight with some real kissing.

‘Those just slide on, in case you’re wondering,’ Adam said. ‘There’s no Velcro or laces or anything. It’s kind of freaky, I know.’

Jason realized that he’d been staring at the loafers for an embarrassing amount of time. ‘Thanks. Because that
is
actually what I was wondering.’

‘You’re looking very shiny,’ Adam told him.

‘It’s from the Roberto Cavalli Spring collection. And I believe the term you’re looking for is “high-sheen”,’ Jason corrected, straightening his jacket but totally failing to carry off the fashion-conscious image with conviction. They both knew only Sienna knew that kind of stuff.

‘And what about me?’ Adam flung out his arms theatrically, giving Jason a good look at the intricate lines and dots covering his shirt. ‘Don’t I look pretty?’

‘Am I supposed to be seeing a dinosaur pop out of your chest or what?’ Jason joked. ‘It looks like you’re wearing one of those optical illusion posters. I used to have one in my bedroom when I was a kid. When you
stared
at it just the right way, with your eyes almost crossed—’

‘I think what you’re trying to say is that this op-art print captures the mood of the Seventies with skill and wit,’ Adam interrupted. ‘At least that’s what Belle said. She bought it for me. I’m supposed to pay her back after I sell my first movie or marry an heiress thanks to her coaching.’

‘You’d better hope she’s willing to keep coaching you, then, because—’ Jason broke off. ‘How can we even be talking about this stuff? Why are we even bothering to change clothes? It’s insane. Sienna is being held hostage somewhere, and we’re …’ He shook his head.

‘What we’re doing is dressing in the appropriate way for the next stage of the plan to get Sienna back,’ Adam told him. ‘We need to look like we belong in a private room at the Bonheur, because that’s where we have to be right now.’

Jason nodded. ‘All right. You’re right. We just have to hope that Zach wins and that the honor of his family name actually
means
something to that scuzball, Marc,’ Jason said. ‘Let’s get downstairs.’

Van Dyke and Maggie were already in the lobby when Jason and Adam showed up.

‘A cravat, Van Dyke?’ Adam asked. ‘Really?’

‘Clearly I need to get you a subscription to
GQ
,’ Van Dyke told him. ‘For so many reasons.’

‘I think he actually looks cute,’ Belle said as she, Erin, and Brad joined them. ‘Lounge lizard-esque, in a good way.’ She reached across Adam and unbuttoned one more button on Jason’s high-sheen shirt. ‘Sienna did a good job when she took you shopping. You clean up real nice.’

Jason shot a nervous look at Maggie. ‘Are you sure? It seems like Maggie and I are wearing almost the same thing.’

‘It looks a lot better on her,’ Van Dyke laughed.

The three-piece suit did look hot on Maggie. She looked every bit as sexy as Belle did in her short, sparkly rhinestone-covered dress.

‘The name’s Lafrenière. Zach Lafrenière,’ Brad murmured as Zach headed toward them.

No kidding. Zach was wearing a tux. Black with satin lapels. White handkerchief in the pocket. He hadn’t bothered with a tie, and his white shirt was open at the neck. He hadn’t tried to comb down the spikes in his short black hair, and he had a little stubble going, just a little. He definitely looked like a guy who’d walk away from a card table a winner.

‘Let’s roll,’ Zach said calmly, and walked out of the hotel lobby.

‘Do you have the, uh, what the rat pack would call the “do-ray-mi”
on
you?’ Adam asked as they made their way down the Strip toward the Bonheur. ‘Because that’s a lot of music to be walking around with.’

‘I arranged for the 250,000 dollars to be transferred to the casino. I’ll receive it in chips when we arrive,’ Zach told him.

Adam shot Jason a raised-eyebrow, do-you-believe-this-guy look. Jason shrugged.

‘So, do you have any tips for negotiating a better allowance?’ Belle teased. ‘I wanna be a high roller too.’

Zach smiled at her. ‘My parents are generous. But I’ve managed to make a few lucky investments in the past few years.’

‘Lucky investments? How lucky are we talking?’ Van Dyke burst out.

‘Lucky enough,’ Zach said, clearly ending that particular line of questioning.

‘I don’t get the whole 250,000 dollars thing exactly,’ Maggie admitted. ‘They can tell you how much to bet?’

‘Maggie, if you didn’t spend more time in the water than out, you’d pick up some of this basic life information,’ Erin told her. ‘Most tables have minimum bets. But at tournaments like the one tonight, with the high rollers, they have a buy-in. Tonight’s is 250,000 dollars. Everyone is committed to
play
for that amount and starts out with that many chips.’

‘So the winner will get …?’ Maggie asked.

‘There are six players in the tournament,’ Van Dyke said. ‘That means there’s one and a half million in the pot. Most of that will go to the winner. Pretty much everyone else at the table will be walking home with empty pockets.’

‘That’s not going to be me.’ Zach stopped in front of the Bonheur and opened the nearest door, waving the group inside. Then he led the way deep into the casino, down a steep flight of stairs, and over to a room with a green brocade door. There was a man in a tuxedo clearly standing guard. Zach told the guy his name, only his name, and the guard whisked the door open. Zach’s phone calls had obviously gone well.

Jason’s eyes immediately went to the wall on the left. It was almost entirely covered by an enormous built-in aquarium, alive with fish. Then he saw Marc, already seated at the sleek cherry-wood table in the center of the room.

‘He sure wears that Fendi well,’ Erin murmured.

Jason took a closer look at the guy. He had on a very classy gray suit – Fendi, according to Erin – with a white shirt and tie underneath.

Mr Yakamoto – the older Japanese man that Zach
had
won from the other night – sat to his left. Zach strolled over to the table and took a seat some distance from Marc. Yakamoto didn’t seem very happy to see him, but Marc sure did.

‘Let’s grab seats,’ Brad said, leading the way up a short flight of stairs to a raised gallery set well back from the game table. Tables and chairs stretched down its length. As soon as they sat down, a waitress glided up and asked for their drink orders. Jason noticed that the players were being offered complimentary beverages. It looked like Zach had gone for water with a slice of lemon. Smart choice.

They had a good view of Zach, who was sitting facing toward them, but they could only see the back of Marc’s head. ‘Hey, isn’t that that sexy actress?’ Van Dyke asked. ‘The one who was in that movie where she was a lesbian?’

‘
Bound
,’ Brad said. He shot a look at Adam. ‘See, we do know some old movies.’

‘You mean you have an encyclopedic knowledge of anything that involves girl-on-girl action,’ Maggie said, laughing.

‘That’s definitely her,’ Adam confirmed. ‘Sitting down right next to our Zach.’

‘Most definitely,’ Brad agreed.

A middle-aged guy with way too much bling for
a)
the room and b) his age, came in and plopped down between the actress and Mr Yakamoto. He was followed by a short man who, like Zach, was dressed in a tux. When he took his seat, on the other side of Zach from the actress, the tournament’s six players were all in place.