Sucker Bet (Vegas Vampires #4)(32)
Author: Erin McCarthy

They were still standing like that a solid minute later when his phone rang in his pants pocket.

"Shit." He didn’t want to answer it, but he also couldn’t turn off the detective in him. Part of him was wondering if it was the call telling him the autopsy report on Andrew Fletcher was in.

Gwenna dug into his pocket and retrieved his phone. He held his hand out but she just grinned and pushed the talk button. "Nate Thomas’s office," she said in a clipped, secretarial voice. "May I help you?"

That made him grin, especially given that she was drunk and still sitting on his cock.

"One moment, please." She handed him the phone. "A Jim Connors wishes to speak to you."

Nate took the phone and disengaged himself from her, pulling her dress back down over her thighs. With the phone against his shirt, he gave her a soft kiss. "It’s work. It will just take a second."

"I understand." She tucked him back into his pants and snuggled up against his chest.

Wrapping his free arm around her, Nate lifted the phone to his ear. "Yeah? What’s up?"

"Where the f**k are you?"

"I’m on the boulevard, about a block from Caesar’s." Behind a scaffolding tarp, but Jim didn’t need to know that. Nate watched the black nylon flap in the breeze and tried to focus.

"You’re supposed to be at that concert looking for Gwenna Carrick and her little online buddy."

"I’m actually with Gwenna Carrick at the moment."

"But you’re not at the club."

"No." What the hell was Jim getting at? "Is there some kind of problem?"

"You bet your horny ass there is." The phone rustled as Jim shifted. "Get back to that club. The manager just found a dead body backstage. Victim is a white male, twenties, folded up like an origami crane in a storage closet. Scene team and the coroner on their way."

"Shit." Nate shoved off the wall. "You’re kidding me."

"No, sir. Makes you wonder about your cutsie little blonde, doesn’t it? What do you think she was up to tonight before you got in her pants?"

While it pissed Nate off, he knew he’d be thinking the same thing in Jim’s shoes.

"I’ll be there in five." He hung up and looked down at Gwenna. She had been with her friends all night. She was drunk. She was too sweet. There was no way she could be a coldblooded killer. He’d stake his life on it.

But the facts told him that he couldn’t rule Gwenna out as a suspect, no matter what his gut said. She was involved on the loop. She was at the scene both times. She could be faking her intoxication. And in a crowded concert, she could have slipped backstage and killed someone. There was no report yet on how Andrew had died, or how his blood had all been drained.

Nate knew Gwenna couldn’t have done that. He could look into her eyes and know that she was a loving, compassionate person.

But he also suspected she had secrets she didn’t share with him, and that she knew more than she was telling him about the slayers’ loop.

"What’s the matter?" she asked him now, her face showing concern, her hand reaching for his.

"We’ve got another body."

"Oh, no." Her face went white. "Where?"

"Backstage at The Impalers concert."

Chapter Ten

Alexis felt like a groupie. She couldn’t believe she’d let Kelsey talk her into going backstage at The Impalers concert.

"Hey, Davey!" Kelsey was saying, throwing herself into the arms of the dark-haired bass player. "Long time no see."

"What’s up, Summer? You’re looking good." He gave her a big friendly grin.

Summer? Lord, Alexis had forgotten that Kelsey had changed her name in the sixties from Nancy to Summer. In the eighties she’d made the switch to Kelsey.

"It’s Kelsey now, remember?"

"Yeah, I know, but I can’t get used to it… and I heard some crazy shit about you getting married, too. What’s up with that?"

Kelsey made a face. "That was a mistake."

Alexis stood there feeling slightly impatient while Kelsey and Davey the bass player plopped down on a couch and played catchup. Kelsey was pouting and trembling and he was patting her knee in reassurance. At least Kelsey hadn’t exaggerated when she’d said they were friends, which was usually par for the course with Kelsey. She thought everyone was her best chum, right before they stabbed her in the back or ignored her. But Davey seemed to be actually glad to see her.

Glancing around the room, which was nothing to get excited over, just a couch and a few chairs done in fake leather, Alexis tried not to cough as the other guitar player’s cigarette smoke drifted by. A couple of the guys were standing around talking, throwing darts at a board on the wall, and the one she thought was the drummer was sitting in a chair with a woman on his lap wearing black tights with tiny silver bats on them. The band had all introduced themselves, but she had promptly forgotten every single one of their names. Nor was she particularly interested in flirting with any of them, as Kelsey had suggested with a giggle when they had made their way backstage. Wow, she had become a boring old married woman. How weird was that?

"So this is going to sound like a line, but haven’t I seen you somewhere?" the guy to her left asked. He was the one with the vast majority of his head shaved except for a long ponytail right at the crown, and some aggressive silver studs sticking out of his lip.

He was also tall, which irritated her on principle, given that she was size of an average American ten-year-old, and she had to tip her head half back to meet his eye. But he had great eyes, a light blue, and they were friendly, not the least bit smarmy.

"I think I would remember meeting you," she said with a wry smile. "But I do have to go to a lot of political parties, so maybe I bumped into you somewhere."

He stuck out his hand. "Drake."

"Alexis Baldizzi-Carrick." She shook his hand firmly.

Recognition crossed his face. "Oh, shit, I know who you are now. You’re President Carrick’s wife. No wonder you looked familiar. We played a fund-raising dinner for the president before you were married, but I’m almost positive you were there."

"If you saw a short blonde looking bored, then yeah, that was probably me."

He laughed. "Not digging being a political wife? Politics isn’t for everyone."

"Oh, I like politics. I love politics. I like the strategizing and the planning and the execution of policies. I’m having an absolute blast overhauling the judicial system in the Nation, but being just a political wife at these functions? That I don’t like."