Sucker Bet (Vegas Vampires #4)(47)
Author: Erin McCarthy

I didn’t see you at the concert. Were you there?

Feeling impatient as hell with Slash, Gwenna replied:

Yes, but I left early. Though how were you going to find me anyway? You don’t know what I look like. Are you sure you’re really even in Vegas?

Testy, but oh, well. She was over Slash and his vague e-mails. She could really care less if he was a lunatic killer. Let him show his true colors if he was, damn it. Clicking on to the next e-mail, she saw FoxyKyle had posted to the loop.

That name was just so irritating. Foxy didn’t have anything of import to say, just a mention that she would be off-line for a few days. Though when Gwenna thought about it, that could potentially be considered odd. Foxy was always online, for the most part. Usually a day didn’t go by without at least one post from her.

Gwenna was suddenly determined to figure out who FoxyKyle was. She started by googling Foxy’s user name and working backward through the pages. Then just the e-mail address. A half an hour and dozens of pages later, Gwenna found a student roster for UNLV from 2005 with Foxy’s e-mail address listed next to the student Kyle Martin. So she researched Kyle Martin and found that he had been shot and killed by a burglar in California while visiting his brother. The brother’s name was Ringo Columbia.

Bloody hell. Gwenna pushed her chair back and stood up, still reading the screen. The brother was mentioned as being a former Marine. But that was it. Nothing to indicate it was anything other than a terrible accident, despite the fact that the burglar was never apprehended. And why was she just now remembering that Kelsey occasionally called Ringo Kyle? It was some kind of pet name she had for him, which was in fact his dead brother’s name. That struck Gwenna as rather appalling now that she understood the significance.

Leaning on the desk, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. If Kyle was dead, it only stood to reason that the person with access to his e-mail account would be his brother. Andrew and Johnny had been drained of their blood and stuffed in out-of-the-way corners. Ringo Columbia was a vampire and an assassin. He knew how to kill and did it easily, without remorse.

But would he do it alone?

Or on someone’s orders?

Gwenna turned the computer off without properly shutting it down. She just flicked the switch, checked on Nate to make sure he was resting comfortably, and headed out the back door, stepping carefully over the broken glass.

There were a few people she needed to talk to and it couldn’t wait.

Nate woke up when his cell phone rang. He rolled on his side, determined to ignore it. He felt sluggish and hot, mouth dry and muscles stiff, and he wasn’t exactly sure why he was on the couch instead of in bed. His house phone starting ringing as he dozed off. Then his cell phone again.

He sat up with a huge effort and decided if that was his mother, he was going to divorce his parents. Though you probably couldn’t do that at thirty-three years old.

Looking around for his cell phone, he spotted it on the coffee table, and leaned over with a groan to grab it. Every inch of him hurt like hell. "Yeah?"

"Hey, it’s Jim. You need to get down here. We’ve got ourselves another body."

Nate rubbed his head, hard, in an attempt to jump-start his brain. He still felt foggy and vague. Must be the result of the funeral and lack of sleep. "Shit. You’re kidding me. Where?"

Speaking of where, where was Gwenna? Nate looked around his living room. He didn’t see any sign of her. Nor did he remember taking her home. The last thing he could actually remember with any certainty was heading to the casino. Then he’d been asleep, dreaming he’d been shot.

Jesus. He must have really lit into the booze at the casino. Not cool.

Now he had a hangover and another dead body.

"Our boy’s getting bold. This one was right out in the open, tossed into a lounge chair by the pool at the Ava hotel."

Nate snapped wide awake, fear gripping his gut. "Was the victim male or female?"

"Male. But this dude’s older. Forties. And a big guy. It couldn’t have been an easy thing catching him off guard, whacking him, and plopping him by the pool."

It wasn’t Gwenna. That’s all Nate really heard. Taking a deep breath, he stood, his stomach burning. He really felt like shit.

"Give me twenty minutes to get there." He needed to drink about a gallon of coffee first. "And what time is it anyway?"

"Aahh… eleven twelve p.m."

"Are you serious?" How could he have had time to get shit-faced at the casino and pass out and still be home by eleven? That was freaking pathetic. "And just so you know, Gwenna Carrick and I were at the Ava around five o’clock today. She lives there. Her brother owns it."

"Now why does that not surprise me?" Jim said wryly. "Your chickie pops up everywhere there’s a body, Thomas. Might be a really good idea for you to stay away from her while we’re piecing this thing together."

That would be the logical thing to do. Nate scratched his chest. He had a nagging itch right around his pectoral, left side, and for whatever reason he wasn’t wearing a shirt. It was really irritating to him that he couldn’t remember anything. Especially now that the cop in him was silently considering that maybe he’d been drugged.

But love wasn’t logical. And he was pretty damn sure he was in love with Gwenna Carrick. "Yeah, I hear ya." That was nice and noncommittal. Because while he knew he shouldn’t see Gwenna, he wasn’t at all sure he could go cold turkey and cut her off.

"Another thing. Latest victim still had his wallet in his pocket. If we can believe the ID he was carrying, his name’s Gregor Chechikov. Just from doing a little preliminary research in the last thirty minutes, we’ve already turned up a conviction in Chechikov’s history. Seems he had some Russian Mafia connections and got caught in a sweep in New York ten years ago, though he never did any time. He plea-bargained and went home to the Motherland."

"This guy’s mob? Fuck." Nate stood up, shook out his sore legs, and walked slowly to the kitchen to start his coffee. "Do me a favor and start a search on a guy named Roberto Donatelli. See what you turn up."

"Sure. Who is he?"

"He’s Gwenna Carrick’s ex-husband."

"Mr. Carrick, we have a bit of a problem."

Ethan turned away from his computer screen in his office and gave Sam, his head of hotel security, his full attention. "What now?" He already had his casino crawling with cops after a sanitation worker had gone to strain the pool at its 9 p.m. closing and found a dead body sitting in a goddamn lounge chair.

A body that Ethan knew immediately on sight was Gregor Chechikov, though he had played dumb. There was nothing to connect him to Chechikov in the mortal world, and if he admitted to knowing the victim, it would only complicate their investigation. Though it was unlikely they would ever solve the crime.