He shrugged, looking a little abashed. “I’ve dealt with plenty of vampires since I took this job, and more than a few werewolves before that.”

“And none of them were nice to you?”

“None of them were selfless,” he corrected. “The wolves put the needs of the pack before anything else, and the vampires don’t do anything without getting something in return. They’ve all got Asperger’s or something.”

I stifled a smile, the anger draining out of me. I hadn’t really looked at it that way, but from his perspective, he did kind of have a point. “They’re transactional, yeah, because when you live forever, you’ve got a lot of time to accrue and spend favors. And when you have endless amounts of money, favors and power are the only currency worth caring about. As for the werewolves . . .” I shrugged. “Think of them as a particularly tight AA group.”

He gave me a bitter smile. “That’s not how my ex saw it. They were always . . . well, hounding him, excuse the pun. Calling to check on him, inviting him to things, pushing at him. He was always looking for a way out of it, but he kept getting dragged back in to help someone.”

I blinked. It hadn’t occurred to me that Cliff’s ex was male, but I shouldn’t have made assumptions. At any rate, that was a weird way to describe the werewolves. Most of the pack members I knew seemed to depend on the pack to stay sane, to help them maintain human-ish lives. Then again, maybe I was looking at it from Eli’s perspective, since we’d been together so long. He saw the pack as a force for good, a tool to help everyone keep it together. It hadn’t occurred to me that some members would feel differently. “What was his name?” I asked Cliff.

“Drew.”

Oh. I put my burger down again, suddenly not hungry. I had known Cliff’s ex. Drew Riddell had gotten sucked into helping a sketchy werewolf named Terrence try to broker a deal to take down Will. The plan had backfired, and Drew had been killed by the Luparii. Only they’d used Shadow to do it.

My bargest had killed Cliff’s ex. What do you even say to that? Small world?

I decided not to mention it. Cliff probably knew—werewolves were nearly impossible to kill, unless you had a null or a magically spelled creature who’d been created for that singular purpose—but if he didn’t, I had no reason to tell him.

“Anyway,” Cliff said gruffly, trying to break the sudden silence. “The wolves are too insular, if you ask me. They’re all about secrets and insider plans.”

Yeah, I could see how that would be hard on a relationship. But I had a bizarre impulse to defend Will’s people. “They’re protective of each other, but they sort of have to be. Sometimes knowing you have support is the only thing that keeps you from losing your shit.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Speaking from personal experience?”

Happily, my cell phone rang at just that moment. I glanced at the screen and saw Abby’s number. “Hey,” I said.

“Hey, yourself,” she retorted. Abby is a little brusque. “I got the information you asked for about Margaret’s cell phone.”

“And?”

“She did receive a call shortly before her disappearance. The number is registered to an Ellen Jones.”

“Damn,” I said, disappointed. That had to be Wyatt’s Ellen. Jesse had probably been right about vampires inviting each other into the trap, but this didn’t really help me. “Okay, thanks, Abby.”

“Hang on,” she interrupted. “There’s something else. One of your old cell phone numbers has been called three times in the last two hours.”

Abby changes my number periodically for security purposes. And, okay, because I keep trashing cell phones. She takes care of forwarding the number or intercepting calls or whatever, because I am technologically uninclined. “Did you answer it?”

“Noooo,” she said in a tone that reminded me that she was not an answering service. We’d actually come a long way: only a few months ago she would have barked this at me and hung up. “But here’s the number.”

She rattled off a stream of digits, but I didn’t recognize it. I jotted it down on an In-N-Out napkin and studied the area code. “Six-four-six?” I said. “Where’s that?”

“Midtown. New York,” Abby said, and hung up the phone.

My heart leapt. Jameson.

Chapter 23

I called Jameson back as we left the restaurant and walked out to the parking lot. He sounded anxious but said he was fine, and we arranged to meet in person outside my hotel.

Cliff claimed he felt well enough to get back behind the wheel, but I insisted on driving us back to the hotel, letting him play navigator. When we got there, I tried to send him back to his room to rest, but of course he refused. After five minutes of bickering—and me reminding him that whatever Dashiell said, Hayne’s orders were to stay with the other women—he agreed that he didn’t need to follow me to meet Jameson. Instead, he would rejoin Juliet and friends as they went about their bachelorette activities.

Better him than me. What did it say about me that I was more comfortable having clandestine meetings with the supernatural than I was taking a dance lesson?

Jameson was waiting for me outside, at the lower entrance to the Venetian. He had a beauty of a black eye, and he was keeping one arm close to his body, like it hurt to move it. When he saw me walking toward him, he straightened up, looking concerned.

“Your face,” he said, taking my chin in his hand and turning it to the side. “What the hell happened?”

“One of those guys followed me into the container park,” I replied. “In related news, pistol-whipping is apparently still a thing.”

“God, I’m sorry.” He let go of me, looking remorseful. “I thought they’d stay with me.”

I shrugged it off. “Anyway, I’m not the only one who looks like they lost a fight. What happened to your eye? Did they catch you?”

“Shh,” he hissed, and I realized I’d been too loud. There were a lot of tourists around. “Come with me.” Taking my hand, he led me to the end of a nearby line.

I craned my neck to see what we were waiting for. “The gondolas? Why?”

“So we can talk and stay in public at the same time.”

I was about to ask why we needed to stay in public, but then I realized he was afraid we might be attacked again. Unlike the streets downtown, every casino is plastered with video cameras, which would make it hard for a gunman to get away with shooting us. Even the skinners didn’t want to interfere with casino security.

When we reached the front, Jameson gave the attendant some money and then helped me climb down into one of the gondolas. The gondolier, a stout Hispanic woman in her midfifties, began to sing loudly in Italian. Actually, it could have been any number of languages, for all I knew, but it sounded pretty. Jameson scooted closer to me.

“This is so cheesy,” I muttered, although in all honesty, I kind of liked it. The boats were beautiful, and the water was a very calming shade of blue. Plus it was nice just to be away from the constant crush of people.

“Okay, now can you tell me what happened?” I said, keeping my voice low.

“I lost one of the skinners, but another one cornered me in an alley,” he murmured. “I ran out of ammunition, but I knocked the gun out of his hand and we fought. I won.”

“That’s it?” I said incredulously, when he didn’t continue. “‘I won’?”

“What else do you want to know?”

“The skinner who came after me said they wanted to know where you went.”

Jameson nodded. “They want to kill me. What did you tell him?”

“Nothing. I killed him with a knife.” Okay, technically I’d had help, but as a general rule, I’m used to playing my cards close to the vest. I didn’t want to give away too much about Cliff, even to Jameson.

And, okay, maybe I was showing off a little.

Jameson’s eyes practically bugged out. “Damn, Letts.”

“How did you know that they’re after you?”

“Because I recognized the guy I fought,” he answered, looking grim. “He works for the same company Malcolm uses, in New York.”