A WHISPER OF ETERNIT

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"A time or two."

She felt a twinge of jealousy. "Did you come with someone?"
"No, querida .I would not have brought you here if I had." Pleased, she decided to play the field and placed a twenty on the table.

She was having a good time when she felt someone watching her. Glancing up, she saw a tall, painfully thin man staring at her through hooded brown eyes.

When she met his gaze, he smiled at her. The look sent a shiver down her spine and she tapped Dominic on the arm.

When he didn't look at her right away, she tugged on his hand. "Dominic, that man is giving me the creeps."

That got his attention. "What man?"
"Over there.In the gray sweater."

Dominic found the man in question. Their gazes locked for stretched seconds,then the man in the gray sweater left the table.

"Who was that?"Tracy asked. "An old acquaintance."

Her eyes widened. "You mean he's a vamp—" "Yes."

"Vampires in Vegas," she murmured. "Sounds like a movie title." "It is a favorite hunting ground."

Glancing at all the people milling around,Tracy found that easy to believe. Gamblers, transients, tourists who'd had too much to drink—they would be easy prey.

"Are there others here now?"

He nodded."The man in the flowered tie.The woman in the sequined dress.The stickman at the next table.The attendant making change at the slot machine in the corner.The lady in the cashier's cage."

Tracymoved closer to Dominic, all thought of gambling forgotten as she tried to pick out the vampires among the people moving through the casino. She looked at the woman in the sequined dress, trying to see what it was that set her apart from the other women at the craps table. Her skin was pale and flawless and though she wasn't really pretty, there was something different about her, something intangible yet undeniable. The same was true of the man in the flowered tie. He looked rather ordinary and yet there was something about him that set him apart from the others. She noticed that the other people at the table clustered around them, seeming to be eager for their attention.