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."
"I don't think I would like being a political wife either."
Alexis laughed. "You could probably really rock a cocktail dress, though."
"Only if it's black." He grinned. "Hey, do you want a drink or anything? We travel with our own special bar."
"Sure." She could use a little blood. All this worrying about Gwenna and Kelsey was exhausting. "And hey, sorry my friends got up onstage with you. That's what I get for ditching out on my Secret Service guards." She hated that she had to spend every minute of her life with bodyguards—sometimes a vampire just needed privacy—so she left them behind whenever she could, much to Ethan's frustration. But it had become a rather amusing game to see how many ways she could trick the guards.
"No big deal." He just shrugged. "We have women doing that all the time. The bouncers usually take care of them. And I knew David knows Kelsey, so it was cool. Who was the other chick, though?"
"That's my sister-in-law."
Drake called over to the stage manager. "Hey, Pete, what did we do with that cooler full of drinks?"
"I stuck it in a closet. I'll go find it."
"Thanks, man." He turned back to Alexis. "Your sister-in-law? Like your brother's sister, or the president's sister?"
"The president's sister." Whoops. It hadn't occurred to her when Gwenna had rushed the stage that Ethan would be none too happy with Alexis or Gwenna for her little stunt. That wild party behavior from his sister and wife would reflect badly on him on the eve of his Inauguration. Shit. She was really a lousy political wife.
"Alexis!" Kelsey called from the couch. "I had the coolest idea and Davey agrees with me."
Uh-oh. "What idea is that?"
"You know how I need a job and stuff now that I'm divorcing Ringo because he's a total asshole?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'm going to join the band! I can play tambourine and sing back up."
Alexis almost laughed. "Wow, that's an… interesting idea."
Given the appalled looks on the other guys' faces, it wasn't one they were really digging.
"We don't need a backup singer," Drake said, shooting David a pointed look.
But David just shrugged and made "let it go" faces at Drake behind Kelsey's head. "We can at least try it in a rehearsal or something."
Kelsey squealed and gave him a big kiss on the cheek, Davey's arms wrapping around her. Another second and their lips were locked in a kiss that was about two tongues beyond "we're just friends." Davey did a thumbs-up toward the guys as Kelsey's leg entwined with his.
Yeah, someone wanted to get laid.
Drake just snorted. "No shame. He has absolutely no shame."
Alexis was about to suggest that Kelsey fell in the same category, when the stage manager returned, sans a cooler of blood.
"What's the matter?" Drake asked.
The stage manager looked like he was going to pass out, his skin pasty and beads of sweat on his upper lip. "Dude, in the closet."
"What?"
"There's a dead guy, man."
Donatelli waited impatiently for Williams to say something. "So? What did you see tonight? Where the hell was Gwenna?" He shuffled a deck of cards forcefully on the dining table in his suite. "She went to a concert with Alexis Carrick and Kelsey Columbia."
"Really?" It was odd that Alexis was hanging around Kelsey again. Carrick couldn't be thrilled about that. Donatelli didn't think he was all that enamored with Gwenna in Kelsey's company either. That girl was a loose cannon, and notorious for partying. Not a good influence on a woman like Gwenna, who was a lady in the truest sense of the word. "What concert?"
"The Impalers."
"Who the hell are they?" He expected Williams to say Celine Dion, Elton John, or a symphony, not someone he'd never heard of.
"They're a rock group—all the members are vampires and they pretend to be vampires onstage as a gimmick. Mortals love it."
"A rock group?" That didn't sound like Gwenna. She must not have realized what Kelsey was dragging her into. "Poor Gwenna. What did she do the whole time? She must have been bored."
"Well… she talked to a lot of people actually."
"What people?" Donatelli forgot his cards and glanced up sharply at Williams.
His bodyguard shifted uncomfortably. "Men. She talked to a lot of men. She was, uh, wearing this really pretty dress, and she well, looked good, and guys seemed to want to talk to her."
"Of course she looked good. She always looks good. But that doesn't mean she should have to tolerate men accosting her. I hope she told them all to go to hell."
"Sometimes. But sometimes, I think actually she was the one who started the conversation. Like the four guys who whipped out their…" Williams gestured to his crotch. "I'm pretty sure she and Kelsey went up to them first."
Donatelli felt the blood drain from his face. "Strange men showed my wife their cocks? In a public place? Why didn't you stop them?"
"You told me to watch her and tell you everything she did. So that's what I did. And she was really slinging back the martinis and running all over the place. I had a hard time keeping up with her. Then she jumped up onstage with the band."
Crumpling the card in his hand, Donatelli focused on not losing his temper. Gwenna didn't drink. None of this made sense. And never in a million years would his wife deign to crawl up onstage at a rock concert and express interest in some longhaired musician. "You can't be serious."
Williams swallowed audibly. "Yes, sir, I'm sorry to say I am. She went onstage and pretended to be a backup singer until the bouncers hauled her off. Then a mortal guy she seemed to know left with her."
"Where did they go?"
"Well. He put her in a cab, which took her straight back to the Ava. She went in and up to her room."
"Okay, then." That sounded more like Gwenna.
"But…" Williams looked like he was in pain.
"But what?"
"Before he put her in the cab, they, um, you know…" His hands came together, went apart, came together.
"What the fuck are you trying to say?" Like he was going to sit there and play charades. This wasn't a damn undead dinner party.
"They got, you know, they, well… had sex." Williams's face was bright red and he was sweating profusely.
The entire world went black in front of Donatelli's eyes as rage swelled up and consumed him. "How do you know that? Where exactly did this allegedly occur?"
"I saw them, sir." Williams dropped his head down and rubbed his upper lip. "It was on the street, beyond some construction scaffolding. I was following them, making sure I didn't lose them, wondering why they were going back there and I saw…" His hands came together again. "Against the wall. Then I just went on the other side of the tarp and waited for them to finish because I knew you wouldn't want me to watch."
He didn't want it to happen at all, let alone anyone to watch. Donatelli spoke very, very carefully. "So, you're telling me my wife had sex with a strange man standing up outside, against a wall?"
"Yes, sir."
Donatelli stood up slowly. Then flipped his dining table over onto its side with a burst of fury. "Kill him."
"Sir?"
"Find out who he is and kill him. The man she was with. I want him dead within seventy-two hours."
No one was going to touch Gwenna. And if she didn't want him, insisted on maintaining this ridiculous divorce, Donatelli would be damned if he'd let another man have her.
Gwenna had sobered up fairly quickly after the phone call that another body had been found. After Nate had flagged her down a cab, she had returned to her suite and headed right to her computer. It seemed really important to focus on finding the real names for the rest of the e-mail addresses on the slayers' loop.
It was the least she could do to help Nate and the investigation. She didn't care about clearing her name, though she knew that she had to actually be on the list of suspects. She had been in both places a body had been found, and she was on the slayers' loop. Plus she had the horrible suspicion that once this latest victim was identified, they were going to determine that he was on the loop, too.
While she had been drinking like a fish at The Impalers concert and having phenomenal sex with Nate on the sidewalk, the slayers' loop had exploded with the news of Buzzdrew's death. Gwenna was following the thread backward, trying to determine who had first posted the news of his death, and deciphering who knew exactly what, when her mobile phone rang.
A glance at it showed it was Roberto. She should just turn off her ringer, but then it would vibrate all night as he left nine hundred voice-mail messages. Better to just get it over with.
"Hello?" she said absently, studying her screen. The news about Buzzdrew didn't seem to originate from any of the principal players on the loop. It was from a lurker, whose e-mail address was [email protected]. Obviously someone brimming with maturity.
"Gwenna, it's Roberto. How are you?"
Her ex-husband's voice was quite polite. No overt and oozing charm. No references to her being his wife or calling her darling, beautiful, gorgeous, or my love.
How odd. "I'm fine, how are you?" No reason to be rude when he was trying so hard.
"I'm quite well, thank you. Just undergoing some last-minute preparations for tomorrow's swearing-in and the ball. Your brother and I had a meeting this afternoon. Did you have a pleasant evening?"
Gwenna frowned. She and Roberto didn't do casual chitchat. He was starting to unnerve her. "I'm glad to hear you and Ethan are setting aside your personal differences for the sake of the Nation."
"We are both in agreement that it would make quite a positive statement to that effect if you consented to accompany me to the ball tomorrow night."
Shit. So that's where this was headed. "Roberto, that's just not a good idea." And she found it difficult to believe that her brother would applaud her spending a whole night with an arm through Roberto's, even if it was a smart political maneuver.
"Why not? Carrick and I both feel that it will show unity between us, and we'll present a strong and solid government to our constituents."
"I think it would just muddy the water with gossip." And be an unbearable and insufferable evening for her. She didn't want to go and make polite conversation as it was, and she couldn't fathom being paraded around by Roberto while everyone whispered about them. "Besides, I'm not an asset to you. I never was. I am a horrific hostess, which you know damn well, considering it was a flaw you constantly pointed out in me during our marriage."
"I did no such thing."
She couldn't prevent a snort from flying out of her mouth. "Oh, come on. Now you're being utterly absurd. You hated the way I was so shy and lousy at commanding the household staff, and overseeing all your many parties and soirees. I distinctly recall the afternoon when you told me to get my fucking nose out of a book and go slap the housekeeper about, as was befitting a lady of my rank, and your wife."
The words still rankled, all these centuries later. Roberto had married her knowing full well what her temperament and personality were and had chosen to ignore that. He had always assumed she was or could be whatever he wanted, despite the truth irrefutably staring him in the face. While he had wanted a woman capable of ordering and commanding his household with an iron fist, she had been the polar opposite, happiest when reading in the privacy of her salon.
"I don't remember saying anything like that." His politeness was chipping away, and he was starting to sound irritated. "I can't believe that you could possibly remember that verbatim either. But then, you were always intent on keeping a list of every misdeed of mine, from saying 'damn' at the dinner table to forgetting your birthday. Once. One lousy time I forgot and I was subjected to your tears for two days. All I ever wanted was for you to enjoy our life together… to take a little pride in yourself and your position, and to not let the staff and the other ladies run riot over you."
Gwenna felt the insult of his disapproval all over again. "You wanted me to get a backbone."
"Yes."
"But not with you. And now that I have, it drives you insane, doesn't it? Well, sorry, Roberto, but after all these years, I've finally found my backbone and it's not going to break anytime soon."
"I don't consider making a fool out of yourself by jumping onstage at a rock concert to be getting a backbone. That's just being a fool."
She gasped. The… the… she couldn't think of a word ugly enough to describe him. "God, I just hate you sometimes, Roberto. You weren't always such a gigantic bastard, were you? I swear I must have been blind and stupid to imagine we could both live in Vegas and coexist, if not as friends, at least in peace."
"I'm not the one starting an argument. I asked you to go to the ball with me! Doesn't that tell you I'd love to be friends?"
"Actually, no, it doesn't. It tells me either that you're using me to make a statement of power to my brother, that you're interested in having the attention tomorrow focused on you and not Ethan, that you heard I went to a rock concert tonight and it infuriated you enough to want to keep me by your side tomorrow so I don't do something you'd consider equally as idiotic, or you're just plain horny. Perhaps it's all of those." She pushed her chair back and stood up. "But I'm absolutely certain it's not because you want to be chums and hang out at the pub together."
"You wouldn't be this angry if you didn't love me."
That was the most ludicrous logic she'd ever heard. "You're impossible. And I need to go now before I try to strangle you through the telephone."
"Be ready at six. I'll swing by and pick you up."
He had to be ingesting drugs. "I'm not going to the ball with you!"
"Wear blue, please. You always look stunning in blue."
"I'm not going."
"See you then. Good-bye, love."
Gwenna hit the end button and tossed the phone across her desk. The man had the thickest head imaginable. He was as stubborn as ten bulls and she was always waving the red cape without meaning to. Okay, to be completely honest, sometimes she meant to, because he was infuriating.
But while she felt intense anger and frustration with him, the most overwhelming emotion she felt at the moment was resignation. Roberto would never go away. Ever. He would follow her through eternity, harassing and hounding her, until she retreated, back to York, or to somewhere else far away, where he would leave her alone for a century or two.
What had seemed so promising, so possible—a new life, independence, a career, some sort of relationship with Nate—now all seemed hopelessly naive and optimistic. Whatever she tried to do, whoever she would like to date, wherever she might travel, Roberto would be there, in person, or with someone to watch her, and he would remind her of the simple, sweet girl she'd been, who had loved unconditionally, and who had lost it all. She would try to forge ahead into the future, and he would always drag her back into the past, and that was immensely depressing.
Gwenna tucked her hair behind her ears, stood in the middle of the room, and stared blankly at her computer screen. So she was still paying for her mistake in marrying Roberto. Hell, for losing her virginity to him when she was a sheltered eighteen-year-old.
Roberto was going to plague her no matter what she did. She might as well take what she could out of life and enjoy herself along the way, doing her best to ignore him. Maybe eventually he would get tired of her lack of reaction, or find that she was no longer what he even wanted if she was too outspoken, too much of a modern woman. The point was, she couldn't let him dictate her future. She just refused to allow that.
Returning to her computer, Gwenna clicked on Dumb Fuck's e-mail.
Hey, did you all hear? Buzzdrew from the loop is dead…got whacked in Vegas and word is he was drained of his blood. Can you believe that? Man, it sucks to be Buzz… DF
His sensitivity was touching. It was also absolutely lacking in any facts or any hint of how he might have known about Buzz. Considering the police hadn't even identified Andrew until earlier that day, that was amazingly early for DF to have caught wind of it. Gwenna imagined it would be in the Saturday paper, but that wouldn't be out for another eight hours, and when she did a search on the news channels' web pages, they only listed the story as a murder in the train station, the victim a white male. No name. Certainly no mention of the slayers' loop. And no one else seemed to profess any prior knowledge of Buzz's death before DF's post.
Which made her very suspicious of Dumb Fuck.
FoxyKyle expressed concern in her post, and she was either an excellent liar or she was truly upset. She repeatedly said how awful it was, and how funny and witty Buzzdrew was. She even suggested sending flowers to the funeral, which was either a lovely gesture, or the sign of a very calculating and manipulative woman.
Slash's response was along the lines of DF's. Sort of a wow, that's awful, but life goes on. Nothing to indicate he realized the crime had occurred where he had intended to meet Queenie. And no mention that he and Queenie had been talking privately, or that he was actually in Vegas, where the murder had taken place.
Methodically, Gwenna created a list of who posted in what order, who expressed distress, and who showed callous disinterest, and e-mailed it to Nate. Then she posted her own message about Buzz, expressing her sadness and disgust and her hope the killer would be caught, which was all very much legitimate. She did feel absolutely horrific that Andrew's life had been cut off at such a young age. As Queenie, she also offered to contribute to the flower fund. Then at the very bottom, she added, "Does anyone think it had something to do with this loop??"
That would get people talking.