For a few long seconds, my stomach clenches as I ask myself why Hunter? I know that he's a man ho. I know he doesn't 'like' me. He doesn't even know me. And yet...I've never even had a crush on anyone but him. In one long second, I realize how messed up I must really be, and it makes me want to cry.
I kill the urge quickly, my shoulders heaving as I stare through the wavy glass panes on the ornate doors. I can hear Cross's bike crank from somewhere in the direction of the front of the house, and despite how terrible I feel, I don't want to leave without talking to the one close friend I have left.
I press my back against the wall, taking big, deep breaths and blotting the stinging wetness from my eyes when tears try to come. I stand there probably fifteen minutes before I make my way back around to the great room, and the first thing I do when I step into the room is scan for Hunter. I spot him surrounded by a flock of women, missing his jacket and his tie—or rather, cravat—sporting just his vest and shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
My body throbs, and Hunter's gaze flickers over mine—there, then gone without conveying anything.
Then Suri is in front of me, cheeks flushed, eyes bright from wine. "Woman, where were you? Cross almost ruined his cover!"
Cross lives at my mom's house, in my old room. It's a secret. His family disowned him, and Cross doesn't want them to know where he is. His father, Drake Carlson, the governor of California, actually said he didn't care if Cross turned up dead. I wouldn't have believed it, but Cross let me hear the voice mail.
My family has fallen off the social grid, and Mom's in rehab and I live with Suri, so we think he's well hidden. Just in case, Cross and I try to stay away from each other publicly.
“Yeah, I just ran into him.” My eyes widen warily.
"What happened?" she asks.
"Cross freaked out," I say. It's the only thing I can manage. "I guess I should go find him." He'll be at Mom's, alone. At least I think he will be. Cross isn't the type to hit the bars when he's upset, much as he'd like everyone to think the opposite.
Suri agrees to ride home with Adam and loans me Arnold for the night. A butler fetches Mom's worn, white mink and escorts me down the wide, brick walk, to the line of limousines where, years ago, our own driver, Wilson, would have been waiting. The door is opened, and I climb in, feeling weighted.
I lean forward and give Arnold instructions he doesn't really need.
"We’ll be there in forty minutes or less, ma’am," he says.
"Thank you, Arnold."
The divider wall locks into place, and I'm alone under the starry sky, staring out the sunroof, looking for constellations I can't find because we're moving too quickly down the little vineyard road.
A computerized refrigerator offers me a bottle of water and I take it, smirking at the green and blue label: DeVille. This is how my great-grandfather made his fortune. It's good water. Almost as good as West Bourbon, which I find in the liquor console. I take a deep swing, remembering the taste of Hunter West's mouth. I wrap the cravat around my wrist. Wrong or right, I'm keeping it.
I'm ashamed to say my mind is still on Hunter when the limousine slows. Arnold lowers the shield, his face taut as he says, "Miss DeVille, please remain inside the vehicle." The wall goes up, and I feel a weird energy. A kind of darkness.
I'm not sure what compels me to open my door, but as I step into the road, I think some part of me already knows, because my arms and legs weigh two tons each.
My good eye blinks and there is Cross, lying on his side in the damp grass just beside the road. At first glance, it looks like he is simply lying down. His arms are raised over his head in the position he adopts sometimes while sleeping. His legs are scissored, his pretty mouth parted just a little.
I see blood oozing from his lips. The dark spot on the road—that's Cross's blood. His bike, a renovated '73 Norton Commando Mark III Roadster he loves like a person, is smoking in the road beside him.
Chapter Three
~HUNTER~
I can't go back to Love Incorporated. I know I should, to try to jar my memory, but I can't. So we're at Batshit Ranch, a twenty-thousand-square-foot California red roof on my little patch of sand, just outside the Summerlin community. I own ten-thousand acres out here, and besides grazing some cattle, I don't do much with them. Not that I care. Some things should be for enjoyment only, and I enjoy staying at my country place. It's my Vegas home when I need to get away from the bustle of the Wynn.
March and I are in my study, and I'm behind my desk, cradling March's iPad as I scrutinize the chart that my friend and his private eye, Dave, put together. I turn the tablet sideways, frowning.
'To Catch a Criminal'. I flick a withering glance his way. “Enjoying the drama, Radcliffe?”
“Not enjoying,” he says, his voice faintly defensive as he kicks his feet out and crosses his long legs at the ankles. “Just making do. I figured we should have a project name.”
“Right.” I look it over, curious to see the revised list of suspects. I note the absence of two names I'd hoped to see: Bill Percy and James Meyers, both deviant little f**ks who've bruised some of the girls before.
“Percy wasn't there,” Marchant says, reading my mind—or more likely, my face. Bill Percy was a prick from college turned prick lobbyist for the gaming industry. He left bruises on Juniper once; he claimed he was drunk, and Juniper decided not to press charges. “His wife caught him boinking the housekeeper that night,” March tells me. “He checked into Bellagio around three. Meyers was at an electronic cigarette convention in Virginia.”
Marchant takes a swig of his whiskey, then rolls up the sleeves of his button-up, looking serious for once. “All in all there are twenty-six suspects, including you and I. Eleven of the other f**ks stand out.”
I scan the eleven bolded names. “My guy's been on Rutherford and Kriss for going on sixteen days. He says they're both clean as a whistle.”
Marchant passes his almost-empty glass from one hand to the other, looking moody and restless. “I say we drop Rutherford. He likes it weird, but I think that’s only when he f**ks Brad. Everyone seems to like it weird with him. Devotion to the pacifier does not a kidnapper make,” Marchant mutters.
I lift my head, brows arched. “A pacifier?”
March shrugs. “That's what Brad says.”
“That goes on the list of kinks I’ll never understand.”
“So now it’s a list of one?”
“Funny. And we’ve got a more important list to worry about.” I bring each name up as a slide, and flip through one at a time. Name. Picture. Possible motive. “Let's keep the tail on Kriss. There’s just something about him.”