Ethan had the unnerving ability to stand completely still, hand in pocket, and say nothing. He could just stare at someone, until they started babbling again out of nerves. He did that now and Seamus found himself blurting out an extended explanation. "I should have done that from the start. Damage control. I need to distance myself from you so it doesn't cloud the election."
"Don't be stupid," Ethan said.
Seamus would have called it smart. "Come on, you know I'm right. And since this is my fault, I should be the one to fix it."
Ethan looked prepared to argue when the door opened.
"Seamus? Do you need me for something?" Kelsey walked in, wearing a red bikini and a shawl-type thing that covered a one-inch strip across her pelvis. "I was just going for a swim before bed."
"I see that." Though Seamus had a hard time picturing Kelsey doing hard laps in the hotel pool at 5 a.m. in that decorative little bit-of-nothing bathing suit. Yet it wasn't like she'd be sunbathing. Which left him to conclude that Kelsey was never going to make sense to him and it wasn't worth it to try.
"Mr. Carrick. Cara. Hi." Kelsey smiled, lifting her arms to adjust her ponytail.
Seamus had never seen her wear her hair up like that. It made her look like she was sixteen, instead of a sixty-year-old vampire. "Come sit down, Kelsey. Mr. Carrick wants to talk to you."
Her face fell. "You're going to fire me, aren't you?"
It was tempting to laugh. Kelsey was always Kelsey, no concept of the bigger picture.
"No," Ethan said. "We just need to know everything you know about the man who shot me. The man who bled Cara's friend Dawn tonight at the club."
"Kyle?" she said nervously, like there might be more than one guy running around attacking them. "What about him?"
"How do you know him?" Seamus asked.
"I met him here, in the casino. He was playing blackjack and chain smoking. I talked to him and we went upstairs to…" She bit her lip. "Talk. And then I left because he was going to kill Mr. Carrick."
"What happened the night you were drained of blood, Kelsey? Was Kyle there?"
Her eyes shuttered for a second. "I don't remember."
"You don't remember anything from that night?"
"Well…" She wiggled her toes in her sandals. Worked her fingers through the holes in her cover-up. Bit her lip. "I was waiting for Kyle, to tell him that you had fallen off the roof of the building—remember that day?—and that he could use that as an out with the Italian. That he could tell him he'd pushed you and the job was over, so he would let Kyle go. But when I followed Kyle to the Venetian, they grabbed me and then there was noise and pain, and when I woke up, Kyle made this horrible gurgling sound… then I don't remember anything after that. Honest."
If she crossed her heart, Seamus was going to shake her. They could have used this info a little sooner. "So the Italian hired Kyle to kill Mr. Carrick?"
"Yes." She nodded, "He's not a nice man."
"Kyle?"
"The Italian." Kelsey rubbed her wrist. "He likes to hurt people." Her legs crossed and her arms wrapped around her nearly naked chest, like she could protect herself.
Ethan rubbed her upper arm. "It's okay, Kelsey. We won't let him hurt you again. Do you know if he is the one who turned Kyle?"
"I'm not sure, but I think Kyle works for him now. And I really didn't remember anything before, I swear, Mr. Carrick."
"Alright, then," Ethan said, with a patience Seamus admired. Kelsey could turn a saint into a raging alcoholic. "But if you remember anything else make sure you tell us." She nodded. "Okay."
"Do you know where we could find Kyle? Does he live at the Venetian?"
"I'm not sure." Kelsey looked away from Ethan and Seamus and back again. "But he's here at the Ava if you want to talk to him."
Seamus started, instinctively moving Cara behind him. "He's here? Now? In the casino?"
"Yes." Kelsey shrugged. "He's here for the big ugly guy."
Ethan glanced over at him. "The addict who went after Cara."
"How do you know, Kelsey?" Seamus asked.
"I can hear his thoughts. I'm good at that with him. He's here."
Right here, in their casino, the whole damn time she'd been talking. And Kelsey just strolling off for a dip in the pool.
"By the way," Kelsey added. "His name isn't really Kyle. It's Ringo. He just likes to be called Kyle."
Ringo had determined where Williams was in the casino. He could smell him when he got to the twenty-third floor, where Carrick's offices were. Wearing a dumb-ass-looking floral delivery disguise, Ringo had gone up in the elevator, disgusted that he had reached this low point in his life.
He wasn't anybody's delivery boy. He had done his hits fast and clean, walk in, plug them, walk out. Or better yet, a nice clean shot from a roof or an open window. This sneaking-around shit, worrying, wondering, begging, was getting old. Fast.
The minute he'd stepped into the office area, he knew Williams was on the same floor. The sick, sweet odor of a drug-addicted vampire drying out clung everywhere, like raw sewage. At least he knew Williams wasn't dead.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?" a security guard asked him as he stepped toward the glass doors that led to the reception desk.
"I have a delivery."
"At five in the morning? What the hell you delivering?" The guard was skeptical, and he was also mortal, which always worked in a vampire's favor. Ringo could blow past him if he needed to.
But Ringo just smiled and pulled the door handle. The offices were locked. "It's a special delivery, you know what I'm saying. For a…" He glanced down. "Kelsey. The secretary." It was a risk, using Kelsey's name, but if she was around, he wanted to talk to her, and hers was the only name he knew besides Carrick's and his wife's, and he didn't want either of them seeing him.
"Kelsey doesn't come in until the afternoon. I'll take whatever it is for her."
"You want what I'm supposed to give her?" Ringo feigned amusement.
"Yeah, I can keep it for her. What's the big freaking deal?" The guard was starting to get pissed. He shifted restlessly.
"Do I have to spell it out for you? It's not just flowers, it's a Strip-o-Gram. I'm supposed to entertain her. Let her touch whatever she wants to touch, got it?"
"A what?" The guard looked shocked. "Man, that just ain't right. Guys stripping for girls… shit."
"Hey, this is Vegas. Guess her friends got together and wanted to surprise her for her birthday."
"It's Kelsey's birthday? No kidding. Yeah, that sounds like some-thing Mrs. Carrick would do, give Kelsey a Strip-o-Gram. Jesus. You want to take it to Kelsey's room? She's on the next floor. Twenty-four-oh-two. It's probably better if you do that weird crap away from the offices anyway."
"Great idea. Thanks, man." Ringo clapped him on the arm.
"Hey, don't touch me," the guard said, lip curling.
"Sorry." Ringo backed up, reached the elevator, and turned. Step one accomplished.
When he got to Kelsey's room, he took a chance and knocked, hoping his luck would hold out. He leaned against the doorframe and smiled winningly at the peephole. Thirty seconds later the door opened.
"Kyle."
"Kelsey." He held out the bouquet of flowers he'd been hauling around. "These are for you."
She was wearing a very small bikini and nothing else. Her feet were bare, one foot crossed over the other. "Thank you." She took the flowers, sniffed them. "Lillies. Pretty, but you really shouldn't buy a girl lilies, Kyle. They're funeral flowers. I might get the wrong idea."
There was something so wonderfully simplistic about Kelsey, yet amazingly complex. Ringo kind of liked the unexpected randomness of how she spoke, what she said. She annoyed the crap out of him, but she was growing on him. Like mold.
"How was I supposed to know they were funeral flowers? I'm just a dumb guy. I just saw them and thought they were beautiful, like you." He stepped in and put his hand on her cheek, caressed her cool flesh. "I'd never hurt you, you know that."
"I know." She closed the door behind him. "But you can't hurt Cara either. Or Seamus or Mr. Carrick."
"I'm just here for Williams, the Italian's security guard. I'm not here to hurt anyone." He could say that with total honesty. "I just need to get Williams out and you can help me."
"I don't want to go near him. He's the one that shot me, isn't he?"
"Yes. But you don't have to be near him. You just have to get me into his room. If I can get him out, then nobody has to get hurt, babe. We can keep this simple, just between you and me."
She worked her lip over with pearly white teeth. "You have to get away from him. He'll ruin you."
The thing was, he was already ruined. But he knew what Kelsey meant. Hell, he had been thinking, feeling, for days that he had to get away from Donatelli, get back to being his own man. But he wasn't sure how to do that. Wasn't sure it was even possible. Yet, the idea nagged and itched him.
"I know that, Kels. But he's one seriously powerful vampire. What am I supposed to do?" He didn't like her implication that he was just staying with Donatelli for the hell of it. Putting a hand on her bare waist, he pulled her to him. "I don't like it any more than you do."
"Kyle…" she said in a plaintive voice, snuggling up against his chest, lacing her fingers through his.
"Why do you call me Kyle?" he asked, amusement soothing his annoyance. "You know that's not my name."
Her lips brushed his jaw. "But I call you Kyle because you like it."
She was right. For being such a ditz, she was so perceptive sometimes it was scary. When her mouth covered his, Ringo kissed her back with frustration, desire, and an odd sort of tenderness that came out of nowhere, nosing the other feelings aside and winning the race.
It startled the crap out of him. Any emotion surprised him, but this one… he didn't know where it came from or where to put it. It sat there, on his chest, like a goddamn boulder.
Kelsey was wrapping her leg around his, digging into his back with her clawlike nails. Her bikini bottoms bumped against his dick and it would be easy to peel the nylon back and plunge into her. She wouldn't stop him. Would probably welcome it.
But Ringo settled for kissing her, for tasting her mouth, lips, tongue, for holding her in his arms like normal people did, with normal lives, and normal pleasures.
When they came up for air, Kelsey whispered in his ear, "I care about you, Ringo. So did Kyle."
Kyle. His kid brother. His mistake had been in caring for Ringo. It had only gotten him killed. Kelsey was making the same mistake.
"You're fucking crazy, you know that?" he told her, lowering his hold so he was touching her ass, gripping hard to emphasize his point. "You shouldn't care about me."
"But I do." Her voice was a soft, sensual whisper, confident and pretty, flowing over him like sweet, rich blood, reminding him of everything he wasn't and everything he couldn't have.
"Then be a good girl for once and do what I tell you." Ringo figured he had one chance, and he was going to take it. "Listen to me carefully, because I have a plan."
Cara didn't like where this was going. "Seamus, maybe this isn't a good idea."
But he barely even glanced at her as he laced up thick combat boots. "We have to take care of this, Cara. This guy is a serious threat to us as individuals but also to the Nation. He's out of control, and I want to know once and for all if Donatelli is giving him his orders."
Hair still damp from her shower, Cara twisted it into a rope, let it go, and shook it so it would unwind. She was nervous. Really on edge. It did not seem like a good idea to let the man she loved charge off into battle the morning after taking her virginity. It was all too medieval.
"But what are you going to do with him?" She'd seen that dagger Seamus had stuck in his belt. That was one ugly-looking knife. And how did Seamus even know how to use it? She didn't think he was a wimp or anything, but come on. He was a campaign manager, not a crocodile hunter. Could he really handle himself with a lunatic vampire?
"You don't think I can handle myself? " Seamus asked in shock, glancing over at her, bent over, one foot on the coffee table as he tied. "You think I'm some kind of pansy who can't protect myself or my woman?"
Damn. She hated the whole mind-reading thing sometimes. She hadn't completely mastered closing him out.
"I don't think you're a pansy! Not after last night. Not before last night either. I'm sure you're perfectly capable of protecting yourself and me, it's just that I'm a woman, and I care about you, and I'm going to worry. I can't help it."
The eloquent response she received for all her efforts was just a grunt.
Geez, Alexis had been right when she'd said these male vampires were sensitive about their masculinity and territory.
"I heard that," he said, dropping his foot to the carpet and standing up.
Oops. Cara said, "Heard what?" Then took him in. He was wearing black pants, a black T-shirt that showed off some serious muscle, and the boots. It made her forget to worry for a second. "You look hot."
"Nice try," he said.
"What? It's true." Cara looked at Seamus, visions of the night before dancing through her head, and suddenly she felt deluged and overwhelmed by emotion. Tears materialized from nowhere and dribbled out of her eyes. She launched herself at Seamus right as his expression turned from annoyed to alarmed.
"Hey, hey, what's the matter?" He caught her up in his arms. "Shh. Come on now. Everything is fine. We'll get this cleared up and we can go back to things being normal."
"What if you get hurt?" she said into his chest, embarrassed by her reaction but unable to stop herself.
"I'm a vampire. I'll heal." He kissed the top of her head. "I have to go."
She clung tighter. "No."
He gave a soft laugh. "Cara. I'm going ten flights down, not to Zimbabwe. I'll be back in an hour."
"Let me go with you." Not that she could really be of any assistance, but at least she could watch his back.