by Duval Alex
‘Yeah,’ Zach agreed.
* * *
‘Did you hear that?’ Jason asked Zach several hours – and some extreme ass-kicking by the Spartans – later.
‘Brad and Van Dyke,’ Zach told him.
‘You sure?’
Zach checked his watch. ‘It’s four.’ He got up, checked the peep hole, then swung the door open. Brad and Van Dyke walked in. Brad looked a little bleary-eyed. Van Dyke looked a little wet.
‘Anything?’ Brad asked.
Zach shook his head.
‘See you guys later,’ Jason said as headed for the door. He couldn’t wait to see Sienna. ‘You’re staying?’ he asked Zach, who’d returned to his chair.
‘Yes,’ Zach answered.
Hmm, could there be some romantic interest there on Zach’s part? Jason wondered. Maybe going to the prom with Paige meant something different to him than Sienna thought. Or maybe it was just Zach’s extreme sense of duty kicking in. He was on the DeVere Heights Vampire Council. And even before that, he’d seemed to feel responsible for every vampire in the Heights, at least the ones in high school.
Jason felt a little weird leaving now, but he really wanted to see Sienna. And three vampires made for some pretty heavy-duty bodyguards. ‘See you,’ he said again and closed the door. He headed toward the elevator at a brisk walk, not allowing himself to break into a jog. He realized it had only been a little more than four hours since he’d seen his girlfriend. But she was waiting for him. In a fancy hotel room. Alone.
During the short elevator ride, he pulled out his key card, so he had it ready. He bolted down the hall, slid the key card through the lock, then opened the door and stepped into the room. All he heard was the soft hum of the air conditioner. No TV or radio or anything.
He quietly walked forward without turning on the lights, expecting to see Sienna asleep on his bed.
But it was empty.
So was Adam’s.
She hadn’t crashed on one of the sofas in the living room, either.
‘Sienna?’ Jason called. He backtracked to the bathroom and knocked. The door swung open. The room was empty.
She decided to go to her own room. She probably didn’t like being alone after what happened to Paige, he told himself.
He’d just go next door, tell her that the first shift had gone by with no problems. It was late, but Sienna would want to know. He hurried to her room and gave a quiet knock.
No answer.
All the saliva in Jason’s mouth evaporated. He knocked again, trying to swallow. ‘Just a second,’ Belle called.
OK. OK, OK. They’d been asleep. Duh. It was four in the morning.
Belle swung open the door. ‘Is Paige OK?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, fine,’ Jason said. ‘I know it’s late, but could I talk to Sienna for a minute?’
Belle smiled. ‘Did you forget? She’s waiting for you in your room, lucky boy.’
Jason’s stomach did a slow, sickening roll. He shook his head. ‘No, I just came from my room,’ he told Belle. ‘She’s not there.’
Eleven
‘MAYBE SIENNA POPPED over to Maggie and Erin’s room,’ Belle suggested. ‘When Mags and Erin get together, sleep isn’t something that usually happens. If the three of them found something fun to do without me, I’m not going to be happy.’ Belle’s words were playful, but her eyes were anxious. ‘Let’s get over there and see what’s what.’
Jason led the way, trying not to freak out. He wasn’t going to freak out before he had all the facts. OK, he was already freaking out a little, but he wasn’t going to let Belle see that. When he reached Erin and Maggie’s room, he gave three sharp knocks. The door swung open almost immediately. Seemed like Belle was right about Maggie and Erin and the not sleeping.
‘Is something up with Paige?’ Erin asked.
‘Yeah did the psycho show?’ Maggie added, crowding into the doorway next to Erin.
‘She’s fine,’ Jason told them. ‘And there’s been no sign of Marc. Is Sienna in there with you?’ he asked, forcing himself to keep his voice low and calm.
‘Sienna? No. Last time we saw her was right after we got back from the show,’ Maggie answered.
Jason’s body went cold. ‘She was supposed to be hanging out in my room, waiting for me, but she’s not there.’
‘And she wasn’t with me in our room either,’ Belle put in.
‘I guess she could have gone down to the casino …’ Erin suggested half-heartedly.
‘By herself?’ Belle snapped. ‘Please.’
Jason agreed. The odds on that were worse than winning a million on the dollar slot machine.
‘I’m going back to Paige’s suite,’ Jason told them. ‘Maybe Sienna went to check on her and the two of us just missed each other somehow.’ His brain hardly believed it. His gut didn’t believe it at all.
‘I’m going with you,’ Belle said.
‘Us too,’ Maggie added. ‘Give us half a minute to throw on some clothes.’
One minute later, Brad opened the door to the suite, eyes wary. Van Dyke was stretched out on the sofa, but Jason could see his muscles were tense. Zach stood leaning against Paige’s bedroom door, one booted foot crossed over the other. His posture looked much more relaxed than the other guys’ did, but Jason could tell his eyes were taking in every detail. He was on high alert.
‘Did Sienna go in to see Paige?’ Jason asked.
‘Since you left?’ Brad queried.
Jason nodded.
‘Nobody’s been in there but Paige. It’s been completely quiet. Why?’ Zach’s voice was low and calm, with just a thread of steel running through it.
‘Because she’s not anywhere!’ Belle exclaimed. ‘She was supposed to be in Jason’s room, but she’s not there. And she’s not in my room either, nor Erin and Maggie’s. Something’s very wrong!’ Belle seemed an inch away from completely losing it. Why wouldn’t she be? It hadn’t been so long since her boyfriend had been murdered by a vampire hunter. The world still had to feel like a seriously dangerous place to her.
Zach stepped smoothly away from Paige’s door as it swung open.
‘What’s going on? What’s wrong?’ Paige demanded.
‘Sienna’s missing!’ Belle cried.
‘At least, we don’t know where she is right at this moment,’ Jason added. He agreed with Belle. He thought something was very wrong too. But the way to help Sienna was for him – for everyone – to stay as calm and focused as possible.
Paige’s fingers flicked up to her mouth, then to her throat. ‘Oh, God, what was I thinking? She shouldn’t have been alone even for a minute. Sienna should have had guards on her, too. Marc’s abducted her. I know it!’ Her voice caught. ‘This is all my fault!’
‘Let’s all sit down,’ Zach told her firmly. Everybody sat down in the huge living room. Dawn was just beginning to break, and the earliest beams of sunlight were competing with the crazy neon colors of the Strip.
Paige began to pace. ‘Marc knows how much I love SiSi. I talked about her to him all the time. So he’s going to use her to make me do what he wants,’ Paige cried.
‘Sit down!’ Zach ordered, pointing at one of the overstuffed armchairs.
Paige obeyed. Zach was younger, but there was something about him that commanded respect.
‘Marc’s already killed one person to try to force me to go back to him. Now he has Sienna. What if he …?’ Again her fingers fluttered to her lips, like she couldn’t stand to let the next words escape from her mouth.
Zach walked over to the bar, took out a bottle of Evian, and handed it to her. ‘Have some water,’ he said.
The room was silent except for the click of the screw-top cap as Paige twisted it off, then the soft sounds of her swallowing the water. Jason, Brad, Belle, Van Dyke, Maggie, and Erin all stared at her, trying not to look like they were staring. Zach didn’t bother to hide his gaze. He kept his eyes on her face.
‘Whooo are you? Who? Who? Who? Who?’ Adam bellowe
d, as he strolled into the room, shattering the silence. ‘CSI has to have one of the most kickass theme songs of all time.’ He flopped down on the floor, yanked off his shoes, and opened the bar fridge with his toes. ‘So what’s up?’ he asked as he tried to extract a Vault with his feet. ‘Did I miss anything? Not that I could have missed anything more cool than the CSI set. I got the big G.G.’s autograph, and Lady Heather’s. You people with questionable taste probably think of her as Julie Cooper from The O.C., but she’ll always be Lady Heather to me—’
‘Adam!’ Jason finally managed to cut in. ‘Sienna’s missing.’
Adam straightened up fast. ‘For how long? Who saw her last?’ He suddenly sounded a lot more like the son of a sheriff than a fan with a geek-on.
‘About one o’clock. She told me she was going to head back to our room to wait for me to finish my shift guarding Paige,’ Jason told him.
‘OK, back it up further,’ Adam said.
‘My old boyfriend followed me here from France,’ Paige answered, spinning the bottle of water back and forth between her palms. ‘He wants me back, and I know he snatched Sienna as a way to’ – she gave a harsh bark of laugher – ‘as a way to get my attention.’
‘The guy is psycho,’ Brad added. ‘He killed the guy Paige started going out with after she stopped seeing him.’
‘And is he, you know, well-endowed dentally?’ Adam inquired.
‘Yes, he’s one of us,’ Belle replied. ‘He’s from one of the Thirteen Families. That means he’s practically royalty.’
‘Big ears, weak chin, got it,’ Adam said. Belle glared at him. ‘Sorry. I sometimes use inappropriate humor to get through serious situations.’ He looked over at Paige. ‘Don’t worry, we’re going to get her back.’
‘We are absolutely going to get her back,’ Jason seconded. And he meant it. No matter what it took. No matter what big vampire family Marc was from, or how criminally crazy he might be.
‘What about hotel security tapes?’ Erin asked. ‘They have cameras all over the place. Would they show us anything?’
‘They could confirm that Sienna really did get snatched by Marc,’ Van Dyke said.
‘I already know she did,’ Paige insisted. ‘What else could have happened to her? Sienna wouldn’t just wander off, not when she was afraid Marc might be coming after me.’
‘Confirmation is good,’ Zach said firmly. He nodded at Van Dyke, who was instantly on his feet. ‘There’s no reason for any outsiders to know what’s happened,’ he added, as Van Dyke headed for the door.
‘Got that,’ Van Dyke said as he left the suite.
‘Let’s just assume we get confirmation that Marc took Sienna,’ Jason said. ‘Then what?’ He turned to Paige. ‘Any ideas where he’d take her?’
‘Not around here,’ Paige answered. ‘We never even talked about Vegas.’
‘What about friends of his?’ Maggie suggested. ‘You must have met some of them when you two were going out. Would any of them have any ideas?’
‘No one’s going to go against Marc, don’t you get that?’ Paige demanded. She squeezed her water bottle until it cracked and water ran over her hands and down onto the carpet. She didn’t even seem to notice. ‘I got close to some of his friends, yeah. And maybe some of them even liked me more than they liked Marc. But that doesn’t mean they’d help me if it meant crossing him.’
‘So it doesn’t sound like he’s royalty. It sounds more like he’s mafia,’ Adam commented.
‘That’s a good way to think of it,’ Paige told him.
‘The Thirteen Families are not exactly like the mafia,’ Zach corrected.
‘In terms of power, they are. In terms of intimidation and control over the rest of us,’ Paige insisted. She raised the water bottle to her lips. Her brow furrowed as if she had no idea how the cracks had appeared all over it.
‘We could at least call around the other big hotels and try to find out where he’s staying,’ Erin suggested. ‘There are only a few places that would be up to Lessard standards.’
‘Except that Marc sometimes finds sleazy attractive,’ Paige put in. ‘He could have decided to stay at a grotty motel for a laugh.’
‘It can’t hurt to try and track him down,’ Brad told her. He looked over at Erin. ‘Let’s grab the phone book and call some of the most likely places.’ They headed over to the desk.
‘So what else?’ Jason asked. He needed to be doing something – anything that had a chance of getting him to Sienna.
Silence filled the room like some kind of noxious fog. ‘On the way back here, I stopped at the Elvis chapel,’ Adam said, rapid fire. ‘There were two dudes dressed as Elvis, getting married by Elvis. Elvis was even playing the organ. It was awesome. Really. I mean it. Awesome – like that scene in Magnolia where it starts raining frogs.’ He glanced around. ‘OK, none of you know what I’m talking about, because the movie didn’t come out last week. But it was unexpected, and strange, and beautiful. So I just kind of stood there, transfixed for a minute. Then I realized I was intruding on something private, so I turned around and started out, and I passed by this collection plate. And it hit me: a collection plate would be a great place to get rid of all that funny money! I reached for my backpack, but I couldn’t do it … Anyway, that’s not the point. In the chapel—’
‘Is all this leading to an idea you had about finding Sienna?’ Belle demanded sharply.
‘Yeah,’ Adam admitted. ‘Sorry. Staying up all night does not lead to thoughts coming out of my mouth in a logical order. The thing is, even though I didn’t want to intrude, there were a lot of tourists watching the wedding like it was just another show on the Strip. And thinking about that got me thinking about how many freakin’ tourists there are in this burg. And that means we have a huge pool of potential witnesses.’ Jason frowned. ‘I don’t follow. Marc and Sienna aren’t getting married in an Elvis chapel. At least, they better not be. Why would tourists especially notice them?’
‘Adam’s onto something. I’ve seen pictures of Marc in Paris Match,’ Maggie said. ‘He’s pretty delectable, right?’ she asked Paige.
‘Yeah. Until you get to know him,’ Paige agreed.
‘And Sienna, Sienna’s gorgeous!’ Maggie went on. ‘The two of them together, they’d be hard to miss – even if they were just doing something ordinary. Maybe a valet saw them getting into a car. If so, we could find out what kind of vehicle they’re in.’
‘Good idea,’ Brad called from the desk.
‘Yes, but, I’m sorry, my mind keeps sticking on one thing …’ Belle said.
‘What?’ Jason asked.
She looked over at Adam. ‘You totally made me lose focus. Now I keep wondering, why couldn’t you just leave the counterfeit money in the collection plate? That seems like the perfect place to get rid of it.’
Jason let out a groan. He couldn’t believe they were talking about this now.
‘I know. It should have been perfect,’ Adam agreed. ‘But I couldn’t do it to the big guy.’
‘God?’ Belle asked.
‘Elvis,’ Adam replied.
‘Enough!’ Jason burst out. ‘I think that’s a good point about Sienna and Marc. Unless he altered his appearance and made Sienna change hers, there’s a real chance somebody noticed what kind of car they got into. It’s probably the SUV I saw following us on the way down here, but we should—’
He was interrupted by the sound of Paige’s cell. She whipped it out of her purse. ‘It’s Sienna,’ she said as she checked the screen.
For the first time since he’d walked into his room and found it empty, Jason was able to take in a full, deep breath.
‘SiSi? Where are you?’ Paige said into the phone.
As Jason watched, all the animation drained out of her face. She listened in silence for a moment, then said, ‘I’ll be there. Don’t do anything stupid, Marc. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
‘What did he say?’ Zach asked the moment Paige hung up.
‘He h
as her. I knew he did. He gave me coordinates in the desert. He said …’ Paige blinked back tears. ‘He said if I want to see my sister alive, I’ll meet him there so he and I can talk.’
‘He’s not trustworthy, you know that,’ Brad pointed out, hurrying back over to the group.
‘It doesn’t matter!’ Paige cried. ‘He has my sister!’ Her hands curled into fists, and Jason could almost see her fear turning to fury. ‘And I am not going to let that evil piece of slime hurt her. I’m not!’
Paige leapt to her feet. Belle grabbed her by the arm.
‘You’re not going alone. There’s no possible way,’ Belle said.
‘No, she isn’t,’ Zach said calmly. ‘I’m going with her.’
‘So am I,’ Jason added.
‘What exactly do you think you’ll be able to do?’ Zach asked.
‘I’m pretty good in a fight. I saved your butt once, remember?’ Jason told him. ‘Anyway, it’s not your decision. Sienna’s in danger. I’m there.’
Twelve
ZACH SMOOTHLY MANEUVERED the Escalade off the highway onto the Mojave Road. Road was pushing it, in Jason’s opinion. He thought it should be called the Mojave Dirt Track. Or the Mojave Sort Of Cleared Stretch of Sand and Gravel.
‘Marc would want to meet out in the middle of the desert,’ Paige said, staring out at the miles and miles of scrubby brush, broken by the ruins of an old corral and part of an adobe farm house. ‘He has a well-developed sense of the dramatic. He thinks of his life like it’s a movie. He’s the star. Everybody else is just a disposable extra.’
‘Everybody but you,’ Jason muttered.
‘Yeah,’ Paige answered, her fingers tightening on the dash. Jason knew it wasn’t Zach’s driving she was worried about. It was her sister.
‘I hope he brought water for Sienna.’ Paige hit the CD-changer. Hit it again. ‘That guy at the gas station told me there’s no place for supplies inside the whole Mojave preserve. You could tell he thought we were crazy to be driving in here without caravanning it in case there was an emergency.’