Deadlocked (29 page)

“I’m not sure this is, either. But
okay
.”

I marched down the hall and knocked on the door of 507 with the knuckles of my left hand, managing this by kind of wedging the tray into the corner formed by the door and its frame. I smiled big at the peephole and took a deep breath to let my chest do its thing. I sensed the appreciation through the door. I counted the heads inside the room: three, as Bill had told me.

The tray was not getting any lighter, and I was conscious of a definite relief when the door opened. I could hear Bill’s footsteps coming up behind me.

“All right, come on in,” said a bored voice.

Of course, both of the guards were human. They would have to be on duty during the day, too.

“Where you want this?” I asked.

“Over there on the coffee table’ll be fine.” He was very tall, pretty heavy, with very short gray hair. I smiled at him and bore the laden tray over to the low table. I squatted and slid it into place. The other guard was with Colton in the bathroom, waiting until I left to emerge; I read that right from his brain.

The room door was still open, but the guard was standing close to it. After a second’s anxious search I spotted the plastic folder containing the check and handed it to the hulk without getting closer to him. He made a little face but moved nearer, his hand extended, the door he’d released beginning to swing shut. But in slid Bill, moving smoothly and silently at the man’s back. While I kept my eyes fixed on the folder, Bill reached up and around to hit the man in the temple. The guard dropped like a sack of wet oatmeal.

I grabbed a napkin from the tray and wiped my fingerprints off the tray and the folder while Bill shut the room door.

“Dewey?” said the man in the bathroom. “She gone yet?”

“Uh-huh,” Bill said, deepening his voice.

The second guard must have sensed something was up, because he had a gun in his hand when he opened the bathroom door. He might have been prepared with weaponry, but he wasn’t mentally prepared, because at the sight of two strangers he froze, his eyes widening. It was just for a second, but that was all it took for Bill to leap onto him and sock him in the same place he’d hit the hulk. I kicked the gun under the couch when it fell from the guard’s hand.

Bill hurried to pull the unconscious man out of the way while I darted into the bathroom to untie Colton. It was like we’d done this a dozen times! I confess I felt pretty proud at the way it was going.

I looked Colton over while I began working on the duct tape across his mouth. He was not in great shape. Colton had worked for Felipe in Reno and then followed Victor to Louisiana, where he’d been employed at Vampire’s Kiss. His apparent devotion hadn’t stemmed from affection but from a thirst for vengeance; Colton’s mother had died as a result of Victor’s teaching a lesson to Colton’s half brother. Carelessly, Victor had never dug deep enough to get the connection, and as a result, Colton had been a great help to the Shreveport plan to eradicate Victor. His lover Audrina had taken part in the fight and paid for her devotion with her life. I hadn’t seen Colton since that night, but I’d known he’d stayed in the area and even kept his job at Vampire’s Kiss.

Colton’s gray eyes were full of tears after I yanked the duct tape off. His first words were a stream of profanity.

“Bill, we need a handcuff key,” I said, and as Bill began rummaging in the guards’ pockets to track it down, I cut the tape around Colton’s ankles. Bill threw the key to me, and I unlocked the cuffs. Once I tossed them aside, Colton didn’t know what he wanted to do first: rub his wrists or massage his stinging face. Instead, he flung his arms around me and said, “God bless you.”

I was startled and touched. I said, “This was Bill’s plan, and now we’ve got to skedaddle before anyone comes looking. Those guys will come to eventually.” Bill had reused the handcuffs on the hulk and was using Second Guard’s own belt to secure his arms. The roll of duct tape they’d used on Colton was also heavily deployed.

“See how you like that, motherfuckers,” Colton said, with some satisfaction. He stood up and we went to the door. “Thanks, Mr. Comp-ton.”

“My pleasure,” Bill said drily.

Colton seemed to take in my scanty outfit for the first time, and his gray eyes widened. “Wow,” he said, one hand on the doorknob. “When Palomino brought in the food last night, I caught a glimpse of her. I hoped she recognized me and would do something for me, but I never expected this.” He looked at me again before forcing his eyes away. “Wow,” he said, and swallowed.

“If you’ve finished ogling Eric’s woman, it’s time to get out of here,” Bill said. If his voice had been dry before, it was toast now.

“Just don’t let anyone see me,” Colton said. “And after I get out of this town, I never want to talk to another vampire in my life.”

“Though we’ve risked our lives to rescue you,” Bill said.

“Time to work out the philosophy later,” I said, and they both nodded. In a second, we were on the move. I had a napkin in my hand, and I used it when I shut the door of 507 behind us. We went down the hall in single file and reached the staff elevator, passing only one couple on our journey. They were completely wrapped up in each other and didn’t do more than stop groping for a moment in reaction to our presence. The staff elevator came quickly, and we stepped on to join a middle-aged woman who was carrying some dry cleaning in a plastic bag. She nodded to us and kept her eyes on the floor indicator. We had to go up with her before we could go down, and my palms started sweating with anxiety. She was ignoring Colton’s disheveled condition with a deliberate air. She didn’t want to know, which was great. It was a relief when she stepped off.

When we began our descent, I was terrified someone would be waiting for us on the fifth floor; the door would open, and we’d be confronted with the two men we’d left bound. But that didn’t happen. We got down to the second floor, and the doors whooshed open. There were several other workers there: another room service server with a rolling cart, a bellman, and a woman in a black suit. She was very well groomed and wearing high heels, too, so she was definitely higher up on the food chain.

She was the only one who paid us any attention when they all crowded on. “Server,” she said sharply. “Where’s your name tag?” Palo-mino had worn one on the upper slope of her right breast, so I clapped my hand to the place mine should have been. “Sorry, it must have fallen off,” I said apologetically.

“Get another one right away,” she said, and I looked at her tag. “M. Norman,” it said. I was sure I wouldn’t get a surname. Mine would say “Candi” or “Brandi” or “Sandi.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, since now was not a time to start a class war.

M. Norman’s gaze went to Colton’s handsome face, admittedly marred by the removal of the duct tape and admittedly a little bruised. I could see a little crease between her brows as she tried to figure out what could have happened to him and if she should ask any questions. But her tailored shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug. She’d exerted her authority sufficiently for one night.

When the elevator stopped at the ground level, we got out of it like we owned the hotel. We rounded a corner, and there was the back door, Palomino walking toward it ahead of us. She glanced over her shoulder and looked faintly gratified to see us coming. She tapped the code into the keypad by the door, and then she opened it. We strode by her into the parking lot. Palomino, on the way to her red car, looked curiously at the street beyond the fenced lot for a moment, as if she sensed something strange. I didn’t have time to check it out as we walked briskly between the parked employee cars and out the gap in the fence.

We were almost to Bill’s car when the Weres caught up with us. There were four of them. I only recognized one; I’d seen him at Alcide’s house. He was a gaunt-faced, long-haired, bearded guy named Van.

Vamps and Weres just don’t mix, generally speaking, so I stepped ahead of Bill and did my best to manage to smile. “Van, good to see you tonight,” I said, struggling to sound sincere when every nerve in my body was screaming at me to get the hell out of the vicinity. “You gonna let us get on our way?”

Van, who was several inches taller than me, looked down at my face. He wasn’t thinking about my body, which was a nice change, but he was thinking about … making some kind of choice. It’s very hard to read Were thoughts, but that much I could discern.

“Miss Stackhouse,” he said, and nodded. His dark hair swung forward and back with the motion. “We been looking for you.”

“How come?” I might as well get this settled. If we were going to fight, I needed to know why I was going to get beat up. I sure didn’t want that.

“Alcide’s found Warren.”

“Oh, good!” I was really pleased. I smiled up at Van. Now Mustapha could come in from the cold, tell us what he’d seen, and all would be well.

“Thing is, what we found is a dead body, and we ain’t sure it’s really him,” Van said. When my face fell, he added, “I’m real sorry, but Alcide wants you to have a look at him and tell us it’s Warren for sure.”

So much for a happy ending.

Chapter 12

“You-all were headed somewhere?” Van asked.

“We were taking this one to the airport,” Bill said, nodding at Colton. This was news to me and to Colton, but it was good news. There really was a plan to get Colton away from the reach of Felipe.

“Why don’t you two continue on, then,” Van said reasonably. He didn’t ask any further questions or demand to know Colton’s identity, which was a relief. “I can take Sookie to the body, she’ll check the identity, and I’ll get her home. Or we can meet up somewhere.”

“At Alcide’s?” Bill asked.

“Sure.”

“Sookie, you okay with that?”

“Yeah, all right,” I said. “Let me get my purse out of your car.”

Bill clicked his car open and I reached inside to get my purse, which held a change of clothes. I definitely wanted to find a couple of minutes of privacy to put on something a little less revealing.

I felt uneasy without knowing exactly why. We’d recovered Colton, and if he could get the hell out of town, he’d probably be safe. If Colton couldn’t tell the little he remembered about that evening at Fangtasia, Eric would be safer, and therefore I would be safer—and so would all of the Shreveport vamps. I ought to be feeling happier. I slung my bag over my shoulder, glad that I had the cluviel dor with me.

“You’re okay with these wolves?” Bill asked in a very low voice as Colton got into Bill’s car and buckled his seat belt.

“Uh-huh,” I said, though I wasn’t so sure. But I shook myself and called myself paranoid. “These are Alcide’s wolves, and he’s my friend. But just in case, call him when you’re on your way, would you?”

“Go with me,” Bill said suddenly. “They can identify Warren by smell, maybe. Mustapha could definitely do that, when he resurfaces.”

“Nah, it’s okay. Get Colton to the airport,” I said. “Get him out of town.”

Bill looked at me searchingly, then nodded in a jerky way. I watched as Bill and Colton drove off.

Now that I was alone with the werewolves, I felt even odder.

“Van,” I said, “Where did you find Warren?”

The other three crowded around: a woman in her thirties with a pixie haircut, an airman from the Air Force base in Bossier City, and a girl in her teens with very generous curves. The teenager was in the first throes of experiencing her power as a Were, almost drunk with her newfound ability; it dominated her brain. The other two meant business. And that was all I could get of their thoughts. We were walking north on the street to a gray Camaro, which seemed to belong to Airman.

“I’ll show you. It’s a little ways east of town. Since Mustapha wasn’t a pack member, we never met Warren.”

“Okay,” I said doubtfully. And I thought of making some excuse not to get in the car, because my uneasiness was mounting like a drumroll. We were alone on a dark street, and I realized they had boxed me in. I had no real reason to doubt that Van was telling me the truth—but I had an instinct that was telling me this situation stank. I wished instinct had spoken up more clearly a few minutes ago when I’d had Bill at my side. I got in the car, and the Weres crowded in. We buckled up, and in a second we were driving in the direction of the interstate.

Curiously, I almost didn’t want to discover that my suspicion was valid. I was tired of crises, tired of deceit, tired of life-or-death situations. I felt like a stone being skipped across a pond, longing only to sink to the anonymous bottom.

Well, that was stupid. I gave myself a mental shake. Not time to long for things I couldn’t have at the moment. Time to be alert and ready for action. “Do you really have Warren?” I asked Van. He was sitting to my right in the backseat of the Camaro. The plump teenager was crowded in to my left. She didn’t smell particularly good.

“Nope,” he said. “Ain’t ever seen him, that I know of.”

“Then why are you doing this?” I might as well know, though I already felt sadly sure this was going to end poorly.

“Alcide asked that black bugger Mustapha to join the pack,” Van said. “He ain’t asked us.”

So they were all rogues. “But I saw you at the last pack meeting.”

“Yeah, I was going through rush, like they do in fraternities,” Van said, deeply sarcastic. “But I didn’t make the cut. Guess I got
blackballed
.”

“I thought he had to let you in,” I said. “I mean, I didn’t know the packleader got to pick and choose.”

“Alcide is a little too selective,” said the airman, who was driving. He turned a little so I could see his profile as he spoke. “He doesn’t want anyone with a serious criminal record in his pack.”

Alarm bells sounded then in my brain, way too late. Mustapha had been in prison, though I didn’t know the charge … yet Alcide had been willing to accept him into the pack. What had these rogues done that had been so bad that a wolf pack wouldn’t have them?

The girl beside me tittered. The woman in the passenger’s side of the front seat cast her a dark look, and the girl stuck out her tongue like a ten-year-old.