Blood Wager (Blood Destiny 1)

"You live here?" she whispered to Winkler, her eyes wide.

"Temporarily. I have a larger home in the Dallas area," Winkler couldn't help himself. If it got him a better deal in bed, who was I to argue? Jeri was still sober enough to know what she was doing and I hoped they were both mature enough to use protection. Winkler had an arm around Jeri as he led her toward the front door, making me wonder who would get the pleasure of taking her home in the morning.

"I'm glad to see you more yourself," Gavin came up beside me.

"Talking, you mean," I said, crossing my arms over my chest and watching Winkler grope Jeri's ass as they walked inside the house. "Why do men want sex with women they don't even know?" I searched Gavin's face, watching his jaw work for a few seconds. "Never mind," I said. "Forget I asked."

We returned to our normal job of patrolling the grounds, but we had help now and only took small sections. With my newly acquired senses, I didn't even have to walk anymore if I didn't want to. I could hear everything inside and outside the wall. We had two female security guards who'd come along with the others and that night I heard one of them having sex with a male guard while both were supposed to be working.

I sent a text (the longest one I'd ever sent), telling Gavin what was happening as discreetly as I could. He must have double-checked because ten minutes later Davis was in the yard, chewing out both offenders before firing them. Another guard drove the offenders and their belongings straight back to Dallas. I'd heard what Davis was telling the two when he'd fired them. "I don't give a damn what you do when you're off duty, but when you're working, you're protecting a client. This isn't protecting your client!" Yeah, I got them in trouble. My underlying reason was this: even though Winkler was a hooker-licking sleaze at times, I liked him better.

"You did the right thing," Gavin told me later as I walked into our guesthouse apartment.

"I know, but it still makes me feel like crap. So don't try to cheer me up," I held up a hand to stop him from saying anything else.

"I wasn't going to attempt it," he said.

"Good, because I might have to smack ya."

"You have such interesting phrases," Gavin said. "Smack me? You wish to smack me?"

"Keep talking like that and I'll do it instead of thinking about it," I grumbled. "Leave me alone. I have a headache." I didn't really; vampires apparently don't get headaches. Or any other kind of ache, for that matter. Not normally, anyway. Gavin leapt at the opportunity to refute my statement.

"You do not. Take yourself from my sight," He made a little shooing motion with his hand.

"Now who has the interesting phrases?" I asked. "You sound like King Henry the Eighth, sending one of his queens off for beheading."

"He only beheaded two of them, you know," Gavin grinned wickedly.

"And he didn't divorce anybody, those marriages were annulled," I said. "So there." I flounced away, wanting a shower before I went to bed. The sun was creeping up on me; I could feel it already.

My next day off came three days later and since I was running out of shampoo, I borrowed one of Winkler's ugly vans and went to Target. When Davis found out where I was going, he handed off a list of things to pick up for Winkler and some of the others. Dummy me—I thought the housekeeping staff ran the errands. Now, I had a full page of things to buy. I spent more than an hour trying to find the right kind of deodorant or the specified type of disposable razors for Phil, Glen, Davis, Winkler and some of the add-on security. Davis had given me an envelope full of cash to pay for everything but it was my day off, for cripes sake. He'd also asked me to make a run by the grocery store, handing me another list of things to get there, most of it snacks and junk food plus soft drinks. The van was nearly full by the time I finished and headed toward the house.

An angry anthill best described what I found when I parked in the driveway. Phil, Glen and Davis were just about to tear their hair out, a dozen security guards were on cell phones having a breakdown and Gavin was watching everything from the sidelines. He was standing on the wide porch, leaning against the stucco wall of the house with his eyes half-closed and an unreadable expression in his eyes. Since nobody seemed to notice that I'd gotten back, I went about unloading everything into the kitchen, even placing the perishables inside the fridge. Finding Gavin afterward, (he hadn't moved from his spot on the porch) I asked him what all the fuss was.

"Winkler took off about two hours ago, by himself," Gavin said. "Nobody can find him now."

"What was he driving?" I asked, a bit of fear creeping into my voice.

"The Jag. We only found out a few minutes ago that he had the tracking system disabled."

"Did he do it or did somebody else do it?"

"That's a good question, now isn't it?"

"Your concern is overwhelming," I said sarcastically, pacing in front of him. He was still leaning against the wall, not particularly oblivious to the uproar but certainly indifferent to all of it.

"He's only been gone two hours. Even the police won't start looking for someone unless they've been gone for twenty-four."

"Is that when you plan to look?" I stared at him in disbelief. Gavin just shrugged. This whole thing worried me. After all, Winkler was the man who wouldn't pick up a hooker or an easy lay in a bar without security. I went to find Davis.

"Did we get any response from Winkler?" I asked. Davis looked to be on the verge of an aneurysm.

"We tried his main cell first, but got no answer. Then we tried the back-up—he carries an extra phone with him, usually tucked into the top of one of his socks if he's wearing any, and it's set on vibrate. We got a momentary hit on that, but all we heard was the word Con— as near as we can make it out, anyway." Davis' hair was wild and he looked to be at his wits' end.

"Con? That's it?" Now I wanted to have an aneurysm. "And no answer on the second try?"

"Or the third or the sixty-third." Davis was truly about to experience some sort of mental event, I could tell.

"Davis, you won't do him any good if we have to take you to the hospital. Calm down, okay?" I patted his arm. "I have to think about this," I said, moving away from him. The tension in the house and the yard was so thick it might have taken a machete to cut it, so I went to the guesthouse and sat down on the sofa in the small living room. Gavin might not be concerned, but I certainly was. What did I know about Winkler that might help? And what did his cryptic message mean? Gavin walked in about that time.