Chapter Five

When I returned to the suite, the whole gang was there eating dinner.

“How’d it go with Mason?” Vaughn asked.

I made a face. “Not bad,” I said. “But not good, either.”

Vaughn pulled me in for a quick kiss. “What happened?”

I shrugged. “He’s a snake,” I said. “Literally.”

My sisters didn’t look even a tiny bit surprised.

“That explains his nickname,” Connor murmured. The color had come back in his cheeks, and he was smiling instead of grimacing in pain.

I nodded. “When I got to his office, he was coiled around the valet who had an attitude when he parked the van.”

Thorn winced. “I tried to tell Dad to let it go, but he never listens to me.”

“I didn’t mean to get him in trouble,” Beckett said, the usual twinkle completely missing from his eyes.

“It’s not your fault,” Thorn assured him. “Dad has spies everywhere.”

I told them what I’d learned about the ruby.

I paced as I talked, feeling like we were at Vanessa’s mercy. Except I knew she didn’t have any.

“It still doesn’t explain why Vanessa wants it,” Skyler pointed out unnecessarily.

“Maybe it doesn’t matter,” Lucas said. We all stared at him, surprised he was contributing. “Just get Mr. Sheridan alone and convince him to come with you.”

I’d been so focused on making sure Vanessa didn’t get the ruby that a simple solution hadn’t occurred to me.

“Do you think you can convince your dad to go with us?” I asked Vaughn.

“I can certainly try,” he said. Vaughn and his dad were really close. If anyone could coax Mr. Sheridan away from The Executioner, it was his son.

Vaughn and I decided to hit up the twenty-four-hour wedding chapels near the Strip. I grabbed my parasol and my drumstick before we headed out.

“Where should we start?” he asked.

“Let’s go to the closest venues first.”

We walked around, showing the only photo I had of Vanessa to everyone I met. I finally realized the occasional weird looks were because Mason Alicante was in the picture, too.

Vanessa had given me the photo a few weeks ago, back when she was trying to convince me that she was human again and wanted a real relationship with me. The memory throbbed like a sore tooth. I’d been naive and way too trusting.

A few of the places touted the quickie wedding package, which was thirty minutes or less, including getting the marriage license. We could also take a ride in a pink Cadillac from the courthouse to the wedding venue.

Vaughn had several shots of his dad on his phone, so we showed them those, too. We spent a couple of hours searching for our parents, with no luck.

I hadn’t expected it would be easy to find Vanessa—unless we got overwhelmingly lucky again like we had yesterday and stumbled upon them randomly—but the night was a complete bust.

I sent Vanessa a series of texts, which went unanswered.

“It’s almost sunrise,” Vaughn said. “We should head back to the hotel.”

“Maybe in a few,” I answered distractedly.

I was busy looking at my map app when I felt Vaughn stiffen next to me. “I smell vampire.”

I kept my hand on my drumstick while I scanned the crowd. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I’d just started to relax when my gaze met a pair of glowing red eyes. A half-starved vampire stumbled out of an alley. She sniffed the air once before she lunged at me, but I batted her out of the way.

“You smell good,” she muttered. “Weird but good.”

“Thanks?” I replied.

When she started to stagger off, I thought she’d changed her mind about trying to bite me, but she turned and came back, moving so fast that she was at my throat before I could get my drumstick out.

While I fumbled for my weapon, she strained to get to me. Something held her back, and I realized that Vaughn had an arm around her waist and was trying to pull her off me, but she was wiggling in his hold, drooling and snapping at my neck.

I finally grasped my drumstick and thrust it into her ribcage and then up. A cloud of dark ash floated around us as the vampire disintegrated.

The only thing left of my attacker was a band tee that read Bleeding Hearts with a drop of blood dripping off the end of the S. There was a hole in it from where my drumstick had gone through.

I started to cough as some of the ash flew into my mouth. I spit it out and coughed some more.

Vaughn put an arm around me. “We should go back to the hotel.”

“I’m okay,” I said. My eyes were watering, but I’d stopped coughing. “One more place?”

Our last stop was at a little white chapel with enormous neon bells on the front, which also had a drive-through option. It was right next to a rundown motel.

“Why do our dates always seem to involve showing photos to strangers?” I asked.

Vaughn smiled. “It worked out last time.”

I showed the woman working at the reception desk the photos.

The woman studied it for a long time. “She came in yesterday.”

“To book a wedding?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, she was looking for a tiara. I showed her the ones we have for rent, but she wasn’t interested.”

“A tiara?”

“The brides who come in here have something very specific in mind,” she said. “That woman was no different from all the rest.”

If she only knew.

“Did she mention when the big day was?”

“Seemed more important that she find the right headdress first,” the woman said.

“Anything else you can tell us?”

She studied our faces and then seemed to come to a decision. “I told her to check some of the antique stores, that they might have what she needed.”

When I did a quick search of the internet from my phone, I discovered that practically all the antique stores were already closed.

We headed back to the hotel after a long evening of no luck.

I breathed a sigh of relief when we got to our suite. The quiet was welcome. We were far away from the noise of the crowds and casinos, and the silence allowed me to brood more easily.

“What happened to you?” Connor asked.

“It’s a long story,” Vaughn said.

“I’m going to go rinse off the stench of vampire,” I said. I headed to the bathroom while Vaughn filled in Skyler and Connor about the vampire attack.

The bathroom was bigger than my bedroom at home. There was a soaker tub big enough for me and my boyfriend, although I was currently alone with my thoughts. More’s the pity.

The shower had so many settings I wasn’t sure how to use it and a stack of fluffy white towels. Rose and Thorn had grown up in the lap of luxury, but I wasn’t jealous.

I needed to soak away the stress of meeting my father for the first time and my inability to find my mom.

Vanessa, where are you? And what’s your next play?