The Gatekeeper

by Heather Graham

  “She may or may not agree to see you,” the guard told him. “She’s selective.”

  Luckily Saxon didn’t have to continue the conversation any longer. The elevator had reached the penthouse.

  The door opened.

  At the end of a hallway stood a beautifully constructed glass enclosure, the customary pole at the center. The pole was wrapped in a shimmering sheath of fabric that matched the temptingly designed outfit worn by the dancer on display.

  She was incredible. Lithe, her every movement was seductively smooth as she danced to a tune he knew well and barely heard.

  She wasn’t half-naked, like the typical Vegas entertainer, or even provocatively dressed. Clad from head to toe, her exceptional allure came from the figure within, which was tall and lean and wickedly curved. Limber didn’t begin to describe the exotic way she could twist and turn. She moved around the pole with the animalistic grace of a cat.

  Saxon was dimly aware as the guard behind him said, “Enjoy yourself, sir,” and the elevator door closed. He continued down the short hall that led to the foyer—and the glass-enclosed dancer. The place was elegantly and tastefully furnished in antiques; paintings graced the walls. None of them were sexually explicit. One was of a medieval damsel clad in delicate draping white, bending down to draw water from a shimmering stream. Another was of a knight in shining armor, a fair lady gently carried in his arms. The rest were similar in subject matter and tastefulness.

  Saxon barely noted them or the decor. His attention was fully caught by the dancer.

  Her hair was dark—not black, but a sable color with streaks of auburn running through it. Her face was delicately, aesthetically, sculpted, yet her lips were almost supernaturally full.

  Her eyes, when she deigned to notice him, were an intriguing mix of green and gold, as sharp and beautiful as diamonds, glittering like the fabric that covered her.

  And when they met his, they filled with disdain.

  Once she caught his eyes, she didn’t look away. She stared at him and continued dancing as if he were no more than a fly buzzing nearby.

  “Mr. Kirby?” someone murmured in a silken voice.

  He turned. A blonde with the perkiest—and undoubtedly heavily silicone-enhanced—breasts he had ever seen was coming toward him. She was clad in something that resembled a stewardess uniform from the earliest days of commercial flight.

  “Welcome,” she said. “They told me you were on your way up. Please, if you’ll join me in the antechamber, we’ll discuss what brings you to us, what fantasy you would like fulfilled and what kind of entertainment will satisfy your heart’s desire.”

  Antechamber? Interesting word for a business office.

  He smiled. “Of course.”

  He was loath to leave the entry. He could almost feel the hot gold-and-emerald gaze of the woman behind the glass.

  Not to mention her contempt.

  He forced himself not to look back, though it was difficult.

  But he followed the buxom blonde. She led him into an elegant office. Her desk—which still held the obligatory computer and phone—was carved ebony with handsome ivory insets. Her office chair was upholstered in a deep burnished crimson, like the massive chairs that sat across from it. Marble statuary graced the edges of the room, and a plate-glass window looked out over the sunbaked brilliance of the Vegas Strip.

  “So...” she said, sitting down and folding her long-fingered, exquisitely manicured hands, and smiled. “What is your wildest dream, sir? How may we entertain you? Do you dream of angels or demons? Or perhaps something in between—a dance of innocents and vixens together? Is your dream girl slim or curved or...?” She lifted her hands, the fabric of her suit jacket stretching across her breasts. “We seek to entertain, sir. Our performances are among the most talented in the country. But we cannot entertain you unless we know what it is you seek.”

  He leaned forward and met her eyes, then gave her a charming smile. “Candy,” he said.

  She paled slightly. “We have Asian beauties who can twist and turn in ways that you’ve never imagined. We have Russian acrobats who sail across a room as gracefully as the last great ships that rode the oceans’ breezes. African women whose movements can rival the rhythm of any heart. Irish lasses who can dance their way into the bloodstream.”

  “Candy,” he repeated.

  His hostess sat back, perplexed. She pursed her perfect cherry-red lips.

  “Candy—despite the name of our establishment—has not been with us long. She is a rare and exotic talent, so rare that her contract here allows her to choose when to entertain privately.”

  He nodded. “Candy.”

  The woman sighed.

  He tapped his platinum card on the table as if in thought. “Perhaps you would see if the young woman might be willing to give me just a few minutes of her time.”

  “I...” The blonde clearly intended to protest.

  He leaned closer to her and deepened his smile, seeking her eyes and staring into them. “Candy,” he said again.

  She rose without breaking eye contact. “I’ll speak with her.”

  He nodded, watching her go. Once she was out of the room, he was on his feet. He quickly made his way around the desk to the computer and looked up Candy’s employee file. She was listed only as Candy—no last name. Her hours were listed as “general entertainment,” and, as the blonde had said, there was a notation by her name that read “Will choose individual clients.”

  He frowned as he heard the blonde returning, her heels clicking on the marble floor.

  By the time she entered the room, he was back in his chair. He quickly stood, looking at her expectantly.

  “Candy will see you,” she said, and turned. “This way, please.”

  He followed her down an elegantly paneled hallway until she stopped, opened a door and ushered him in.

  Saxon stepped into the room, but he didn’t see Candy. Nor did he notice when the door closed behind him.

  A marble-floored entryway led to a large, richly carpeted room. Sunlight poured through French doors that led to a balcony and offered a view of the nearby fountains at the Bellagio and a stunning view of the entire Vegas Strip.

  A huge Venetian-tiled whirlpool bath looked out toward the balcony. Heavy furniture in oak, mahogany and ebony filled the room, along with a massive bed whose hand-carved head- and footboard supported an elegant canopy.

  He knew he was being observed.

  He noticed an Oriental screen beside the whirlpool.

  And as he watched, Candy emerged from behind the screen.

  His breath caught in his throat when he recognized the dancer who had seduced and entranced and hypnotized him from behind the glass.

  She wasn’t dressed as she had been before, or as he would have expected of an “entertainer.” She wore a plain white terry robe, her hair sleek and curling around her shoulders.

  She was tall, perhaps five foot ten. Elegant in build, and supple, as he’d already seen when she’d danced.

  She moved so fluidly that she seemed to float slowly across the room.

  She wore no makeup. Her eyes, which seemed to gleam with a hypnotic beauty, were unadorned by shadow or mascara. Her lashes were rich and thick all on their own, her face pure perfection.

  When she spoke, her voice was a husky alto that teased his senses. “So, you have come just for me, I hear?”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled and came closer. “And what is it that you desire? A dance? Ah, but you’ve already seen me dance. Perhaps you’re looking for something more intimate, more...personal?”

  She stopped directly in front of him and slid her hand up his shirt. Then she placed both hands on his chest, the subtle pressure of her body pushing him toward the bed. The backs of his knees met the mattress, and he held steady for a moment.

  “What are you offering?” he asked her.

  It was difficult to maintain his composure in the face of her pure sensuality. She seemed to offe
r the wildest and most intimate and intriguingly carnal pleasures the mind could imagine.

  And he was Elven.

  Also a cop—trying to stop a murderer.

  He let himself fall back on the bed, wondering what her next move would be. In seconds she was straddled over him, and his wrists were imprisoned by her long fingers as she stared down at him.

  “Elven,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “And a cop,” she added.

  He smiled. Time to turn the tables. She wasn’t prepared when he flipped her over and straddled her, pinning her wrists to the bed.

  “Werewolf,” he said, meeting her eyes. “Hunting your way up the Strip and through the desert.”

  Her eyes widened, and she stared back up at him. “What?”

  “You heard me,” he told her, but his gut told him that she had nothing to do with the rash of deaths.

  He was fighting to keep his responses to her in check, but he could feel her beneath him with every fiber of his being.

  “Elven cop, yes,” he said. “And I intend to stop the death and insanity before more innocents die and their deaths bring our entire supernatural society crashing down.”

  She was still staring up at him, and her frown seemed real. “Get the hell off me,” she told him. “Unless you...can’t.” Her suddenly seductive tone told him exactly what she was thinking.

  “Don’t flatter yourself. You invited me here, after all.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, Elven. I had to know what you were up to.”

  Those golden eyes studied him, reached into his soul. Then they suddenly cleared and turned innocent—even vulnerable.

  “Just what do you think I’m doing?” she asked, making no attempt to hide her annoyance.

  “I have no doubt that you entertain your audience. I just worry about how many pieces your audience is in when you’ve finished your performance.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” she told him. “I’m here to stop what’s happening. I’m not causing it.”

  He stared down at her. How the hell do you trust a woman who could torment a man to insanity with her eyes alone? “Why should I believe you?” he asked.

  “Because of Angie,” she said softly.

  He waited for her to go on.

  “Angie Sanderson.” He could have sworn that tears glistened in her eyes. “She disappeared six weeks ago, right after Carl Bailey gave her a job singing at one of his casinos. She had the voice of a lark. If you’re a cop, you must have seen the report.”

  He had.

  And he had suspected that her disappearance was related to the case he was looking into—he’d said as much to Monty.

  True, lots of beautiful, talented young women came to Las Vegas, and plenty of them ended up disappearing. Some simply gave up on their dreams and left. Some were consumed by the city, finding work but not the glittering careers they had come in search of. Some changed their names when they vanished into the city’s seedy underbelly, because they didn’t want their families in Kansas or South Carolina or whatever wholesome place they came from finding out what they were really doing.

  But Angie...

  He could remember the “Missing” posters that had gone up all over town.

  She was blonde and blue-eyed, young and innocent. She had done her shift one night, singing her little heart out—and been reported missing when she hadn’t returned to work the following day. The casino cameras had lost her once she’d mingled with the throng of humanity on the street.

  “What do you have to do with Angie Sanderson?” he asked. “It’s not your job to find people. And if you really are innocent, then you need to get out of here—since it’s dead obvious one of your kind is up to something very bad.”

  Candy looked at him with her golden eyes gleaming with tears.

  “I don’t believe ‘my kind’ have anything to do with this. As for what I have to do with Angie...she’s my half sister. And I don’t care if you’re a cop, an Elven or an archangel come down to claim us all—I’m not leaving until I find her!”

  Chapter 3

  Saxon got up and moved away from Candy and that far-too-tempting bed.

  He needed some distance. First the woman had been the embodiment of exotic beauty and erotic movement. Now she seemed like a little girl lost. It didn’t matter which, really. When she looked at him, he felt as if he were being drawn deep into a netherworld where he could easily become lost forever—and he didn’t dare take that chance. Especially not now, with a murderous werewolf on the loose.

  “Your half sister?” he said, studying her. “Half...what?” He conjured the picture of the missing woman. Blonde, angelic.

  Elven?

  Candy shrugged, then sat up and ran her fingers through her hair. “Half sister. We share one parent.”

  “And?”

  She took a breath, then said, “I’m a bit of an unusual...being.”

  “Go on,” he said firmly.

  “Our mother was the sweetest, gentlest and most amazing woman you could ever meet. She met one of her own kind—an Elven—and they had Angela. Then Angie’s father died.”

  Saxon felt his muscles tighten. Elven normally led very long lives. “Because your mother met your father?” he asked.

  The look she gave him was so scathing that he felt as if he were melting in the pool of her contempt.

  “Angie’s dad died because he had it in his head that he should serve his country,” she said quietly. “He was in the air force, and his plane went down in the water and he...died. I’m sure you understand.”

  Saxon nodded. Of all the underworld beings, the Elven had been the last to come to the New World. They didn’t melt if they touched water, but they were creatures of the earth. Despite their strength and normally robust health, they couldn’t survive long in or even over water. Because of that, they hadn’t come to the New World en masse until flying became commonplace. A few adventurous and hardy souls had made it over via ocean liner, but the crossing had been difficult. Not everyone who attempted it had succeeded, and the weakened survivors had been easy prey on arrival.

  “And your mother married a...werewolf?” he asked.

  “You really are a condescending SOB, aren’t you?” she said sweetly.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not a prejudiced man,” he denied quickly.

  She shrugged. “You are—but perhaps it’s not entirely your fault. You’re Elven.”

  She said the word as if no explanation was needed, and she was probably right, he thought.

  “So, yes,” she went on, “my mother married a werewolf, and I don’t know a soul who doesn’t like my father. He was the best father in the world to my sister. He doesn’t know yet that she’s disappeared. Neither does my mother.”

  “And they don’t know that you’re working here, either, do they?” Saxon demanded.

  She exhaled. She was obviously trying to come up with a good explanation, but then she simply said, “No.”

  He shook his head while looking at her. “So how are you going to explain to your father that you’ve been dancing in a strip club and pretending to be a prostitute?”

  “That’s the point, don’t you see? My mother is an actress. Angie and I grew up in the theater. I’ve done nothing but act—act like something I’m not—since I got here.”

  “You’ve acted out wild romps with men?” he said incredulously.

  “If you know so much—”

  “I know you’ve agreed to see only a few private clients. But you’re growing legendary—there’s talk about you around town.”

  “Really? That’s wonderful. I’m getting to where I need to be,” she said, smiling.

  He walked over to her and pulled her to her feet. “What’s the matter with you? You’re dealing with ruthless men—ruthless creatures who can rip you to shreds and scatter your bones across the desert. Have you actually slept with these monsters?”

  “No!” she protested. “I told you—it’s all an act. I’m tr
ying to find out who killed Angela, and I think I know.”

  “What? Who?”

  “I’m trying to get to know people who are close to Carl Bailey,” she said. “Everyone’s on guard, too intimidated by him, on his own turf. But people are less wary, more willing to talk, when they’re away from work. Maybe Bailey himself will even show up here one of these days. I’m certain he’s behind her death, if he didn’t kill her himself. He has his eye on this place, and I think he’d do anything to get it. If Angie heard something about what he was up to, something he didn’t want her to know, he wouldn’t have thought twice about siccing some killer werewolf on her. As for my...sexual activity, I accept very few private clients. Luckily for me, my performance has earned me the right to choose who I do and don’t see.”

  “This is dangerous. You’re dangerous!”

  “Good,” she told him flatly.

  “And how do you get rid of those clients without...delivering?” Saxon demanded. He reminded himself that he wasn’t her father. He had no right to sound so angry. But...

  She was dangerous, all right.

  She shook her head and offered a dry grin. “I make them believe they were involved in an experience that was pure magic.”

  “And how do you do that?”

  “It’s in the eyes,” she said softly.

  “You have werewolf eyes, animal eyes,” he said. His voice was harsh.

  “Yes. And I could have made you leave here without suspecting a thing, thinking you’d been to heaven and back,” she told him.

  “I doubt that,” he assured her. “I’m Elven, remember?”

  “And I’m half Elven—and half wolf,” she reminded him sweetly. “Should we test it out? Or perhaps you should leave now. And make sure you arrange an exceptional gratuity for me, will you?”

  He walked over to her, jaw locked, frustration boiling inside him. “What’s the matter with you? Your sister disappeared. Do you want to disappear, too?”

  “I’m forewarned—and I do have that wolf thing going for me, after all.”

  “You can stop that. Some of my best friends are werewolves,” he said.

  She laughed. It was a nice sound. An honest sound. “Sorry, but that is so, so patronizing.”