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It was a price I'd be happy to pay.
Finn strolled off into the crowd, planting himself at a slot machine just in front of Slater's blackjack table. Roslyn gave him a wan smile, but some of the tension eased out of her slim shoulders. At least the vamp knew we were here and ready to play. Her toffee eyes skimmed over the crowd, looking for me, but she couldn't see me from where she was sitting. I made sure of it. I stayed at the bar, drinking a gin, watching the flow of traffic around the blackjack table, and thinking about everything I'd read about Elliot Slater in the past few days.
Finn had compiled quite a file on the giant, looking for any way to get to him, any weakness, vice, or hobby that he might have. We'd even dug into the folder of info that Fletcher Lane had compiled on Mab Monroe. The old man had included Slater in the mix with his boss, for obvious reasons. All the information had been interesting but not very helpful. Slater hadn't become Mab Monroe's top enforcer by accident. He was a crafty, cold-blooded bastard who liked using his fists to hurt people-a fact I'd felt for myself twice now.
Sadly, Roslyn Phillips wasn't the first woman Elliot Slater had terrorized. Finn had dug up a dozen investigations involving missing women in Ashland just in the last two years alone. Slater's name had been connected to all the cases, with him almost always listed as being the victim's boyfriend.
Tall, short, curvy, or not. Giant, dwarf, vampire, human, elemental. Black, white, Hispanic, Asian. None of those things mattered to Slater. The only thing he seemed to care about was beauty. That was the one thing all his victims had in common-they were all exceptionally beautiful women, just like Roslyn was. Eye-catching and striking with the kind of perfect features you just couldn't look away from.
The pattern was the same every single time. Slater would see a beautiful woman, become obsessed with her, and start stalking her. Showering her with his own twisted brand of attention and inventing the same sort of sick relationship with her that he had with Roslyn. In every single case, the woman turned up dead-raped and beaten to death a few weeks after she started dating Elliot Slater.
Finn had gotten his hands on some of the crime scene photos. They weren't pretty. They made what the giant had done to me that night at the community college seem like a gentle massage. Slater seemed to enjoy destroying the women's beauty just as much as he did admiring it to start with.
Some of the women had tried to fight back, of course. They'd gone to the police and tried to get a restraining order against Slater. But nothing ever came of their cries for help. In those cases, the women ended up dead within days instead of weeks. Slater didn't like being disobeyed.
The simple fact was that Elliot Slater was a serial killer who enjoyed stalking, terrorizing, and controlling women before he finally raped and ultimately murdered them. He liked their fear, liked the feeling of power it gave him. It was probably the only thing that could get a sick bastard like him off.
Of course, nothing ever came of any investigation into Slater, thanks to the giant's working for Mab Monroe. Hell, she probably gave him carte blanche to go out and find himself a certain kind of distraction every once in a while. A reward for all the bloody jobs he did on the Fire elemental's behalf.
But I had seen a sliver of opportunity in the file, one possible window to get the giant alone tonight-Elliot Slater liked to smoke cigars. A fact I'd witnessed the other night outside of Underwood's restaurant. Not an unusual habit among the moneyed, muckety-muck types in Ashland.
But in a crowd like this, lighting up a Cuban would be frowned upon. Trophy wives didn't like their designer dresses to reek of tobacco. And they'd create enough fuss to make even someone like Slater realize it was better to smoke away from all the silks and satins, if only to keep from listening to their bitching. So if the giant wanted his nicotine fix tonight, Slater would have to seek out a less crowded location to puff away to his heart's content. And when he did, I'd make my move-
"Is this seat taken?" a voice rumbled to my right.
I turned my head and found myself staring into Owen Grayson's violet eyes. "It is now. "
Owen tipped his head, settled himself next to me, and ordered a tonic water.
"No scotch tonight?" I asked.
The bartender slid his drink over, and Owen rattled the ice cubes in the glass before he took a sip. "I don't drink when I'm gambling. "
"Didn't look like much of a gamble," I replied. "Since you were up several hundred thousand dollars last time I saw you, and the other players desperately looked like they wanted you to move to another table. "
Owen grinned. "I should probably mention that I'm excellent at bluffing. "
"I just bet you are. "
We sat there in companionable silence for a few moments. Owen leaned back, his gaze slowly tracking up and down my body. Admiring the view. I had to admit the unabashed attention pleased me. Especially when there were so many more attractive women on board. Even assassins had egos.
"You know," Owen said in a casual tone. "We're going to have to stop meeting like this. "
"Like what?"
He gestured. "At a bar. "
This time, I leaned back against said bar and cocked an eyebrow. "You didn't seem too upset last time we were at a bar together. The other night at Northern Aggression. "
"That's because you promised to call me," Owen replied. "Which you haven't done yet. "
I shrugged. "I've been busy. "
"With what?"
Across the deck, Elliot Slater raked in a pile of gold chips.
"This and that. "
