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I swallowed down unease as Jamie and I walked across the gravel parking lot. It was too quiet. The Mansion was a hotel and social club, it turned out, with a storied history of hosting old Hollywood stars and foreign dignitaries. Supposedly, it was home to Tongue-Cut Sparrow, though Jamie hadn’t been able to find any official record of it. All that, yet the hum coming from inside was so low it barely competed with the crickets.
“I don’t think this is the kind of thing where we can go to reception and ask them to point us to the Sparrow.” Jamie adjusted his jacket as we walked. He wore a dark suit tonight, perfectly tailored, and moved with a new gait—a careless elegance, like he belonged in any room. “I think we’re going to have to take a different tack.”
“Like what?” I hadn’t shared Jamie’s packing foresight, so I’d had to shop and wore a black dress and spiked heels I’d paid full price for at a boutique near campus.
Jamie spoke in a low voice as two doormen pulled open the Mansion’s thick doors, revealing an opulent stone-and-cream lobby. “We play the game. I’ll be a man with too much money and a dark appetite, and you’ll be a woman who’s hollow inside and willing to be eaten. Eventually, someone will point us in the right direction.”
I froze in the doorway, chill mixing with the faintest twinge of heat. Maybe I was more legible to Jamie than I’d realized.
But he only strode ahead, in the direction of the lobby bar. I hurried to catch up.
***
An hour later, we’d struck out. No one we’d talked to knew Tongue-Cut Sparrow, and covertly exploring on foot had turned up zero leads.
“Maybe it doesn’t exist,” Jamie said, leaning against the lobby wall and folding his arms, his well-fitted suit bunching over his shoulders. He ran a hand over his face; the movement opened the collar of his white shirt, revealing another inch of skin at his throat. “If it did, the bartender would’ve known. He’d direct people there all the time, right? Either he’s lying, or the Sparrow’s a rumor.”
“I don’t know.” I lowered myself into a chair. “Maybe they want the front of house to be on the up-and-up. Less conspicuous, if the Sparrow’s really supposed to be secret.” I scanned the room. “Maybe we need to find someone who’s so unimportant they’re invisible. Someone no one thinks to keep secrets from.”
My eyes lit on a young man dressed like a busboy, carrying a pitcher of water with lemon slices to a faraway table. He must have felt my attention, because he looked up and we locked eyes. He glanced down, shyly, then back up.
“Excuse me,” I said to Jamie.
When I got to the table, he was replacing the empty water pitcher with exaggerated slowness. I stepped next to him, felt his eyes slide in my direction, and picked up a glass.
He tipped the pitcher, pouring me water.
“Hello,” I said.
He swallowed. He looked no older than twenty. “Good evening, Ms.…”
“Abrams,” I lied.
“Is there something I can do for you?” My glass was full. The young man straightened the pitcher and held it to his chest, his nervousness plain.
If only it was always like this. If beauty was purely a power and not a target, a vulnerability that could draw the wolves and put you at their mercy.
“I was wondering.” I bit my lip. “I’ve heard about…a place, here at the Mansion. Where you can have a different kind of fun. A more private, adult kind.”
The young man had a wide, guileless face. When his Adam’s apple bobbed, I knew.
“My friend told me about it,” I pressed. I was barely speaking above a whisper, but his eyes darted around the lobby. “I think it’s called the Sparrow…”
“Tongue-Cut Sparrow,” he said, eyes on my water.
It did exist. I put a hand on his shoulder and spooked him; he nearly jumped backward. “Will you tell me how to get there?”
He looked at me for so long I worried I’d pushed my luck. But finally he said in the softest voice, “Are you sure you want to go?”
“Yes. Very much.”
He nodded toward the bank of elevators. “Take those to the basement, turn left, and knock three times on the door at the end of the hall.”
Victory.I felt a frisson of thrill.
He straightened and started to turn away, then glanced back. There was something like disappointment, or pity, in his eyes. “Stay safe,” he murmured and walked away.
I turned and, from across the lobby, caught Jamie’s waiting eyes.
