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Denny was a tough nut to crack, but even he let his guard slip sometimes.
And somewhere under that hard, growly exterior, there was a big softy just waiting to be let out.
* * *
We spent the rest of the afternoon back on the case—or lack thereof. The Strip was a smorgasbord of sights, sounds, and, unfortunately, smells.
The scent of seared meat drifted from the steakhouses. Other restaurants pumped out the smell of fried food, barbecued, and baked goods. Birthday girls in flamboyant cocktail dresses traveled in clouds of perfume. Roving packs of day-drinking dudes in cargo shorts and snapbacks left scent trails of overpriced tequila and cheap vodka wherever they went.
Every scent blended into the next. I couldn’t make head nor tail of any of it. Focusing too much on my nose made me feel a little drunk myself. I imagined for Denny, professional super-sniffer, the mélange was even more overwhelming.
If so, it didn’t slow him down at all. He moved up and down the Strip with a dogged determination, until suddenly, he tilted his head back and stopped dead in his tracks.
“You smell that?”
“No.” I scanned the stream of pedestrians coming toward us but didn’t see anything, either.
“It’s faint,” he admitted. “I’m barely picking up on it myself.” He sniffed the air again, then nodded. “It’s her, I’m sure of it.”
He set off in a quick trudge, the way he always did when he thought he’d caught a trail. I fell in behind him, moving a little slower with a little less purpose.
We’d done this a dozen times over the course of the last few days. By now, I’d learned not to get my hopes up. We’d follow the trail for a few minutes—maybe half an hour if it was fresh enough—but eventually, we’d lose it again. We always did. When the Strip had been more crowded, I’d blamed all the sweaty tourist bodies. Now that those crowds had dissipated, it should have been easier.
It wasn’t.
Either the city alone was enough to help Melony cover her tracks, or something else was at work.
This time around, Denny zeroed in on a destination in a matter of minutes.
“There.” He nodded to a building across the street.
Even in the daylight, I could make out the neon glow of its sign: THE WOLF WHISTLE. It was accompanied by a knock-off cartoon of the Tex Avery wolf. The lights animated him so his tongue rolled out of his mouth like a red carpet while he used a comically large shoe to smack himself on the head.
“That’s a strip club, Denny.”
That revelation didn’t seem to deter him in the least.
“She’s there. Let’s go,” he grunted, then glanced both ways and jogged across the street.
I didn’t like where this was headed—literally. I’d only been to a few strip clubs in my life and had never found anything inside that I’d actually enjoyed. If a woman was going to take her clothes off for me, I preferred her to actually want to do it, not just because I’d paid for it.
Now that I knew Felicity was mine, I had less interest in nudie bars than ever. The only woman I wanted to see tearing her shirt off and swinging around on a pole was my mate—preferably, in a room that contained no one else but me.
But Denny was already off to the races, and I had no choice but to follow. If he was right—and he probably wasn’t—Melony was inside that building somewhere.
God, if she was in there, I hoped she was fully clothed, and my son was nowhere near that place.
We flashed our IDs at the bouncer. He barely checked them. Given that I was well into my thirties and Denny looked like an AARP member, it wasn’t really needed.
Inside, the club was uncannily dark, especially since it was the middle of the afternoon. Pink neon lit the edge of the bar. It was surprisingly full—or maybe unsurprisingly, given that this was Vegas. Men packed the booths shoulder to shoulder while scantily clad waitresses brought around buckets of champagne and trays of shots. Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” blasted from the speakers. On the stage, a woman in a bunny mask twirled lazily around a pole.
The whole place smelled like shifters, stale booze, and cloying body spray. Not exactly ideal conditions for tracking anyone—especially not Melony Houghton, whose perfume was pretty sickly sweet itself.
“Look at you two handsome things!” a woman in a fox mask approached us as soon as we were through the door.
Her companion, face hidden behind a cat mask, leaned in and sniffed Denny’s shoulder. “Ooh. Wolf shifters. Hot.”
“Wanna join us for some drinks?” the fox asked, trailing her fingers down my arm.
