He’d taken a couple of Dramamine and put on some of those anti-seasickness elastic wrist bands for good measure, even though he knew his real problem with the river wasn’t the motion of the waves but the power the water itself contained. The medication helped, but he could still feel the river’s energy pulling at something deep in his chest, like a constant low-grade headache he couldn’t quite shake.
Well, he supposed it could have been worse…even if it could also have been a whole lot better.
“Okay, let’s get out there,” he said, and did his best to quell the flicker of unease in his gut. It wasn’t so much that he might be confronting a bunch of demons…he’d slid a couple of bottles of holy water into the pockets of his dress pants as he changed, just to be safe…but more that he was going to have to walk out there and pretend he knew what he was doing when he’d never had a food service job in his life.
He had no idea whether Ty did, either, but at least he’d been working as a tennis pro for the past few years and knew how to deal with the public. And although Caleb didn’t have a clue as to Pru’s work history before she became a private detective, he wouldn’t have been surprised at all to learn she’d waited tables while attending college and playing bass in Delia’s band.
Not that it really mattered, since Prudence got to play a high roller tonight, not a waitress.
She went out first, and then Jacob — a gangly guy around twenty-five who never would have had a chance with her — pointed Caleb and Ty toward the bar.
“It’s pretty easy,” he said. “They’re only serving champagne tonight. All you have to do is pick up a tray and circulate with it, then come back and get a fresh one — and drop off any empties — after you’re done.”
Okay, that didn’t sound too hard. Caleb had been having nightmare scenarios in his brain of serving a room full of people who wanted a million substitutions or a bunch of stuff on the side, just like how one of his girlfriends in college used to order her meals whenever they went out to eat.
That relationship hadn’t lasted very long.
He picked up a tray and Ty did the same, and then the two of them headed into the cabin.
It looked larger than Caleb had expected, partly because of the large windows that made up the bulk of the walls. Outside, the sun was long gone, and although a faint orange glow lingered on the horizon, it didn’t do anything to interfere with the brilliant, multicolored lights of the casinos and the hotels reflecting off the waters of the Colorado River.
Looking at the view, his stomach tightened again, but he told it — and his sometimes troublesome demonic blood — that he didn’t have time for any of that crap tonight. No, he needed to focus.
People were dressed up, but not in an over-the-top sort of way, the women in cocktail dresses, the men in dress shirts and pants, although ties and jackets were in short supply. It was really too warm for that sort of thing; even with air conditioning pumping through the cabin’s vents, the doors that led out onto the deck stood wide open so people could come and go as they pleased, and warm air flooded the space.
Pru had shown him on her phone what August Sellers looked like, so Caleb knew he was looking for a tall, blond man with dark eyes and brows that were much darker than his hair. Maybe he bleached it, or maybe that was his natural coloring.
That didn’t matter. What mattered was that their quarry was naturally distinctive enough that Caleb knew he’d be able to easily pick him out of a crowd.
Except…he didn’t see the guy, even though he circled the cabin several times, letting people clear his tray of champagne glasses and then bringing back the empty flutes so he could pick up a fresh batch. No one here seemed to have any worries about partying hearty on a Tuesday night, but he supposed a lot of them weren’t exactly the type to be holding down a nine-to-five job.
“Anything?” he murmured to Ty when they came back for new trays of drinks, and the half angel shook his head.
“I haven’t seen him. And even though the water’s energy is playing with my senses a little, I still haven’t gotten the feeling that any of the people in here are anything more than regular human beings. If there are demons around, they’re not in this room.”
Caleb had come to that same conclusion.
Had this whole thing turned out to be a colossal waste of time?
Just as he was about to pick up yet another tray, Prudence appeared out of the blue and murmured, “Sellers and his buddies are downstairs on the lower deck. They’ve convened in a private room.”
Well, that didn’t sound sketchy at all.
“Do you know why?” he asked, and she shook her head.
“No, but I doubt it’s for anything good. We should go check it out.”
Caleb sent a quick glance around the cabin, but Ty was on the far side, which meant there was no way to go fetch him without looking far too obvious.
No, the half angel would have to keep up his waiter masquerade while Pru and Caleb headed down to the lower deck.
“Come on,” she whispered, then gestured for him to follow her.
The narrow stairs led down to a deck that the boat’s passengers probably were never meant to see. It was strictly utilitarian on this level, from the plain LED lights mounted on the wall to the brushed steel floor beneath their feet.
Not that Caleb cared. He wasn’t here to go sightseeing.
A rumble of voices came from a partially open door at the end of the hall. Why the people inside hadn’t closed it all the way, he didn’t know, although he assumed it was probably because everyone else had been told to stay far away.
