It was nice to get out of the house, even though this wouldn’t have been my first choice. We hadn’t been out as a group in ages. Summer and fall had kept us busy with cases. Any downtime we had was spent helping Wyatt with side jobs—usually research, paperwork, or reviewing hours of surveillance video. Shepherd had taken Hunter to visit with the children in Sambah’s pride, and that made Viktor happy. Not because Hunter needed friends, but Viktor liked creating good rapport with important people in the community, and Sambah was one of those people. He had helped us recently by taking in displaced children so they didn’t have to be separated.
I frowned when I noticed people eating finger food from napkins. “How come they never serve real food at these parties? I don’t mean snacks on platters but a three-course meal. They could hire a caterer and serve dinner.”
Christian stretched his arms across the back of the sofa. “It puts pressure on immortals to conform to a behavior that not all of us subscribe to. If you want to give your reputation a good thrashing, put a plate of ribs in front of a hundred Vampires.”
“Maybe you should put on your big-boy pants and eat up. Not everyone is a Vampire. Some of us are hungry.”
“Perhaps you should have eaten before we left.”
“Then I wouldn’t have been able to fit in my dress.”
When Lenore and Viktor came into view, arm in arm, we both fell silent. Viktor had been seeing Lenore these past months, and we weren’t certain how serious it was between them. He didn’t discuss his personal affairs, and we didn’t pry. While I was tempted to ask Christian his thoughts about their matching outfits, it wouldn’t be prudent to discuss Viktor’s love life when Lenore could hear everything.
I glanced up at the net of lights someone had painstakingly strung across the tall ceiling.
“Viktor’s giving us the look,” Christian said, uncrossing his legs.
I knew what look he was referring to. Viktor didn’t attend these parties for fun; he made connections. He didn’t want us to squander the opportunity by tucking ourselves away in a corner all night, drinking up the liquor.
Christian claimed me with a smoldering look that could have set the house on fire, and my heart fluttered when he kissed my shoulder. With a wink, he swaggered off to mingle.
All the waiters were easy to identify in their sparkling blue suits and white gloves. I flagged one down when he walked by with a food tray. “What is that?”
“Caviar.”
“No, the other stuff.”
“Scallops with gold leaf.”
I leaned over to sniff it. “People eat gold? Don’t you have any pigs in a blanket or macaroons?”
The pretentious Vampire lifted his chin and walked away.
I decided to give myself a private tour. Two side rooms connected to the massive foyer. In one, the string band inspired couples to dance. A throng of cigar-smoking aristocrats made the other room impossible to enter, so I didn’t bother. I cut through the center of the house, passing socialites who looked every bit as stiff as the statues. Gilded paintings hung on the walls even though landscape art didn’t match the winter theme. Why the hell would anyone want to live in a museum? Immortals were nothing but hoarders. The idea made me laugh. Lenore collected masterpieces; I collected mementos from my jobs like a thieving raven.
Waiters were constantly on the move in an eloquent dance. They entered from a long hallway in the back, which I presumed led to the kitchen. Veering right, I passed a few closed rooms before entering one that was empty with large windows overlooking a sunroom.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” Shepherd said, sitting furtively in a wingback chair against the wall.
When I got a gander of his white suit, I grinned. Unlike Claude and Christian, he didn’t have on a tie or kerchief. The first few buttons of his white dress shirt were sloppily undone. “You look like a South American drug lord.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He took a long drag from his cigarette, the orange tip glowing in the shadows. “Did you bring me any snails?”
I stared into the oval mirror behind him at my burgundy lips and black eyeliner. “I don’t know why rich people eat that shit.”
He chuckled. “It’s not half bad. What are you doing in here?”
I strode to the desk in the center of the room and sat on it. “Snooping, I guess. What about you?”
“Smoke break. I couldn’t light up in the car, and it’s too damn cold to stand outside.”
Shepherd usually took on the role of security when we went to social functions. The only people who loved these lavish events were Gem and Claude. Wyatt just came for the booze and women.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“About what?”
Shepherd pointed to a painting of Lenore on the wall to my left. “Those two.”
