Kicking It(77)

He smiled at me over his shoulder and finally wrapped a sheet around himself towel style and went to check out my bribes. Maybe not the delicacies he’d been offered up on Mount Olympus, but pretty darn near the best L.A. had to offer.

He grabbed an espresso and both of the chocolate croissants and came back to bed. “I hope one of those is for me,” I told him.

“What do you have to trade?” he asked suggestively.

I growled and rose to help myself to one of the tiny cherry pies instead, biting it in half like it was his head. He laughed.

“Here,” he said, holding a croissant out to me. “I can’t stand to see you commit pastrycide.”

I bit into one of the croissants, closed my eyes in delight, and nearly sank into the bed, which was every bit as comfortable as I remembered. Hopefully, the sugar rush would hit soon and make up for my lack of sleep.

A pillow hit me upside the head, careful not to crush my croissant. “None of that,” Apollo said when I glared. “If anything’s going to pleasure you to sleep, it’s going to be me. Now spill. What’s going on that’s so important you had to beard the lion in his den?”

The lion’s den? Come to think of it, with that wild mane of golden hair, his tawny skin, and broad chest, it was an apt comparison.

I told him about Gareth, The Parlor, the invitation-only games, and the disappearances. Then I told him about Ariana Weaver. He got more and more thoughtful as the tale went on.

When I finished, he didn’t say a word, and I finally asked, “What?”

“I think you should drop the case. If it had anything to do with my dream . . .”

“Tell me about it,” I said gently.

“I saw fangs. You paralyzed, being sucked dry . . .” The haunted look was back in his eyes.

“Vampires?” I asked doubtfully. I thought about Ariana Weaver—dark glasses, dark clothing, a club that meant she’d be active at night and probably asleep by day . . . But I just couldn’t buy it. For one thing, she’d been captured on film. “Do vampires really exist?”

Apollo shrugged and the sheet he’d wrapped around his hips began to slip. “Depends on your definition. There are certainly things that go bump in the night. Some like the taste of blood. But I’m not sure that’s it. There was something . . . different . . .”

“Different how?” I prompted.

“Maybe if you’d let the dream play out . . .”

I stared down at the crumbs now decorating Apollo’s previously clean sheets. There was just no way to eat a croissant neatly. None. “So you’ll help me?” I asked.

He looked at me steadily. I could feel it even without meeting his gaze. “I’m trying, Tori. You told me to stay away, to give you and Nick a chance. I’m trying to honor that, but every time you pull me back in.”

“I know,” I said quietly, “but—”

“Have you tried calling the police? Having the wife file a missing person’s report?”

“Didn’t do any good the last time, fifteen years ago . . . if that was the last time. The men were never found.” Gareth wouldn’t be, either, not unless we found him. I felt it in my bones. “Will you help?” I repeated.

I looked up at last, and saw Apollo swipe a hand down his face. “You know I will. If the alternative is that dream coming true . . . I’ll help. But, Tori, you’ll owe me.”

That was the problem with gods, and what kept me from giving in to whatever was between me and Apollo. With gods, everything came with a cost. But in the balance of a man’s life versus complications for me, I knew which way the pendulum had to swing.

—

Since I couldn’t think of any good way to break into The Parlor during the day without getting caught, it seemed safe enough to call Detective Armani—Nick—and fill him in, just in case we were about to get in the middle of a police investigation or some such. He confirmed that Gareth hadn’t been missing long enough to officially launch an investigation and also unofficially confided that The Parlor had been named as a “last known” location in other cases that had led nowhere. I was ordered to be careful. And, if possible, to hang on to my waitressing outfit, because “That I have to see.”

Men. What was it about boots and booty shorts?

I promised, thinking of all the fun that would come after.

Then I had the day ahead of me to plan, to obsess and worry over my missing scientist. I had to hope that whatever was happening was on pause for the day, which I spent finding creative ways to hide lock picks, pepper spray, and an actual stiletto in the limited amount of fabric my costume provided. By nightfall I was as ready as I was ever going to be. Apollo had gotten himself invited into a game, and we had arranged for him to text or call me, his needy girlfriend, periodically to let me know what he’d learned.