Guild Boss (Ghost Hunters #14)(20)

“Maybe.”

“If we stumble into whatever scared them off the planet, we don’t have the option of bailing. We’re stuck here on Harmony until we get back into space, and that’s a long time off. We have to survive here. The Guilds are the only organizations that can provide security down below, and—”

He broke off because Lucy was smiling. Her eyes were lit with genuine amusement.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I tend to get carried away when it comes to that particular subject.”

“It’s all right. I like people who have a passion. I find them interesting.”

“Interesting?” he repeated cautiously.

“Yes. At least for a while.”

He winced. “Good to know.”

“So what you’re saying is that you defied your family to take up a career as a Guild man, and in order to prove yourself, you focused on getting to the top.”

“That sounds a bit simplistic, but it’s accurate.”

“There’s one bit you left out, and that’s the part that makes you interesting.”

“What?” he asked.

“I’m beginning to realize that, deep down, you’re a romantic at heart.”

“What the hell makes you say that?”

“You joined the Guild because you want to help save the world,” she said. “That kind of passion is very romantic.”

He came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the floor. “That’s ridiculous.”

She ignored him. “I should probably go find Otis. The fact that he has disappeared is not a good sign.”

“Don’t worry about him,” Gabriel said. “Otis will be fine. Everyone thinks he’s adorable, remember?”

Unlike, say, me.

Lucy hesitated. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to leave him on his own for too long, not in a casino. There’s a lot of glitter and sparkle in the vicinity.”

“He can take care of himself.”

“That’s what worries me.”

“Relax.” Gabriel eased her back into the slow dance.

She allowed him to chart a course through the crowd, but he knew he had lost her attention. She was looking around, searching for Otis. He was losing out to a dust bunny. Time to change the conversation.

“We’re probably going to find ourselves on the front page of the Curtain tomorrow morning,” he warned. “Again.”

Lucy immediately switched her attention back to him.

“I suppose so,” she said. “But at least this time I’ll be upright. I won’t look like I fainted in your arms.”

“You didn’t faint. You were exhausted and dizzy because of the hallucinations.”

“Right.” She studied him with her intense eyes. “What, exactly, did I tell you that night while we were walking out of the Underworld?”

It was his turn to hesitate. He really, really did not want to get into another discussion about whether or not she had been hallucinating. He doubted it would end well. But refusing to answer her question wasn’t an option.

“The same story you repeated this afternoon,” he said. “You were convinced that you’d been kidnapped and drugged by some guys who looked like ex-Guild, but you didn’t know why. You escaped, but you were trapped in the tunnels.”

“Right,” Lucy said. “That’s exactly how I remember it. At least my story is consistent. Sometimes in the mornings when I wake up from another bad dream, I wonder if I really did hallucinate everything. But then I see the pendant on the table beside my bed and I tell myself that my memories are accurate.”

He decided not to remind her that the authorities and her own private investigator had failed to find any evidence to support her recollection of the episode. The last thing he wanted to do was imply yet again that he doubted her story.

A thought struck him, though.

“After you recovered, you must have talked to some of your friends who were at that wedding reception with you,” he said. “What did they tell you?”

“They remembered that I left the wedding reception because I wasn’t feeling well. One of the hotel staff escorted me out to a cab.”

“Is that what you remember?”

“Yes. Most cabdrivers from outside the DZ can’t find an address in my neighborhood. I tried to give him directions, but he ignored me. Sure enough, he took a wrong turn. I tried to correct him, but he paid no attention. By then I was hallucinating wildly, so I thought I might have made a mistake. I tried to talk to him.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No, the cabdriver never said a word. He took another turn that I was sure was wrong. I tried to get out of the cab at a stoplight. The doors were locked. I decided to climb into the front seat. I think I had some notion of getting control of the car. But a thick plastic shield slid into place. I remember banging on it.”

“The driver took you to the Storm Zone?”

“That’s right. The cab stopped in the parking lot near the Storm Zone Adventure Tours office. There was no one around at that hour of the night. You can’t run tours after dark. Too much energy. There was a big SUV waiting. The cabdriver opened my door. I got out and saw some men coming toward me. I made a run for it. I was really out of it by then but I thought if I could make it into the Dead City, I might be able to hide. I can handle the energy inside. A lot of people can’t.”