Page 9 of Deadly Misfortunes

With great humility, he’d had to send his trusted driver to her apartment with the bribe money to get her to turn up when he’d promised his guests she would be at his house. Though he’d sent extra cash in case she couldn’t be enticed, he knew that increasing the fee that Prescott had paid her would reel her right in. Money. That’s what she lived for.

The secret concerning her family needed to be unraveled, too. He loved a mystery, and he would find out sooner or later what she was all about. Not for a second did he believe she had any special powers that would help him figure out who wanted him dead though.

He punched in the number to Raymond’s cell phone to find out when they were arriving. He knew they would be, yet what if she had stubbornly refused?

“Hello, Mr. Landry. We’re on our way to your estate this very minute, sir.”

Satisfied, Gregory smiled. “Okay. So what did I have to pay her?”

“The whole thing.”

He groaned. Not that he couldn’t afford the extra cash, but he really didn’t think it would go that far. Raymond had always been one to be trusted. He couldn’t believe Sascha had turned down the fifteen hundred. Since Gregory could talk in private to Raymond with the limousine’s glass window rolled up between the driver and the passengers’ seats, Gregory asked, “What happened?”

“The lady said she was busy.”

“Painting her nails?”

“She’d been reading a—well, it looked like some kind of wolf-shifter romance book. You know the kind, one with some great-looking guy and gal and a big gray wolf on the cover.”

Hopeless romantic. Gregory shook his head. “She wouldn’t even take fifteen hundred?”

“She wished to thank you for your generosity. That’s all, but she wasn’t free tonight.”

“Thanks for changing her mind.” Or at least his money had. “I’ll have to have her work longer to make up for the extra cash.”

“That ought to work, sir.”

“See you in twenty minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

Gregory hung up his phone. Was he crazy? He told himself he wanted to find out what was going on with the gypsy family. There was nothing more to it than that. But to pay three thousand dollars for her parlor tricks? He sighed. Even the two private investigators hadn’t turned up anything that he had wanted to know about the family.

Sascha definitely had to earn her pay, as far as he was concerned.

He glanced at the guests he’d invited to the impromptu affair. Not one held his interest. Sascha had bewitched him thoroughly. All he could think of was dancing with her close to a waltz like Camden had done. The idea instantly sent a surge of adrenaline straight to his boxer briefs.

Trying to take his mind off the redhead and the time, he talked with a friend of the family. Tall and blonde, Stephanie didn’t interest him. She was well-to-do based on her daddy’s money and was snarky. He glanced at his watch, and Stephanie smiled at him. “Sorry, Gregory. Your mind seems to be somewhere else this evening.”

“Yeah, Stephanie. Sorry. I hired an entertainer for tonight, but she hasn’t arrived yet.”

“Well, you know how people like that are. They get popular and think they can get these gigs no matter how much they charge or how inconsiderate they are. So who is she? A singer?”

“No, a dancer and fortune teller.”

Stephanie’s mouth dropped wide open. “Katrina Landry?” Her voice was tinged with hatred.

He raised a brow. “You know her?”

“She’s coming here?”

He’d never seen Stephanie so incensed. Her cheeks grew red as her blue eyes steamed. “No, her cousin, Sascha Lassiter.”

Stephanie’s face turned as white as a passing cloud; then she shook her head. “Stay clear of that family, or you’re asking for trouble.”

Before he could ask her what she meant, she turned on her stiletto heels and stormed off. He glanced down at his watch. Jeez. They were already twenty minutes past due. What was taking them so long?

He dialed Raymond’s number, but no one answered. Immediately, he knew something was terribly wrong. It shouldn’t have taken them longer than twenty minutes. If they’d encountered trouble, Raymond would have called him immediately.