One Last Chance

“Well, well, that should make things easier.”

“Yeah.”

Chance hadn’t really heard a word of what Quisto said, he was too intent on watching the vision in red and white until she disappeared down the hall he’d seen earlier. Just before she went out of sight, he saw two tuxedo-clad men close in behind her.

He was on his feet before he even realized he’d made the decision. His eyes were fastened on the hallway as he muttered to Quisto that he was going to check it out, so he didn’t see the gleam that came into his partner’s eyes.

“You do that,” Quisto said, a smile quirking his mouth as he watched Chance’s progress. The men gave way before his broad-shouldered approach; the women, as usual, were slower to move, as if hoping he would decide to stop. And as usual, it was as if Chance never even saw them.

Except, Quisto thought speculatively, for the lady with the big eyes and the bigger voice. He’d certainly seen her. And had reacted more than he had to anyone in all the time Quisto had known him. His eyes were still fastened on the dimly lit hallway as the tall figure in the black-and-tan sweater went out of sight.

Chance never made it to the first door in the narrow hall. He wasn’t sure if the two men who seemed to appear out of nowhere were the same two who had followed her or not. All of the formally dressed attendants seemed to be about the same size. Fifty-two extra-brawny, he thought wryly. At two inches over six feet and a solid two hundred pounds he was hardly tiny, but these guys made him feel inferior.

“Sorry, sir,” one of the bow-tied walls said with impeccable politeness, “no guests allowed beyond this point.”

“Oh?” Chance tried to look surprised; actually he hadn’t expected to get this far. Meanwhile, his eyes were scouring the hallway, noting each door and the barely visible stairway at the end.

“No, sir.” They were closing in, subtly urging him back toward the crowded main room.

“Wait,” he said, grasping at a reason he told himself was only a cover. “I just wanted to see the lady, tell her how much I enjoyed her singing.”

“Visitors aren’t allowed, sir.”

“But I only wanted to see her—”

“She sees no one, sir.”

“No one?”

“No one.”

Chance shrugged, as if he were nothing more than a frustrated fan. “I guess I’ll just wait until she’s done, then.”

“I wouldn’t bother, sir. She won’t see you then, either.”

This was starting to irritate him. “Oh? Why not?”

“She sees no one, sir,” the left bookend repeated. “Boss’s orders.”

Something cold crept down Chance’s spine. “The boss?”

“Mr. de Cortez.”

“Does he own her, or what?” The chill had settled into a frosty knot in the pit of his stomach.

“You might say that. He’s put her…shall we say, off-limits?”

The “sir,” Chance noticed, was gone.

“I’d say that’s for her to decide, isn’t it?”

“She does,” the right bookend said warningly, “what Mr. de Cortez tells her to do.”

That cold lump shifted, changed, spreading out with creeping tentacles, making him fight off a wave of nausea. That lovely vision with the huge eyes and the voice that could melt the most frozen of souls was involved with slime like Mendez?

Get real, Buckner, he told himself fiercely. After all these years, you should know that the most innocent, most beautiful of exteriors often hides the darkest of hearts.

“I suggest you return to your table.”

Suggest? Chance almost laughed. He would have, if he hadn’t been reasonably certain it would get his arm broken. Realizing that any normal patron would have disappeared long ago, he shrugged and managed a careless grin.

“Can’t blame a guy for trying, can you?”

The bookends relaxed a little. “No, sir.”

“You guys here every night?” he asked in a joking tone.

“Yes, sir. Every night.”

With an exaggerated sigh of surrender, Chance shrugged again. Then he turned and walked casually back into the room, wandering here and there, looking around, until the two wardens apparently decided he was harmless, and disappeared. Only then did he go back to the table.

“So,” Quisto said as he sat down, “what’s her name?”

“I was checking the hallway,” Chance answered in automatic protest.

“Sure. What’s her name?”

Chance’s mouth twisted in a wry grin. “I never got that far. Two of the those tuxedoed linebackers stopped me.”

Quisto’s brow furrowed. “They hit you or something? You look a little green.”

“No.” It was short, clipped. He wasn’t about to admit that the thought of the woman who had haunted him for days being connected—intimately—with someone like Mendez made him sick.

“So what’s the story? Why’d they stop you?”

He took in a steadying breath. “I gather she’s…private property.”

Quisto’s brows shot up. “Oh? De Cortez?”

“So it seems.”

Chance could almost see Quisto’s quick brain working, reassessing, placing the vibrant gray-eyed woman in a new niche. A niche that was on the wrong side of the line that he had been walking for the past two years, and Chance for four. Four years that seemed like four centuries.

“A shame,” Quisto said quietly.

“Yeah.” There was a world of bitterness in the single syllable, and Quisto stared at him.

“Chance—”