Page 45 of Drowning in the Deep
“He’s not that big. Maybe we can shove him in a closet,” Vin suggested, both of us whispering to keep Emily, or anyone else, from hearing.
“We can’t risk that. We’ll have to find a place to stash him away from the kitchen,” I told him. “I’m almost done.”
“It’s not my fault the dumbass wandered in here,” he said defensively.
Continuing to spray the glasses, I said, “I didn’t say it was. Just don’t let it happen again.”
Vin mumbled under his breath something about how this wouldn’t have happened if I’d let him have a drink. I decided it was best not to argue with him and finished spraying the last of the glasses. Satisfied that everyone who drank from these glasses would meet their demise, I put the remaining liquid back into my pocket and removed my gloves.
Now, it was time to take care of our new friend, an obstacle we hadn’t foreseen but needed to figure out how to handle.
“You grab the corpse, and I’ll check the hallway,” I suggested. We’d passed the kitchen on the way to this room where all of the dishes were laid out, and I’d seen that most of the staff was working on setting up serving dishes in an adjoining room. If they were distracted enough, we might be able to carry him out the front door and hide him somewhere in the foliage out front.
Quietly, I opened the door and stuck my head out. Down the hall, I saw a woman in a chef’s outfit with her arms folded. “Where the fuck is Nelson?” she was barking. “I told him to get those flutes five minutes ago.”
“He’s probably out back smoking,” another woman I couldn’t see answered.
We weren’t going to be able to go that way. Looking down the hall, I saw a narrow flight of stairs I assumed had to be the servants’ staircase. We’d have to go up.
“All right,” I said to Vin, poking my head back into the room. “The coast is clear to go to the right and up the stairs.”
“Up the stairs?” he repeated. He was standing there with the slight waiter’s body thrown over his shoulder. “Jesus Christ.”
“It’s the only way.” I shrugged, and he nodded. When I turned back around, I saw no one and gestured for him to go.
Vin took off out the door, to the right, to the stairs, and I followed, dodging around him to get in a position where I could see what was going on before he got to the top of the stairs. When I reached the second floor, I almost ran head-first into one of Viktor’s men.
“Peter!” I said loudly enough for Vin to hear me. I heard his steps stop abruptly behind me. “What are you doing using the servants’ staircase?”
“Hello, Daemon,” he said in a voice that made me think he wasn’t too happy to see me there. “Just heading back to the reception.”
“Oh, well, you should go that way,” I suggested to him. “The waiters are getting the food ready to serve. It’s a mess down there. By the way, where the fuck’s the bathroom in this place? I think I’m lost.”
He raised an eyebrow but pointed at a door down the hall. Below us, there was a sound of dishes clattering and a voice I now recognized as Emily shouting at someone. This served to prove my point, so Peter turned and headed down the hallway toward the main staircase.
It seemed like going toward the main stairwell was a bad idea, so as soon as Peter was gone, I looked down the hallway to my left, the opposite of the way he’d gone, and saw that it was clear. “Come on,” I whispered to Vin, taking off as quickly as possible.
I tried a door, but it was locked, so I hustled down the hall, taking a right, praying we could find a fucking closet. Ahead of me, I saw a woman I recognized as the wife of one of the capos. She straightened her skirt and pulled her sweater tight around her. “Hello, Nancy,” I said as I heard Vin slide to a stop. “You look lovely this evening.”
“Daemon,” she said with a curt nod. “What are you up to?”
“Just looking for Viktor,” I lied. “You headed back to the reception?”
“That’s right.”
I heard scrambling behind me and hoped Vin had ducked down another hallway. The woman squeezed past me, and I watched her go. A moment later, Vin ducked out from another hallway down the way.
“Fucking A,” he muttered. Nelson’s feet flopped over his shoulder as if to agree.
I saw a row of doors ahead of us and decided to head that way. There were some hallways off to the side as well, in case someone else came our way.
We didn’t make it far at all before I accidentally got my wish. Viktor walked out of a room, his head down, just as we passed a narrow hallway. I pushed Vin down it quickly as Viktor looked up. “Oh, Daemon. What are you doing up here?”
“Looking for you,” I lied. “I wanted to congratulate you on your daughter’s wedding.”
Viktor’s expression softened. “That’s kind of you, thank you. Listen, I want you to know there’s no bad blood between us, as far as I’m concerned. I just went along with your mother because your father and I went way back, and it seemed like the right thing to do. There’s no black mark against you with me.”
I listened to his words and kept smiling, but I wanted to punch him in the face. That was bullshit obviously. “Thank you for that,” I said. “Good to hear.”
