The Keepers Story 01 - The Gatekeeper

werewolf,” he said with a shrug. “Or a person. It’s not as if vicious serial killers can’t be human.”
    “So what will you have?” she asked, apparently deciding not to pursue the topic of his intentions.
    “I think I’ll stick with the theme. A good Irish beer, please.”
    She left to get his beer, and his eyes idly tracked her journey back to the bar. He noticed that there was a platform in front of the selkie statue, and as he watched, one of the servers climbed up and took her place on it. Traditional Irish music started playing, and she began to dance, her feet moving with skill and speed to rival the best performer back on Irish soil.
    The waitress returned with his beer.
    “She’s good,” he said, nodding toward the dancer.
    “Yes—we don’t get hired if we can’t perform.”
    “What’s your specialty?”
    “I’m a vocalist,” she said.
    “This is where that singer used to work,” Saxon said, keeping his tone casual.
    “What singer?”
    “The one who disappeared.”
    His waitress shrugged. “Girls come and go in Vegas. You get a better offer, you move on.”
    She started to turn away, but he grabbed her wrist to stop her. “This girl didn’t get a better offer. She disappeared.”
    She tried to wrench herself away from him. Without blinking, he made a vise of his hand.
    “Damn Elven,” she muttered.
    “You don’t need to fear the Elven. You do need to fear your boss.”
    “Let go of me. They’ll notice, and I’ll get in trou—”
    “Then smile and act like you’re flirting with me.”
    She smiled, and he kept his eyes locked with hers, so she didn’t give the cameras a guilty look.
    “Did you know her? Angela Sanderson?” he asked. She was obviously frightened, her eyes widening in shock, but she didn’t say anything. “You did know her,” he said.
    She leaned close to him and laughed, as if he’d said something funny. “I replaced her,” she said, swallowing. “They said she wasn’t coming back. But that was before I knew...”
    “Before you knew that she’d disappeared.”
    She looked even more terrified, if that was possible. “I have to go,” she insisted, trying to pull away again.
    This time he released her. When she was gone, he drank his beer, then headed for the craps tables.
    He spotted Jimmy Taylor at one and took a spot at the other end. He bought in for several hundred, aware that Taylor was staring at him angrily. He ignored the other man and laid money down on the pass line.
    A man at the middle of the table was rolling. “Lucky seven, lucky seven!”
    The dice landed on four and three. The players applauded.
    Jimmy Taylor continued to ignore Saxon as the run continued. The same man rolled an eight next, and more money landed on the table. He hit several more numbers, and then an eight again. The table cheered. There was money everywhere.
    But Taylor didn’t seem happy. And when the roller came up with another seven, Taylor actually looked relieved, though sighs went up elsewhere around the table, along with some applause for the shooter, who’d made a lot of money for most of them.
    Taylor went to cash in. Saxon held his ground, putting down his money while the next shooter started. On a whim, he played a nice sum on craps. The shooter hit an eleven, and Saxon realized he was coming out ahead, a nice plus for his investigation.
    He watched as Jimmy collected his money and headed toward the bar. He waited through the next roll, then cashed in himself and headed back to the Tralee.
    There was Jimmy Taylor, his hands rough on a young waitress’s shoulders. Saxon was tempted to step in, but he reminded himself that he was playing for higher stakes. And he knew Jimmy wasn’t going to hurt the girl anyway—not in public, and not in one of Carl Bailey’s establishments.
    He followed when Jimmy left the bar. He thought at first that the guy was going to head upstairs, which could prove tricky. Carl’s men would be on him like an infestation of lice if he tried to go up to the rooms.
    But either Taylor didn’t know he was being followed or he didn’t care. Either way, he apparently had a destination in mind. Or maybe—Saxon warned himself—a plan.
    Taylor headed out to the streets. Saxon followed him down the neon strip, until he took a sudden turn into a back alley. Okay, so a plan it was.
    It occurred to Saxon long before he entered the obvious trap that he would need some help, which was easy enough to arrange. It was good to be a