“And a list of alternate necromancers, I presume?”

“I—uh—” I inhaled. “I’m sorry. I know you said to trust you, and I really tried…”

A smile tickled his lips. “But gave up somewhere between Sid Vicious and the private strip show. Either of which, understandably, would strain the bounds of the deepest trust.”

“Actually, it was after the striptease.”

His smile broadened. “Ah, well, in that case, you outlasted any reasonable expectation of faith. I’m flattered. Thank you.”

“Still, I should have listened to you. You were right. Jaime did just fine.”

“She is very good, though sometimes I think she’d prefer otherwise. Have you ever heard of Molly O’Casey?”

“Of course. Top-notch necro. Died a few years back, didn’t she?”

Lucas nodded. “She was Jaime’s paternal grandmother. Vegas is Jaime’s stage name.”

“I thought it might be. She doesn’t look Hispanic.”

“She isn’t. Her mother chose the name when she started Jaime in show business, as a child. As Jaime tells it, her mother was a flaming racist, and had no idea Vegas was Spanish. To her, ‘Vegas’ meant ‘Las Vegas,’ a good omen for a child with a stage career. Years later, when she found out the name’s origin, she almost had a heart attack. Demanded Jaime change it. But, by then, Jaime was eighteen, and could do as she liked. The more her mother hated the name, she more determined she was to keep it.”

“There’s a story there,” I said softly.

“Yes, I imagine there is.”

We sipped our coffee.

“I thought you were in Chicago,” said a voice above my head.

I turned to see Jaime pulling an empty chair from a table behind us. The trio at the table looked up in surprise, but she ignored them and clattered the chair down beside me, then dropped into it. She was wearing a silk wrapper and, I suspected, little else.

“Isn’t this romantic,” she said, snarling a yawn. “The happy couple, all brushed, scrubbed, and chipper.” She dropped her head onto the table. “Someone get me a coffee. Stat.”

Lucas swept a lock of her hair off his muffin plate, then gestured to the server, who stopped mid-order and hurried over with the pot. Jaime stayed facedown on the table.

“Is your, uh, guest joining us?” I asked Jaime.

She rolled onto her cheek to look up at me. “Guest?”

“The guy? From last night?”

“Guy?”

“The one you took back to your room.”

She lifted her head. “I took a—?” She groaned. “Oh, shit. Hold on. I’ll be right back.”

She stood, took three steps, then turned.

“Uh, Paige? Did I get aname?”

“Mark—no, Mike. Oh, wait. That was the blonde. Craig…or Greg. The music was pretty loud.”

She pressed her fingers to her temples. “It still is. Greg, then. I’ll mumble.”

She staggered across the atrium.

I turned to Lucas. “Interesting lady.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

Jaime got rid of her “guest,” and joined us for the rest of her coffee, then went back to her room for more sleep. She had a show in Orlando that night, so, in case we didn’t see her again, we thanked her for her help.

Lucas unpacked while I phoned Robert about the “Nasha” connection. After four rings, the machine picked up.

“That’s probably one clue that’s not going to help us much anyway,” I said once I’d left a message. “I’d really hoped to get more from Dana.”

“She’s probably blocked what little she did see. We may want to shift our focus to ascertaining how the killer selected his victims.”

“Damn, of course. He obviously targeted runaways with Cabal parents, but how would he find out something like that? Maybe the parents had a connection, because of their shared circumstances. Like a support group. Do the Cabals offer stuff like that?”

“They do, but separately. They strongly discourage interaction with the employees of other Cabals.”

“What about therapists or social workers? Would they share them?”

Lucas shook his head. “What I believe we’re looking for is someone who has obtained access to employee files at the Cortez, Nast, and St. Cloud Cabals.”

I looked across the room at my laptop. “They’re all computerized, aren’t they? So someone hacked into the system…and I cannot believe I didn’t think of that.”

“You wouldn’t because you aren’t familiar with Cabal record-keeping procedures, and the amount of personal detail they keep. You won’t find many corporations who keep records of their staff’s personal situations. Nothing in a Cabal employee’s life is sacred. If someone’s mother-in-law has a gambling problem, the Cabal knows about it.”

“For leverage.”

“Not just leverage, but security. If that mother-in-law gets in trouble with a loan shark, her half-demon son-in-law may use his powers to permanently solve the problem. Likewise, a runaway Cabal child could be a potential security threat, so they keep track of them, and probably know more about their whereabouts than their parents do. As for hacking into the system, while it’s possible, Cabal security is top of the line.”

“Everyone thinks their security is top of the line,” I said. “Until someone like me slips in the back door.”