Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
“Why Aaron?” Prudence asked. “What’s so special about the guy?”
Caleb wanted to reply, Nothing much, but he knew that wasn’t entirely accurate.
It seemed the guy made a great servant for demons, whatever else his other shortcomings might be.
The three of them were sitting in the living room of a suite they’d rented at Harrah’s, which happened to be the hotel whose beach was the spot where they’d scrambled ashore.
Luckily, Caleb had transferred his wallet to his borrowed pants, so it wasn’t as if he didn’t have his credit cards with him.
Maybe the front desk clerk had looked sideways at their dripping clothes, but no one was going to argue too much when you were willing to spend five grand a night for a hotel room.
This one had two bedrooms and a large sitting area in between. Although Caleb wasn’t totally thrilled to be sharing a bedroom with Ty, it just made sense that they would take the room with two queen beds rather than the one with the king, so Pru could have her own space.
And now that they’d all changed into the shorts and T-shirts and other items they’d scrounged at the surprisingly well-stocked store by the lobby, they could really sit down and plan what they should do next.
“So….” Prudence began, then paused. With most of her makeup erased by her dip in the river and her dark green hair pulled back into a scrunchie she’d also bought in the shop in the lobby, she looked about thirteen years old, like she was having a sleepover at a friend’s house rather than crashing in a cushy suite with a couple of not-quite-human guys.
“August Sellers was messing with Aaron because he’s a vessel? ”
“Yes,” Ty replied. “The inherent weakness in his nature makes him the perfect servant for a demon…or someone being controlled by a demon.” He glanced over at Caleb, who was sipping from a glass of water and thinking he should have ordered a six-pack from room service.
“Did you get a clear idea of what exactly August is?”
Caleb leaned forward and set the glass down on the coffee table.
Since the table appeared to be made of plastic or some kind of composite, he wasn’t going to worry about a coaster.
“Not really,” he said. “Things happened pretty fast, and the whole time, he was just far enough away from me that I couldn’t get a good read on the guy.
But since he managed to chuck a fireball at us as we were running up the stairs, I’m pretty sure he must be a real demon, not just someone who’s possessed.
The guys he had working for him didn’t seem to be demons, though, so I suppose that’s something. ”
Ty steepled his fingers and pressed them against his chin. He looked positively Spock-like in that moment, and Caleb repressed a smile.
“Why do that to Aaron, though?” Pru asked. “What’s Sellers’ endgame?”
“Demons always like to have servants,” Ty replied.
“In this case, though, I think August Sellers — or whatever is pretending to be him, more to the point — wants to subvert Aaron precisely because his family is connected to the river. I’m still not sure what Sellers’ ultimate goal is, but the more servants he has to help him reach it, the better. ”
“Sounds like I need to do a little more research,” she said, and got up from the club chair where she’d been sitting so she could fetch the satchel that carried her laptop and other essentials.
Since all those items had been left behind in their cars, it had been easy enough to move the vehicles over here once they were checked into Harrah’s.
Or rather, even though Caleb had been utterly on edge as they hurried over to the parking lot at the Aquarius to retrieve his Range Rover and Delia’s Hyundai SUV, no one seemed to have paid them any attention.
If August Sellers had been actively looking for them, he must not have thought they’d have the brass balls to sneak onto his hotel’s property and drive off in the cars they’d left behind.
MacBook Pro in hand, Pru returned to her seat and opened the laptop’s lid. A burst of quick typing, and she said, “Found something on the boat fire. Sounds like the local fire department is attributing the issue to an electrical problem that sparked a fire on the lower deck.”
“Well, I suppose that’s one way to explain away a couple of fireballs,” Caleb said with a grin.
Her mouth quirked as well. “They had to come up with something plausible, I guess. Anyway, the people at the fire department were able to have the boat towed back to the dock, and everyone got off okay.”
Including Sellers and his new lackey, Aaron Sanchez, Caleb supposed. Demons were usually pretty good at landing on their feet.
Still, he was glad to know that none of the ordinary people on the boat had been hurt. He had no idea why they’d been on the guest list, but he had a feeling they were mostly innocent bystanders.
“People rarely want to see what’s right in front of their faces,” Ty remarked. “What about August Sellers?”
Pru began typing again. “Looks like he started working at the Aquarius about three years ago.” Her eyes narrowed, and she typed a little more.
“He went to UNLV and got a master’s in business administration.
After he graduated — more than twenty years ago now — he worked at various casinos in Las Vegas and Reno before he got the job at the Aquarius.
” She looked up from the computer, something in her expression almost defeated.
“It seems like a pretty normal resume to me.”
“Well, it would,” Caleb said. “If Sellers is like Robert Hendricks, then he would have been a normal enough person before the demon took over.”
“And clearly, he hasn’t said or done anything to rouse anyone’s suspicions,” Ty added. “I’m sure the demon possessed him precisely because he was someone in a position of power here in Laughlin, a man who could come in very useful…especially if he avoided attracting any attention.”
Her fingers stilled on the keyboard, and she seemed almost restless, as if she wished she could be doing something else but wasn’t sure what.
“I could try digging some more,” she said, although she was already frowning.
“Except I don’t really want to try anything like that when I don’t have access to a secure connection.
I’m using my phone as a hotspot, since I obviously don’t want to be connected to the hotel’s wi-fi, but I don’t think that’s secure enough, either.
The last thing I want is to set off some alarms that would let August Sellers know we’re looking into him. ”
Caleb hadn’t even thought about that, but he’d be the first to admit that he wasn’t exactly a cybersecurity expert.
Whereas Pru had to delve into sensitive information all the time, and therefore she knew which precautions she needed to take.
However, a thought occurred to him.
“I can reach out to Jim Whitaker, the P.I. who helped me out during that whole Desert Paradise mess,” he said. “He was the one who figured out that Paul Reeves’ carpet cleaning business was just a front, so maybe he’ll be able to dig up something incriminating about August Sellers.”
Pru closed her laptop, looking resigned. “That’s probably a good idea. I don’t think I should be taking the risk right now. Yeah, I have a VPN installed on this computer, but it’s still not as secure as my setup at home.”
He had to believe she knew what she was talking about, so Caleb didn’t bother to try convincing her she should do some more research.
There weren’t any clocks in the sitting room, but Caleb noted as he got out his phone that it was almost nine-thirty.
Probably too late for a phone call, and he hoped Jim would be less inconvenienced by an email.
Typing it out on his phone felt way more laborious than sending a text, but eventually he had the thing written and then sent it. As he put his phone back in the pocket of his shorts, he said, “Okay, that’s taken care of. I doubt he’ll get back to me before tomorrow morning, though.”
“It’s fine,” Ty said. “There probably isn’t much else we can do tonight, anyway.
Besides, I doubt you’ll be able to find much.
Any demon given the charge of trying to subvert the river’s powers would be one with a good deal of power and self-control.
He isn’t the type who would let anyone around him know he wasn’t the same person he used to be. ”
And that meant they’d probably have a hard time trying to figure out exactly when the real August Sellers had disappeared and the demon currently inhabiting his body had taken over.
This just kept getting better and better.
They were all moodily silent for a moment, and then Pru sat up a little straighter, as if she’d decided there wasn’t much else they could do at the moment and they needed to focus on something that might actually be productive.
“Tomorrow we should probably do some real shopping over in Bullhead City as soon as the stores open,” Pru suggested. “The stuff we got downstairs will hold us over tonight, but if we’re going to be stuck here for a couple of days or even longer, then we’re going to need some real clothes.”
Caleb hated to waste his time on something so trivial, but he knew she was right. Driving back to Las Vegas and picking up some of their actual possessions would take far longer than just going across the river and seeing what they could find on the Arizona side of the Colorado.
A few hours ago, he wouldn’t have been so unconcerned about the prospect of crossing the river. Now, though, after getting actually dunked in the Colorado and living to tell the tale, he figured he could probably roll with whatever the river tried to throw at him.
“Let me check what’s there,” he said, and got his phone out again. Although he didn’t expect to find a Nordstrom or a Neiman Marcus or anything, he was still glad to see there was a Kohl’s. That was a few steps up from having to go to Target or Walmart.