I hit the brass rails hard and bounced off, landing on my ass. Suitcases tumbled off the cart and went flying in several directions, sliding across the stone floor like oversize shuffleboard disks. I started to scramble to my feet, but the giant bellman who’d been pushing the cart tripped over one of the larger suitcases and fell right on top of me, driving me back down to the floor.

   “Oof!”

   All the air rushed out of my lungs at the hard, bruising impact, and the bellman accidentally shoved his big, bony elbow right into my ribs, adding injury to injury. But I ignored the aches and pains, shoved the bellman off me, and staggered to my feet, my knife still in my hand. My head whipped left and right, scanning the lobby. Where was Tucker? All I needed was a dark, quiet spot and five minutes alone with him. . . .

   I’d taken only three steps forward when I realized that everyone in the lobby was staring at me. The guests relaxing by the fireplace, the folks examining the Christmas trees, the people looking at the treasure-hunt display case, all the costumed clerks, bellmen, and waitstaff. All conversation had abruptly ceased, and the only sound was the Christmas carols playing in the background. Fa-la-la-la-la . . .

   I stopped short and quickly slid my knife back up my sleeve before anyone noticed it. Then I forced myself to smile and sheepishly shrug my shoulders, silently apologizing for interrupting everyone’s holiday fun. Slowly, all the folks in the lobby returned to their drinks, conversations, and chores.

   I turned around, leaned down, and helped the fallen bellman to his feet. “Sorry about that. I just didn’t, ah, see you standing there.”

   The bellman looked at me like I was crazy, since it was really, really hard to miss a seven-foot giant dressed like a cowboy and pushing a luggage cart. He sidestepped me and started picking up the suitcases I’d scattered across the lobby.

   Owen rushed over to me, along with Finn and Bria.

   “Gin!” Owen said. “Are you all right?”

   “I’m fine,” I muttered, rubbing my sore ribs and looking around the lobby again.

   That group of businessmen and women were over by the elevators now, but Tucker wasn’t with them. I scanned the rocking chairs in front of the fireplace, the ones around the Christmas trees, and even the stools at the bar, but I didn’t spot the vampire anywhere. It was like Tucker had walked past me and then just vanished into thin air. The bastard was quick, but was he really that quick?

   “What was that about?” Finn asked.

   “I thought . . .” I started to tell him that I’d seen Tucker but changed my mind.

   No one had spotted the vamp besides me, and he wasn’t in the lobby now. Oh, my friends would believe me if I told them about Tucker, but now, I was starting to doubt myself. Given my admittedly suspicious and paranoid nature, not to mention my obsession with the Circle, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility to think that I’d just seen someone who looked like Tucker, instead of the man himself.

   “Gin?” Owen asked again, his face creasing with concern.

   “Sorry. Clumsy me, not watching where I was going.”

   I let out a brittle laugh, and Finn’s eyes narrowed. He realized that I wasn’t telling the truth. So did Owen and Bria. The three of them stared at me, waiting for me to fess up, but I remained silent.

   “Well, let’s go find this Ira person,” Finn finally said.

   “Sure,” I said. “Lead the way.”

   He gave me one more suspicious look, then put his arm around Bria’s shoulders again and headed back toward the hallway. Owen raised his eyebrows at me, but I shook my head, telling him that I didn’t want to talk about it.

   He held out his arm. I put mine through his, and together we walked out of the lobby. Still, right before we stepped into the hallway, I couldn’t help but look back over my shoulder, wondering where Hugh Tucker was.

   Or if he’d even been here to start with.

   * * *

   The hallway wrapped all the way around the perimeter of the hotel, with shops full of designer goods and gourmet restaurants branching off both sides of the wide stone corridor. Though it wasn’t even noon yet, dozens of people moved in and out of the shops and restaurants, so it took us the better part of fifteen minutes to navigate the crowds and reach the office in the far back corner.

   No one was in this remote part of the hotel, not so much as a janitor going about his daily duties, and everything was still and quiet. Way back here you couldn’t even hear the Christmas carols from the lobby sound system. A piece of paper with Ira Morris, Bullet Pointe resort manager scrawled across it in thick black ink was taped up to the door, along with a single string of white holiday lights that continuously flickered as though they were going to burn out at any second. A sad testament to just how far Ira Morris had fallen.

   “Wow, Deirdre really banished this guy, didn’t she?” Bria said. “I don’t think you could get any farther from the lobby and still be in the same building.”

   “Oh, I’m sure if there was a basement, Deirdre would have kicked him all the way down there,” I said.

   Finn gave us a warning look and knocked on the door.

   “Come in,” a low, gravelly voice called out.

   Finn opened the door, and the four of us stepped inside. Unlike Roxy’s lavish office, this was a small, cramped space, barely big enough for the rickety metal desk and two mismatched chairs squatting in front of it. Gray metal filing cabinets lined two of the walls, the drawers on each one partially open, since they couldn’t possibly contain all the reams of paper that had been haphazardly stuffed inside them. Still more sheets were stacked on top of all the filing cabinets, curving upward like flimsy spiral staircases. The air even smelled like paper, old, dry, and slightly musty, but it wasn’t an unpleasant aroma. It reminded me of Fletcher’s office back before I’d started cleaning it out.

   Where the furniture and paper mess stopped, the photos began. Color shots, black-and-white portraits, even some old tintypes, covered all the available space on the walls, the frames crammed in next to each other like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. All the photos showed some aspect of Bullet Pointe. The sun setting behind the hotel roof. The lights of the carousels and other theme-park rides flashing at night. People eating funnel cakes and playing carnival games.