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she said miserably, then shot Kev a little look from under her long lashes that told me she had a major crush. “I’m sorry you had to see me like this.”
    He cleared his throat. “No biggie. We need to finish up busing the big room, then you need to show Allison where we keep the vacuums. I’ll get you an apron, Allison.”
    “ I know I shouldn’t let it get to me,” said Brittany to me. “Crap like this happens every night, sometimes worse. It’s just that we’re so stretched without Marisa right now that we all have to run around all night at double-speed. Kev keeps telling me I need to ‘grow a pair.’”
    “ They wouldn’t look good on you.” I followed her back out into the ballroom, tying my apron on and feeling like Wilma Flintstone.
    “ What wouldn’t?”
    “ A pair ,” I said.
    “ Oh, ha ha. Thanks. I wish Kev would notice that.” Who the heck cared about Kev? I was still tingling all over from my first glimpse of Eric Jaeger. And I was pretty sure he’d noticed me back...
    “ Who’s Marisa?” I asked Brittany casually. We started loading crockery onto the trays of a tall, multi-level square cart after scraping out the leftovers into various bins and containers. It was surprising how little the guests actually ate compared to how much they ordered.
    “ She’s another waitress… server, I mean. She totally flaked on us! That’s why we’re so short-staffed tonight. She went out to cater a hunting party yesterday—and never came back. All her stuff was still in her room in this morning, then before I came on shift, I saw Conrad packing it all up, and he said the Schreich told him she’d quit and wanted it FedEx’d to her. I’m really worried about her—she was my best friend here.”
    “ What was she like?”
    “ Quiet but intense, you know? You’d never guess she was from LA. Except for one weird thing about her; she never did anything without calling her psychic.”
    Ah, I guessed that was me. But why didn’t I have any memory of her except for that last call ? Could she have been a regular client of Bernice’s or one of the other operators? But she’d asked for me by name. It made no sense!
    “ You said ‘her room.’ Does that mean I get one, too?”
    “ Oh sure! I think. Don’t worry if Schreich hasn’t arranged anything for you yet; you can use hers. Or crash in mine if her door’s locked. Oh, look—this arugula salad’s almost totally untouched. Want some?”
    I didn’t, but I was so hungry by now that my tummy was rumbling almost as noisily as the dishwasher. Hey, nothing like being a vampire’s personal blood bank to help you work up an appetite. Well, one-time blood bank. These days, Sam was determined to fight the entity within her—by starving it of human blood.
    My human blood. Sigh. I get it, but...sigh.
    I said, “You eat the leftovers ?”
    She laughed. “No, silly. We eat the same meals the chefs prepare for themselves in the kitchen. Go ahead and just take whatever you want. She doesn’t know about it...”
    By ‘she,’ Brittany obviously meant Regina Jaeger. However, I definitely had the feeling that the woman I’d seen earlier knew pretty much everything that went on here.
    The three of us knocked off about one a.m. after cleaning up and vacuuming the floors. The regular cleaning crew would come in to mop and wax them overnight, I was told, before the ballroom opened again at six for breakfast. Our living quarters were in the Annex Chalet which was across the ‘Annex Getback’ and the ‘Gucci Run Liftline,’ whatever they were, so I collected my bags and followed Kev and Brittany down a long hallway whose lights flickered on and off just like in The Shining , and out the side doors of the west wing. My uniform had no pockets, so I’d had to leave my cell phone behind with my purse in Schreich’s office—we weren’t allowed to carry anything personal around with us while on duty, including ID.
    And especially iPhones. And I really,