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Chapter One

The one-hundred-eighty-degree sweep of floor to ceiling ould normally have been a little odd for a ball rooot an uninterrupted view of the pyramids, you make sure that everyone knows it And I had to ad the golden hued erine and navy backdrop, with the latter including a few faint stars overhead It looked like a postcard, although it was hard to concentrate on it when there was so in front of it

“Souy, had sidled up with a couple of chane flutes

“You mean the pyramids or the man?” I asked

Raymond frowned Maybe because he was uncomfortable His shock of black hair was slicked down and behaving, but he was tugging on the collar of his perfectly tailored tux and shifting from one foot to the other, like his shiny dress shoes hurt his feet His usual idea of dressing up was a multicolored snakeskin jacket that had fallen off the back of a truck, paired with a black silk shirt and a lot of gold chains

Ray was out of his element

Of course, so was I My work uniform was jeans and a T-shirt, with maybe a black leather jacket thrown over it when the weather warranted I liked boots with a heavy sole and a steel tip in case I needed to kick down a door, and a duffle bag full of illegal weaponry in case the boots didn’t work

But no such luck tonight

Tonight, I was in a slinky black silk number, cut down to here and up to there, and a pair of shiny black stilettos The get up ith uely nineteen twenties vibe, although it would have probably gotten me arrested in the twenties But it made me have to watch everyit pretty rated inward

Again

I resisted an urge to dig it out and drank chane