Page 40 of Montana Mystery

“Nothing for me. Kate here can have whatever she wants.”

“A beer,” I said quickly. “I’ll take the bottle.” It was the only thing I could think of that was sealed. Far less likely they’d spiked all the beer bottles on the off-chance a woman drank one. Still, I didn’t plan on letting my senses down.

“Kate,” Noah said. “We don’t have backup this time. I don’t want to leave you in there alone. If you can, find out enough to get me in.”

The bartender passed me the beer with a smile. I’d watched her open it. I turned to Max and locked eyes with him while I took a long sip. Leaning against the bar, I tried to pretend that he wasn’t a man who was threatening me. He was someone I was interested in. What would I do if it were Noah standing there?

I shoved the thought out of my head. There were plenty of things I would do—that I wanted to do—with Noah that would not be a part of this. I brought out my flirtatious smile anyway. “You never answered my question.”

He leaned against the bar too, mirroring me. “Which question was that?”

“How the hell do people find this place? I don’t think everybody at this party has you on speed dial like I do.”

That got me a laugh. “No. Not everyone is so lucky. I suppose since you passed your test, I’ll tell you.”

It wasn’t lost on me that he’d said my test. So there were others, and some people got a different one.

“It honestly depends. Sometimes we have people who’ve heard about this place from a friend of a friend and they reach out. Sometimes they come to parties like last night’s, and if we like them, then we give them the password. Sometimes they have to earn it.”

I frowned like I was confused. “If they heard about it from friends, then why don’t the friends give them the password?”

Max’s eyes took on a nearly feral glint. “Because the password changes. And they know if they give out the password without permission, there are consequences. Your brother would know all about that.”

Swallowing, I took another sip of my beer. The sour taste grounded me. “Is that what he did?”

“No,” Max said. “But the results are similar.”

“What’s tonight’s password?” He looked at me, like he was wondering what I could want with the info. Anxiety zipped along my nerves, and I shoved it down. I rolled my eyes. “You said the password changes and I’m already here. Who am I going to tell?”

Max grinned. “Fine. You’re lucky that I like you.”

I giggled, putting on a show. “I am.”

“Tonight the password is ‘tangerine.’”

Noah was immediately in my ear. “That was amazing, Kate. I’m on my way. Just keep him going, all right? I’ll be there soon.”

Making sure nothing showed on my face, I laughed. “Tangerine? Why tangerine?”

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It doesn’t exactly match the vibe.”

“Exactly. The more random the password, the less likely someone will guess it.”

“You have to admit,” I took another sip, “that if someone came and just randomly guessed the password, out of all the words in the English language, that would be really impressive.”

Max chuckled. “I guess.”

“I’m ready for the rest of the tour.”

“There’s not much to it.” He pointed. “Over there we do have a couple of poker tables, but we don’t really use them on fight nights. Over there is the in-house betting. People can make bets with each other all they like. But we pay a lot better.”

He didn’t have to say they took a lot more too. We both already knew that. My brother was still sitting in the hospital with those consequences written on his skin.

“And of course, there’s the pit.”

I glanced toward the crowd of people surrounding the dip in the ground. That was the place I was the least interested in. So of course it was where Max was going to take me.