“Sure.”
Catalina tried to smile at me, but it was a miserable attempt. She tightened her grip on her backpack, spun around, and marched across the lot. At first, I thought she was getting into a rusted, rattletrap truck that had seen better days, but Catalina moved past the truck and popped open the door on a very nice late-model Mercedes-Benz, a car that was a little too nice for someone who worked as a waitress.
I paid my folks good wages but not that good. And that street where she lived was in one of the city’s nicest suburbs, close to Northtown, the part of Ashland where the rich, social, powerful, and magical elite lived. So what was she doing being harassed by some drug dealer? Especially one who knew her? Because there had been nothing casual or random about the way Troy had spoken to Catalina. From what he had said, they used to be friends—and more.
I’d never paid much attention to Catalina before. I’d had too many other things to think about these past few months, too many folks trying to kill me, and too many new enemies to face down to give her much thought. She was just a girl who worked for me, although she was an excellent employee and had lasted longer than most of my other waitresses. But I was very interested in her now. Because if Troy wanted her to push drugs, then she was already in way over her head. And if he or whoever he worked for thought that I was letting anyone deal anything in my restaurant, well, I’d be happy to show them how wrong they were—and how I handled threats to my gin joint.
Catalina threw her car into reverse, backed out of the space, and peeled out of the parking lot as fast as she could without blowing out her tires on the cracks and potholes. I made note of her license-plate number so I could pass it on to Finn later.
I didn’t know what was going on with Catalina Vasquez, but I was going to find out.
• • •
I got into my own car, cranked the engine, and left Troy and his two still whimpering friends behind. I steered out of the lot and cruised the streets around the college, making random turns and keeping an eye on the rearview mirror. Just because I hadn’t seen anyone else with Troy didn’t mean that more of his friends hadn’t been hidden in the shadows, and I didn’t want anyone following me to my destination.
But no one was tailing me, so I made a final turn out of the downtown loop and headed for the much nicer, though no less dangerous, confines of Northtown. My Aston Martin might have been a snazzy set of wheels at the college, but up here, my ride was downright shabby compared with some of the Audis, BMWs, and Bentleys that whizzed by. And the estates that the cars turned into were even more impressive, with massive mansions, pristine pools, and landscaped lawns stretching as far as the eye could see.
I drove through an open iron gate and parked in front of one of the smaller, more modest and tasteful mansions in this particular neighborhood. A scan of the yard satisfied me that no one was skulking around, so I got out of my car and used my key to let myself into the mansion.
Thick rugs covered the hardwood floors and metal sculptures perched in the corners, giving the spacious home plenty of cozy personality. Noise and flickering lights drifted out of one of the downstairs living rooms, so I headed in that direction.
Two college-age girls wearing yoga pants and T-shirts sprawled across a sofa, sharing a tub of cheesy popcorn, watching some rom-com on the flat-screen TV mounted to the wall. One girl was quite beautiful, with blue-black hair, blue eyes, and a lithe figure. The other was also striking, with frizzy blond hair, dark eyes, and burnished brown skin that hinted at her Cherokee heritage.
Eva Grayson was Owen’s baby sister, and Violet Fox was her best friend. The two girls could be found hanging out together more often than not, and it looked like they were settled in for a movie night, given the buckets of popcorns, open bags of M&M’s, and stacks of DVDs that covered the coffee table in front of the sofa.
“So has someone loved and lost yet?” I drawled, leaning against the open doorway.
“Nah,” Eva said, still staring at the screen. “We’re still at the I-hate-you-but-I’m-strangely-attracted-to-you-anyway stage.”
“Ah,” I said. “That’s my favorite part.”
The floor creaked behind me, and a pair of warm, strong arms wrapped around my waist. “Mine too,” a husky voice murmured in my ear.
Owen pressed a soft kiss to the side of my neck. I leaned back against his body and breathed in, his rich, faintly metallic scent filling my nose. He kissed the other side of my neck, making me shiver, and I turned around and stared up into his violet eyes. Despite his slightly crooked nose and the faint white scar that slashed across his chin, I thought that Owen Grayson was the most handsome man I’d ever seen. I smoothed back a lock of black hair that had fallen over his forehead, then stood on my tiptoes and returned his soft kisses with a much more direct and steamier one of my own.
Eva rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Take it to the bedroom, folks. We have enough fireworks to watch on the screen.”
She tossed a handful of popcorn at us, and so did a snickering Violet. Owen and I both laughed as we broke apart.
“Don’t worry,” Owen said, leaning over the side of the couch and mussing his sister’s hair. “We won’t make you witness any more horrible public displays of affection. Although didn’t someone tell me that she had a chemistry test tomorrow?”
Eva swatted his hand away, wrinkled her nose, and shot an evil glare at a thick book peeking out from underneath one of the bags of M&M’s. “Maybe. This is why Violet and I are having a movie night. So we can relax before we study.”
“Right.” Owen drawled out the word. “Let me know how well that works out.”
He ruffled Eva’s hair a final time before giving me a slow, suggestive wink. He crooked his finger at me and started walking backward down the hallway toward his bedroom. I grinned and had started to follow him when a thought occurred to me.
I turned back to the girls. “Y’all know Catalina from the restaurant, right? She takes classes at the college too.”
Eva shrugged, but Violet nodded.
“Yeah, I know Catalina,” Violet said. “She’s my partner in English lit. We’re working on a research paper about mythology.”
“Has she ever said anything to you about a guy named Troy?”
“Troy?” Violet asked. “Do you mean Troy Mannis?”
I nodded.
“Yeah. He’s her ex. The two of them used to go out, back before Catalina’s mom died.”
I frowned. “Her mom died?”
Violet pushed her black glasses up on her nose. “Yeah, maybe sometime last year? I think it was before she started working at the Pork Pit. Her mom was hit and killed by a drunk driver. That’s all I really know. Catalina doesn’t talk about herself much.”
Well, that was more than I’d known about Catalina. I’d get Finn to dig deeper and fill in the rest of the blanks for me.
“Why are you asking?” Violet asked, her face scrunching up with worry. “Is she in some kind of trouble?”
Eva stared at me too, that same worry flashing in her blue eyes as she chewed on her lip. Even though Owen and I tried to shield them from the worst of it, both girls knew exactly what I did as the Spider and all the problems I was having with Ashland’s underworld bosses. Still, there was no reason to ruin their evening with what had happened at the college.
“Nah,” I said, waving my hand. “Catalina helped me out with something, so I thought I’d return the favor and give her an extra day off with pay or something.”
Both of the girls relaxed at my lie. On the TV screen, the rom-com couple murmured flirty insults to each other in some fancy restaurant.
“Well, I’ll let you get back to your movie,” I said, waggling my eyebrows in the direction Owen had gone. “Especially since I have my own hot date tonight.”
Eva and Violet both laughed and threw more popcorn at me, chasing me out of the living room.
I headed down the hall, past Owen’s office with its rows of weapons mounted on the walls, and over to his bedroo
m. I opened the door, stepped inside, and let out a surprised gasp.
Warm golden light enveloped the area, as flames danced on the tops of dozens of lit candles. The slender white tapers covered every available surface, from the dresser to the nightstand to the desk in the corner, and still more candles flickered in the attached bathroom, as though they were peering at their own reflections in the mirrors there. Their vanilla scent tickled my nose in a pleasant way. Moonlight beamed in through the open curtains, adding to the soft, muted, romantic atmosphere. So did the silver platter of chocolates and the champagne chilling in a bucket of ice sitting next to the bed. Music hummed in the background, a soft jazz tune.
It took a lot to surprise me, but Owen always managed to do it. He stepped forward out of the shadows along the wall and held out his hand. I took it, enjoying the feel of his warm fingers wrapping around mine, and let him lead me deeper into the room.
I gestured at the candles, chocolates, and champagne. “This is a little more than just dinner and watching TV.”
He grinned and pulled me into his arms, his violet eyes glinting with a mischievous light. “I know, but I wanted to do something special tonight. Just because. Although you can think of it as part of your birthday surprise if you want, even though it’s a few days early.”
I gasped, clutched my hands to my heart, and looked around in mock horror. “Please, please tell me that Finn is not hiding in your walk-in closet, waiting to jump out and scream at me.”
Owen laughed, the deep sound rumbling like thunder out of his chest. “Trust me. Finn isn’t here. Tonight it’s just you and me.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck. “And that’s just the way I like it.”
“Me too,” he whispered back.
Owen’s lips met mine, and I forgot about everything else except him.
3
We spent a very pleasurable night together, before I left the next morning to go open the Pork Pit for the day’s cooking and customers.
The lunch rush passed by in the usual hurried fashion, and I managed to hold on to my mellow mood all the way until three o’clock, when some idiot tried to crack open my skull with a baseball bat as I was taking out the trash in the alley behind the restaurant. It was hardly a surprise, since that’s how a lot of my midafternoon trash runs ended these days. At least the bags of garbage helped hide all the bodies that I littered the pavement with.
I opened the door and stepped into the back of the Pork Pit. Sophia Deveraux, the head cook, was standing by one of the freezers, tying on a black apron embossed with tiny grinning hot pink skulls. The apron matched the rest of Sophia’s Goth clothes—black boots, black jeans, and a black T-shirt with a single large pink skull on it. Bright pink gloss covered her lips, and silver streaks glittered in her black hair. A black ribbon ringed her throat, a pink cameo dangling off the end. The delicate necklace looked a little odd with her T-shirt and skull apron, but I wouldn’t dare tell Sophia that. I had no desire to hurt her feelings or get knocked into next week by her dwarven strength.
Besides, I wasn’t exactly presentable right now, given the blood that coated my hands. So I went over to one of the sinks, turned on the tap, and started washing my hands. Sophia’s black eyes fixed on the pale pink stains that swirled down the drain.
“Problem?” she rasped in her eerie, broken voice.
I shrugged. “No more so than usual. Just be careful where you step. There’s another pool of blood right outside the door. And we have another visitor sleeping under some garbage bags who needs to be put on ice. Regular size. Nothing special.”
Sophia nodded, understanding my cryptic words, since she disposed of many of the bodies that I left behind as the Spider. On her break, she’d haul the dead guy over to the refrigerated cooler that she kept in the next alley over for these situations. Yep, just the usual routine around here these days.
“Who was he?” she rasped.
I shrugged again. “Just some guy. No obvious runes on him, but then again, I didn’t look too hard.”
I’d been too busy slicing his guts open with one of my knives to pay much attention to what he looked like. Then again, I never did that. Not anymore. Not these days, when pretty much everyone in the underworld wanted me dead. I was mildly surprised that Troy and his friends hadn’t yet made an appearance at the restaurant to get revenge on me for kicking their asses last night.
Then again, the day was still young.
When I’d washed away the blood, I dried off my hands, put on a clean blue work apron over my own dark jeans and long-sleeved black T-shirt, and stepped through the double doors into the front of the restaurant.
The Pork Pit was something of a dive, the sort of place that outsiders would turn their noses up at, but the locals flocked to it because they knew we served up the best barbecue in Ashland. Blue and pink vinyl booths squatted next to the windows, while more tables and chairs crouched in the center of the storefront. Matching fading, peeling blue and pink pig tracks curved over to the men’s and women’s restrooms, while a long counter close to the back wall featured padded stools.
It was too early for the dinner rush, so only a few folks were currently eating. My gaze roamed over the customers, but they were all engrossed in their barbecue sandwiches, burgers, fries, and other fixings, along with their sweet iced teas, fruity lemonades, and cold sodas. No one paid me any attention as I went over to one of the tables, grabbed a plate with a fresh grilled cheese sandwich and an untouched mound of onion rings, snatched a parfait glass that held a triple chocolate milkshake, and took everything back over to the counter.
“Well, that took forever,” a snide voice chirped as I rounded the end of the counter. “What did you do? Kill somebody while you were gone?”
The voice and the attitude belonged to a guy sitting on the stool closest to the cash register. With his expensive suit, chiseled features, and perfectly cut and styled walnut-colored hair, most women would have considered him exceptionally handsome. Me too, if I didn’t also know how totally annoying he could be. I stopped and shot a cold, withering look at Finnegan Lane, not that the expression bothered my foster brother at all.
“Ah,” he said in a sly, knowing tone. “You did.”
His green eyes locked onto the food in my hands, and he perked up, like an eager puppy about to get a treat. “Hey, are you going to eat that?”
I rolled my eyes, but I set the plate and the milkshake down on the counter in front of him. Finn shrugged out of his gray suit jacket, tucked a white paper napkin in at his chin to protect his gray silk shirt and tie, and enthusiastically dug in. Chowing down on a dead man’s food didn’t faze him in the slightest. Few things did.
“As I was saying before you so rudely left to take out the trash,” Finn said, once he’d slurped down half the milkshake in a long swallow, “I really think I’ve outdone myself when it comes to your birthday this year.”
I sighed. “And I’ve told you, repeatedly, that I don’t want, need, or desire some stupid surprise party. We go through this same song-and-dance every single year.”
Finn grinned. “Exactly! Why, you might say that it’s our own little tradition. One that I am more than happy to uphold.”
I groaned.
“I will let you pick out the flavor of the cake, if that makes you feel better.”
“How very gracious of you.”
He beamed. “Isn’t it?”
I sighed again, but Finn started talking about cakes versus cupcakes, vanilla versus chocolate, buttercream versus cream-cheese icing. After a few seconds, my eyes glazed over, and I was in serious danger of falling off my stool from the sheer boredom of his ramblings.
Catalina Vasquez stepped out of the restroom and started to walk over to the table I’d cleared. She stopped when she realized that the food and the guy were gone, then headed over to me.
“Gin?” she asked. “Is something wrong? Why did that guy leave? I just served him.”
“Apparently, he had an appointment
that just wouldn’t wait.”
Finn snickered at my deadpan drawl, but I ignored him.
“Go ahead and wipe down that table, please,” I said. “Trust me. That guy isn’t coming back.”
That table belonged to the idiot with the baseball bat who’d jumped me in the alley. He wasn’t going to do much of anything now, except rot out in the heat.
Catalina nodded, either not hearing or choosing to ignore the sarcasm in my words. “Sure thing. I’ll get right on it.”
I nodded and grabbed my book, as though I were going to read a few pages, but I kept my gaze on Catalina the whole time. When she’d shown up a few hours ago to work her shift, she’d murmured a polite hello to me, tied on an apron, and gotten to work. She hadn’t said anything about me saving her last night, and I hadn’t brought it up, but she’d gone out of her way to stay on the opposite side of the restaurant from me all day. I didn’t know if it was because of the beat-down I’d given Troy or because she didn’t want me asking her any more questions. Didn’t much matter. I was getting to the bottom of things one way or another.
Finn waited until he’d plowed through half of his food and Catalina had moved over to serve another customer before he looked at me. “This is what’s so urgent? Me tracking down info on one of your waitresses? This is what I canceled my afternoon nap for?”
I arched an eyebrow. “I didn’t know they let you take naps at the bank.”
In addition to helping me whenever the Spider needed a bit of backup, Finn also ostensibly worked as an investment banker, although shameless, greedy money launderer would have been a far more accurate description of his job.
He waved his hand. “Let is such a narrow word. The higher-ups at the bank want all their employees to be well rested. Sometimes I happen to take that rest on the couch in my office in the middle of the afternoon.”
“Next thing you know, you’ll be demanding milk and cookies afterward,” I muttered.