Elissa nodded, and Jo-Jo turned her chair around so that Elissa could see herself in the mirror over the counter. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, so she didn’t look anything at all like she had when I found her in that secret chamber, but she still flinched, as though it hurt to look at her own reflection.
“It’s okay.” Jade got up, went over to her sister’s side, and squeezed her hand. “Just take your time.”
Elissa kept staring at herself in the mirror. For a moment, I thought that she wouldn’t be able to get the words out, but she drew in a breath and started talking.
“He . . . he liked brushing my hair,” Elissa said in a soft, hesitant voice. “He would brush it and brush it and tell me how pretty it was, how much he loved it . . .”
Her voice trailed off, and a horrified shudder rippled through her body. It took her several seconds before she could look at herself in the mirror again.
“I want you to cut it off,” she said in a slightly stronger voice. “A cute bob or something like that. I just—I just want it gone.”
Jo-Jo nodded. “I can do that, darling. No problem. Anything else?”
Elissa glanced over at Sophia, who was still petting Rosco. Her gaze focused on the Goth dwarf’s black hair. “Can I dye it too? Some other color? Just for a little while?” she asked, looking up at Jade.
Jade gripped her sister’s hand a little tighter. “You can dye it any color you want to, sweetheart.”
Elissa hesitated. “Can we do some streaks too? Maybe hot pink or something like that? If it’s not too much trouble?”
“Hot pink? Now you’re speaking my language.” Jo-Jo winked at her in the mirror. “And darling, nothing is too much trouble for you today.”
Jo-Jo started cutting off Elissa’s hair, chatting with her about her college classes, her favorite movies, and other safe, normal topics. Elissa’s responses were short and clipped at first, but Jo-Jo could make anyone feel at home, and she slowly got the girl to relax and open up a little bit more.
“I’m going to get some water,” Jade said. “If that’s okay?”
Sophia pointed to the doorway. “Sure. Bottles in the fridge.”
Jade nodded and jerked her head at me, and I followed her into the kitchen. She grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge, but she didn’t actually open it.
I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back against the counter. “How is she?”
“Physically, she’s fine,” Jade said. “Emotionally is a whole other story. I made an appointment for her to speak with a therapist later on today. But she wanted to get her hair done first. I’m going to let her do whatever she needs to in order to try and recover from this.”
I nodded. “That’s probably the best thing you can do for her.”
In the salon, Jo-Jo kept up a steady stream of conversation, still talking to Elissa about her classes. Every once in a while, Sophia would chime in with her raspy voice. Rosco barked another loud woof! and Elissa let out a small, hesitant laugh, gently chiding the basset hound for lying down at her feet in hopes of getting a tummy rub.
“Did she tell you what happened the night that Porter grabbed her?” I asked.
Jade let out a tense breath. “It happened just like you thought it did. She saw Porter carrying that other girl and went around to the back of the nightclub to make sure the girl was okay. She realized that something was wrong and started to call the police, but by then, Porter had seen her, and it was too late. Elissa said that the last thing she remembers is him punching her in the face. She woke up in his cottage. She said that Porter brushed her hair and made up her face over and over again, like she was his own personal doll. You can imagine how terrifying that was.”
My hand crept up to my own hair, and I fiddled with one of the blond locks for a few seconds before I realized what I was doing. I dropped my hand back down to my side. “Yeah.”
Jade finally cracked open her water and took a long sip before setting it down on the counter. She fiddled with the bottle for several seconds, sliding it back and forth, before pushing it aside for good. She raised her head and looked at me again.
“Bria told me what happened. How you wouldn’t give up searching for Elissa. How you stayed behind so that Owen and the others could get her to safety. What Porter did to you later.” Her voice dropped to a ragged whisper, and tears streamed down her face. “But you did it. You brought my sister back to me. That means everything to me. More than any favors we could ever trade, more than any deals we could ever make. I’m in your debt now. Whatever you need, Gin. Whatever I can do for you, you just name it, and it’s yours. Today, tomorrow, always.”
I could have told her that she didn’t owe me anything, not one damn thing, but Jade had her pride, and I knew how important this was to her.
“All right, then. I’ll hold you to that. After all, a favor is a favor, right?”
I smiled at her, and Jade wiped the tears off her face. She darted around the table, yanked me into her arms, and gave me a tight, fierce hug. A small, choked sob escaped her throat, and her entire body trembled. She started to pull back, but I could tell that she was on the verge of breaking down completely, something that she didn’t want her sister to see. So I tightened my arms around her, telling her that it was okay to let go, that I had her, that I was here for her. Another sob rocked her body, and I felt more of her tears soak into my shirt.
I stood there and held Jade while she silently cried.
• • •
An hour later, Elissa’s long blond locks had been transformed into a sleek black bob with hot-pink streaks, much to her satisfaction. Since we were all gathered in the salon again, I asked Jo-Jo to dye my hair back to its natural dark brown. I didn’t want to be reminded of Bruce Porter any more than Elissa did.
Jo-Jo finished with me, went over to the sink, and washed her hands, while I sat in a chair and toweled off my wet hair. Elissa was in the backyard playing with Rosco, while Jade stood by the double doors, watching her sister.
“Are you sure that you want to go back home today?” I asked. “Especially given the, ah, mess in your backyard?” I arched my eyebrows, and she realized that I was talking about the four dead dwarves.
“Actually, Sophia took care of that earlier today,” Jade said.
I glanced over at the Goth dwarf, who’d moved from the salon floor over to one of the sofas and was now reading a Karma Girl comic book.
Sophia lowered the comic and gave a modest shrug. “I do good work.” Then she grinned and went right back to her reading.
I turned back to Jade. “But what about all the damage in your office?”
“Silvio’s been over there all day working on that, along with Finn and Ryan,” Jade said. “I told Silvio that I could get a cleaning crew to come in, some of my own people, but he insisted on doing it all himself.”
That sounded just like my assistant. “Of course he did.”
Jade waved her phone at me. “Silvio texted me a few minutes ago, saying that all the files had been boxed up and that Ryan was taking everything back to the police station where it belongs. Besides, I think it would be good for Elissa to sleep in her own bed tonight. Give her a sense of normalcy.”
I nodded. “If you need anything, anything at all, you or Elissa, just call me.”
She nodded back at me. “I will, Gin. Thanks.”
Jade knocked on one of the doors, and Elissa came back inside with Rosco. The two of them packed up their things, said their good-byes, and headed home.
They hadn’t been gone five minutes when a car rumbled to a stop in front of Jo-Jo’s house. The front door banged opened, and Bria stormed into the salon, a grim look on her face.
I sighed and lowered my towel. “Now what’s wrong?”
“Damian Rivera is dead.”
Shock jolted through me. “What do you mean, he’s dead? He was fi
ne last night. Drunk and delighted that Porter was going to torture and kill me.”
Bria flopped down in the chair next to mine and ran her hand through her hair in frustration. “Xavier and I got the call right before our warrant came through. Rivera was beaten to death inside his office. A maid found him when she went in to clean this morning.”
“But how—” The answer came to me in a flash. “Tucker,” I muttered. “He must have realized that I’d survived. He knew that I’d go after Rivera, so he went back and killed Rivera so that I couldn’t get anything out of him about the Circle. Dammit. I knew that I should have gone after Rivera as soon as Jo-Jo healed me last night. Dammit!”
Anger surged through me, and I threw my towel across the room. Somewhat comically, it hit the patio doors and harmlessly bounced off, falling to the floor. Jo-Jo gave me a look, but Sophia kept right on reading her comic book, ignoring my temper tantrum. Rosco put his head down and let out a whimper from his basket in the corner.
I slumped back down in my salon chair. Every time I thought that I was getting closer to learning more about the Circle, Tucker was right there to cut me off again. And he said that I was a thorn in his side. Bastard.
“Don’t blame yourself, Gin,” Bria said. “There’s nothing you could have done. Rivera died sometime during the night, not this morning.”
“During the night? What time?”
She shrugged. “Ryan won’t know for sure until he does the autopsy, but he estimated sometime around midnight.”
“And what time did you guys find me on the riverbank?”
“Before then. About eleven o’clock,” Jo-Jo chimed in. “Why do you ask?”
I shook my head. “No real reason.”
But my mind churned, thinking about everything. Given the estimated time of death, Tucker had killed Rivera after I’d battled Porter. The vampire must have been lurking somewhere in the woods and realized that I was still alive and that Porter was dead. I hadn’t been in any shape to go after Rivera then, but Tucker would have known that I’d hunt Rivera down the first chance I got. Tucker could have easily told the other man to leave Ashland, but instead, he’d gone ahead and killed Rivera himself.
Why? Why would he do that?
The more I learned about Hugh Tucker, the less sense I could make of him.
“I know you’re upset, Gin,” Bria said. “But it’s not your fault that Rivera’s dead and we can’t question him about the Circle.”
I waved my hand, cutting her off. “No. I’m not upset. Not really. Sorry I lost my temper. I know you’re right. So let’s look on the bright side of things.”
Bria arched her eyebrows, surprised by my sudden change in attitude. “And what is that?”
I grinned. “Tucker saved me the trouble of going over there and killing Rivera myself. Why, you might even say that he gave me the day off.”
29
Given my nasty fall off the cliffs, Jo-Jo insisted on checking me out one more time. She gave me a clean bill of health, and I left the salon and went back home to Fletcher’s house.
Finn and Silvio were both there waiting for me, sitting in the den, with stacks and stacks of papers spread out all around them and covering every available surface, from the couch cushions to the coffee table to the open space in front of the fireplace.
“Finally! I thought you were never going to get here. We’ve been working for hours already,” Finn said, the words rushing out of his mouth without him even stopping to take a breath.
He reached over, grabbed a large mug, and took a long swig. I could smell the strong scent of chicory coffee all the way across the den. From the bright glaze in Finn’s eyes, it looked like he’d had at least a pot of the stuff already—maybe more.
“What’s going on? I thought that you guys cleaned up all the Dollmaker files and sent them back to the police station.”
“Oh, we did,” Silvio said, his demeanor much calmer than Finn’s. “But we decided to start on a new project.”
“And what would that be?”
Finn rolled his eyes and took another swig of coffee. “Figuring out who Mason is, of course. You know, the name that Rivera dropped to you last night? The one that you kept repeating over and over again in your concussed state? The guy who is probably the leader of the Circle?”
“That’s what this is all about?” I asked.
“Of course,” Finn chirped. “Not that we’ve been getting anywhere, though. Do you know how many people named Mason—first and last—there are in the Ashland area? Hundreds of them, maybe even thousands. And Mason may not even be his real name.”
He tossed up a wad of papers in indignation, then glared at them as they drifted down to the floor around him like square snowflakes.
Silvio cleared his throat. “I think what Finn is trying to say is that even with the name, we’re still looking for a needle in a haystack.” He gestured at all the papers. “A very large haystack.”
I could see that, but my throat still closed up to think that they’d cared enough to start searching anyway, without my even asking them to. It took some of the sting out of the fact that Tucker had gotten to Damian Rivera before I did. Still, that little warning bell clanged in the back of my mind again.
Mason. Where did I know that name from? And why did I get the sinking feeling that learning the answer would only cause me more heartache?
“Gin?” Silvio asked. “Are you okay? Is something on your mind?”
I pushed my worries away and plastered a smile on my face. “I’m fine. I was just thinking that I have the utmost faith and confidence in y’all. If anyone can track down this Mason fella, it’s the two of you.”
Finn snorted. “Faith? Faith is all well and good . . .” He deliberately let his voice trail off.
I sighed, knowing what was coming next. “But?”
“But dinner would really help. With dessert.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Lots of dessert.”
I rolled my eyes, leaned over, and ruffled his hair.
“Hey, now!” Finn smoothed his dark brown locks back down into place. “Don’t mess with the ’do.”
I ruffled his hair again, just because I could. “Tell you what. You guys take a break, go into the kitchen, and see what’s in the fridge that you might like me to whip up. Deal?”
“Deal!” Finn chirped again, grabbing his mug and surging to his feet. “I need more coffee anyway.”
“I doubt that,” Silvio muttered, but he too got up, grabbed his own mug, and headed into the kitchen after Finn.
While the two of them argued about who was going to get the last cup of coffee, I headed over to the fireplace and stared at the framed drawings on the mantel of my mother’s and sister’s runes, the snowflake and the ivy vine, representing icy calm and elegance. I also reached out with my magic, listening to the stones that made up the fireplace and the surrounding walls. They murmured back to me, echoing my own anger, grief, and sadness that my family was gone, that they had been taken away from me so suddenly, so brutally, so cruelly.
I wondered how many times Bruce Porter had stood in front of his own mantel, staring at that doctored photo of him and Maria and thinking about the past. The ironic fact that I was doing more or less the same thing as a serial killer wasn’t lost on me.
In a way, I supposed that I was just like Porter, forever dwelling on the past, obsessed with it even, and still snared in all the consequences of so many people’s dark deeds, including my own. But my obsession was for learning the truth, for getting answers, and for finally making the people who’d murdered my family pay for their crimes.
“I’ll find Mason sooner or later,” I said to my mother’s photo. “No matter who he is or where he’s hiding. And then I’ll kill him for what he did to you and Annabella. I promise you that.”
I ran my fingers over her snowflake pendant a final time, then left the
den and headed into the kitchen to see what Finn and Silvio had come up with for dinner.
• • •
Over the next few days, things slowly returned to normal. I ran the Pork Pit during the day and searched for information on the Circle and the mysterious Mason at night, along with the rest of my friends.
Bria and Xavier were assigned to investigate the murder of Damian Rivera, but it turned out to be an open-and-shut case. Tucker hadn’t just killed Rivera. The sly vampire had actually left a note behind—and he’d blamed the whole thing on Bruce Porter.
Tucker had typed up the note as though he were Porter, and in it, he’d confessed to being the Dollmaker. He claimed that Rivera had found out what he’d done and was going to turn him into the police, so Porter had killed his boss instead. And here was the real kicker. The note claimed that Porter was so distraught by what he’d done to Damian that he’d thrown himself off the cliffs at the edge of the Rivera estate. So in one fell swoop, Tucker killed Rivera, blamed Porter for it, and closed the entire case by claiming that Porter had committed suicide.
I had to admire the vampire’s efficiency, if nothing else.
Of course, Bria and Xavier did a thorough search of the entire Rivera estate, including Porter’s caretaker cottage. They found a secret drawer in the bottom of Porter’s dresser that was full of locks of blond hair, each one tied off with a different-colored ribbon and all from the women he’d murdered. I didn’t like the fact that Tucker had twisted the story around to suit his own needs, and also those of the Circle, but at least the victims’ families got a little bit of closure, knowing that the person who’d killed their loved ones couldn’t hurt anyone else ever again.
Including Stuart Mosley.
Four days after the fight at the Rivera estate, the dwarf came to the Pork Pit at about two o’clock in the afternoon. He shrugged out of his long gray overcoat, hung up his matching hat, and sat on a stool at the counter next to Silvio, who was typing on his tablet like usual, still in hot pursuit of the mysterious Mason. The two of them exchanged polite nods, and Silvio went back to work.